#but dreblr is always fun to come back to

[bluest-of-bells]

Did NOT expect to see you post oh my dear failing heart what a scare. It is great to see you on here again though!!

I aim to surprise. Sometimes it's with stone theories and sometimes it's with sudden posts :P

[cdroloisms]

read your post about how the atmosphere in dreblr feels a little tense nowadays. honestly when i first joined this fandom i was excited to share takes/meta but i dont do it much anymore cause of how intense ppl get when they disagree… wasnt prepared for that level of intensity

i have to say that my experience with this fandom and your experience with this fandom are ... probably pretty different 😅 (not that i know for sure, of course, so sorry abt any inherent assumptions to when you joined the fandom, i've just been here for damn near forever) and that that'll color my perspective on this, so. fair warning in advance.

to be honest, disagreement in dreblr is not a new thing. when dreblr was created there were two main "camps" of c!dream apologism that disagreed on pretty much everything to do with c!dream after novermber 16th and would write essays debunking each other's takes pretty goddamn often. here's an old post by red responding to a lot of opinions on both sides of the line which i think illustrates this well -- note the difference established between "c!dream apologists" and "c!dream enthusiasts," perhaps better known now as the "trauma interpretation" and "strategist interpretation" of c!dream back before the confirmation of staged finale during the prison break, which shows how different people's opinions of c!dream ranged at dreblr's very conception. and this disagreement ran pretty damn deep, too, lmao--some of it was reserved to debating each other in semiprivate discord servers, but plenty of it was made of vagueing each other's takes or directly debating them on each other's blogs.

i think that a source of friction, to be honest, is that dreblr started as a much more analysis- and meta-focused community than it is now. the entire dsmp fandom was very analysis-heavy in 2021-2022, and dreblr definitely reflected that culture; since the dsmp ended, the amount of active discussion about it in a meta sense has also waned, and as such dreblr and many other areas of dsmp fandom have been more focused on other kinds of fanwork. this isn't a bad thing, of course! but it has led to a shift in etiquette, and while i think meta etiquette and fanwork etiquette are very. very different things, obviously the amount of fanwork and the amount of meta that's around in dreblr spaces influences how people interact with all parts of dreblr etc etc that's just how people and communities work

but back to my point. disagreement has always been a part of this fandom, especially in meta spaces (which used to be pretty much all of dreblr, but has kind of become more of a small part of it in more recent times) and intensity with those disagreements also is kind of ... on par for the course? i mean, personally, i think disagreements ran more intense in dreblr in 2021 on average--it's not like dreblr has been as sharply divided with different "versions" of c!dream apologism since--and when it comes to the general fandom, well, any look at the inbox of anyone posting c!dream positive analysis and the formation of dreblr as a whole speak for themselves. also IFUADA and the whole attempt to like, lmanburg us out of our own house. which was hilarious btw that shit was awesome

like, at the end of the day, meta is made to be a place where people are gonna disagree. and a lot of people in meta spaces find it fun to disagree, even; there are more than a few people who will devil's advocate an argument they don't even agree with just for the sake of disagreement and debate. fandom analysis is just ... like, fandom academia lite, and it's also far less beholden to the rules of professionalism in real academia (not that real academia is free of conflict, obviously. including extremely petty conflict, as anyone who has read enough passive-aggressive as shit academic papers will tell you). this isn't to say that things don't go too far, because again, the history of this fandom proves it LOL. but while we all want people to feel comfortable in meta spaces, we also want meta spaces to be a place for people to be passionate about their opinions and to disagree about them fervently and to debate to their heart's content, bc that's kind of the point of fandom meta, yk?

in my post, i mentioned that i think more open disagreement will be good for dreblr, and i do stand by this point; i think that there's no real point in trying to stamp out disagreement in a space meant to be a free place for people to disagree and express their disagreements, not that that's what you're saying or anything just as a general thought. i also think that more disagreement will help with there feeling like there's less of a "correct" way to think about c!dream and the server, which i think raises the barrier of entry for people who want to post meta but don't want to be eviscerated bc they said something "wrong." of course, i can't force anyone to post meta nor do i want to--hell, i want to post more meta but am limited in time, and i know we all live busy lives 😭 (which is part of why this ask is being answered so late, sorry!) -- my point is i dont think, idk, one person being passionate abt a take or disagreement or whatever is necessarily the problem as far as upping the tension in dreblr as much as like. there's a lot of general discomfort and a lack of willingness to rock the boat in a place which should be a safe waters for everyone to take shots at any ship (er, ship to follow up with the rock-the-boat metaphor, but the secondary meaning does apply here as well) they want. we're shooting with water guns, not real bullets, and there's no fun in a splash fight if everyone's too scared of getting someone else wet, i guess.

that being said, anon, i understand that not everyone wants to participate in the free-for-all take pvp that is inherent to meta spaces...to which i say that, honestly, there's no requirement to participate in analysis spaces specifically to just, share your thoughts on the server. i think that in general, if anyone posts their thoughts on the dsmp and adds a disclaimer to the top like "not really analysis, just miscellaneous thoughts that i would prefer not to be vagued/argued against," i really just don't think that most people are gonna go out of their way to argue with that? you have every right to just yap while opting out of the possibility of being vagued or debated with, but you might have to make it clear beforehand bc vagueposting and debating is just the culture that exists in meta/analysis spaces, especially dsmp meta/analysis spaces that have been a part of dreblr since dreblr was made. and if there's anything else that can be done to make everyone feel more comfortable, i think that's worth discussing!

[cleofast]

So hi! I know I've kinda switching moods a lot latetly and Im sorry for that. Things irl are strange and well I decided I'm gonna start trying reduce my time on social media. There's some reasons I want to explain:

Seeing the lore analisys side outside of dreblr has kinda make me spiral a bit. Bc I've seen people accuse of awful stuff and be assholes towards real people just bc they had x opinion on ctommy and other characthers. And seeing people being so vile for the non-real feelings of a fictional characther has make me spiral badly.

I'm being more busy and my screen time it's kind of messing up my schedule. It's also not allowing me working on fandom stuff I want to do nor re-watching the dsmp as i wanted to. I've tried to take a breaks in the past but i always fail. It's really difficult when I'm mostly alone all the time.

And I am kind of a bad headspace regarding my art. I just rarely like what I draw and it's being demotivating latetly. The fact that I know I'm a small acc and therefore I'm not gonna see many people liking my art doesnt help even if I am normally okay with that.

And the first one has made loss a bit of motivation and love in anything ctommy regarding and a bit for dsmp related stuff. And I dont want that. If you saw the comic I posted yesterday, you can see I still want to do a lot of stuff for the dsmp and I still love it sm.

That's why I need a break to organise myself and let my positive feelings for the dsmp heal. I also want to get into lore analysis too, I'd love to share my visons and observations with more to back them up. But I need time to not only re-watch the dsmp but also time to find let my love for it to stabilize again and motivation to actually do so. I dont want to let a overuse of social media and toxic fans ruin the fun I have here so Im taking a break. I'll never leave and I'll come back in soon if I dont fail in making this. BUt just wanted to say that dreblr is amazing with it's flaws and pros has always be welcoming to me and I love you guys <3

[rebelwithoutabroom]

Bonjour! In the spirit of curiosity, I'm going around asking people things about their experiences in fandom. So, here's the first question: have you ever joined an exchange or fan-run event before (can be as a writer, beta reader, or artist)? If the answer is yes, what did you like about it? Can you share the piece you made for it? Cheers! 🪶 anon

oláa :DD oh mann this is so interesting!

the first event i joined was almost 10 years ago for xmen first class Christmas exchange (if i'm not mistaken). the art i did for it has long since been orphaned lol but i do look back on it fondly! xmfc was such a creative fandom and to this day i still keep up with some of it.

as for stuff that's still currently up, i have the following fics:

a mighty ocean or a gente kiss >> corpsekkuno spring fling

lucky I'm in love with my best friend >> dnf Halloween exchange that sadly got cancelled

heart of the sea >> dreblr valentines day exchange

to find fortune that's smiling on you >> fairytales from the smp vol. I

fine line >> dtblr summer exchange

I might also be part of some other exchanges going on right now xD I just love the feeling of community these kinds of events bring, especially with how it can help you meet and get to know other fandom peeps a little better. no matter the theme, it's always super fun to see what people come up with and it's always such a rush to see a new collab drop with amazing new work :))

[voidpidgeon]

Hi there! It’s been a few days but I’m back. Twitchcon has been fun, huh? In the spirit of the Dream and Friends panel, my question today is less of a question and more of a request. Shout out another blog, whether they’re a beloved mutual or someone you’ve never spoken to but just think is cool, and say something nice about them!

-🐝

I also have been gone for a bit dkdldl

@sunshine-in-a-bottle always amazing to see what you come up with, you AUS are amazing, the stories you write on discord are !!!!!!!!

@diggingfordragons love your work, thank you for letting me nest in your google docs! I really enjoy reading your stuff :) And someday the rest of dreblr will also know the joy of Gate AU

They are both actually the best and 1. extremly talented 2. really cool 3. very nice!!

[mantis-in-the-dirt]

this is a little bit of a rant here! i’m mad at some people who were incredibly unfair and extremely rude. (the negativity i’ve tagged is not from me. this is me talking about other people.)

i’m in like. a lot of pain. and wanted to get out some of the negative stuff bouncing around so it’s mostly just physical instead of also a bunch of anger.

so i went to camp for a good couple of weeks and got back a few days ago. 

i’ve been obsessed with the dream smp for maybe a year so far, and i still hold extreme interest for it. most things i’ve written recently and most things posted on my various fanfic accounts are about it. i constantly want to talk about it. 

and so, at camp, i did talk about it! i talked about it all the time. i made a friend who watched wilbur and phil and techno, and i made a friend who watched dream and techno and sapnap. those friends were some of my favorite people to talk to, because they shared my current biggest interest.

but you all know how it’s fun to hate the popular thing, and you all know how popular dream is, and you all know the level of hate his stans/he gets.

and so of course, there was someone else in my cabin who hated the dsmp. despised it. they called it a server of scum with a convoluted plotline and fans who were stuck up about their enjoyment, and they insulted one of my friends for making a joke about dnf.

it is difficult for me to hear about dream smp- especially dream, because he is a focused area of my general dsmp obsession- negatively. i can hear genuine criticism of it, but blatant insults just make me feel icky and guilty and awful for liking it, and terribly defensive at the same time.

but mostly, i could keep dream smp conversations away from that person, and we just didn’t talk all that much. 

and then came the issue of a few other people.

there was a group of people who were all around my age, and in the other cabin who made up the other half of my group. they enjoyed phil, and wilbur, and tommy, and they talked about them often! they tried to talk to me about them often as well! but they got so mad whenever i brought up dream, because they despised him. 

they told me they thought he had never done anything good and that he was a bad person and a lying cheater who deserved to have all his speedruns taken down and his platform taken away. it was really fucking hard to hear, and they wouldn’t stop when i told them they made me uncomfortable. but i could deal with it, because they started doing it with the intent to drive me up a wall and i was much better at dealing with that.

and then a counselor overheard. so i kinda already hated this counselor- she was a dick, and she acted like she was a camper instead of a counselor, and she was generally pretty awful and unfair to the much younger campers. anyways, this lady is maybe 4 or 5 years older than me, and i don’t like her.

and she proceeds to step in on a conversation she wasn’t apart of and then join in on the hate on dream, directed as me. and when i tell her that i’d like her to stop, because it’s making me very uncomfortable, the fucking counselor who butted in in a conversation she wasn’t in tells me she’s just sharing a thought and that i didn’t have to agree with it.

anyways, camp was mostly fun, but big parts of it fucking sucked. this was mostly just a rant. i’m kinda infuriated, mostly because of the counselor. i got to avoid these guys a lot but i didn’t get to talk about one of my favorite things so :/

i’m here for anyone else who’d like to rant in asks, always. dreblr is an amazing place and i love you all :] there was so much positivity to come back to, and that was really really nice. thank you!

[cdroloisms]

Dr3! I've said it before, but I think you were a big part of how I ended up here at all. When so many of the original dsmp folks have left, it's so so nice to still have you around. It's like you're a piece of 2021 that stayed with me (meant as the highest form of compliment). You have a genuine skill for writing and dissecting characters; whenever you post something long, it's like, *sigh* time to switch my brain on. But it's so much fun to read! I'm still losing my mind over the 6-hour twitter thread, that was a great day to be alive. Thanks for feeding the starving children.

fawk my 6 hour twitter thread . yeahg i sure did do that huh 😂

as much as i meme around here, this was rlly rlly sweet my goodness 🥺hopefully im representative of one of the better parts of 2021, haha! dsmp fandom was probably the first fandom where i really actively engaged with like, the fandom online, and man i've really had a blast here even despite all its ups and downs. as long as the starving children still want me ill be here rambling away about some thing or another probably related to c!Dream, that's for sure 😂😂😂

it's been great to have u here in dreblr :] u always have the nicest things to say about my rants even when i come out the other side of 'em like weelellelll not sure how coherent that turned out, and hey ill never have anything but nice things to say to anyone that encourages me to talk their ears to death. your writing is great and it's always fun to have fresh eyes on stuff--many times it's been a post or something of yours that made me go back and revisit a specific stream or moment, and it's always nice to reexamine old lore bc there's really so MUCH of it (never mind how much all of it has been fandomized to death) and i always end up with something new to chew on.

i always find it funny that i come off as well-articulated and level-headed to people when i'm a c!drolo through and through (and quite the salty one, once i turn off my usual social media customer service voice LMAO as im sure my friends will tell u)--but also really nice ^_^ thanks so much for the kind words !! UR EPIC

[sunshine-in-a-bottle]

Regarding the uptick in drunz positive content each time theirs a neg analysis- honestly, part of this feels like an example of Tumblrs golden rule: don't like? Block.

If a person's analysis is distressing to you, and you know it's always going to be, remove it from your sight line. Stop engaging with stuff that's going to distress you. I'm so serious. Dreblr is a wonderful community I love- and I also block people who's content I know will make me feel bad. It's not personal. It's never personal. We can all be united in loving cDream and also staying in our own lanes regarding how we love him.

If you *have* to follow or engage with people you know are going to post content that upsets you, limit your interactions. You don't need to be passive aggressive and vague post your disagreement/dislike of a take. You don't even need to know the details, you can just not read the post if you know it's going to be a negative experience for you.

I get that meta and analysis culture often relies on loreheads interacting to agree or disagree or engage in what can be a fun debate, and I'm not saying we should shut out the world every time it doesn't align with you, but at the end of the day, fandom isn't our jobs. We all have real world responsibilities and lives we have to live. Fandom is a hobby we're meant to enjoy, and you shouldn't be feeding the parts of it that are making you stressed; you have plenty of time to be stressed struggling with employers and medical stuff and money.

Also just- don't be a dick to people, and don't be a dick about the things they enjoy. You can hate a ship- I sure do- but at some point the complaining about a ship stops being an interesting conversation and instead just makes you look and feel absolutely miserable. I totally get being upset at a fandom wide preference, but you're not going to change that preference. An analysis post shouldn't be made to try to fight an entire fandom about their opinions. It's for you! To make *you* happy! To feel good about putting in that work and effort to explain a stance.

Separating analysis and AU is good, telling people they're invited into the space is great- but curate your experience, dammit. We're all in this together. Separately. In our own little rooms under one roof. I shouldn't get up to use the bathroom and come back to find a warzone.

a little ramble about dreblr, meta, and the ever evolving nature of this fandom, i guess?

i don't mean to soapbox, this is mostly just going to be vomiting some thoughts into a post. some recent stuff and a post or two have had me thinking about this fandom and how different it is from when dsmp was ongoing. it's,, pretty obvious that the fandom is quite a bit smaller and less active than that time, and there are generally a lot fewer people actively posting meta and such every day--which isn't necessarily a bad thing, and is natural obviously considering that the dsmp ended almost 2 years ago, but does mean that the culture around (?) meta and such has shifted, as well. it's one of those things too i think that is felt so much more obviously in dreblr, which is an even smaller group within this fandom that formed in response to uhhh being very much considered unwelcome by the greater fandom at the time.

that being said, as is the nature of all fandom, dreblr is still a community of people who are largely strangers who have gathered together because of one commonality: very strong feelings and often very strong opinions on the dream smp and c!dream. and i think when the fandom was more active, the entire fandom felt a lot more like a "pvp enabled" zone, lmao -- it was every other day when there'd be some new batshit meta about c!dream or some stream to react to and analyze and fight people about and whatever. since then, though, with the dsmp gone, the fandom has become quieter -- which i think has allowed some of the variation in opinions within dreblr become more and more obvious? and also become a sort of source of friction.

again, this is normal for any fandom. i'm certainly not here to agree with everyone about c!dream always, lmao. but the vagueing of takes is always more awkward on both sides when it's someone where you share more of the same circles. at the end of the day, it's up to each individual blogger's discretion to choose what they will or won't post on their own blog, but at the same time ... when it comes to the community, just speaking for myself, i don't want a super high barrier of entry when it comes to people feeling like they can't join this fandom unless they've got [xyz] experience or [xyz] takes.

when it comes to actual analysis of the source material, though, keeping meta a safe place for people to say "no, i don't agree with this take because of [xyz]" is important as well, which always raises the question of how said disagreements should be handled. and again, i'm no authority, i'm not here to tell people what to do. personally, when it comes to my own blog, i don't like to post very much directly about any one blogger, but I know I've definitely written posts inspired by specific takes before as well as screenshots of takes from the fandom's heyday, etc. i don't necessarily feel uncomfortable with this ...? but at the same time, i know that vagueposts can be a source of discomfort, especially if they're about your take in particular (speaking from experience) -- so it's you know. not the easiest line to draw, I guess, especially when we're talking about a community where different people are going to have different levels of comfort with what they post on their own blogs and what other blogs do in response to their takes. and whatever.

vagueposting, i think, has been common in the tumblr dsmp fandom for a long time, and especially in dreblr -- direct engagement in the past errr usually went badly, so a habit formed of keeping everything we did kind of within our own spaces (hence why many of us don't even tag c!dream or even dreblr on most of our posts; keeping everything untagged, or keeping the tagging system restricted to our own blogs, limited the possibility of trouble). that being said, vagueing within dreblr has become more common, i think, as disagreements within dreblr have become more and more obvious in the time since the dsmp ended. (just for the obvious example: i think it's a bit of an open secret that i, personally, strongly disagree with much of the common depictions of c!drunz in this fandom. i've written some meta about this before, as well as some responses to meta--which i enjoyed greatly, believe me--but i've also noticed (perhaps coincidence) an uptick in c!drunz positive meta every time i or someone else makes a post that maybe skews more negative. which is normal, don't get me wrong, but also a pattern i've noticed. i'm also very aware that someone the arguments i may bring up as counterarguments or structure my posts around arguing against are based on actual arguments i've seen while in this space, which i'm aware is an easy source of friction within dreblr.) and it's easy to say "don't take it personally when it's just metaanalysis," but that's easier said than done, lmao, especially depending on the tone of the vaguepost and a myriad of other factors.

i'm not saying that i have the answers. or, for that matter, a single answer. the boundaries i set aren't going to be the same as the boundaries other people set, for one, and i have no desire to police what other people do on their own blogs. i do miss, sometimes, the more collaborative and discussion-based meta experience of this fandom when it was more active--i might try to more actively reblog posts (including those i don't necessarily agree with) to discuss this server and these characters, bc at the end of the day that is kind of why we're here. personally, i've always drawn a pretty sharp distinction between fanwork and analysis -- i think it's pretty bad form to criticize people's AUs In General (not that i've not. been guilty of it in the past, but i try at least to keep it to criticizing more general patterns within fanwork; look, i'm not going to claim a moral high ground, i love bitching way too much and should probably get a handle on that but asj;lkfdsaf) but when we're talking meta about the source material, barring shit like. you know, harassment and otherwise abusive behavior, i do consider it more of a free-for-all. at the same time, i know that these standards can lead to newer fans feeling like they're going to be booed out the door for sharing their thoughts, which, i mean, isn't great 😭😭😭 fresh eyes can bring a lot of really cool new insights, and it'd suck pretty damn bad to miss that because they don't feel welcome, yknow?

anyway, this is a very inconclusive post, but i thought i'd just throw some of my thoughts out as someone who has been here for a decently long time. and if you want to discuss w/ me, inbox and dms are always open :)