#anyways yes. Tommy does lash out because of trauma. that’s like the whole character

[raisunomii]

One of the sillier things about fandoms of roleplay (MCD, DSMP, QSMP, etc) is like . People will theorize about things that are completely canon because they missed the livestream that canonized it. And YOU saw it because you’ve been here the whole time. But they never saw it and probably won’t watch it. So they just think it’s a theory. Like the source materials there but people just WONT REVISIT IT.

[stellocchia]

hey, do you have some advice? i'm not really a niki apologist but i feel the intense urge to defend her pov. i dunno if its because of previous exp in their fandoms that just endlessly shit on girl characters or not or if its because i'm a girl who dislikes seeing a girl character's pov about her feelings and thoughts being used the way they are by the community. on both sides ofc because honestly i'm sick of both and idk what to do.

Well, I'm not really the biggest expert on c!Niki's character to be honest, but I do completely get where your frustration comes from. C!Niki from my understanding of her truly does get misunderstood A LOT and this latest debate is proof of it.

About her character:

Like, are there parts of her character I don't particularly like and think were badly executed? Yes. Honestly season 2 as a whole was a trainwreak for her character. Like, I understand that she was not acting rationally and that she's one of the characters who fell for c!Dream's propaganda during it (ending up convinced that Tommy was the source of all problems), but she was basically irrelevant that whole season. Beginning of season 3 isn't necessarily better. The team rocket arc mostly work because it showcases c!Niki's mentality and way of thinking quite well, but the resulotion of it felt way too abrupt and unearned to be honest.

THAT SAID, I don't think she's a bad character per se. I think that if you look at her narrative it's mostly consistent (except for the one problem I pointed out) and it works with the bigger narrative as well. It's an interesting show of the importance of attachments showing what happens when you loose them without getting rid of them yourself. She's honestly what c!Techno could have been if he was complex enough to be called a character: choosing to lash out with violence and choosing revenge actually making you miserable which fits in with the overarching message of the smp.

And now we get to my biggest crux when it comes to her character: how the fandom treats her.

The fervent apologist problem:

All the people who were supporting her for burning the L'Mantree or who were clamoring for her to kill c!Tommy or c!Wilbur actually completely misread her character and often only boil her down to her gender and nothing more. "She's cool and right in trying to kill a traumatized teen that never did anything wrong to her because she's a woman and that means she's a girlboss" type of mentality.

That's honestly such a disservice to her actual character, it's embarassing. C!Niki as a character is someone who has lived through a dictatorship and a war, she's someone who's opinions and words honestly never mattered (similarly to Fundy) and who chose kindness anyway. She chose to build the Secret City because she cared and wanted to help... but that didn't work out because it wouldn't be the smp if it did. She isolated herself from others burying herself in her work and slowly loosing her connections which made her feel even more abandoned which caused her to lash out. She's a tragic character and (crappy Syndicate connection aside) she's written well enough as one. She's not there to be people's Empowered Female Character that can do now wrong because she's barely a character, her gender is NOT what's important about her.

There is also the thing that a lot of people are uncomfortable with which is the tendency of the fandom to try and pit extremely traumatized characters against each other as if that would solve anything ever and as if that would serve any purpouse aside from sending a very bad message. They do it with c!Tubbo and c!Tommy, constantly trying to make their friendship out to be this horribly unhealthy thing when it's not and they're doing it now with c!Niki and c!Wilbur and it's uncomfortable.

c!Niki is her own character, stop making her story about c!Wilbur:

Now the diametrically opposite problem which I've seen a ton of possibly because I follow a ton of c!Wilbur apologists is people making her story about c!Wilbur.

I've seen this even more after the last stream which honestly said nothing about c!Wilbur. The whole stream was about c!Niki and HER view of the world, the way SHE thinks and the way SHE copes with trauma. C!Wilbur was the focus of her anger only in name because truly the focus was an unholy amalgamation of everything bad that ever happened to her. It wasn't good characterization for c!Wilbur because it wasn't supposed to be. And YET most of the analysis on that stream that I've seen was about HIM. About how none of what she says should matter for our perception of his character, about the fact that he did care, about: "but look at everything he did for her", about the fact that he too is hurt and spiraling about everything BUT HER.

And I get it really, it's annoying to see your favourite character get mischaracterized and see so many people advocate someone else hurting them or killing them (though with c!Tommy being my fave I'm a bit desensitized to it by now. It's really an everyday occurence for us), it's worrying and annoying and I get that. But this stream was not about him and they made it about him. They made it so c!Niki anjoyers have to sift through a shitton of drama just so they can maybe find something on the stream that's about HER and that honestly sucks. Heck, the closest I could find to it was people condescedingly going "punching c!Wilbur would not help c!Niki heal" and I'm just here like: "yeah no shit Sherlock! Can we talk about how she casually mentioned throwing herself off her own buildings and starving herself now? Because that's FAR more interesting honestly".

I think the biggest problem here is people on both sides not understanding that, while c!Niki's story seems to heavily involve c!Wilbur in name that's not actually the case, especially since her story far outlasted his. Her problems won't be all solved by punching him NOR by talking to him and solving their issues because that means assuming that her problems are, in fact, all originated from him. They aren't. They could go back to be friends and nothing would be resolved (and that's without even considering that c!Wilbur is not someone healthy to have around at the moment) because c!Niki's problems come from her tendency to isolate herself and slowly but surely chip away at her own systems of support. Basically she needs therapy and to possibly re-establish her connections to people who aren't, you know, extremely violent war criminals with no capacity for introspection.

[1randomperson15]

Keep in mind every name I’m saying is about the characters in the Dream SMP

Moving on, can we normalize the notion that explanations aren’t excuses, for all the characters? Like all of them have their motives and trauma and hurt, but that doesn’t mean their actions are justified. I know most, if not all, of the Dream apologists have this attitude towards him, but I don’t think any of the other groups understand this. 

Like yeah, Tommy was traumatized and had a wild, unstable, and dangerous life for months that caused him to form a very strong attachment to his disks; but does that mean he’s allowed to attack the people (who had nothing to do with the situation) closest to the new owners of those discs because he knew from experience that would hurt more than attacking them ever would? No

And yes, Techno was deceived by Wilbur about the goals of Pogtopia, and he felt hurt and betrayed and perceived Wilbur misleading him as everyone using him; but does that mean lashing out and destroying something everyone worked to get back, plus resenting and spiting everyone in Pogtopia was okay? No

Yes, Tubbo was hurt and traumatized by Techno in an unfortunate event for everyone involved; and Fundy did want to lash out at the person who his Grandfather favored over all else, plus that person always stole the show while Fundy was continuously ignored; and Quackity wanted some semblance of power after everything that happened to him, especially since many of those events involved Techno; was going after the potential threat that was Technoblalde and not giving him a fair trial right? No

Sure, Wilbur had an unhealthy attachment to this perfect idea of “L’manburg” that never really existed, and as soon as that was ripped away from him he became mentally unstable and began self destructing; but was it okay to abuse Tommy’s loyalty towards him? Use Techno’s stated ideals against him? Pit Techno and Tommy against each other to ignore what he does? Vilify Dream into an inescapable position of everyone’s personal antagonist? No

It’s true that Phil watched what remained of his son, after destroying everything Phil knew he lovingly built, hysterically begging him to kill him. An action Phil grew to heavily regret, which started his resentment for New L’manburg, something only escalated by their blatant disrespect to one of his closest friends. And sure, his house was ransacked, he was put under house arrest for being friends with public enemy number one, and they tried to kill said friend. But does all that mean he’s right to obliterate this nation and hurt all of its citizens in the process (many of which weren’t actually all that attached to the country anyways)? Yes-

.

/j. No, no it does not.

There are tons of other examples from each character mentioned above, and even more when you consider the whole cast. Everyone has a reason they do things, that doesn’t mean what they’re doing is right.

[ace-apple]

fuck it, rambling abt c!tommy time because i see myself in his trauma way too much lmao (and by rambling, i mean RAMBLING like this will probably be incoherent)

(warning for talking abt trauma and trauma responses and stuff like abuse both physical and emotional, manipulation and death)

ive seen a couple times on my dash that tommy’s character is all tell and no show, and while im absolutely not saying its not a fair criticism, although i feel like the more recent trauma responses to things like taking damage seems to be him slowly falling out of that habit imo, i do think that there is context for some of those “empty promises” of change.

he was never the hero in his head. people just thought he thought he was the hero because he got himself into stuff all the time. 

one thing i feel like people kinda seem to ignore is that the discs arent just some random thing he chose to care about because his character needed some sort of motivation. its UNDERSTANDABLE why he’d care about them. they hold memories, theyre sentimental. they mean something to him. theyre comforting. i think theyre comfort items of some kind. and thinking of it like that i can actually really understand the distress of having them taken from a neurodivergent lense. (disclaimer, this isnt about saying c!tommy is neurodivergent, its just a parallel ive noticed as an autistic person and i think is an important angle to consider when talking about the discs as more than just a mcguffin)

and to have something that has so much meaning, so much personal value stolen time and time again, and then having that desparation you feel for wanting it back undermined and even belittled time and time again, i can only imagine how much that alone is traumatic. i dont think just seeing the discs as a mcguffin is fair because thats just the problem. everyone else except for tommy, maybe tubbo and MAYBE dream if you squint hard enough just sees them as a mcguffin. a means to an end. something that only matters because tommy’s goal is to get them back. because its what motivates him. 

now onto that whole “empty promises” thing.

a criticism i see of c!tommy a lot is that he promises to change but never does. and while i do somewhat agree from a writing perspective i do think it actually does manage to make sense in context if you think about it.

changes on the server are usually immediate. lmanburg was blown up with a press of a button. dream leading tommy out of lmanburg happened in a single moment. dream blowing up logstedshire happened in a single moment. theres buildup to those changes, yes, but the change itself is immediate and drastic. schlatt died in a single moment. it was all in a single moment.

but thats not how human beings change as people. 

and i think the other characters have been living like this to the point where they dont really GET that. because all theyve ever known is immediate change thats drastic and usually brought on via violence.

so when tommy doesnt change immediately, when he doesnt make good on all his promises the moment he promises them and falls back into old habits and lashes out they just give up on him. he’s the problem, right? cuz he’s the loudest, his discs have fueled wars, he burned down georges house, he did this this and that. they ask him to change. but then dont wait for him to have a chance to do so and then just decide he needs to die because he hasn’t become a different person in 5 minutes like lmanburg or logstedshire did. 

and he’s not even in an environment where he CAN make those changes anyways. peacetime has been happening for MAYBE 2 months but things are still constantly going on. trauma thats been simmering underneath the surface for so long coming to the forefront ESPECIALLY after his death and subsequent ressurection. his whole life he’s been forced into war after war, conflict after conflict without rest. how can someone change under that kind of stress? people cant work on their flaws and become a better person when theyre being manipulated and abused out in the middle of nowhere under intense isolation. people cant change when theyre in the middle of a war. people cant change when all people do is get mad at him. 

theyre mad because tommy isnt changing like the land around them does. because they dont realize that people dont change like that. 

theyre not “empty promises” when youre not even given the time or space or patience to make good on those promises.

the collective mindset of the server, the culture of a place that thrives off of constant war, wants him to fail.