#of course Tommy's trauma matters more than Dream's trauma Dream's problems Dream's LIFE because of COURSE it does it always has from day 1

[x-i-l-verify]

c!Clingy, after stalking a sick, injured torture victim for weeks, breaking into his house, hunting him down like an animal as he desperately tried to defend himself/flee, and murdering him in cold blood in the very room where he was abused, starved, and tortured for nearly an entire year:

[tobi-smp]

Regarding your tags on the post about the misuse of trauma-dumping--I don't disagree with you, but what are your thoughts about the accusation of abuse apologism--or worse, threats of abuse itself--sent to people who do like Dream, including other abuse survivors? Isn't that also silencing, just in the other direction? It just seems like a messy situation overall, with shit behavior on all sides.

context: [Link]

I'm gonna be real with you anon, these two things are not comparable for very important reasons.

the situation with dream and tommy is what it is because they presented an abusive relationship with enough authenticity and nuance that people who've experienced these things in real life have been able to see their experiences reflected back and represented in a way that they haven't seen before in popular media. I've seen my c-ptsd in tommy in ways that I just Haven't seen in movies or tv.

[Links that go into more detail: Link 1, Link 2, Link 3, Link 4 and summaries of dream's treatment and affect on tommy in all of the exile streams under "A Comprehensive Analysis of the Exile arc": Link]

"trauma dumping" as a term isn't exactly rigidly defined, but it's essentially the practice of suddenly oversharing about trauma at random in a way that can be toxic to the people around you. this means going into detail about something horrific that you've experienced without giving someone time or space to consent to seeing that information, which can be triggering or draining. it seems more appropriate (to me) to define it as a pattern of behavior, rather than a one-off, but it can be useful in talking about isolated interactions anyhow.

what people are accusing of being "trauma dumping" is what I've already done in this post, mentioning the fact that you have trauma at all and how it affects your relationship with this piece of media. this is blatantly misusing the term specifically to shame people out of speaking up about why it can be harmful to other fans who are survivors to make light of the canonical abuse (or worse, which I won't get into).

it's a silencing tactic because it's essentially weaponizing someone's trauma against them through what's more or less a lie so that the accuser doesn't Have to acknowledge what's already in the text of the story they're consuming and talking about.

the problem with abuse apologia in the fandom can't be summed up with "people have started blatantly misusing a term seemingly at random to try to get what they want."

this is going to sound harsh but anyone can spread abuse apologia whether they mean to or not, whether they themselves are a trauma survivor or not. in the same way that being lgbt+ doesn't stop people from being able to spread queerphobia or ideas that contribute or stem from queerphobia.

the problem is not in that people Like dream, it's that there are people who actively excuse his actions or actively try to blame those actions on tommy. people who say and Believe that tommy "got what he deserved," people who try to argue that tommy Provoked dream, who say that dream was only doing what he had to because tommy was Clearly the cause of everyone's problems on the server (which is, of course, the logic that dream used to justify his own abuse and attempted murder), etc.

these are all real things that I see Frequently and Have Seen for months. not just in fringe sections of the fandom but front and center on twitter, youtube, reddit, and of course floating around here on tumblr. and I've personally seen much worse, but I won't be getting into that right now.

of course people should make the distinction between apologia spread for a fictional character and apologia spread about real people (or people you personally know) because it Is absolutely different. but it's important to point out regardless of whether it's fictional or not because it's being posted publicly where people who Do see themselves and their trauma in tommy can see it and be hurt by it.

tommy provoked dream by being annoying and argumentative in the prison? and what if someone has a loud personality and has been punished for it by their abuser? how do you think They'd feel if someone looks at behavior that reflects them and say that the person who got hurt deserved to be because of that?

it's not the same because it's true. a Lot of the things said about tommy and his experiences are extremely uncomfortable and hurtful to read from the perspective of someone who can relate to his situation. which is problematic when his "situation" is canonical trauma and abuse. and its important to point out that the things being said mirror real life abuse apologia because the things being said are reaching and hurting real life abuse survivors.

pointing out that your words can have an impact on traumatized people because the subject matter you're talking about already deals with themes of trauma and abuse is not a silencing tactic Because It Is The Truth. if someone pointing out the reality of a situation makes your argument fall apart (to the point that you have to try to deflect through lying) then maybe there's something wrong with your argument.

there's nothing wrong with Liking dream, I like dream's character, the problem is when you try to paint him as justified or in the right when it comes to tommy (or tubbo, or ranboo, or wilbur, or-). I don't think people are right when they try to call people outright abusers over blockman discourse, but I can also say that that's just something that I haven't seen. I absolutely believe that it happens (discourse just is that way) but I mean that I don't think that it's common in the same way that the abuse apologia is, or even the misuse of the term "trauma dumping."

so comparing the two situations and calling them The Same just feels, Gross.

[jackassbroadcast]

Hello im a Tommy enthusiast who watched that one stream where he monologued to foolish for like hafe an hour bc i heard it was a cool stream or wtv to realize how much amazing character moments it had that barly anyone in this damn fandom is talking about so ill fucking do it

(Only after finishing this i realized i wrote 1.7k words LOL OOPS)

If u dont know what in talking about its this stream (apologies for linking a clips channel the actual vod on foolish's channel is deleted by now)

Also heads up /rp /dsmp every time i refer to someone here by name is their character unless stated otherwise bc writing c! Before every name Is tiring LOL

Also // suicidal idealization , death mentions

The conversation starts off with foolish and tommy mining for Wilbur, and foolish questions how simply mining will solve the problem to which Tommy reponds with "they dont get solved, do they? It just ends uo with some madman screaming 'Hes solved it!' And now look at him." And how he wants to "prevent the problem before it goes outta hand" something that clearly references Wilbur and his destruction of lmanburg, which paired with him collecting stone for Wilbur as the way to stop said problems he believes if he does anything he can for Wilbur and support him by his side enough this time around, that he wont do anything like thay again, which as im writing this makes be realize by doing that we learn hes blaming himself for what happened to Wilbur in November 16th and pogtopia and a whole, by not being enough for Wilbur in his mind.

The conversation continues, foolish off hand asks why would tommy want to stop Wilbur? Weren't they friends at some point? To which tommy leads foolish to lmanburg and tells him the story of the nation (how it was him and Wilbur's nation, how they made it to espace dream's iron fist and how they held an election "which puts your life on the line, which is good- if you're confident but- perhaps we were too confident", how they lost)

Tommy: "You know the phrase: 'treat other how you wanna be treated', foolish? People dont ever listen to it. Wilbur- he decided he wanted to be treated poorly so he treated everyone around him poorly "

This Tommy quote, to me at least, so so amazingly strong in conveying how understanding he is? To the world around him. Like-

I have not seen one person bring this quote up, and yet its (at least to me) shows such growth and understanding in Tommy i saw little to nothing like it in other streams. It shows he understands, he knew Wilbur didnt change just because, he knows he was struggling, that he thought everyone around him were againt him, were going to abandon him the first chance theyll get- and he thought he deserved it. So he, as a last way to defend himself against that, hurt them first, abandoned them first, so theyll see how much of a 'bad' person he was and take him out- and tommy saw right through that, possibly understanding it more after exile.

This next qoute was talked about much more but i still wanna bring it up

Foolish: "Do you believe in second chances?"

Tommy: "Oh, no I don't really believe that its not really a thing for me foolish its just that-" *sigh* "- i believe everyone has a little bit of good in then and this is not about giving him a second chance or a third chance- its not about *chances* foolish. Its about not giving up on the poeple you care about. "

Which. I mean. I dont know how healthy that mindset is, but comign from Tommy it makes so much sense.

Techno, tubbo, eret, sapnap. These are all people Tommy used to be extremely close to, had either a war or had been betrayed by them, and yet still found it in his heart that he still cares for them, with all of these, they did horrendous things, that hurt tommy physically and mentally, while also not being once or twice, but a contentious thing, but while tommy is to this day still effected by their actions he still found it in himself to forgive, because he knows he fucked up too, a lot, and he knoes they learned from their mistakes just as he had (except c!techno FUCKKK c!techno mf doesnt learn SHITTT) and he knows, when the time comes he knows hed want the people he hurt to forgive him too. (And he wants Wilbur to do the same)

Next qoute i will cut to a couple parts because its really so good and full of character i had to bro

Foolish: "Do you consider yourself to be the good guy or the bad guy?"

Tommy: "It really depends who you ask, isn't it? Yknow? If you asked dream he'd say im *his little toy that he plays with* you know? It doesnt.."

This part really stunned me when i first heard it because, and correct me If im wrong, but i dont think tommy ever acknowledged how dream sees him, and  how right he has his viewpoint too. Just the fact tommy is so *painfully* aware of how dream doesnt even see him as a person anymore but just a toy to mess around with for a while than just throw it away when it get too boring really hurt me. Someone give this kid a hug

(Continued) Tommy: "...foolish, honestly? I used to consider myself 'the good guy', you know? The fuckin'- second in command! But these past- these past like six months or so, foolish, everything got so much harder than it was before. Because before it was just us vs bad guys, it was all so clear! But- its not been 'clear' for so long, right? It wasn't; 'these are the bad guys! These are the good guys!' Now it's : 'he's doing this and it makes him a bit worse-' i mean, it all got so complicated, so- i don't know. Depends who you ask."

He says this, in response to foolish asking if hes a good guy- but its awfully similar to if Wilbur asked him if they were the bad guys. Because foolish just asked about him, and yet in his answer tommy made sure to keep using the words "us, he's, guys" as if hes not really talking about himself, as if hes explaining how Wilbur was wrong. Which he was. Also something interesting ive noticed, he says "the last 6 months or so", which indicated that with Wilbur he knew better to follow his word and leadership- with Wilbur he was always on the right side but when he lost him he felt much more lost alone, and couldn't trust himself enough to be on the "right side" .

Foolish: "I dont know, it all seems strange because just from, you know- hearing from others and, you know, learing a little bit, its seems like you've been the hero, you've been the villain, the conqueror, the savior, and, even now, i have no idea what you exactly are."

Tommy: "that's up to you to decide, isn't it? Im just- *uh*  i dont know. These days, foolish, I'm a little weaker than i used to be"

Foolish couldn't be more right with what he said, another example of this we see where a character acknowledges tommy never sticks to one thing us Charlie when calling him "tommy fron nowhere" which shows more how he cant stick to one thing, during the course of him on the server he had been friends and enemy with nearly everyone, been on pretty much all sides, and while never really intentionally, being in the center of conflict. When foolish says he doesnt know who tommy is anymroe at this point and all Tommy says in return is that "hes a little weaker than he used to be" does to show he misses who he used to be, with lmanburg, with Wilbur, when he knew who he was, now he doesn't know who he is anymore, but still so desperately want to be more demonstrated by the lines coming rigth after that one:

(Continued) Tommy: "..I'm not- I'm now who i want to be, but-"

Foolish: "Being honest with you, Tommy, that's the same case for me as well."

Tommy: "...heres the thing, foolish, unlike you i dont really have a choice. I have to try and be who i want to be, because if i dont, very bad things are gonna happen in this server. And now that Wilbur's back i can't- quite frankly *no one* can risk that. So i dont really have a choice."

Tommy want's to change- he wants to be better than he is now, to be closer to who he used to be, no matter how impossible that might be, but he also sees it as an immediate thing, he wants to change now, or asap, which is why hes collecting stone for Wilbur in the first place- old him would've done that with ease just because Wilbur asked and he wants to have that back so badly, asap. The way he talked about this reminded me of when he tried getting over his trauma stream before he went in the prison to kill dream: he knew he wasnt the best but he tried getting over that asap to go kill dream asap. He didnt wanna take the long road of years of healing and instead thought he could get over it just like that, and that experience clearly didnt teach him anything because now hes trying to slide back to the relationship he and Wilbur used to have and ignoring the drastic changes they both had plus the bad moments that were the reason they feel out in the first place, or maybe he knows, but at this point, after everything that happened to him and the server, he doesnt care anymore? He knows hes not the same he was and he'll never be the same, because thats not how it works, but his mentor, president, big brother is back after so long tommy felt so lost and alone he thinks maybe, this time around, with Wilbur, he could try and be better again.

[rosartemis]

Get green man out of prison

To clarify before this starts, Dream is my favourite character. This doesn’t mean I am a c!Dream apologist, but I am sympathetic to his motivations. Objectively, he’s done horrible things, and he needs to be in prison with a life sentence, but looking at all the things that’s come out of this prison arc--

c!Dream needs to leave prison NOW. All this shit that’s been happening hasn’t been excusable since we found out Sam was abusing him in prison and it’s just getting worse.

Before y’all come at me with “but Dream designed the prison to be that way so he deserves it”. Consider this: if we are justifying the “hero’s” actions because that’s something the villain would have done, then maybe we need to think long and hard about how much of a “hero” this character truly is.

As much as we want to see Dream get his comeuppance, nothing he did justifies TORTURE. Treating him as sub-human is beyond wrong and doesn’t help ANYBODY. When he gets out, he’ll only be worse, and all of you are just gonna use his actions after this arc as justification to continue viewing him as the Devil incarnate.

An eye for an eye and the world goes blind, right?

Overall, I need this season to come to a point where the other characters (especially Quackity) finally acknowledge that Dream wasn’t the root of ALL problems on the server. They need to see that they themselves also have “villainous” sides to them, and that they’ve also caused conflict. I need their righteous fucking high horses to be shot down. They need to reflect and grow from this in a positive direction.

I have many thoughts about different characters so I’ll put a break here. Continue if you want to, I just need somewhere to vent

QUACKITY-- he’s done the exact same things Dream has. That’s not even up for debate at this point. Yes, it was to a lesser extent, but his entire character is that he wants power, and he’ll do almost anything to get it. Sounds familliar?

Well now you’re asking me: “why do you hate him and not Dream?” 

Because Dream at least knows he’s the monster. Quackity doesn’t get to go to Dream and act all righteous and mighty in front of him, as if he’s not just as bad as Dream is. I’d even argue that HE’S A BETTER MANIPULATOR, because LITERALLY EVERYONE on the server has fallen for his heroic act. His behaviour just pisses me off to no end.

SAM-- listen. His character may be kinder than others, but he’s not as good of a person as the fandom paints him to be just because he sounds soft. He was neglectful of Tommy’s safety when he got trapped in the prison, and he’s willingly going against Dream’s safety now. Heck, he literally supported Quackity’s plan to torture Dream, and he abused Dream beforehand. 

No matter how bad the prisoner was, it’s Sam’s DUTY as a guard to keep him safe, just as it’s his duty to keep him contained.

He sure picks and chooses which rules he follows, doesn’t he? 

What does he think he’s going to accomplish by treating Dream like this? He’s literally affirming Dream’s belief that the only way to be safe on the server is to have power. 

PUFFY-- I don’t watch Puffy’s streams often, so correct me if I’m wrong. I think she’s a pretty good character, but of course there are flaws to her that I think she needs to grow from. I hear she said that she wants to be a therapist, but that she won’t give Dream therapy because she believes he doesn’t deserve it. Newsflash, Puffy, everyone deserves the chance to go to therapy. I love how casually you’re dismissing his trauma.

If anyone needs therapy the most on the server, it’s Dream.

Why do I prioritize Dream’s therapy arc over Tommy’s? Because Dream’s trauma tends to manifest in a way that gets everyone around him hurt or killed. Once he leaves prison, it’s just going to hurt more people. 

(Don’t tell me Dream doesn’t have any trauma. When the server began, Dream was THE mediator, he was THE pacifist. Clearly all wars and conflict that went on changed him into the person he is now.)

DREAM-- Dream’s been a scapegoat ever since Wilbur painted him as the villain in the first war. But I do not believe he was a villain until season 2 began. In short, I am a season 1 Dream apologist and a season 2 Dream sympathizer. 

While Quackity parallels Dream in all his terrible actions, I think Ranboo’s Dream’s parallel in the sense that Ranboo is what Dream could have been.

Both Ranboo and Dream began as pacifists who were forced into facing war and conflict. Ranboo was able to handle it in a healthier way, and it allowed his character to grow in a positive direction despite his trauma. Dream was painted as the villain, and instead of proving everyone wrong, said fuck it and fell into the role.

I really hope Dream isn’t beyond changing his world view. While I know the writer probably won’t go down this route, I would love to see him navigate the hardships in order to escape the role of a villain. Granted, if he ever gets a “redemption arc”, it must be handled in a very carful manner, and he should have to work hard for it.

Jesus Christ I wrote a whole essay. I doubt anyone made it this far down, but I’d be happy to have a civil discussion in my asks or replies. Let’s roleplay English majors. I wanna talk

[ruby-whistler]

Srry but i noticed in one of ur dream posts u Referred to tommy's cat as hope. I must correct u, that cat was born pussbou and died pussboi. /lh Also tommy killing that cat was nothing compared to dream killing mushroom henry in exile btw just wanna say Also for ur posts about dreams trauma or wilbur manipulating him can u provide links to vods or other proof? Srry if i seem rude i mean that in a "genuinely curious way"

Aaa sorry if my ask came off as rude im just genuinely curious :(((

hi! dw, you don't seem rude at all, and i'm extremely happy someone with a different perspective has found my blog! i really appreciate that sort of attitude and am happy to answer :]

/dsmp /rp

the cat was called pussboy by tommy, but dream only called it "the cat" and then said that "it was hope", which is why it sort of became a symbol (his hope is dead, basically) - that's why i kind of made its name capitalized, because it was more of a metaphor than anything.

most c!dream fans call the cat hope because it's just really nice and really symbolic, and also really sad when you think about it. that's why the name was used in the essay, just to clear up the confusion!

tommy killing that cat was nothing compared to dream killing mushroom henry in exile

i don't really think so? mooshroom henry was entertainment more than anything, and even if it was bad, when watching the stream i don't remember seeing him mourn that much - on the other hand, dream was very quickly and very obviously attached to the cat, with it being his only companion in months of isolation, along with the hope that even when tommy left it would keep him company.

keep in mind c!dream has been deprived of stimuli and human contact for so long it's officially classified as psychological torture at that point.

i don't mean to compare trauma or even compare deaths - because honestly, what c!dream and c!tommy have gone through individually is incomparable and i think neither should be diminished in favor of the other since they're both terrible situations.

that's why i disagree that it "was nothing compared to" - it had an obvious effect on c!dream, and was still c!tommy killing an animal specifically to hurt him, no matter what reasons he had.

when i'm talking about effects people's actions have had on c!dream, i'm not talking about those people. i'm talking about him. :) /lh

as for the trauma, a lot of people agree that a lot of the things he says or does are trauma responses, and hence it's very possible that he's had trauma before he went into prison!

this includes being repeatedly called a tyrant via propaganda by about half of your friends who decided to betray you, trying to keep peace and being pushed deeper into villainy instead, repeatedly being put in between a rock and a hard place in order to make sure the people you care about don't start killing each other, then being betrayed by your closest friends after merely trying to keep peace (sapnap & george) and just in general having no control over your life or image and grasping at straws to gain it back.

i know a lot of people with trauma who heavily relate to certain trauma responses, which aren't always just shaky breaths and flashbacks, but trauma often also manifests itself in extremely ugly and destructive ways, both inwardly and outwardly.

trying to control the people around you is also very often a response to going through trauma, as well as emotional repression which is... rather evident on c!dream during season two. it only seems to get worse with repeated abandonment.

in the end, during the vault scene, the way he acts really just isn't at all the way a healthy person would act, and a lot of his really bad mindsets come from the way he was taught by the world around him.

the character is very reserved however, and since we don't have his pov we can't really say for certain - a lot of people claim it in good faith because they have a lot of evidence for it, and i think they're certainly valid in that.

that is just before the prison, however. from what happened during the prison arc? there is no denying he's traumatized at this point.

he's been emotionally and physically abused by c!sam since the very beginning of being imprisoned, and being in solitary confinement for over two weeks is generally considered psychological (and maybe also physical?) torture. that alone shows up in a lot of symptoms of his mental deterioration while in pandora's during people's visits, and quackity's "sessions" just absolutely drove the point home.

what he's gone through during this arc is absolutely incomparable to anything others charactes have faced before, and it's just plain suffering being endured by someone who is, despite everything, still a human being.

as for the wilbur manipulation thing!! it's talking about the whole vassal scene (though even beforehand a lot of their interactions are pretty iffy), and here's a post about that :]

I also have a small question about the analysis u last reblogged cus it says "why dream needed lmanburg gone rightfully" and like. The house analogy is poor because for one cus the land is infinite. And 2 cus punz's yard was literally larger then lmanburg. And also stuff about dream being a mediator? Can u provide examples?

i wouldn't say it was poor. dream's said a lot of times that he didn't care in the slightest about the land - a lot of his problems with l'manberg arose with the fact that wilbur basically built it on lies and tried to disallow half of the server to come there. c!dream was mad about the division and the fact that wilbur wanted "freedom" to have authority in his lands - over others, as can be seen in this post also.

the table analogy was fitting not because dream was some overlord, but because these were literally friends he invited to hang out and live in a place he wanted to call home. claiming a part of it for yourself and saying people of a certain nationality can't come in is directly opposing those goals.

in the early days of the smp, dream's always been a mediator between his friends - sapnap and george, who would often get into fights and go around killing each other! he would always do his best to stop the conflict, which continued after tommy joined when he took him to court and then later tried to mediate conflicts he was a part of, which resulted in tommy killing him unprovoked, stealing his gear, and starting the disc wars when dream was trying to get his stuff back. later, during pogtopia, he is also most concerned with peace over everything, and this seems to continue indefinitely after.

Today i was thinking about how messed up the final control room was. Like. Dream arranged the betrayal and punz and sapnap killed tommy and tubbo who like. Were literal children and their pals (because the author, wilbur soot, is dead/j but srsly if u take the streamers words tommy said he was 9 during the revolution sooo)

Sorry im gonna ramble about how dumb canon ages are for a second cus like. Streamers can say the characters are one way or another (wilbur saying he is mentally 30-something, etc.) But in the end the characters act like they(or at least their streaming personas) do.

i... honestly don't find it that bad? they were in a war, and the final control room was basically just supposed to end it quicker. the l'manbergians made it clear they were going to fight to the death, so they really left c!dream no other choice. and it's not like he didn't give them chances to give up.

also yeah the 9 year old thing was retconned, because in that case c!dream would've been 14 and i don't think that's true.

c!tommy and c!dream were both young and once again, in a war. the final control room was an attempt to assure victory, which both sides would've taken if possible, but only c!dream saw he had the option.

i do agree the whole child soldier thing was bad but... complain about that to c!wilbur, methinks. he talked naive kids into fighting for his personal power. however, the age argument isn't really valid either way. they had enough agency to sign up for it, and whether or not c!wilbur pushing the intense nationalism onto them had something to do with that is another debate entirely.

Bacl to final control room cus like??? Also fun fact punz took 2 of wilbur's canon lives. And like that probably is what started wilbur's paranoia which later lead to his spiral and i. Many thoughts full of lmanburg today.

i'm pretty sure cc!wilbur said what lead to c!wilbur's spiral was a "dark, twister view of possessions" and "disregard for his fellow citizen whom he claimed to love so much", but i really wouldn't say it was the control room; if anything the sudden loss of power after the elections seems to me like the trigger for his spiral.

I watched the exile arc live and. I feel dirty almost for feeling little to no sympathy for c!dream (srry ive been forgetting to add that aa) because of his actions toward c!tommy and like. The whole probation was so humiliating and unfair and c!dream was planning to frame him for the crimes he and puffy did under the the guise of "pranks" and c!quackity was planning to seize the vice president role.

i mean... to be fair, if you didn't watch the prison arc much yet or only watch tommy's perspective i understand not feeling that sympathetic - however, i encourage you to maybe watch a few prison visits, since they could help you see the whole picture better!

i also watched it live, and i also thought it was terrible, but i share very much the same sentiment for the prison arc because. absolutely no one should have to go through either of those things, you know?

i don't think probation was that humiliating? he was just. being asked to not start conflict with the other factions for two weeks. of course, what happened as a result is in no way justified, but i don't think probation itself would've been bad at all. either way yeah the framing and c!quackity's behaviour was. very yikes, i agree.

Also c!tommy antis are dumb because they say "he deserved exile angry emoji" i dont see u saying that about ranboo. Just say you hate cc!tommy and go. Also people say c!tommy was just as toxic to c!dream and i??? No. One is the victim and one is the abuser and like. :/// man. This part is rambly srry

i wouldn't say they hate cc!tommy? cc!tommy has a persona who people think is annoying at first ( but then they subscribe because he is super entertaining big man! ) but a lot of c!tommy's actions are straight up toxic to certain characters, such as c!funndy and c!jack. he has a very dismissive attitude towards others and their trauma and it does affect the people around them very negatively.

examples; his repeated bullying and behavior towards fundy:

Tommy: “Fundy, I’m just here to kinda let you know that I – if you weren’t Wilbur’s son, you would be out of L’manburg, alright? Just remember – you need to keep that relationship with your father. I saw how asshole-y and bratty you were acting in the courtroom the other night. You need to pull your shit together young man.”

......

Fundy: “I’m wearing glasses…are you making fun of my eyesight?!”

Tommy: “Yes.”

Sapnap: “Your father would be very disappointed.”

Fundy: “Wh – disappointed for wearing glasses?!”

Tommy: “You got glasses, like what are you wearing…”

Fundy: “What do you mean?”

Tommy: “Sapnap, Sapnap, over here. Fundy, Fundy, Fundy, I’m really sorry to say this – I’m just here to publicly denounce you.”

Fundy: “…What?”

( credit for transcript: @/findingjoynweirdstuff )

he's also responsible for a big chunk of c!jack's trauma, both with actions and words, and that's why i think certain people might dislike the character, and i don't think that's wrong of them. anyone can dislike any character they want if they don't attack people for liking them, in my opinion.

also c!tommy was most definitely toxic against c!dream in the cell. it's of course understandable but that doesn't change the fact he was constantly hitting and insulting him (without dream doing anything back for a long while until he snapped) which is toxic behaviour.

i wouldn't say he was "just as" though, so i agree with you on that. they're different and they behave differently.

i made a dream blob keychain today. Is it possible to send images if u wanna see? Idk cus i havent used tumblr before. I think that's all for now. Thx for letting me talk :D peepoShy -curious anon (but fr a connoreatspants c!dream redemption arc would be cool)

yooo that's cool! i don't really,,, know if it's possible to send images? try it out and if it isn't i'll try find a way to turn it on.

also, no problem! just please remember this is a c!dream sympathetic blog, and me as well as my followers are uhh,, oftentimes emotionally attached / personally relate to the character, so if you could avoid sending hate on the character (not that you have or that i expect you to, just a friendly reminder) in the asks that would be great! we already see a lot of it unwillingly so, i'd rather not see more, but as long as the discussion is civil i'm absolutely ok with you asking more and with me answering more questions if you'd want to! :)

if anyone else would like to reblog this and add some things i might've missed with my answers, feel free to, just go easy on her (she uses she/her pronouns!) and keep it factual.

i hope u had a good or at least ok time at school today :D

thanks! i gtg now because exam tomorrow but i'm going to try write the redemption essay tomorrow as well because ohhh boy i have a lot of ideas about what all i could write around the concept.

also sorry this was long, i can't keep my tongue on the leash :[

[testingcheats0n]

If it helps, I know you reblogged something about how Tubbo’s outpost arc doesn’t make sense, but it actually kind of does? The reason he made the outpost in the first place was because he was suspicious of how Foolish all of a sudden sold his house and left Snowchester (coincidentally shortly after Tubbo trusted him with the nukes and his trauma), then Quackity griefed him, and now he’s just tired of being walked over by everyone, because the last time he tried negotiation and compromise, it was with Dream and exile, and we all know how well that went. He doesn’t trust that Quackity won’t try and take more and more, and can you blame him? We know Quackity plans on expansion, and Tubbo knows Quackity enough to know how ambitious he is.

Is Tubbo morally perfect? Of course not. He hasn’t been since at least the butcher army. But he’s not out of character, and he still doesn’t want to actually go to war. He built the nukes to look scary, and so that’s what he’s trying to do: look scary enough that Quackity will leave him alone.

No, no, I can understand Tubbo's motives. I know why he did what he did. That's not under question- maybe under discussion, but never questioned. My problem is that I don't know where his character will go from this whole situation, because healthy coping mechanisms, fullfillment and peace are not on the table. It's basically: Character A hurts Character B during conflict, Character B starts a new conflict to hurt Character A, Character C gets hurt during conflict, Character A and C start a new conflict to hurt Character B- this cycle has happened three different times with at least 3 different characters at this point of the story.

I don't know where the story will go from here in general- at least in a satisfactory way. It's just a repetition of everything that's happened until now, and I can predict how things will go. Just more of the same with no happy ending- always leading to the next horrific trauma.

Option A: Tubbo dies permanently because of the obvious brewing conflict. And that's it, bye, bye Tubbo, Dream doesn't care about you + he's in prison so Ranboo is (maybe) going to get involved even worse than before to save you, doing horrific shit in the process. Ranboo gets traumatized trying to save him, and everyone else has to grieve for someone that might come back anyway. That's just Quackity's plot with Schlatt 2.0 + Tommy's return after the prison

Option B: Quackity dies and Las Nevadas is just L'manburg 2.0 with a discount Wilbur-Fundy trauma and everything + his poor poor substitute will try to keep the country Quackity made everyone's problem alive, and my guess is that the chances of success are a solid 0. Let's suppose that Tubbo does nuke Las Nevadas/Technoblade finally learns about the things (government) he should have known a long time ago/ Wilbur, uh. Does something eventually, and congrats that's just Doomsday 2.0 but with a different country.

Option C: Nobody dies and nothing terrible happens, but the trauma from previous events remains unchecked until the next time Quackity or Tubbo or someone decides they want to be ~bad~... why are we here again?

Option D: Both Tubbo and Quackity die. Cool, it's not like I was supposed to care about them or anything. Investment? I don't know her. Who is going to die next for shock value? Vote now. If they return, they'll be barely functional and probably will immediately try to start some new pointless conflict over again. Idk, something that just popped in my mind. They might do it for real too.

Option E: Snowchester is destroyed (lame and boring, but it's been dying for a while so *shrug* no stakes, no investment. Oh no it's another country... and now it's gone... cool...) OR someone (not Tubbo or Quackity) loses a canon life which- eh- they've all have 2-3 lives so 0 stakes OR Wilbur dies for the sake of torture porn and more trauma/misery- if Satan decides to prove he's real we'll get ghostbur again... isn't that great? Haha... OR Tommy dies (for some reason?? I see them making it happen.). If permanently yawn- he did it once Big bro Dre is there to save the situation, not that permadeath is the worse option- if not then 0 stakes. Prison Lockdown 2.0

Option F: Karl's storyline finaly connects to the DSMP? Somehow? That's the most fun option.

Option G: None of the things Tubbo, Quackity and Wilbur do matter because Technoblade frees Dream and they all- fucking- band together against the ~common enemy~ (Vault 2.0) and take him out. He goes back to the prison or dies. Very cyclic. I hope that's saved for the actual end of the series.

Option H: Dream comes back to fuck shit up- interrupting or making the conflict even worse ofc-, but no one bands together and Dream is free to get whatever he wants, but this time meaner because he was tortured. Ooooo. I wonder what terrible things he will do- especially to Tommy oh nooooooo~~~(I absolutely don't want to see that) (Pogtopia vs. Manburg 2.0)

Not death, cause that's fixable *shrug*

Option I: Dream just disappears from the public conscience and Technoblade is like 'hmmm? oh no no, governments? Existing AND fighting in MY server?' and just... kills everyone. Fun, lighthearted streams, yeah? If he's going to say he's an anarchist that wants to destroy countries, then he better act like it.

Option J: Someone from the previously involved cast reemerges and does something mildly impactful, like a betrayal- so original, or some spying- very original too. (Fundy, Foolish, Bad, Sam, Puffy, Charlie, Sapnap?) idk. Half of them need to end their own arcs first imo.

Basically this little war I'm seeing is happening between Las Nevadas, Snowchester, and whatever half-baked plan Wilbur and his new pet (ouchie, I spent months rooting for Tommy's autonomy guess that was a loss of my time) have going on, is nothing but a boring, violent repetition of previous conflicts that will do nothing but pile on trauma on already suffering characters. No resolution, no peace, no healing, just pain, more moral corruption, monologues and cookie stands.

At this point, I'll be very surprised if none of the options above happen, because I haven't been given anything to hold on for months. I'm sorry for being this negative- especially since you wanted to explain Tubbo's POV only- you can enjoy this story for what it is- that's perfectly fine, but I can't anymore.

Sorry for the unrelated (?) rant, and thanks for the ask.

[ruby-whistler]

(quicksandblock) hi! I just left you a giant wall-of-text response on your Dream post, and though I think it came across well enough, I just want to state my lack of hostile intent over here as well lol. I know stuff like this that people feel strongly about can get very tense so I just wanted to make doubly certain you know I'm not trying to pick a fight or anything. it kind of sucks that I feel like I need to clarify that but that's fandom culture for you sometimes :P

also, I would love to talk to you about Dream characterization. I think I disagree with you on a lot of different points and I love his character, so I'm very interested in understanding your perspective!

hey, hello! found a c!dream enthusiast/enjoyer, that’s cool, hi! :]

[copied part i put in front of each reply, hence different capitalization]

Alright, so first as a quick disclaimer, I’m going to put a summary of the original post’s points, just to ensure that we’re on the same page;

The post does say:

- don’t dehumanize c!Dream because it continuously hurts people who relate to and/or sympathize with him, also dehumanization in general is an inherently wrong mindset

- don’t attack people who sympathize with him because he’s a victim of abuse besides other things

The post never says:

- you cannot hate c!Dream and not sympathizing with him is wrong

- the things c!Dream has done are to any degree excused

- don’t dehumanize c!Dream because he’s a good person

- people who dehumanize c!Dream are real life abuse apologists

If you read the post and didn’t get these points from it, i advise you to reread it as I made pretty much all of these abundantly clear.

[end of disclaimer]

i never said anyone could infringe on his human rights! i… literally never said that! i said “they ignore” when characters do it, but that was a run-on sentence, i get how that might’ve been easily misunderstood. but yes, he’s a fictional character, i’d never said people could actually hurt him or anything in that sense.

the thing is, i still find them saying they enjoy it… wrong? the people yelling in tommy’s chat for c!dream to hurt him more were freaking victim blaming pricks, and if what they did was the widespread fandom opinion it would be hurting actual people with trauma. i ask people to look at the c!dream situation with the same severity, because it’s actually happening and it’s highly disturbing, not just from principle, but because of what it leads to within the community.

sorry for comparing his situation to c!tommy, but narratively i believe the prison arc is a deliberate parallel to exile, and comparing his situation to someone they’ve not dehumanized seems to be the only way to knock sense into some people.

i am happy you don’t seem to be one of the people who dehumanize him. you’re not the target audience of this post - neither are abuse victims who project onto him. i know people who c!tommy reminds of their abuser (because of personality traits), or even c!quackity, that’s fine. they’re totally free to hate their respective character, of course, without being,, actually right about them. that being said, majority of this fandom is dehumanizing c!dream and being mad at people sympathizing with him “on behalf of the abuse victims”, not actual victims themselves, and by doing this they are unknowingly hurting other people rather than helping anything, and spreading misinformation as well as making a lot of fans in general uncomfortable. i believe this is something that needs to change in the community.

hating him is fine, but group-based dehumanization in my mind is not. if you go on twitter and search “c!dream” and see 100 people saying they wish the abuse victim you project onto is hurt more (this is not a twitter thing, c!dream tag is the same thing, a majority of the crit is untagged but it,, doesn’t really matter because even tagged hate riles up more people) that freaking sucks and is something that the community needs to work on, not shoved under the rug and pretend it wasn’t there because some people tag it.

“the abuse victims who are hurt by people saying they should be sympathetic towards Dream are in fact just as hurt as the abuse victims who relate to Dream and are hurt by people saying his evil.”

this is not wrong. it’s right actually, but i’m not talking about this fandom calling him evil/unable to be sympathized with/irredeemable. i mean, that’s hurtful dehumanization as well, but this community doesn’t “say he’s evil” it “says he deserves to keep being horribly abused and/or die”.

and… i wasn’t talking about/saying abuse victims should sympathize with him either? i’ve said like five times that people can hate him as much as they want, but dehumanization is another thing. it’s the majority of this community (this post wasn’t targeting abuse victims in the slightest) taking away his positive human qualities, hence believing he doesn’t deserve human rights, and turning him into some sort of punching bag or personification of evil, which i find deeply disturbing since he’s being related to by abuse victims, and also blatantly incorrect to the character.

so, you’d be right, if the situation was what you described. it… really isn’t. the dream smp fanbase isn’t populated by abuse victims in any corner. it’s two small groups, one of them hurt (undeservingly) by a few and the other one hurt (no more or less undeservingly) by a majority of the fandom without anyone batting an eye.

and this post isn’t even about abuse victims in the first place; it’s about dehumanization. while its impact plays a big role in why i wrote this, things like these being widespread in the fandom makes so many people uncomfortable or pressured not to sympathize with a recently made sympathetic character that they might (but could not) relate to. relating to him myself, i might not have a say in this, but my compassion in general made me switch over to the c!dream sympathetic people, not anyone in the community or projection.

the results i relayed here weren’t the only results of the survery. people mentioned pandora’s vault as their reasons for being dream apologists,, over and over and over again. a lot of them mentioned the fandom response specifically.

it’s making the fandom not only unsafe to a small group of traumatized people, but also fans in general, who are equally as important to feel comfortable. hell, the reason dream apologists are such a tight-knit community that accepts little to no outside feedback is because of the hatred that is endlessly nurtured outside, that makes people feel anxious or not safe just for sympathizing with a victim of abuse.

i myself find this a problem that people should attempt to change beyond using crit tags more. feel free to not agree with that, but a lot of affected people do.

i agree the disc finale was actually cathartic! well, that’s a lie, i used to hate c!dream’s guts before that but that was the very instance where i saw a person behind the mask and went “oh, this is a whole mess isn’t it”, but it was,, cathartic to a lot of other people that didn’t use to have intense empathy to inanimate objects as children djskdjsk (i was a weird kid and still am, don’t mind that)

do you know what is cathartic? when a dog terribly bites a child, gets kicked away and gets put in a cage. do you know what isn’t cathartic? …that dog getting repeatedly beaten, starved and abused while trapped in said cage. even in fiction, and i say that as someone who was terribly bitten by a dog.

i don’t mind fictional characters suffering - frick, angst is my jam, i’ll write a character dying over and over again and have fun, but people justify that or make fun of people who don’t by saying openly that they enjoy it,, because he’s done bad things.

here comes the double standard. the exile arc wasn’t cathartic just because tommy burnt down a house, because hell, that wasn’t fair retribution. same goes for dream.

there is a difference between enjoying dark media (something i do frequently and is something i like doing) and open dehumanization and often normalized harassment of people who don’t do the same or condemn that. that is something that in my mind shouldn’t be a mainstream thing in the community.

to be fair, people saying an abuse victim no longer being hurt is “bad writing” or “insensitive” as i’ve seen people say would probably piss me off, but i’m,, not going to harass them. maybe a passive-aggressive vague-post if enough big accounts do it, but i think that’s justified. feel free to disagree - i still respect abuse victims who wouldn’t like that, but people who just don’t want the writers to humanize a character they’ve dehumanized will probably grind my gears.

this community,, isn’t working like this. i wrote this because people are repeatedly being hurt by the community or feel bad in it because of widespread opinions and dehumanization of a character that is as of late written to be sympathetic to the audience. that’s not a disagreement, the people who are actually sympathetic are a minority in the fandom, which would be fine with me, if they weren’t constantly invalidated, triggered and harassed as a direct result of the dehumanization discussed in this post.

besides the fact that the principle of dehumanization applied to c!dream is wrong - and if people find themselves doing that, it’s good for them to find a way to realize that, such as this post, because projection =/= dehumanization, and this post is targeting one, not the other - this is why i wrote this post. i still believe my points are valid and important for this fandom to consider.

you know, we could talk about the characterization right now - but after this i’m going onto a two month long hiatus for the sole purpose of studying the character. i’m not joking, this is what i’m dedicating my summer to. since i’m also closing my asks because of this, i can write this down and @ you when i’m done? :D i’d love to talk about him but i’m going to have so much more evidence after this, so maybe we can put this off for a while if you don’t mind! of course feel free to continue the dehumanization debate in a string of reblogs since it’s pretty much a different debate entirely.

( @zrenia @caketexturepack just tagging some people who responded to your response and might be interested in the continuation of the debate - also curious anon i saw your two asks i was just busy djsjdks please don’t spam about people who replied to me, i have a bad memory but i write this stuff down, actually )