#so i have a lot less to say post wilburs revival

[3rdsday]

This is a request for a c! Tommy rant

PLEASE YOUR PERSPECTIVE IS SO INTRIGUING I NEED MORE

thank you:))

Okay I've sat on this for a few days because I didn't feel like I was coherent enough to answer it but I think I'm ready now. This is probably still not super coherent but here we go:

The two rules Tommy was given when he joined the server were “no griefing” and “no stealing”.

Obviously these rules stopped being enforced pretty quickly, but it’s worth noting that Tommy immediately and blatantly disregarded and broke these rules. And I think that Tommy as a character gets punished for this throughout the rest of the story, in a sort of karmic retribution gone overboard way.

Tommy took things from others and destroyed their things, so he is not allowed to keep anything he cares about ever again.

Obviously the discs are the biggest example of this, with how many times they changed hands and were fought over and were used to taunt Tommy. But it goes so much further than that.

L’manberg gets destroyed. He gets exiled by Schlatt. Henry gets killed. L’manberg gets destroyed again. Wilbur’s dead. He gets exiled by Tubbo.

Every day in exile, Dream destroys everything Tommy has. It’s not subtle. There he is, isolated from everyone, no friends, no items, nothing. And he breaks in exile, for many reasons, but the fact that everything, everything has been taken from him, and continues to be taken from him, is a big part of that.

He leaves exile and teams up with Techno, but ultimately decides that L’manberg (Tubbo) is more important to him.

The second Tommy chooses L’manberg, he’s not allowed to have it anymore.

And that’s the thing, right? Everything Tommy loses, it’s not about what those things mean to other people, it’s about the fact that Tommy cared about them. Sure, Techno had his motivations for destroying L’manberg, but Dream? The one pulling the strings? L’manberg needed to be gone because it was what Tommy cared about.

Which was kinda Dream’s whole deal right? If he controls what people care about, he controls the server. If he has Tommy’s discs, he should be able to control Tommy… right?

Except, for as much as the discs matter to Tommy, they are far from the only thing he cares about. He gives them up willingly for L’manberg’s independence. He gives them up a second time when he realizes he’s gone too far, putting them above Tubbo and fighting his best friend. Dream can’t use the discs to control Tommy because Tommy always has other things to care about, other things that would matter to him even if the discs were gone.

So what does Dream have to do?

Take everything else away.

What started with exile comes to a head during the final disc confrontation, with Dream once again making Tommy give up all his possessions the way he’d been conditioned to do. L’manberg is already gone, Dream dealt with that before, so all that’s left is Tubbo.

But things don’t go to Dream’s plan, Tommy convinced the rest of the server to come to his aid, and Dream was defeated.

(Don’t even TALK to me about the disc confrontation being staged by Dream, I don’t want to HEAR IT. It’s not canon to me and if you think I’m wrong. No I’m not <3)

Here’s the thing, though. When Dream was about to be killed a third time, Tommy is stopped by the chance that Dream could revive Wilbur.

Tommy has lost so much, over and over, and the chance to get his brother back is too much for him to go through with killing Dream.

Maybe Dream lost the confrontation, but he still found a way to use Tommy’s attachments against him.

So Dream is put in prison, Tommy has his discs back and, more importantly, Tubbo back. Maybe it’s not everything he once had, but it’s a lot more than he once did.

And then he goes to visit Dream. And Dream kills him.

Limbo is different for every character, but it’s generally supposed to be an experience that’s torturous. And all it takes for Limbo to be the worst thing Tommy has ever experienced is… nothing.

His Limbo is empty.

For all that he lost during exile, during the lowest point of his life… he’s left with even less than death.

All that’s there is the voice of a brother he couldn’t give up attachment to, who is no longer the brother he knew and loved. Who taunts and torments him during his time in that empty void. Wilbur might be there, but Tommy doesn’t even have his brother in Limbo. Not really.

And it kills me because Tommy is, or rather was, such an optimistic character. Not so much in the sense that he had a constant positive outlook, because clearly that wasn’t the case much of the time. But he could have his home destroyed and his friends turned against him and his possessions taken and his pets killed over and over and over and over again, and still find a way to keep going. Still find things to care about.

It generally took very little to make Tommy happy. He loved dirt huts and cobblestone towers and spiders and things that meant nothing to anyone else, that anyone else would treat with neutrality if not negativity.

But in Limbo there was nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Everything he had, gone.

Even his life was taken from him.

And in the aftermath, after his revival, he was never the same. He didn’t belong among the living, another thing that was taken from him. Wilbur was revived, but Wilbur was so different from the brother Tommy knew. Even then, Wilbur left him in the end.

I hate the finale for a lot of reasons, so I’m not going to go into it much. But the story ends with Tommy dead, again. Is he in Limbo again? Who knows. But Tommy was never allowed to keep anything, and the ending solidified this as true.

I started this by saying that Tommy was punished for breaking the rules of the server. And I think it’s interesting to read the story that way, where Tommy’s relatively small crimes end up resulting in him losing everything again and again and never breaking free of it. This is a story where gods and higher beings exist and are willing to interfere with the lives of the characters, so I don’t think it’s too far fetched to see this as a warped degree of karma. But I also think that what Tommy is punished for, perhaps more than the rule breaking, is the fact that he cares so much. He found joy and love in everything, so he was left with nothing. Because the Dream SMP is a cruel world controlled by a cruel man who became obsessed with Tommy. And Tommy paid the price, but he also never stopped caring for the things that mattered to him. He could be broken but not defeated, not as long as there was more for him to love.

Unfortunately, the story demanded his defeat, one way or another.

And that’s why his Limbo is empty.

[itslouisan]

Time to have C!Techno headcannons!!!

Heyo, seems like finally I reached my 2nd favorite cc ever! I think techno's character is REALLY interesting, with great writing and details and I can definitely add some hc of my own in there, so without further ado, let's go!

(btw @syndicatedsystem you might like some of my headcannons involving Jschlatt and Techno I talk about here so yeah! Also feel free to discuss em' with me or make asks abt it, hell your blog inspires me a lot)

(I lost the name of the artist if anyone knows please tell me)

• Techno has some braids in his hair, the longer, the more he values the person

Longest: Philza, it's braided with gold details

2nd longest: Ranboo, has a amethyst crystal for purple

Mid-term: Wilbur, he braided it in consideration of a battle friend and some good times with Will, he doesn't hate or likes Wilbur, but still can't deny they do have a connection

Shortest: Tommy.

• Techno prepared a space in the cabin for Tommy in case some day, his demons and the hell he was looking for, finally was found, he'd welcome Tommy with open arms, since he'd view that the kid suffered enough and had the time to change and face any consequences he'd need to face, the space is safe, always available, but, he'd never tell Tommy that, he keeps it hidden, he's not ready to be vulnerable to the demon child again and openly say Tommy could count on him, not until Tommy makes the first step.

• Keeps the pickaxe that blinded Quackity as a trophy, this and keeps all weapons from powerful enemies with him as a reminder of a great battle he won once again

• Likes to write poetry about people and events, he'd never give them to the person, but keep it in a dusty small box in his room in the attic of the cabin

• OKAY, LET'S ALL AGREE TECHNO IS ARO/ACE? GOOD.

• Techno was friends with Jschlatt before everything went to hell, they liked to talk about random bs while watching the fire crack at night and drink some cheap booze for Jschlatt and coffee for Techno

• I view Techno also having some boar traits, so yeah territorial as FUCK don't mess with his stuff or house, also he chases pray like crazy and can eat almost anything without a problem due to that

• Doesn't CARE for alcohol, just doesn't like the idea of having a hangover afterwards since he'd be unable to fight the next day

• Would gossip with Jschlatt, Tommy and the syndicate like, ABOUT EVERYTHING, I imagine him and Jschlatt favorite hobby is shit talking people they hate

• Techno being aro/ace also means if you flirt with him, he'll just stare at your soul and bully the shit out of you, sometimes calls Phil and/or Jschlatt to roast the shit out of the person, also WILL defend himself from any creeps and defend his friends from ANY strange people since for him touch is STRICTLY a death sentence and something that takes time

• Techno smokes when stressed or in the syndicate room, making Phil always carry an extra lighter for him just in case, the 2 used to be smoking buddies before Phil quit when he adopted Chayanne and Tallulah

• Techno in the QSMP is an entity, a god watching above everyone but never leaving Phil side and the eggs side, sometimes he'd talk to Tallulah directly, or influence Phil like a voice in his head to do the right thing in his vision or appear to Chayanne in his dreams to have a chat

• Can and will drink blood from the enemies

• Loves to talk about skulls and anatomy of the body in general, a dark fact, due to respect to Jschlatt, after he died (not considering revival, I view revival as either the decomposed body coming back to life in a LESS but STILL fucked up state or a kind of new body that is the users body in the afterlife coming to the alive realm, if you guys want, I can make a post about this) picked and kept Jschlatt sheep skull, with horns and everything

(art by sadist)

• Would talk about historical wars and battles with his own analysis and commentaries on it, making a great history teacher

• totally collects greek mythology stuff, books, items, anything.

• Has a couple of tattoos but one that is pretty badass is a wither skull with red smoke on his ribs in the right, a tattoo of a emerald in the inside of his left wrist, a tattoo of a squid with a fork on it's head in reference to the potato war on his right wrist really tiny and "everything starts with blood" and "the voices demand blood" written in his tights

• My boy 100% has piercings due to piglin culture, around 75% of them being made of gold

[irrealisms]

two for flinching! liner notes

fic here if you haven't read it!

the title for this one was hard. the one i ended up on comes from this comic by a softer sea (& this crimeboys version by @iidalus); it's also the name of a game of chicken where you're trying to get the other person to flinch, which i think works well also, but honestly that's secondary to the comic. you're my brother and i love you. that's it. no punchline.

lythraceae ranboo5 sometimes says "all fic is meta". some of my fic is only sort of meta; frex under these smothering waves is trying very hard to be a missing scene that fits as closely into canon as possible. two for flinching! is very very much meta. specifically: it's my entry into the Crimeboys Abuse Discourse.

i was really unsure about it for this reason, honestly; it's got a lot of tags going "the author likes cwilbur! the author sympathizes with cwilbur! this fic is about cwilbur being loved and forgiven!" and those are, like. disclaimers.

i've had this fic idea since july 2022. i started actually writing it earlier this month. this... might be the longest i've ever gone between "had fic idea" and "actually wrote it".

the dream & wilbur scene came to me months before the wilbur & tommy scene. i had the concept of "okay, so, wilbur post-revival is so insistent that dream's a good guy who has Been Punished and Redeemed Himself because he wants to believe he's a good guy who has Been Punished and Redeemed Himself, right? what happens if you bring those parallels back up after wilbur no longer thinks dream's a good guy?" but then i didn't really have a way to resolve it that wasn't "wilbur kills himself" and i didn't want to write that fic

and of course the way i ended up resolving it was "let the crimeboys demons win". ultimately, tommy loves wilbur; wilbur's attempts to leave or punish himself or get tommy to stop loving him, ignoring tommy's actual opinions on the matter, are themselves a way in which wilbur hurts tommy. for that matter, wilbur's attempt to get revenge on dream for tommy hurts tommy! tommy is not a revenge-oriented person! the dance party on the beach did more for tommy than the confrontation in the prison did. acknowledgement of the things wilbur did to hurt tommy is important, but so is the fact that... tommy is going to keep loving wilbur and wanting wilbur to be happy, and that's not a bad thing, it's just who tommy is. if wilbur wants to make things right, he has to do that not by taking revenge but by listening to what his victim wants.

a quote by Eve Tushnet that shaped my theology and that kept coming into my mind while writing this: "We think God sends our bad things to chastise us and cleanse us—we think Purgatory is full of bad things. Fire, cancer, rats, what's bad... raccoons are bad. Unjust wages! But what chastises us is the good things in life. Love—if you've ever loved so much it hurts, or if you've ever been loved by somebody, maybe your mother, so much that it hurts you to think about it—that's the fires of Purgatory. In this life and the next."

the hardest and most painful thing of all for wilbur isn't tommy's hate, like he thinks it is at first; it's tommy's unconditional love. but it's also that same love that gives him the strength to keep living, to move on and do better, after the fear of tommy's hatred had pushed him to plan both murder & suicide.

the first draft of this fic was almost entirely dialogue. it was ... fine? it was written. almost all of the images that i'm proud of, the recurring symbols, etc., came through in editing. my beta @erstwhilesparrow helped so much. this is pretty unusual for me, i usually do much less editing than this one needed, but i'm proud of how it ended up.

parts of the beginning of the wilbur & tommy scene are from the wilbur finale/Boundless Sands, but most of it isn't.

i don't know how obvious this came through in the writing, but it's tagged with wilbur having BPD bc that does in fact inform my characterization here: i read cwilbur as splitting white on dream post-revival, and then black during inconsolable differences. (he tends to split on tommy & on himself as well.)

crimeboys are so fun to write. i really, really want to write them more, because they're just such a joy to write. probably the most fun part of the entire fic for me was the few lines of banter they get near the end about long words.

EDIT: also ! this fic is nonzero inspired by peel the scars from off my back by squareupgod. not in a directly-inspired way, i had the basic premise before i read it, but in the way where i read that fic and it just kind of lives in my brain whenever i think about c!crime now. if you're a c!crime fan go read that fic. or reread it if you already have read it. whichever. and then cry. you do have to cry.

[cdroloisms]

Can you tell us about an in-depth analysis of whatever part of the JHAM au you choose? I crave any and all content for this au.

Yeahahaha okay,, I don't think we've gone very in-depth on the j!Dream and j!Sam side of what happens during Wilbur's Revival, so! Gonna throw some thoughts at the wall here.

Here's a post outlining the event in question--essentially, Tommy and Quackity visit the prison to try and Get To The Bottom Of Things, and it goes very. Uh. Very wrong, to say the least. Ghostbur gets revived, the "Fuck Sam Squad" gets formed in earnest outside the prison, and this all leads to the eventual prison break plot that allows Dream to escape.

At the time though, inside the cell, j!Sam has been very, very keenly aware that a year ago? A timeline ago? On this very day, Quackity had been making daily visits. With less interference and fewer variables to account for, his note-taking has improved even more this time around. Notes of what he remembers from the first time he had to do all of this, notes of what questions he asks and what answers Dream gave, what dispensers + programs have been turned on and off when and what instructions he'd left behind the last time he visited, documents of injuries and food and water and sleep and illness. When March 16th comes and goes without Quackity entering the prison, when Dream behaves, it's a victory, isn't it? This time, there will be no outside interference. This time, he's learned.

All of this to say, when it comes to the days where Quackity had been visiting, Sam is uncomfortably conscious of this fact. He's got it jotted down, not that he needs to. His memories are more than good enough. Remembering, the time travel--in a lot of ways, it's a lot like the prison. The isolation is the same, the responsibility. He is the one that has to fix things. He is the one that has to bear this burden, alone. These bloody recollections form a cell of his own, a prison inside the Vault that has become his home.

In some ways, for these days that had been so, so different the first time around, it is easier to be kinder. In less time, with less pain, he has gotten better results. He knows more than he had, that first time around. He's no longer backed into some corner with no idea how to move forward. Look, he's made things better--there have been no visitors and the secrets they may keep (the secrets they may carry outside the prison's walls), no one else to get locked down inside, no guards skulking behind his back and betraying his instruction, no Quackity to cede any measure of control. He's not been forced on the opposite side of the lava curtain, listening in on his own cell and unable to intervene. He's found a brighter path to walk. A better way for them all.

Other days, he feels considerably less generous. Dream's concessions grate at him. The submission feels less like progress and more like meaningless fear. He has no idea how much Sam has done for him. No idea of how bad things were, how bad things could still be. He remembers the way Dream begged, he remembers the platitudes and whimpering and sir, and he remembers how it was all a show. How it never meant anything (except for how it meant Dream would never fear Sam the way he did Quackity, eclipsed authority and yet the complicated disdain and careful distance he had to keep between himself and such unfettered sadism-), how Dream is treating them like they're one and the same when Sam is nothing like Quackity. This entire time, he's proved this thoroughly, and yet Dream still directs that same nauseous terror his way, and--Dream has done nothing to earn Sam's mercy! Sam was the one that made this timeline better, Sam was the one that has prevented Dream from tricking the visitors and tricking him and killing Tommy and reviving Wilbur. If given the chance, Dream would do the same, right here right now. He would make that choice in a heartbeat. If it wasn't for Sam fixing things, Dream would've pulled this second timeline to hell without hesitation. Sam has made everything better for him and he has the gall to forget that first timeline, to forget him to treat him like Quackity? He has no idea how good he has it. He's gotten off easy, while doing absolutely nothing to earn Sam's mercy.

Sometimes, he looks at Dream collapsed after another round of harming or weakness or poison or whatever, and he feels irritated--worse, he feels angry. Sam knows exactly so much Dream can endure. He's not dying. These dramatics are pointless. What is he hoping to earn? Sam is forced to remember everything that Quackity had done, that Dream had done, that Dream had forced him to do, and Dream has been spared. Sam has spared him from horrors he had begged him again and again and again to end, that first time around, and he can't even remember to be grateful. Sometimes, he thinks about bringing in an axe and sword and shears and showing Dream exactly why he should be thankful. (The ensuing nausea also has Dream to blame. He is the reason why Sam has to bear this burden.)

And then Dream revives Wilbur.

And it's proof, right? Dream hasn't changed. Dream is the same as he's always been. He would've ruined this timeline just like he did the last. It is only Sam that has saved Tommy's life and Ponk's arm and Dream again and again and again. He isn't innocent. He's still done all those awful things to Tommy, he's told Sam all about exile again (told him more, even, than he did the first time around), he's still planned to lock Tommy in the prison, he's still bragged about and done so much to- to torture him. Just because he hasn't killed Tommy in this timeline doesn't mean he wouldn't, if given an opportunity. He basically still has Tommy's blood on his hands.

Unlike the anniversary of Tommy's death and the TNT, everything surrounding this incident really revolves around Quackity and particularly Sam's very messy feelings surrounding Quackity and what Quackity did and what he's done, the differences between them and the way Dream reacts (and a very hefty measure of insecurity from Sam on several fronts). After hauling Tommy out of the prison, Sam returns to Dream on the ground, shaking, begging for his life. In a lot of ways, this makes him even angrier. What could Dream have possibly been hoping to accomplish? It was a meaningless rebellion--last time, he'd been trying to bargain about Quackity. What does he have to complain about! Using the very book he's refused, even now, to give up. Sam has been treating him well. Using the dispensers less, only for Dream to spit on his mercy. Once again force him to that edge where he has no choice but to act. Quackity's blood stains the walls. Screams echo in his ears. And Dream is begging for his life?

Doesn't he know how much Sam has done for him? Doesn't he have any idea how good he's had it? Sam has done everything to keep him alive. Sam has lost everything for this prison. Doesn't he know that Sam has already lost him twice--once to his escape, and once to the time travel. He's begging Sam not to kill him, and he has no idea.

This is his fault. This is on him. He doesn't get to beg, he doesn't get to ask Sam to give him more. He's forced both of them to this point. He doesn't get to cry about it. He doesn't get to try and claim control, again. He won't die. Sam could take a hand, an arm, a leg, an eye. He knows what Dream can endure. He will take what he is given silently. He will accept whatever Sam decides is appropriately measured out. He’s rebelled, he’s tried to escape, he’s done everything that Sam has clearly outlined as being against the rules. He doesn't remember, fine. Sam will give him something to remember. He doesn't get off scot-free this time. Sam will have to come back to clean off the blood in the cell anyway, won't he?

This isn't revenge, this is justice. This is deserved. And he'll keep going until Dream finally understands and stays silent.

[embers-archive]

Putting all this under a readmore agydhd

Helloo fan since 2020 here, imma try and answer everything, sorry for tge length 💀

Hannah was particularly involved with Sam and boomer I believe, she helped Sam hide from the egg at one point.

She was also a part of the egg cult at one point and so was close with bbh and antfrost. She also won an elytra and had that for a while before boomer and Sam tried to prank her and boomer accidentally blew up her wings. I think it was Tina that comforted her.

So what makes her unique was her wings and connection to the egg mostly.

Jack and Niki have known each other since l'manberg was declared an independent country. Their relationship really thrives however in the aftermath of death on new l'manberg where they team up to try and kill Tommy- jack specifically because tommy took his final life (jack was not revived but rather "climbed out of hell" - this was before the revived book was established in cannon, a lot of people never knew about this part of Jack's lore tho). Jack was never a syndicate member, and very early on developed his own nation of "manifoldland", population 1. Alot of his arc was centred around wanting to kill tommy (being regretful when tommy does die, realising he didn't actually want him dead) and coping with loneliness.

I genuinely can't remember how this started but puffy was foolish's father, helping him aquire more totems (children in lore) and watching him be executed at the red banquet. He has two children, foolish jr and finley- they don't have much in lore personalities so that's up for interpretation. However, one thing about him is that he's a totem and believes that it's his duty to protect others at his own expense like a totem; this attitude extends to his children. Another bit of lore is that he's a god and can command lightning (he does so in order to scare away bad and ant from his home) and is immortal.

A lot of the time he's paired with eret as they have been best friends for yearsss, except eret has no memories by the time of dsmp and their arc was about becoming friends again despite erets memory loss and trying to regain those memories. Unfortunately this relationship wasn't fully completed by the end of the dsmp.

Fundy was not part of tge syndicate, only Techno, phil, niki, ranboo and conner were official members. Fundys arc is motivated mainly by loneliness and feelings of being forgotten- especially by his father. Most tend to explain fundys age as he was a child during l'manberg but an adult by the time the election comes around (usually with a "fundy ages faster than average" explanation).

Fundy ran in the election against his father with niki (they're on good terms with one another), when they lost he became a part of schlatts cabinet causing a lot of tension between him and wilbur. Fundy in some ways sees schlatt as a new father figure and cares for him, despite scheming against schlatt. He constantly encourages him to see doctors when schlatt is ill and when schlatt dies fundy keeps schlatts sword and treats it as a prized possession, panicking when he thought he lost it at one point.

He joins the new l'manberg cabinet with tubbo, quackity and initially tommy. By the end of new l'manberg fundy becomes more and more distanced from the idea of l'manberg and destroys tge supplies people had made to try and defend the nation.

Post new l'manberg he lives alone in the forest with his child yogurt ( an artic fox) and focuses on mental health and good diets. It's here when he starts experiencing prophetic dreams and he doesn't sleep much.

He then joins las nevadas on quackity's invitation, bringing yogurt with him. Despite joining he doesn't really do much in the nation as it was around this time that fundy began to stream less.

When wilbur is revived he goes around apologising to everyone, one of tgis people being fundy. They meet in the remains of l'manberg and fundy kills himself in front of wilbur, saying he will spawn far away and will never come back.

Eret has been here since the beginning, fighting in the war for independence with l'manberg before betraying them, saying tge famous "it was never meant to be line" in order to be king of the greater dsmp faction. He is king by tge end of tge war bit expresses regret for years afterwards. Wilbur, tubbo and tommy hate them for a very long time afterwards. They became part of a group called misferns (ranboo, niki, eret and fundy) for a while, I think they called themselves siblings? When the election came they were one of tge few people to criticise schlatt to his face. They also attempted to offer shelter to tommy and wilbur when they became exiled. They continue to offer support to pogtopia and are very vocal about their distaste for schlatt. Eventually they renounce their title and fight to take down schlatt with pogtopia ( George becomes tge new monarch). They're also not at all fond of dream because of his support for schlatt and general cruelty.

Post war tho they continue to live in their castle.

When Michael (tubbos son) undergoes an attempted kidnapping by sapnap and George (and maybe dream and some others I can't remember- it was very controversial twitter exploded for a while after that) he defends Michael and hides him until tubbo comes to collect him. Later when Sam kidnaps Michael to get back at ranboo (this kid is genuinely kidnapped so often) eret helps tubbo get him back alongside techno, helping to get Sam imprisoned. It's here that tubbi and eret reconcile properly.

And as mentioned before there's the whole immortal besties with foolish thing.

Punz was a mercenary for hire, as was purpled and so alot of people hc them as being close- I mostly saw brother hcs.

One if his big traits is that he goes where the profit is, betraying dream to save tommy and tubbo saying "I'm sorry dream, but you should have payed me more".

I'll admit idk much about punz early on but much later he helps dream try to learn about the revived book, killing and reviving dream and dreams request (around this time alot of people started shipping them so that's where this ship comes from).

Now purpled is usually paired with benchtrio for age and that's it agsudh, they were just all the kids of the server. People used to joke that there was no non-manipulated minor on the server (tubbo with schlatt, tommy with wilbur/dream, ranboo with dream and purpled with quackity)

Purpled joined las nevadas fir a bit, quackity blew up his house (a spaceship- which is why alot of people see him as an alien) for a reason that has completely escaped my mind ahsvhdnd.

Purpled then gets revenge on quackity by pushing slimecicle into lava and killing him in front of q. He then gives(?) Sells(?) Slimecicle to punz and dream who brainwash slime into attacking quackity.

Idk much about antfrost other than he was bbh's right hand man in serving the egg.

And aimsey joined unfortunately when the server was mostly dead. She became friends with ranboos ghost, who lied to her and said he wasn't a ghost. Ranboo then gave aimsey permission to live in the mansion. Tubbi found out and then killed aimsey by pushing her off of a bridge in a rage. And then I think they kiiinda make up I can't remember.

Looking at animatics or clips is best to hear some of these guy's dialogue tho. And I guarantee I've missed something aggshf

Oh! And the dsmp wiki holds info about everyyyy character

Heya!

I've recently gotten really into the whole SBI fandom, and I've got the time and motivation to write a fic, specifically a Hero (Institute) and Villain (Syndicate) one.

The problem is that I wasn't a huge fan of the dsmp back in 2020-2022, so I'm missing a lot of interactions and habits between characters that I find too troublesome to scour the internet for. I've read a lot of fics to understand how the sbi and other bigger groups work, but when it comes to characters that I barely come across in fics, I'm completely uneducated.

For example, I have trouble understanding Hannah (Hannahxxrose)'s relationship with a lot of people, such as Dream, Niki, and just the Syndicate in general. Are there people she particularly hates/loves? Anything specific about her that makes her more unique or special?

What about Jack? I've seen him as a good friend of Niki's or as a Syndicate member, but other than that I don't understand his dynamic with others.

I know Foolish gets paired up as Puffy's assistant or apprentice often. Why is that? Who else is his character particularly fond of? What's his relationship with Benchtrio? Does he get paired up with others? Is Puffy more like his mom or his older sister?

Is Fundy often portrayed as Wilbur's son in these types of fics, or is he just there. What's his role in the Syndicate. What are his aspirations? Who does he have a good relationship with and who does he dislike? Is he typically a kid or a grown man?

As for Eret, Punz, Antfrost, Purpled and Aimsey (is she ever mentionned?), my knowledge on their characters is close to zero. Any and all information, like which side they're on, their good friends and their enemies and they're usual role in their organization is greatly appreciated.

If I do end up writing this fic, I can't promise that I'll keep everyone here, or that all the information will be included or respected lmao. But, if you can answer any of these questions or have simple requests, please make sure to let me know 🙏

[metfell]

okay here's a tumblr version of the fic i just posted to ao3. it's wilbur being revived:

13 years. 

It had been 13 years of sitting in that fucking station. If it had just been something temporary, maybe a few days, that would have been one thing. It was just a train station afterall, albeit with a bit of a weird color palette. People come and go from train stations all the time, it wasn’t like it was some evil promethean torture, having his liver torn out only for it to heal; a constant graphic agony.

But with nowhere else to go, nothing to do, and not another sign of life for years, Wilbur Soot was losing his mind. 

He probably already had lost it by the end of the first week. He thought this was just the waiting point for the first couple days. Then he began begging into the smoke for someone to save him for the first two years. Entered a rage at year three that lasted another four years. Curled up in a ball of resignation at year ten. 

And it was year 13.

Wilbur stood up. He hadn’t done that in… probably a week? He was barely keeping track at that point. But he stood up, on shaky legs still wearing the same shoes he had worn the day he died. Sometimes he would get bored, take off his shoes, and throw them across to the other side of the station. He would wake up the next “day” with them back on his feet. After a bit he started doing that with the rest of his clothes. It didn’t matter. He would sit there and pick at the fibers of his shirt until he tore a hole in it, only for it to close up again next he woke up.

Less promethean and more sisyphean, the fact that nothing was ever changing was the problem.

He thought a lot about what he would’ve worn the day he died, if he had planned it better. Maybe something that didn’t have black fucking skinny jeans. Or sneakers. Or a long coat- though he liked the coat. There wasn’t any temperature in the station, but the coat provided a heavy weight that he would sometimes pretend was another person. 

But he stood up. He stood up because there was a noise. 

Wilbur wasn’t used to noises in the station. He only had white noise, or maybe his voice. He gave up on talking though by year five. Once in year 8 he had tried to talk again, and it took him a day just to say “hello.” He didn’t like how the hello sounded, though. It didn’t sound like him. It was too quiet. So a noise was different; it was new.

He stumbled towards the tracks, and peeked down into the depths of the tunnel. It was inky black, train tracks disappearing back into void. Wilbur had tried running down them once, back in the first month. He had stood up, hopped down onto the tracks, and started running. He appeared back at the other end of the station. 

So he wasn’t expecting anything to be at the end of it. 

But there was a light.

There was a light. Wilbur’s eyes widened for the first time since year one.

He crumpled down onto the tracks when a low rumbling shook the floor, his legs too weak from sitting for so long to be able to support him. 

The light and rumbling grew closer, and down there on the tracks, Wilbur realized he was scared. He felt scared. Feeling anything was strange to him, and it was scary, and the fact that it was scary was euphoric.

But there was still a train barreling towards him. And Wilbur didn’t want to know what happened to people who died a second time in Limbo.

He scrambled to get to his feet, gripping the edge of the platform, and heaving himself up onto it. Wilbur laid there, feeling the ground underneath him tremble, and he smiled.

The train pulled in, steam mixing with the smoke of the station and curling up into clouds like a thunderstorm overhead. The red lights of its interior beaming out onto the tile floors and walls, almost like some sort of creature staring him down. That’s what it felt like. Something strange, a UFO arriving to abduct him. 

He turned behind him to look at the station wall, watched the red lights move slowly and steadily in row and then stop like soldiers marching, and saw his shadow. It broke up the even line of red streaks, his form strange and frustrating to him but so interesting as it disturbed the uniformity of the lights. It moved with him when he raised his arms and legs, and he held up a hand and made a little shadow puppet in it. He hadn’t seen a shadow in 13 years. 

The train’s doors slid open. 

Wilbur had no idea what to expect, but he clambered onto the train as fast as he could despite it all. He didn’t fucking care. The air was different in the train, it was less stagnant. It felt like he was actually breathing. Maybe he was. 

His breath was sucked out from him though when he locked eyes with the ghost of himself standing next to him in the train car. He wasn’t saying anything, just crying; his tears thick and ultramarine blue as they fell onto the metal floor. Wilbur just stared at him, and the ghost stared back. After what felt like eternity- or maybe only a second, the ghost stepped out of the train, and onto the platform, its tears dripping after it. A realization came to him at that moment. If his ghost was entering the station…. then surely that meant he would be taking his place… in the world of the living. He was going home.

He continued to stare out the doors at his ghost, and it gave a little wave and a very small smile. Wilbur found himself waving back despite himself. He wanted to talk- had so many things to say, so much to ask- but still his voice wouldn’t find him. And as the train whistle blew, and the doors slid shut, Wilbur watched as the ghost’s legs gave out beneath it, and it slipped down to the tile floor, where he had been for 13 years. He almost felt bad. Almost. But he was going back- he was going back.

He was going back.

Feeling the train begin to move, he stumbled into a seat, and watched out the windows into the pitch black void. Wilbur fully expected to be sent back into the station, a quick roundabout trip much like when he ran down the tracks. 

But he didn’t end up back at the station.

Instead, he braced himself as the train picked up speed. He felt his heart start to hammer in his chest- or was that a normal heartbeat? He gripped the pole in front of him and stared at his hands. They glowed red in the light of the train, like he was covered in blood. Maybe he was bleeding. He couldn’t bleed in Limbo, he figured that out within the first week.

And as the train continued, the colors shifted away from the searing red into a light cool gray. Like morning, he thought to himself. His whole body started to hurt. 

Hurt. His body hurt. He was feeling something.

But his body hurt a lot, he realized, and he looked down at his hands again. The left one was still red, but the lights had changed. It wasn’t red in the cabin. He realized again that it was blood. He was bleeding. He was bleeding on his left arm. He turned, craning his neck to see the blood seeping through his brown coat, and he sat there mesmerized by it. 

The train whistle blew again, and the car began to rattle like airplane turbulence. He gripped the pole tighter, the blood from his arm drying and making his hand stick to the metal. He felt everything get faster and faster, and just when he was about to fall out of his seat, when it became too much for him-

Wilbur sat up.

Looking down, he saw his hands pressed into the gravel of a destroyed stone room. He dug his fingers into it, feeling the stones poke and jab at his hands, the blood from his arm pooling down and mixing into the rocks. He spent a good minute just feeling the ground before finally pushing himself up. Standing, he stared perplexed at the shrine next to him. Peering down at it, he saw a chest labeled “For Wilbur”, and a L’manberg flag hung in the center. Was it a grave… for him?

It was his grave. He was standing next to his own grave. A strange, inhuman sound petered up through his body, and though he knew it was a surprised laugh, it sounded like a sickly child’s wheeze.

But despite the blissful levels of joy at breathing in air into his lungs, and feeling the ground beneath him shift- he wasn’t used to uneven ground, not with the perfectly flat tile of the station- he was confused, terrifyingly so. 

Why was he back? Why was he brought back? It had been so long- why now? Who decided he was worthy of coming back- after everything he had done? Who deemed him worthy?

He heard blocks being mined, and after a moment Tommy met his eyes. Tommy stood there, white in his hair, thick cardigan buttoned snugly around him, pale, cold looking hands tightly gripping the lead of a blue sheep, eyes wide with what looked like pure terror, and he gasped. 

Wilbur fought for his voice to work. He had been the entire train ride- trying to get something, anything out- but he had no luck. So he forced himself, vocal chords unused and scratchy, voice quiet, and he said,

“Hello again.”

[lazyliars]

/rp

Before I get into it, I want to state that is EXPLICITLY an analysis of the Characters, and is not intended to touch on how the cc’s played them in a meta sense unless specifically stated otherwise.

Also, this is technically a part two to my other post, which took a more in depth look at Techno and Phil’s reactions to Tommy’s death. It’s not necessary when reading this post, but I don’t address their reactions here.

So. The question must be asked.

Are we [the Syndicate] the baddies?

Yes.

The End.

 Why are the Syndicate the baddies?

They got damn logo is a wither skull.

The End.

That's not how this works.

Yeah, yeah. You’re right.

The Syndicate's goals as an organization are not inherently bad. They seem to have good intentions behind them, and the focus on the freedom of it's individual group members is important to remember when talking about it; It is not a government. There is no hierarchical power system. No one is forced to do anything against their will, or surrender any of their rights or power to remain a member. It is not a government.

I also want to address Techno and Phil backing Ranboo into a corner – I see them getting a lot of flack for this, but I personally do not think it is relevant to the greater discussion, or necessarily representative of any contradictions within the organization. It was clearly played for laughs, and after they back off they clarify to Ranboo that they won't force him. Then later when Phil and Ranboo are alone, Ranboo feels safe enough to express that he felt like he was pressured into it, and Phil assures him he is allowed to leave whenever he wants; He is not being forced to do anything, and he is not being coerced or blackmailed.

None of the Syndicate members have done any wrongs against each other in the context of the Syndicate, OR gone against any of the Syndicate's core principles.

That, said, holy shit are they the baddies.

Listen, there's trying to telegraph a meaning or message to the audience and then there's having your logo be wither skulls on blackstone. That is straight out of the skit I keep referencing, seriously.

Okay, but, they laughed at it! It was played as a joke, just like the Ranboo thing!

The Ranboo thing was improv, the Syndicate's headquarters were planned – the artistic choices that they made reflect on what role they want the build and the organization inhabiting it to play in the future storylines.

Wither Skulls kind of have some CONNOTATIONS. Techno is an English major, I don't think he chose the most threatening imagery possible on accident, and then joked about the way people would interpret it just to stir the pot. This reads as hugely intentional.

And beyond that, the jokes they make during this part aren't “haha yeah, we look bad but we're actually good!” they're “you can tell by looking at these that we're the good guys wink wink, this is good guy stuff right here :)” It is a joke about how they are definitely not the good guys. This isn't even a case of unreliable narrators, this is one step down from flat out saying the meta intent.

But okay, I hear you, I'm talking about things that haven't happened yet. The Syndicate hasn't used any Withers, they could be an aesthetic choice.  Lets look at what they do in practice.

So, they barge into private property, assess Snowchester's right to continue existing based entirely on their own ideals of what Freedom is, and then only once Tubbo assures them that they have no standing leader do they grant the place their approval to, and I gotta stress this part, continue existing.

 In my Quackity meta, I already talked about how Government in the context of a M1necraft RP cannot be compared to IRL Governments on a one-to-one scale. They don't serve the same purposes or have the same type of power. What I didn't talk about was Agency in the context of m1necraft governments.

In an irl government, if you are born into one, you can't really leave without committing a massive overhaul on your life, which can be expensive and difficult, if not impossible for many people. Even in a “benevolent” government, the simple physicality of where you were born can prevent you from leaving it easily.

The same hurdles do not exist in the Dream SMP. People who join M1necraft governments choose to. They want to, either at the beginning when they form one, or later on when they join up. So far, no Government has just Sprung Up and forced the current residents of an area to become dependent on them, except maybe the Eggpire, who's status as a government is... shakey.

And even when people want to leave or separate from the government, they have been historically able to do so without any trouble or any effort from said governments to stop them. Jack Manifold emancipated from Manberg. Fundy and Quackity both left to start new nations. In all cases they were allowed to do so without any attempts on the part of the governments to stop them, either through force, or institutions preventing them from doing so.

The most anyone has lost when leaving a government is their house, which is still usually their property anyway, and is something that is easily rebuilt elsewhere and is inconvenient to move anyway.

The only exceptions to this might be Schlatt exiling Wilbur and Tommy - but even then, they weren’t trying to leave, they were trying to get back in, and of course the original L’manberg revolution, where Dream attempted to force L’manberg back into the Dream SMP, which wasn’t even a government at that point in time.

I don’t consider Phil’s house arrest an example of a government forcing someone to stay a citizen - that was treated less as a matter of a citizen wanting to leave the country and more as a threat to national security. Still pretty fucked up, but it’s a different issue.

What I'm saying is, If Tubbo wants to create a government out in the middle of nowhere, threatening no one, forcing no one to join either through force or desperation, and allowing people to join willingly because they want to, then he should be allowed to do that.

The Irony of the Syndicate, a group of people consisting of some of the richest, strongest people on the server, going around and enforcing 'Freedom' that entails no one person having more power than any other, is absurd. 

It shows an extreme lack of self-awareness and/or self-righteousness, as they seem to think that they deserve to be the ones who decide what constitutes a government.

Snowchester is a small independent nation - they shouldn’t have to live in fear of being obliterated if they don’t walk on eggshells to meet an arbitrary standard decided by people who’s only authority on the matter COMES FROM THEIR PERSONAL POWER. No one elected them! No one chose them! They were not “approved” by the server at large to enact this kind of law.

The Syndicate are not a government, but they are an unsupervised power structure exerting their ideals on a land that did not ask for them. Like, These people have invented an actual Authoritarian-Anarchist faction. How the hell did they manage this?????

Back on topic.

Tubbo shows them the crater left by his nukes. The reaction is oddly positive – the nukes are fine by the morals of the Syndicate, apparently. I'd argue that they come across as more impressed than anything else; they seem to respect Tubbo for having gotten ahold of “real” power.

(There's a few good memes out there about “We can excuse nuclear weaponry, but we draw the line at Government!”)

So. By the Syndicate's standards: A single person or group of acceptably equal persons with weapons of mass-destruction are only worth “keeping an eye on” because they might provoke other people.

Like, I consider Project Dreamcatcher to be one of, if not the most morally ambiguous thing Tubbo has ever done, largely because it was all on his own initiative. He holds some culpability for The Butcher Army and Phil's house arrest, but they weren't his ideas and he was mostly following Quackity at that point.

And Phil tells Tubbo, IMMEDIATELY AFTER SEEING THE NUCLEAR CRATER:

“Looks like you've reformed a little bit Tubbo, I'm proud.”

And it's fine. Crimes against nature? Fine. A sign of healing in fact!! Tubbo is having a sweeeelll time and he definitely didn't make these nukes specifically in fear of being attacked by these exact people! Tubbo is doing great. Tubbo is doing fine. Tubbo. is. FINE.

Anyway.

I don't think this presentation of the Syndicate was an accident. Looking at the greater lore of SMP right now, after the Egg is done, their list of enemies is slim, and considering that they seem solely invested in taking down governments, that leaves maybe Snowchester, Kinoko Kingdom, and Eret and the greater Dream SMP.

Snowchester has not been shown to be corrupt, evil, or have any intent to go down that route. The most ambiguous thing they've done is, again, is the nukes. Other than that, it's pretty much your average cottagecore snow village.

Kinoko is presented in an even more morally 'good' light, Karl having founded it specifically for his Time-travel library purposes, which are currently being treated by the narrative as a selfless act, if not downright heroic.

Eret is also a fairly 'good' aligned character atm. He's been on that redemption grind since the og betrayal, and doesn't seem keen on backtracking. He's actively tried to leverage his position as king to make things better, and hasn't been quiet about that. He was also 'validated' by Tommy*, a character who has been described both by his allies and enemies as “the hero,” so take that as you will.

What I'm getting at is, all of the current potential enemies for the Syndicate aside from the Egg, are currently being cast as 'good,' and if they were to be attacked, they would undoubtedly have the moral high-ground, unless something drastically changed.

The only potential shakeups I can think of is are a Dream escape and/or a Wilbur revival, both of which could draw the Syndicate's attention and ire, depending on how things go. That said, it's just as likely that either or both of them would join the Syndicate – Dream still has that favor, and Phil and Techno both seemed to think Wilbur would've agreed with their blowing up L'manberg.

Both of those characters are currently **villains – the fact that they're both prime candidates for the Syndicate is a huge indication of the direction it's going to go as the plot moves forward.

((*I know some people are gonna come at me for painting Tommy as the “deciding factor” of what is morally good, so lemme just stop you there. I'm not talking about Tommy somehow having the 'right' to decide who is and isn't good, and definitely not the right to decide who should and shouldn't be king. I'm saying that Tommy, a character who the narrative treats as, if not a good person, then a person who is trying to be good, was in support of Eret, a character who has also been trying to be good.

Eret doesn't gain the moral highground because Tommy said so, he gets it because a character who the narrative treats as trying to do better, acknowledged Eret's earnest attempts at doing the same.

**I'm referring to Wilbur here as a villain because Tommy seemed convinced he would be if he were to be brought back. There is always the possibility that he's wrong.))

So, to summarize this: I read the Syndicate as being intentionally positioned as future antagonists, if not outright villains of a future arc. They are NOT a Government but their goals are contradictory with their means, and it is important to keep in mind that they plan to enforce their own brand of freedom on people who did not grant them either the authority or permission to do so.

So, uh. Can you tell I loved these streams? They were seriously so good. I kept switching between Ranboo and Techno's POV's trying to keep up with everything. I still have to watch Niki's!

All in all, I'm super, super excited for whats coming next, egg stuff, Syndicate stuff, Tommy stuff, all of it.

[ruby-whistler]

I feel like if we really want to take a closer look at the topic of c!Dream’s obsession with c!Tommy, we have to look into both his reasons for it, and the tactics he employs to achieve his goals concerning it.

[ /dsmp /roleplay I did not tag this that way but this entire analysis is hugely c!Dream critical and focuses on the various facets of his manipulation, so if you’re not in the mood to read that, you have been warned not to. ]

Interestingly enough, before the SMP was actual heavy roleplay, back during the original disc war, the reason c!Dream listed for keeping the discs was to use them as bargaining chips, because he knew c!Tommy wanted them back, as they were hard items to get at the time, and knew he could use them for that purpose.

He had just gotten mugged and repeatedly killed by c!Tommy, who had also participated in a conflict beforehand, and only gave a half-hearted apology in the end. He had also seen him cause problems on the server before that. The discs were meant to be something he would threaten to destroy if c!Tommy started acting out of line, because he didn’t trust him to keep his word and wanted a guarantee. That was the reason he insisted on keeping the discs after getting his armor back, which is why he originally stole them.

And I feel like c!Dream’s train of thought, while skewed and twisted with irrational mindsets, is rather straightforward in essence. Conflict is what he actively stands against and what stops him from having a united server, hence in his mind, he needs to destroy things that bring conflict, and control what he can’t or doesn’t want to destroy. He thinks c!Tommy brings conflict, so he feels like he needs to find ways to control him.

Sure, we all know about the systematic abuse and isolation he employed to make c!Tommy believe he was his friend, but one of his major tactics since the beginning has also been intimidation, or a particular type of manipulation that leads to people fearing him or thinking that he has more power than he actually does. In his mind, if people are scared of him, they’re much more likely to listen to him. And the most fascinating thing is that it works.

During the initial exile conflict, despite him being just a single person with no official political power, he assures victory by aggressively, and very intelligently, threatening his way through the negotiations. c!Tubbo is scared of him, and that is not a coincidence. It’s purposeful.

Seeing as he planned to give L’Manberg technical independence either way - he said that there was no real way for him to stop them from pursuing that anyways, so that wasn’t the intention - even the war seems like a very likely ploy to make the revolutionaries fear him enough so that they wouldn’t start conflict after seceding. c!Wilbur is careful not to start anything with the Greater Dream SMP after this, because c!Dream has shown that he can and will ruin them if they do. c!Tubbo also knows exactly the lengths c!Dream will go to if he promises war thanks to this, and that if he says he’ll build a wall and keep them from leaving it with force, he’s going to do it. When c!Tubbo is faced with an ultimatum, seeing as his goal is to keep New L’Manberg safe and peaceful, he knows he has no option but to give in.

Another variation of this tactic is making himself seem more dangerous and unpredictable than he actually is and obscuring his motivation. If people don’t know what he wants, they are less able to devise effective tactics to stop him from getting it. The element of surprise is something that he utilizes constantly throughout warfare, and psychological battling is no different. For instance, during Doomsday he begins talking about how the server will “be at peace now” thanks to L’Manberg being gone, before c!Tommy barges in, and begins implying he did this all because he hates him.

DREAM Tommy… Look. In all destruction *looks at the falling TNT* there is a new beginning.

TOMMY You- you did this…! To all of us! Not just to me, but to everyone here…!

DREAM Beautiful. You know… the unfinished symphony, right?

…

TOMMY Why…?

DREAM The server will be at peace now.

TOMMY Why, Dream…?

DREAM Because I didn’t-

TOMMY Couldn’t you just- couldn’t you just burn the discs…? Couldn’t you just do it to me? Why did you have to…?

DREAM This is much more fun.

[ credits to @dsmptranscripts on twitter ]

Although c!Dream’s motivation for destroying L’Manberg was actually that, much like with c!Tommy, he thought that it bred conflict and division, he picks up on this and switches to saying how he did indeed do this all to hurt c!Tommy because he finds it fun.

He talks very inconsistently plenty of times, but it’s rather easy to spot a pattern of him being honest about his motives with his allies but straight up lying to his enemies. This makes sense, and it is usually employed as a deliberate tactic.

Intimidation is something he also uses to manipulate people during his time in prison. Ever since he got locked up, it became a mental fight. If people fully realized that he was powerless to stop them from hurting or killing him, his life only hanging by a thin strand on the concept of the revive book, he would’ve lost the control he needed to assure his survival.

The difference is that before then, c!Dream had actual physical power, however the manipulation gets harder to pull off when he has none, even with people he finds naive enough to fall for it. He still risks it because he’s desperate, and has nothing but his own life to lose, which is something he believes to be protected by his possession of the revival book. He had never been big on self-preservation besides staying alive to reach his goals.

He first tries this on c!Sam, who, rather unpredictably, begins to get morally corrupted by the power he has over c!Dream, on top of other factors. c!Dream talks to c!Sam about exile and about c!Tommy because logically, if he’s afraid of him, he’s less likely to try to hurt or kill him. This backfires because this new, unexpected version of c!Sam begins to fiercely hate c!Dream instead, hurting him further.

The same thing happens with c!Tommy - when he realizes that he can’t influence him through repeated visits anymore, he attempts to scare him into obedience again. He establishes himself as someone dangerous who has the power to escape and hurt c!Tommy as well as his friends, which he hopes will subconsciously sway him to not do things that he would disagree with. We can see him pretending to be the one in control throughout the stream after c!Tommy first got revived.

He also tells him that he can bring back the person who he’s afraid of the most and get him on his side, which is precisely the bit that ends up backfiring, but it doesn’t really matter, and trying was still the best thing he could’ve logically done.

If he hadn’t, at some point people would realize he actually has no power at all, and pay back the fear he’d instilled in them previously. This happens with c!Quackity, who began to take advantage of c!Dream’s lack of control as soon as he realized how easy it was to strip away the last bit of power he has, which is also keeping him alive.

Getting back on track, c!Dream essentially tries to control c!Tommy first by manipulating him into believing he is his friend, then believing he is a threat to him when that fails. We can see this from the way the Finale is prepared to be somewhat of a final showdown between the two, and also by him actually revealing the tactics he used to employ during exile, for example talking about taking away the invites to the party and not actually being his friend. This also proves he knew exactly what he was doing during that time, and he could easily switch between tactics because the end goal of controlling c!Tommy was more important to him than what c!Tommy thought of him.

And that’s it.

It’s all just a ploy to control him because he finds him one of the hardest people to stop from causing conflict.

Controlling him is as important to c!Dream as destroying L’Manberg and dethroning c!George and collecting people’s attachments, because what is important to him is achieving his goals through whatever means necessary, not the means themselves.

As for people, while he has no desire to actually kill them - or feels he cannot, because they could still be useful to his plans in the future - he treats them as either tools or obstacles he needs to deal with, especially if they ever get in the way of his plans, and he isn’t particularly attached to them. He does this to himself as well, and doesn’t seem to care about his own well-being or reputation as long as he achieves what he wants. While he’s focused on the ends to his means, that is the only thing that is important to him.

You could argue this does stem from thinking of the people he wants the server to be united for as important, since cc!Dream said his goals are for “everyone to get along”, but that doesn’t change the fact that the ways in which he works towards that goal doesn’t treat others’ or his own feelings as consequential at all. In the case of people who stand against him, their entire well-being is put to the side until what needs to be done in his mind gets done.

c!Dream isn’t “scared” of c!Tommy per se, nor does he seem to be obsessed with the guy himself, but he finds him something necessary to get out of the way to accomplish his goals, and he does so, ruthlessly as ever.

And even though the goal of eradicating conflict and uniting the server is something that he is so focused on that it could definitely be called an obsession, c!Tommy really isn’t that important within the equation at all.

This wasn’t a post to excuse or downplay any of his actions, nor do I agree with the “logical” thoughts I mentioned. There is a reason why I used phrases like “he finds” “in his eyes” “he thinks” “in his mind” “he feels like” a whole lot throughout this essay.

The character has an extremely flawed worldview that I in no way agree with (and although that should probably be pretty obvious, you really don’t know with this fandom). All this post is for is to analyse certain traits that are assigned to him, and figure out through logical reasoning whether they’re a mischaracterization or not.

And as far as the evidence goes; c!Dream isn't obsessed with c!Tommy, he is obsessed with his goal, and he sees Tommy as a big obstacle to achieving it, which makes him focus on him. These feelings he puts on display are an illusion to distract people from his real goal so they don't know how to get in his way - because, just like cc!Dream said, he “likes to withhold information; withhold plans; and withhold feelings” from everyone else.

[stellocchia]

So, since we got that revival stream there are A LOT of takes that I’ve been seeing popping up regarding c!Wilbur. From straight up wrong takes like “he was worse then Dream” and “he manipulated Dream and made him a villain” to some more understandable but still very much wrong takes like: “Willbur was never a villain” and “Wilbur’s mental health spiral means we cannot identify him as a villain”

Since I’ve already spoken on other posts of mine about the first kind of statement, I want to focus on the second today. 

Let me preface this by saying that c!Wilbur is most definitely not an irredeemable character (a redemption arc for him is most definitely POSSIBLE, though we’ve gotten quite a lot of clues by now that that’s not the route cc!Wilbur seems to want to go down). I honestly think that the only TRULY irredeemable character in the smp ic c!Dream and that’s because of a mix between the level of harm he caused and his reaction and motivation for it. 

BUT he was a villain. A sympathetic one for sure, but a villain nonetheless. Being redeemable doesn’t make him any less of one, just like having understandable motivations or his harmful actions being a response to trauma or mental health related problems doesn’t make his actions and their consequences any less severe.

I mean I don’t see anyone out here having a problem with calling c!Jack a villain even if the harmful actions he tried to do or did are responses to isolation and trauma, why is Wilbur different when he’s caused much more harm? 

Same with Niki: we all recognized that her planning and trying to kill a child in cold blood was most definitely villanous even with her being extremely sympathetic. And, once again, she suffered from similar conditions to those Wilbur was in: a lack of a system of support, loosing her country, isolation in a base underground and we can add loosing a dear friend to that for her. So why don’t we give her a pass for everything? Why isn’t (well, wasn’t, she seems to be better off now that she is with the syndacate) she JUST a tragic charact but ALSO a villainous one?

Well it all comes down to the goal and the impact of someone’s actions. While the declining mental health of a character is important to keep in mind when deciding if they’re sympathetic and to understand what motivate their actions, it’s irrelevant to establish if they’re a villain. 

Let’s take c!Jack again as an example: he griefed multiple buildings trying to pit Dream and Tommy against each other, pre Tommy’s exile, and cause an all out war between them because Tommy’s actions had caused (in Jack’s mind of course, as what Dream did is entirely Dream’s responsability and in no way the fault of Tommy) Dream to burn down part of Manifold Land. He was angry at both of them in an understandable way, but his goals and actions were both immoral. And his actions didn’t cause harm ONLY because Tommy had already been exiled, otherwise they could have been taken by Dream as a reason to exile him either way later on. 

Now, for another example, c!Quackity: his announced goal with him torturing c!Dream is taking away the power that grants him the ability to harm others while still within Pandor’a Vault. But, truth be told, he IS mostly doing it for selfish reasons, either be it because he lost a bet to Schlatt or because this IS part of the bet it’s still a completely callous reason for torturing someone. The person he is harming is undeniably a villain who’s hurt a lot of people, but that’s irrelevant when judging the morality of Quackity’s action. 

Now let’s talk about Wilbur’s actions:

- He abused and manipulated Tommy, there is no way around it. He was extremely verbally abusive towards him. He tried to isolate him from everyone else and he tried to control Tommy’s emotional responses. He’s still doing that as a matter of fact by straight up dismissing any emotional response Tommy has that doesn’t suit him (by, for example, ignoring his clear signs of dicomfort back during their conversation post season 2 finale and by ignoring and making fun of his panic attack in their discussion in the afterlife). We know this caused long term trauma for Tommy causing him to have night terrorse about him and being terrified of ever becoming anything like Wilbur. Trying to find a way to avoid Wilbur’s path was basically Tommy’s whole arc in season 2. 

- He retained vital informations from Techno (retaining information from him about his allies, and from his allies about him). This one is a bit more up for discussion to be honest, but Ive seen quite a few people make the point that Wilbur made sure that the info he gave Techno was the only one he had about Pogtopia’s intetions. He also was the only one who knew about Techno’s withers and about his anarchists ideals and he never revealed them to ther allies, which definitely helped in causing the rift later on.

- He mistreated Tubbo quite a lot as well (the whole scene at the festival is just painful). But, basically, he had him spy for them and basically treated him as a pawn. He described him, to his face, as just a “yes man” with no free will of his own. Then he used his death just to bring forth discord and violence between his allies. He also pushed on him all the pressure to decide on wether to blow up the country or not. 

- He kept keeping L’Manburg hostage to his allies, increasing the already incredible pressure on them immensely. When Schlatt said he moved the tnt to Pogtopia he started doing the same with that place by constantly clicking all the random buttons while they were all trying to plan. That is blackmail my dudes. Blackmail done to an extreme.

- There is the whole pit scene that deserves a point on it’s own where he literally kept spurring on both Techno and Tommy (all the while blatantly putting down Tommy in an extremely manipulative way) to beat each other to death (albeit non-canonically). Re-watch that one and pay close attention to him if you have any doubt about him being abusive towards Tommy.

- And, for last, he also did blow up L’Manburg and he had fully intended to do it also as a last slight towards Tommy, just to add on to how much of a d*ck he was to him.

It’s true that he needed help and that he had spirald. He had become self-destructive and paranoid, but that DOESN’T erase what he has done, nor what that paint him as. His actions were all done with the spcific goal of being harmful to others and have all had long lasting effects. He hurt A LOT of people. He is, by all intents and purposes, a villain. 

Also I want to add that if they do give him a redemtion arc it will have to be done carefully to be done well. And also none of the people he hurt with his actions should be forced to forgive him. As a matter of fact I’ll go further and say that Tommy in particular shouldn’t even be forced to TALK to him as he has already expressed extreme concern about ending up being manipulated again. No matter what he went through and what his mental state was, none of his victims owe him any understanding either.

[prismartist]

/rp

okay. if the c!tommy apologists and c!dream haters come after me for this, then so be it.

tommy shouldn’t kill dream. not just because of basic moral decency, but also because, from an outsider perspective, he quite literally has no reason to. because really, it will just do no good to anyone, including tommy.

(uh please keep in mind this is /nm, even if it doesn’t seem like it lmao i’m just a bit sassy for some reason)

tommy’s belief that he should get rid of dream comes from a mix of paranoia resulting from his trauma and the hero complex that was instilled in him since forever. he’s looking through an extremely muddled and biased lens. he’s convinced dream is going to break out when in reality, dream is fucking powerless! he may be unhinged and he may be dangerous, but he can’t do shit in the prison. he has no one to use the revival knowledge on, and they have stated time and time again that it is literally impossible for him to break out without assistance. and if any of y’all start to mention enderboo, let me remind you that the theory of enderboo being manipulated by dream isn’t canon. even if it was, you would think that he would have gotten out by now because really, dream would want to get out asap, yet he’s been in there for three months now.

and about what i said about dream not being able to get out unless with help? it’s actually quite possible that, in entering pandora’s vault, tommy might accidentally let him out. 

(there are wilbur parallels here! would you look at that! hey remember the last time wilbur gave in to his paranoia and ended up hurting a lot of people? hope that doesn’t happen again ahahah-)

also, doesn’t tommy realize that he’s deteriorating his own mental health in trying to achieve this? i mean that should be obvious the moment he tried exposure therapy. he always thinks he has to confront dream to make things even when he really doesn’t. like he reaaaallly doesn’t. he’s trying to keep up his hero complex even when it fucks him over. remember the last time he tried confronting dream? that didn’t work out so well now did it?

not to mention, tommy is just giving dream power but stubbornly facing him over and over again. because he keeps getting beat up! he keeps giving dream something to play with! and that’s been the case the entire time!! there’s a reason dream only ever targets tommy, and only tommy.

riffing off that, tommy thinks dream will hurt everyone on the server when that’s kind of misguided as well?? dream’s main priority has always been keeping tommy in line. anytime he targets anything else, it’s because he sees them as extensions of tommy. l’manburg, the discs, tubbo. even if dream does get out, even if he resurrects wilbur, it’ll just be because he’ll be after tommy. which, yeah that’s terrible for tommy, but he’s not endangering the entirety of the server.

“so what do you suggest we do about dream?” nothing! you can do nothing!! i mean quackity’s already doing a pretty damn good job of beating him up (even though he really shouldn’t) or you can give him some therapy perhaps?? someone unbiased to talk to?? just don’t send in the clearly traumatized 16-year-old to do the work himself!! he’s in no position to kill anyone, much less face his abuser.

also there’s the argument that killing anyone no matter what is unlawful but for some reason y’all don’t seem to take that as seriously as the other points. which, fine, i’m not going to try convincing y’all otherwise, i’m just going to say that there’s a weird dissonance in saying tommy’s murder isn’t justifiable while dream’s possible one is, when both are results of trauma build-up, muddled points of view and a strong belief that the victim is the cause of all their problems. but one is more correct than the other ig (/s).

also can we stop. othering abusers and treating them as irredeemable? there’s a good post that explains this in depth but basically targeting abusers doesn’t help anything because it’s not actually tackling the root of the problem, that is, the system that molded them into abusers, and so just by punishing the abusers themselves and making them worse that doesn’t help to prevent other abusers and dehumanizes them.

now i’m not saying it’s not understandable why tommy thinks these things. it is! as i said, it’s a result of his upbringing thinking that violence is the only solution to your problems as well as the hero complex forced upon him. plus the obvious trauma caused by dream and co. i’m just saying that he’s making a big mistake by targeting dream when he’s posing no threat at the moment. also murder is problematic. 

now the only reason why i would like for tommy to confront dream and attempt to murder him is that it would be an interesting storyline, and it would be extremely intriguing to see tommy’s train of thought while he executes his plan. but in-lore, i don’t think it’s going to be a positive experience in any way shape or form. he’s just endangering himself and dream rather than protecting everyone else. and i wouldn’t want dream to die from a meta standpoint; i feel like that’d be a waste of his character, that we weren’t able to see his pov before he gets ousted out of the storyline for good. especially since he’s the one who started the server.

TL;DR tommy shouldn’t murder dream, not only is it not supposed to be justifiable but facing him would probably have serious consequences on his mental health.

[dsmp-shitposts]

OKAY I'm in an analysis mood so!!

Here's why "Savior" by Rise Against is such a good song about c!wilbur and c!Tommy's relationship in the dream smp!

Firstly tho I just want to give an honorable mention to the first lines of the song: "it kills me not to know this / but I've all but just forgotten / what the color of her eyes were / or the scars and how she got them." it's such a good c!bee duo line and I might have to analyze it in another post lol

(there's kinda a tldr at the bottom if you don't want to read the specific lyric analysis and just was the overall analysis!)

The lyrics I want to analyze (these are more about characterization) are: "as the telling signs of age rain down / a single tear is dropping / through the valleys of an aging face / that this world has forgotten." this is about wilburs resurrection. the first lyrics, "as the telling signs of age rain down" are about how much more different Wilbur looks to Tommy after he was resurrected. wilbur was in limbo for what he perceived to be 13 years, and he shows it physically. he has the white streak of hair that signifies his revival, and I know there's a popular headcanon that wilbur came back "wrong." "A single tear is dropping" is referring to Tommy's reaction to the revival. we know he was in disbelief and even angry at wilbur being back, but intense emotions also can bring on tears. it's a very natural response from your body. The third line is pretty much the same as the first, but "that this world has forgotten" is about wilburs impact on the history of the smp. obviously he's been a very big player in many major plot points, but since his death he has mainly faded to the background in most characters minds, especially after ghostbur's library with all the records from lmanberg got destroyed. as the smp progressed, wilbur got talked about less. focus shifted from him to dream who really emerged as the villain in the story after wilburs death. we can see the impact of this after wilburs revival. everyone on the smp had gotten used to living without him for so long, growing past the people they were when Wilbur was alive. and now when Wilbur gets revived, he expected fanfare and everyone welcoming him back, but in reality people's memory of him faded.

okay now that we have the preface lyrics, we can go into the ones that are more about tommy and Wilbur as a duo. the first ones before the chorus are "but seldom do these words ring true / when I'm constantly failing you / walls that we just can't break through / until we disappear." I'm gonna analyze this with the first two lines and the last two. the first two lines are from Tommy's perspective about him trying to constantly please wilbur. we see this with him gathering lots of stone for him and following Wilbur to stand against Las nevadas and quackity. but even with all of this, Tommy still feels like he's "constantly failing" wilbur and that he needs to do more in order to stay in high regard in Wilbur's mind. we could even look at these same lyrics from wilbur's perspective! wilbur might have felt like he's failed Tommy for not being there for him for the time he was in limbo. I know Wilbur doesn't know about what dream did to Tommy in the exile arc, but I'm betting that if/when wilbur finds out about that, he will feel horrible for not being there himself to stop dream because wilbur cares about Tommy. (this could even lead to him resenting ghostbur more because ghostbur was there but wasn't able to do anything). now with the second half of these lyrics, the "walls that we just can't break through" is referring to the emotional vulnerability, or lack thereof, between the two. I'd argue that wilbur is more emotionally vulnerable to Tommy than Tommy is to wilbur. now, there is a severe lack of communication between the two, but wilbur drops "trauma bombs" where he'll unload something all at once and suddenly. he doesn't do much internal reflection of his feelings, instead wanting to share with others, Tommy in this case, to get validation. with sharing, he wants people to agree that he's a bad person but at the same time wants them to refute those ideas so he feels like he's healing without actually doing anything. now Tommy does more introspection about his feelings (cc! Tommy monologuing) and doesn't feel as big a need as wilbur to share his feelings and trauma. and besides, Wilbur dominates the conversation most of the time anyways so Tommy wouldn't likely be able to carry a constructive conversation about his own feelings without getting talked over by wilbur.

now we're moving onto the chorus! it goes: "that's when she said / 'I don't hate you / I just want to save you / while there's still something left to save' / that's when I told her 'i love you / but I'm not the answer / for the questions that you still have.'" I see this as a conversation between Wilbur and Tommy; Tommy saying the "I don't hate you" section and Wilbur saying the "I love you" section. it's important for Tommy to make it clear to wilbur, and himself, that he doesn't hate Wilbur despite his past betrayal of lmanberg. wilbur thinks everyone hates him, so Tommy consistently sticking by his side is a reminder to Wilbur that he isn't alone. Tommy staying by wilburs side is also how he's ensuring that wilbur doesn't spiral again ("I just want to save you"). he knows that wilbur still isn't in the best mental place, not having the right environment to heal in limbo, so it's more crucial in his mind to be wilbur's crutch right now because it'd be very easy for wilbur to spiral again ("while there's still something left to save"). wilbur, with his part of the lyrics, wants to ensure that Tommy knows he still cares about him despite being gone for a long time. now for the last part of wilburs lyrics, I would love for it to mean that "wilbur understands that he can't be a good mentor to Tommy anymore because of everything that happened. he wants Tommy to realize that he does care for him but their relationship shouldn't function with Wilbur as a mentor anymore," but that wouldn't be accurate to their canon relationship. wilbur still wants to be Tommy's mentor because that's how their relationship has always functioned. my hope is that in wilbur's healing process that he realizes he doesn't have to be a mentor to Tommy, they can just exist as friends. and I would love for Tommy to realize that it's not his job to save Wilbur! while having friends you can talk about your emotions with is good, he shouldn't have to push his own feelings aside to prioritize wilbur's. wilbur also needs to learn that self reflection is a part of healing

the final specific lyrics I want to analyze are: "one thousand miles away / there's nothing left to say / but so much left that I don't know / we never had a choice / this world is too much noise / it takes me under once again." the first three lines, in my opinion, all relate to the fact that Tommy had gone through so much while wilbur was dead, such has dream's manipulation. the last three lines of this section, which are honestly my favorites, are relating to both of their revivals. even though wilbur and Tommy have developed so differently since the lmanberg and pogtopia eras, they have this one thing in common. Tommy didn't have a choice in his death or resurrection. both were committed by dream and have contributed to the massive amount of trauma and PTSD that Tommy has. wilburs death was practically by his own hand as it was an assisted suicide, but his resurrection wasn't his choice, again done by dream murdering ghostbur. that line could also refer to wilbur not feeling like he had a choice in living anymore, feeling like death was the only option for him at the end of his spiral. the last two lines refer to the mental problems that both Wilbur and Tommy are still facing. we talked about wilburs a bit with his need for validation and him villainizing himself in his mind. Tommy still struggles with suicidal ideation, seen most recently with his comments while on the balcony in Las nevadas. he also struggles with his triggers from the final control room and the prison that we see him try and speedrun exposure therapy for. what I'm trying to get at with this is that wilbur and Tommy have developed so differently while away from each other but they have their resurrections in common.

OKAY CONCLUSION TIME!! (also kindof a tldr)

while Tommy and wilbur have been apart from each other for a while and developed in different ways, their relationship after both of them have been revived is centered around both of their relationships to healing from their trauma. Tommy feels like he's the one who has to "save" wilbur and keep him from spiraling again, letting his own feelings be pushed aside to prioritize wilbur's. wilbur lets himself be the saved to Tommy's savior. he consistently seeks out validation for his own feelings instead of taking the time to sort out how he really feels about the things that have happened to him.

if you read this far then oh wow thank you!! I hope this made sense and I'd love to hear what you think of the comparisons to this song!

[relaxxattack]

ayo! (wait this might be a bit of a jumpscare dishdks i apologize) i’m op of That Post and was wondering what your opinions were on the whole woobification thing? /gen

because it’s a Tiny Bit widespread within the dream apologists to sort of,, overdramatize stuff like l’manberg hurting him. like they’re not a 100% wrong but if you look at it subjectively you can see some sort of bias going into that sort of thing that makes the character’s mistreatment a bit more blatant and intentional which,, it really wasn’t? and there wasn’t That Much of it either. especially on twitter (tumblr is much better about it) people just jump to conclusions it seems and yeah. since you brought it up i was wondering if you wanted to write a bit about it from your perspective!

we’re kinda from different corners of the fandom but i still notice that once you are too attached to a character you start taking certain evidence and giving it more weight than it actually has. there’s a blurry line between “taking away a character’s humanity” and woobification and it’s extremely difficult to find a balance when said character shows pretty much nothing of his emotional life (e. g. putting up the intimidating villain act in front of only c!tommy, pretty much everything he does making rational sense with no emotional subtext) and a lot of the fandom instantly jumps to one side or the other while it’s like.

we don’t know by far enough to say “he’s traumatized” or “he isn’t traumatized” or “he was villainized and it hurt him” or “l’manberg didn’t affect him at all”

as a very analytical person people constantly jumping to conclusions grinds my gears, but that’s about it for my own view of the situation - sorry for the rambling.

in general i agree with you that both dehumanization and woobification is Bad and i really hope getting Actual Context sorts this out (e. g. him saying he was betrayed by his friends doesn’t mean it wasn’t partially his fault or that they were allowed to leave him, but it also shows that he did care about that happening. mentioning the cat doesn’t mean anything about what happened to c!tommy but it also shows that he did care about what happened to it. it’s just always interesting to get more information about the way he feels because he usually does a very good job at hiding it.) because man.

it’s like being stuck between a rock and a hard place, especially if you also are attached to the character and are expected to automatically agree with everything the people on “your side” say. it just ends up with everyone being mad and the character being mischaracterised overall.

oh wow hello! i didnt expect the op of the post to find me you’re right lol

and yes i agree! you seem to have a lot of very good thoughts tbh.

and by woobification, i mean exactly what you’ve already pointed out— the people who will say l’manberg purposely villainized dream, the people who will say wilbur faked his mental illness to manipulate dream, the people who are pretty much always talking about how badly dream was treated by people who were acting only fairly for themselves, usually.

for example people who act like dream was a perfect peacemaker before tommy showed up, or that tommy started most conflict. these are just actual lies that are told by c!dream himself to justify his abuse of tommy, and people fall for them incredibly easily because not a lot of people watched early dsmp and know that truthfully it was chaotic even then, and that dream was chaotic too. not to mention wilbur soot tried very hard to secede peacefully with l’manberg and dream jumped directly into war with no warning. and then people say he was forced into their war when, no, he started it.

theres also people who will say like, dream and sapnap for example are such good friends. i’m sure they cared for each other, but dream on multiple occasions has done horrible things to sapnap with no regard for his feelings (like leading fundy to sapnaps pets during the petwar, leading tommy to sapnaps pets during the other petwar and encouraging him to kill them, handing mars over to tommy to use as leverage against sapnap, etc). george he’s been less awful too but he certainly spoke over him and ignored his feelings enough that george felt hurt. he had places in his hall of attachments for beckerson and mars. george and sapnap were right to walk away from being treated like that.

there’s also what you just said here — “dream puts on a villain persona for tommy”— but honestly he acts like that around quite a few people (example: eret) and it’s usually when he’s revealing crucial info, which leads me and many others to believe that ‘persona’ is actually a more truthful version of him.

there’s the fact that he really isn’t safe for people to be around (or at least he wasn't before the prison) because he was planning to come up with ways to control every single person by stealing and threatening their attachments (some of which were not items but were living animals, or a real breathing person).

and then people will say dream was doing exile to enforce rules, or to keep the peace— when it’s very clear in canon it was a deliberate plan to get tommy on his own and into the prison. (from the way he was framing tommy for multiple crimes, and having sam set up the prison, and kidnapping tommy instead of correctly exiling him, all at the same time).

not even going into how he wants to kill and revive people for fun or make tommy immortal.

it’s just— ignoring all these actual facts and saying “oh he misses his friends, let’s get him some friends now” reminds me of like. when people would put flower crowns on pictures of serial killers. and then, there’s hardly anyone on the server who wasn’t subject to dream’s plans, so there’s absolutely no one i would be okay with him interacting with.

just remembered about the torture thing, and wow i still hate it so much. it’s someone’s sick revenge fantasy twisted into a way to get a manipulative villain sympathy, and it’s just gross to me on every account. i do think dream is traumatized-- just not by l’manberg, which was a conflict he started on his own terms. i would think l’manberg did affect him, because he was scared of losing control.

i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again— my ideal ending for dream would be for him to be sent far away from dsmp to an island full of therapy animals and super strong therapists who have never met him before. and for him to get a shit ton of therapy until he becomes a halfway normal person. and then eventually he could get integrated into society again; but a different one with new people. (although maybe dteam + bbh + puffy can visit him, they might still like him.)

none of the people on the server (who have all been affected by dream) should be burdened with befriending him or rehabilitating him— look how that turned out with sam! sam had a personal grudge towards dream and it ended with the poor dude being tortured every day; and sam himself falling into corruption and literally cutting off his boyfriends arm. like we can all see thats fucking awful right?

no one who was affected by dream should have to deal with him ever again. and contrary to popular belief, that includes a LOT more people then just tommy. dream isn’t just tommy’s antagonist, hes almost everybody’s.

the only person on the server who might also be able to stand to help dream is techno, and that’s from sheer lack of ability to give a shit. but techno is probably THE furthest thing from a good therapist there is lol, and dream needs better then that.

this kind of just ended up being a rant about my thoughts on c!dream, so im so sorry op. especially since it was probably negative for you. i hope you’re doing very well.

i guess in the end it’s true what you said— people will highlight or ignore things based on what characters they like, and it’s especially easy to do in this fandom, where half the content doesn’t even get watched and then we become a big echo chamber of half-truths.

considering dream has hurt so many of the characters i care about, i almost can’t understand how he could be someone’s favorite or comfort character— but he is nonetheless, and it would be unfair of me to be rude about that.

essentially it just bothers me to see someone who was a perpetrator of accurately portrayed abuse and manipulation (using both those words in their actual definitions, not just as random buzzwords lol) being given the flower crown edit effect. especially since he’s hurt the characters i care about a lot.

ANYWAY all of that being said (this got LONG im so sorry op) i am so so excited to get dream’s pov, because although i disagree with his actions strongly i actually find dream’s character very interesting and cool, and watching his POV is going to insanely fun. i cannot wait to see what theories get confirmed or denied

ALSO incase it wasn’t clear this is all /nm at you! you seem lovely and smart, and neither of us can help what characters we get attached to :]

[netheritenugget]

Alright, I'll bite. What sort of King is Eret here? And what manner of monster?

Sorry this took so long!  I had too much fun writing this post and it’s super long now.  Oops.

(I made a couple of posts about a Dream SMP Undertale AU)

If you’re good at reading between the lines this post contains major spoilers for Undertale. I know the game has been out for ages, but if you care, block the tag "Dream SMP Undetale AU"

IRL Eret is very fond of ferrets and flamingos, and they're very cool animals, but they aren’t that intimidating for a monster design.  But Eret also likes bears (their stuffed bear Ted is their unofficial channel mascot) and that's definitely boss-monster material.  So I think Eret would be a bear monster of some kind, just for the sheer intimidation factor.

I think Eret would be a good king, policy-wise.  They'd do their best to bring hope to the Underground, and they wouldn't be the one collecting human souls in this AU, that's someone else who is well-known for killing people (:  As for how people perceive them, and how they got there...  Welllll...

Eret wasn't the first King, that title goes to Wilbur, who was the King when the War of Humans And Monsters happened.  Eret was loyal back then, but that loyalty wavered when the monsters lost the war, and it fell apart when the realities of living underground made the other monsters restless and bitter.  Many people blamed Wilbur for losing.  Eret did too, and became very outspoken against him.

Dream took advantage of Eret's anger, poisoning his mind and feeding his resentment, and encouraged them to challenge Wilbur to a duel for the crown, telling them they'd be a much better king than he is. (:  Eret challenged Wilbur, but the duel was not to the death, it was points based, though of course with all duels the chance of death is there.  Eret won without killing him, though, and Wilbur gave them the crown.  He was naturally extremely upset about being dethroned, but otherwise everything was fine.

Until Wilbur ended up murdered the next day.  The first suspect was Eret but there was no actual evidence who the culprit was, since monsters turn to dust after death and there weren't any witnesses.  Eret's reputation is damaged, faith in their leadership shaken.

The Player arrives in Cogchamp (the Ruins) after their initial meeting with Dream is interrupted by Fundy before Dream can kill them.  Fundy tries to talk to him, but he just runs away, claiming that the situation is "too awkward."  The player learns that Fundy is living there to escape the emotional turmoil of losing his father and his doubts that Eret isn't as innocent as he claims.  Fundy misses Eret very much, wondering if they were alright after he left, and saying that he wants to go fishing with them when he goes back, like he and Wilbur used to.

Fundy gives us some lore about Dream.  Fundy stopped being friends with him after Dream got very suddenly "too Weirdchamp" about everything. Fundy says he's seen Dream with a human who fell down before, but he never saw the human again, even though he looked all over. Dream denied it when he asked.

Fundy also fills the role of acquainting the Player with game mechanics, though he's much more chaotic and prankish, and the Player becomes his friend.  He tries to prevent the Player from leaving Cogchamp because he's lonely, but ultimately relents because he knows he can’t bring himself to hurt someone who was nice to him.  Unless it's a Genocide Route, in which Fundy doesn't try to fight the Player, and instead flees to the rest of the Underground, to warn Eret and the other monsters. </3

But this post is about Eret, I'm getting sidetracked here.

Everyone else's reactions to current events is mixed.  Some monsters like Hbomb and Puffy stubbornly believe that Eret didn’t kill Wilbur, others like Purpled are just upset that they felt the need to overthrow him in the first place.  The Sleepy Bois want them dead for killing their family, and are planning to assassinate them.

Niki is the closest to Eret, and talks about them the most.  She talks about how they were her emotional rock during the War, and that though they're still good friends, she's seen less and less of them lately, and they don't smile as much anymore.

Despite how things turned out, Eret still tries their best to be a good King, and bring people hope.  Whenever the Player goes to a new area and finds a new box for items, they always find a piece of "you matter <3 - Eret" item inside that grants temporary defense.  Eret also built a lot of important public facilities in the Underground outside of Cogchamp, like a museum in which the Player learns of Wilbur’s heroism in the War of Humans And Monsters.  They also built several bridges and an aquarium for monsters in Waterfall (because of the water level problems Waterfall is having).

Much like Asgore, the Player's opinion of Eret is based entirely on what others have to say about them. The Player might feel strongly that they're too nice to have done something like this, and something else is going on, or that Eret definitely could have killed Wilbur and the Sleepy Bois are right to seek justice for a wrong that has been committed.

Boss Battles:

For Eret's boss fight in the Genocide Route...  Oh boy.

Eret’s fight isn't as difficult as Technoblade’s would be, but it’s difficult because you can't damage Eret in the beginning.  In spite of Eret's protests, Niki comes to try to protect them, shielding Eret from all damage until you kill her.  Then Eret goes into a sorrow-fueled rage and enters into "No-one Knows" mode, removing their sunglasses.  They use their last words to beg the Player to find enough mercy in their heart to Spare Fundy.

The last person the Player kills in the Genocide run is indeed Fundy, who Eret was hiding in the Castle.  It's not a fight, it's just murder.  It's very sad.

Before the boss fight in the Neutral Route, we're privy to a conversation between Eret and Ghostbur, in which Ghostbur comes to visit the castle. Eret tells Ghostbur they're sorry for everything they've done, and that taking his place was the biggest mistake of their life.  Ghostbur claims other people say they killed him, and asks if Eret did.  Eret avoids the question, stating that they've already told Wilbur the truth about what happened many times, there's no point if he can’t remember.  Ghostbur presses the question, stating that even if he'll forget later, he'd like to know, because he does remember being Eret's friend, and he's worried about them.  The Player is noticed before Eret can answer him.

Eret fights the Player alone.  Eret admits to the Player that they should probably be a good sport and just die, they don’t want to hurt a child, but they know the Player needs their soul to leave, and they're too afraid of death not to try and fight.

When they lose, they lament that things turned out this way because they thought they could do a better job than Wilbur, and that they can't seem to do anything right as a King or a mentor to Fundy.  They try to give up their soul to the Player, who spares them.

Only for Dream to kill them, steal the soul, and destroy it.  Because he's Dream.  Dream also reveals to the Player that he was the one who killed Wilbur, because the underground is boring and he needs entertainment. He's been collecting human souls, not to destroy the barrier with, but to become God.  Dream goes Photoshop Flowey Mode and fights the Player.

Pacifist Route:

After completing the Neutral route and starting the Pacifist Route, the Player is pointed in toward Eret's castle basement by Dream.  The Player discovers a Necromancy Lair (a creepy equivalent to the True Lab in Dr. Alphy's house) with the Wilbur resurrection shrine in it.  Once the Player finds the scattered pages torn out of Eret’s diary, it's revealed that Eret suspects Dream killed Wilbur, but they have no proof.  The diary talks about how Ghostbur was the result of a secret project by Eret, their failure to revive Wilbur.  Their diary also informs us that Dream often comes to torment them about this, taunting them about they'd just made things worse.  Eret questions whether or not to step down as King, but wonders who would be able to take responsibility, since Prince Fundy is missing.

The Player also finds a book by someone named "Callahan" about dreamon summoning that Eret was researching (and deemed too dangerous to use, due to the warnings within).

In the final fight against Dream, the Player can Save Eret by giving them pink wool, and reminding them that they matter to Fundy, Niki and the Player.

At the end of the Pacifist run, Eret and Fundy reconcile.  Eret crowns Fundy King, and declares that this is how it should have been from the beginning.  IDK if Wilbur is revived or not, depends on how bittersweet of an ending I want, maybe Ghostbur just has their memories restored without bringing them back to life?  But during the end credits, the three of them can be seen fishing together.

[cdroloisms]

Yea, for me c!tntduo was just dollar store c!Dreambur with none of the fun that cDreambur has

oh wow looks like c!tntduo still gets some people talking XD

honestly i think that there are elements of c!tntduo that fascinate me, particularly because c!Quackity challenges c!Wilbur in a way that really wasn't common at the time--they have a push-pull going on that's interesting and unique from c!Dreambur (that I honestly see a lot of people attribute to c!Dreambur in a way that I don't think is accurate, but that's a conversation for another day). On the other hand, though, I do think that their portrayal just is a lot less interesting to me than c!Dreambur for a lot of reasons, especially post-revival imo? like, just as an example, i think people overinflate c!wilbur's influence on c!quackity's story post-revival compared to like, c!Dream's influence on Las Nevadas as a whole. a lot of people focus a lot on c!q and c!wilbur's dynamic in in the burger conflict and other las nevadas shenanigans, but it's still dream that haunts quackity from the first stream to the last...anyway. tbh people underestimate the importance of c!dreambur a lot in general, in my opinion, especially regarding c!dream--you'd think it'd be a more intuitive connection to make considering the narrative importance of c!discduo, but people tend to forget that the third part of that relationship triangle exists even though c!discduo, c!dreambur, and c!crimeboys are very much connected.

but then again, as i've said before, a lot of the time people kind of act like c!dream just manifested into existence after november 16th, so. that might be part of it XD

that whole rant out of the way, c!tntduo is kinda canon. i mean there's the obvious--c!quackbur literally made out on c!niki's birthday--but also like, the relationship and feelings involved post-revival aren't insignificant, for both characters. i don't think it's a stretch at all to say that c!quackity is implied to have had feelings for c!wilbur, and c!Wilbur had a whole thing about c!quackity (see: the reddit posts) as well (though i'd personally question the existence of any romantic feelings, lmao.) i mean personally when i refer to a duo being "canon" on the smp it does get finicky because i don't necessarily mean Canonically Dating and stuff--like, c!skephalo and c!dnf didn't Canonically Date (iirc) but they were canon. and such.

as for c!dreambur, there's the very famous deffo flerting pizza hut moment, but i'm p sure that was before wilbur was actually added to the server and never implied to be in character? of course wilbur flirted with dream a few times in mc chat (and i do specifically remember dream saying they had to stay six feet apart because of social distancing XD), but as far as in character interactions go i've always taken that first conversation in lmanburg to be their first actual interaction in character. then again, i'm not going to argue c!dreambur canon bc that relationship SURE WAS IMPORTANT, but then again im a bit of a conspiracy theorist when it comes to c!dreambur so um not the best person to ask XD

buuuut yeah hopefully that's something like an answer LMAO

[cryptvokeeper]

God yeah that fuckin techno post got me thinking abt the attachment theme again and how it’s not as prominent anymore because people don’t have as many things that they’re attached to. Like people still have stuff they care about, but its not really stuff anymore, Yknow? Less places, people, or items, and a lot more detached, impersonal concepts. Quackity cares about power, Sam cares about control, the syndicate cares about freedom and tommy and ranboo have similar cares about stability/peace. I’d probably say the snowchester plot still shows attachments the strongest with michael and bee and boo being attached to each other, and exploring how the nukes started as a protective measure that has resulted in further threat to those attachments. The eggs also a close contender by its nature of offering people what they desire most and using skeppy against bad, but I’ll wait to see if they stick the landing to make any judgement there. Ponk had an attempt to hold on to attachment to Sam that got him hurt so that’s one even if it wasn’t the nicest end result.

I think it’s be rad if when wilbur’s revived it may bring the attachments idea back into prominence, or if fundy’s new lore brought it back somehow. That’d be cool. I miss it.

[kateis-cakeis]

My beloved anon has returned

I really wish people would consider that Wilbur was manipulated by Dream as well, just not as much as Tommy

Dream intentionally got between Wil’s and Tommy’s relationship, enabled Wilbur’s mental spiral, and with his whole traitor thing, he made Wilbur more paranoid. He actively was taking advantage of Wilbur’s poor mental state to get what he wanted, and even if he didn’t expect Wilbur to kill himself in those final moments, it’s honestly so flipping sick that Wilbur was used and tossed away like that.

He was just a means to an end, Dream had to get Wilbur out of the way to eventually get to Tommy. It’s just really sad to me how that all went down.

Techno didn’t intentionally make things worse, Ill hand him that, but both he and Dream weren’t doing Wilbur any favors.

It’s why I think Dream reviving Wilbur is going to be less of a team-up and more of a... blackmail sort of thing. Wilbur owes Dream nothing, but Dream knows Wilbur isn’t mentally well enough to really go against him. All he really has to do is make it clear Wilbur can’t ever get rest until he does what Dream wants, and I feel like Wilbur would go along with it, because he has literally nothing.

Hey, My Beloved Anon, nice to see you again!!!! :DD

I honestly don’t know if Alivebur was manipulated by Dream. I know it’s popular for both sides of fans to say the other was manipulating, but I think the only thing that kinda sent Alivebur off yet another edge was the traitor thing.

But I don’t think that was a tactic to manipulate Alivebur specifically, more just something to scare the people of Pogtopia. 

Because when the traitor thing came out, Alivebur said he couldn’t be any more of a traitor. And didn’t really consider anyone else apart from Techno, who he already thought could betray from the get go.

So, I think Dream saw Alivebur offer himself up, and just went along with it because why not? You know? One of his greatest enemies has just offered to blow up the place he wants rid of, of course he’s gonna take advantage of that. And in turn, Alivebur got the TNT and gunpowder he needed.

Really, they used each other for their own goals. It’s just that Alivebur’s end goal was a lot more... of an end. 

But back to the traitor thing, it still confuses me. Because Alivebur was surprised and considering other people when the traitor was first mentioned. When Dream said there was no traitor, he was also confused and whispered that he thought he was the traitor. Post death, he said that he didn’t know what Dream was talking about, and that he was the traitor (as well as Techno, but we know Techno doesn’t think himself a traitor SO WHAT IS THE TRUTH fdgdhfg).

It just, I don’t think they really knew what to do with the traitor thing and kinda just shoved it in there without regard sdfjhsfg

Anyhow, moving on. But yeah, I do think Alivebur’s resurrection could be more of a blackmail thing indeed, because Alivebur isn’t gonna want to be alive first of all, so Dream could use that like you said. But who knows, I guess we’ll have to wait and see on that front.  

Thanks for sending this ask in, was cool to ponder :D!!