#watcher doesnt even look like a word anymore. anyways

[0uterrim]

their little celestial spheres

[darlington-v]

I know different interpretations of a work are generally enriching and cool... but c!dream villan interpretations is like how to tell me you only watch Tommy without saying you only watch tommy.... which would be fine but its not a great place to be making statements about the whole nature of the dsmp lol

Wild speculation, but sometimes I wonder if like, because the dsmp didn't really start as a narrative, and a lot of fans don't nessecarily enter it expecting a narrative, but then there is one and the fandom is really discourse heavy and everyone is sort of excpeted to have an opinion while maybe not expecting to form one from the begining or not having a ton of experience with narrative in a way that would "expect" them to have an opinion or not take things at face value??, I don't know if I explained that well at all... and I don't really even think thats right nessecarily... but like wow sometimes some of the takes about power and government and villany...

Honestly, it makes sense!!!

I think something interesting is like.... looking at how animatics have shaped the like tone and culture of the fandom essentially. Like, an interesting fact that I didn't really fully grasp until SUPER recently is like...

c!Wilbur out the gate admits he is manipulating c!Tommy. Like his first youtube video on the Dream SMP he admits his goal is to manipulate c!Tommy and people like c!Tommy into helping him achieve a potion ("drug") empire to monopolize on potions because there were a lot of people on the server who like to min-max, which is to put all of your effort into this one specific skill essentially. so like... i know minecraft doesnt have a skill tree but if it did, it would be putting all your points into that one specific branch of a skill tree. So he wanted to exploit the labor of all the TommyInnits to.... maintain a Potion Empire.

THIS IS A LONG POST BC I GOT CARRIED AWAY SO BUCKLE UP

And I don't think a lot of the fandom who joined later on knows this. I certainly didn't until like a week or so ago? Like... I knew c!Wilbur had been manipulative from the start because I'm a mod of (shameless self promo incoming) @dsmpanalysis and we have a lot of different POVs in that mod team and discord and we talk about it really frequently. I joined the fandom as someone who was really big on L'manburg ESPECIALLY crimeboys, and have turned into.... *gestures vaguely to my blog*

And ngl I owe a lot of it to @1-michibiki-1 in terms of c!Dream "Apologism" but all of the mods there have expanded my thoughts and views on the storylines of this narrative.

My application consisted of like largely essays about like... how I think Dream was the villain but he was meant to be the villain because you don't get any insight into his character WHICH.... IS A FAIR ASSUMPTION AT FIRST GLANCE. People are easily villainized when you cannot get a glimpse into their thought process. It's easy to dwindle someone down into this flat character and starting out I knew Dream didn't stream the SMP on purpose.

And I personally came to the conclusion of "Oh! So Dream is supposed to be the villain." However as the story continued and I learned more about what Dream went through I began to realize that... it's more than likely a form of a red herring. My opinions on this were immediately solidified when I watched Ranboo's 2 MIL stream because both Ranboo AND Dream agree on enjoying red herrings.

There have been MANY times were Dream has said that c!Dream is a complex character and he's not a wholly evil guy and there have been times where the narrative has honestly just proved that.

Anyways, what's important though was that... I learned most of this from other people who were more focused on c!Dream rather than myself. Eventually I shifted from c!Tommy to c!Ranboo and c!Techno after c!Tommy betrayed c!Techno and I began to realize.... everything I learned before hopping in wasn't exactly what it seemed.

Part of this is because I'm older, I heavily identify with c!Techno's sense of loyalty and philosophies on government, but I especially identify with the anguish c!Techno voiced in... a lot of lore but especially the lore around Doomsday.

I'm not 16 anymore. I don't always feel wronged by adults, or older people in my case, whenever they absolutely have done something wrong by me, but I do feel wronged by my close friends. I also felt like c!Tommy's sense of loyalty didn't line up with mine after what felt like him constantly flip-flopping and refusing to understand c!Techno's morals on government didn't line up with his.

In short, it was easier to identify with Tommy in these animatics versus in the actual stream content because c!Tommy is played by a 16 year old. I'm not a teenager and my line of thinking doesn't entirely line up with people that age anymore. It's harder to place myself in the same shoes of someone's OC who is played closer to their actual age, because I'm not that age.

Regardless, I was still on the c!Dream is a villain train. I wasn't ever like... c!Dream is repulsive I hate him, but I was like omg hot villain lad go brrr.

Even when the first like... mellohi, panic room, Ranboo lore stream popped up I thought "Oh! c!Ranboo corruption arc?"

And I was excited because I really wanted this shy, nervous character to turn into villain buddies with his good pal c!Dream. I'm a total sucker for villains and corruption arcs and all that good shit.

SO I STARTED GETTING REALLY INTERESTED IN ENDERSMILE. I'VE BEEN ON ENDERSMILE SQUAD OUT THE GATE. NOT THE SAME WAY I AM NOW, BUT I'VE ALWAYS WANTED THEM TO TEAM UP.

So... upon not really keeping up with c!Dream and being relatively??? indifferent? I don't think I started arguments on c!Dream back then, but I might have. But I remember like... starting to participate more whenever c!Dream came up and looking more into Dream's character BUT ESPECIALLY TALKING WITH OUR SERVER'S C!DREAM SPECIALIST MICHI ABOUT DREAM A LOT MORE.

And because Michi has been a watcher since day one and was a DTeam fan rather than a SBI fan, she was able to provide me with more information on how the server worked pre-Tommy but especially pre-Wilbur.

Now, you could definitely argue well Michi probably has clear bias but it made sense to me when I looked back on how the storyline had been constructed and was going along, and everyone in the server talks a lot about our own biases and how we want people to maybe not lean so hard on them. Michi would also provide like anecdotes on what had happened and I'm sure links were probably provided at one point but the point was I felt like Michi had no reason to lie or manipulate how the story was told and if she did, eventually someone would have pointed it out because... Group of like... right now it's around 20 or more analysts but I don't remember how many at the time there were. POINT BEING, WE'VE ALL GOT POINTS TO PROVE AND IN MY EXPERIENCE NOT MANY OF US HAVE BEEN SHY TO PROVE THEM.

So if anyone ever had any differing opinions they would be talked about and we literally had and still have discussions.

REGARDLESS.... I DIDN'T FACT CHECK IN DEPTH BECAUSE I THOUGHT PEER REVIEW WAS ENOUGH WHEN YOU HAVE LIKE HOURS UPON HOURS OF STREAMS TO WATCH.

Anyways. Eventually I started paying closer attention and looking more into c!Dream lore but only recently have I started to triple check before speaking about c!Wilbur lore because I know everyone has biases and while I did trust everyone's thoughts and analysis in the discord, whenever I make essays I typically like it to be largely air tight and if theres a mistake, I want it to be because I forgot not because I just trusted what was said. Plus, I wanted to get down to the specifics of how Wilbur had always started with manipulation on the mind.

SO I WATCHED HIS FIRST VIDEO ON THE DREAM SMP.

AND WHAT I WAS NOT BY ANY MEANS EXPECTING WAS WILBUR TO SAY WORD FOR WORD, VERBATIM,

"SO WHY DON'T I START AN INDUSTRY WHERE I USE THE TOMMYINNITS OF THE WORLD TO WORK FOR ME, TO CREATE THINGS THAT THE MIN-MAXERS OF THE WORLD WILL WANT."

Like... this is in no way an attempt to like hardcore villainize c!Wilbur like everyone does Dream, it's just more so to like REALLY outline how far off a lot of fandom interpretation of c!Wilbur is....

Because of SBI focused animatics.

Now, when I joined I watched A LOT of animatics that really highlighted like... Wilbur being this self-loathing JD-esque, "I destroyed it because I had to because the world was against me because no one loved us, Tommy" type of character. At least... that's what it came across as.

And it definitely highlighted the fact that Tommy was a victim, which he is. He is undoubtedly a victim and no not even any dream apologist can change my mind otherwise. Tommy, despite being an instigator sometimes, didn't deserve the abuse he received.

But these animatics never shown the fact that c!Wilbur started L'manburg as a shady ploy to exploit people like c!Tommy and vilify c!Dream so he could have power.

And that was easy because Dream and Tommy had wars before. They had spars and pranks and here's the plan to take back my disks and here's the plan to out smart the thieving little child etc etc.

And all of the animatics I watched never mentioned this. Neither did the recaps though. The recaps gave the events flat out, there didn't sound like there was bias, and honestly I don't really know if there was rather than like... a lack of nuance. And it's hard to provide a recap with that much nuance in a short period of time for a youtube video, to be perfectly fair.

However, this creates a perfect formula for entirely rewriting the history of a server. c!Wilbur quite literally fucking succeeded TO A META LEVEL. He slandered and ran smear campaigns against Dream and like he even does that with Sapnap in the beginning. But what's crazy is that it transferred over into the meta! Most of this fandom understands Wilbur as a victim of mental illness, and yeah maybe? He definitely wasn't mentally well by the end of pogtopia, but he never started out with honorable intentions. L'manburg was never a victim, only its citizens. The TommyInnits of the world.

I just think it's like... such an interesting case study. Because this is like... an opinion like shared by at least half of the fandom, but the vilifying of c!Dream is shared by MOST of the fandom I would argue. Which is like even more crazy for me because that was c!Wilbur's goal!!!

LIKE I GO INSANE WHEN I THINK OF THIS BECAUSE HIS REACH IS JUST TOO POWERFUL. HE'S NOT EVEN ENTIRELY REAL, JUST A MANIPULATIVE PERSONA OF SOME BRITISH GUY.

And I mean... maybe people who have watched Wilbur's video on the SMP still maintain this idea that Wilbur wasn't always the bad guy, but honestly... I wouldn't be surprised if their introduction was still an animatic. Like bias is hard to check and I'm not going to lie I could have sworn I watched both Wilbur's AND Tommy's video on the SMP in the beginning and yet I STILL was a ride or die for tragic yet on some level still honorable Wilbur and a resilient Tommy.

Like... upon watching Wilbur's first video... possibly again I was surprised because I thought I did watch it like right before I even started watching the streams and yet I was still so invested in c!Wilbur as this tortured anti-hero.

It took 6 months of... not being in an echo chamber, full of multiple different people of different ages, different stream POVS, and people who joined the fandom at different points in time.

IDK IF THIS WAS EVEN ENTIRELY RELEVANT IT JUST FELT TANGENTIALLY RELEVANT AND THIS WAS SOMETHING I'VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT FOR A HOT MINUTE AFTER LIKE WATCHING WILBUR'S FIRST VIDEO AGAIN.

TLDR;

SBI CENTRIC ANIMATICS HAD A LASTING AFFECT ON THIS FANDOM AS IT'S HARD TO GO BACK AND ACTUALLY CHECK THE NARRATIVE FOR SOLID FACTS FOR YOUR OWN INTERPRETATION BASED ON THE FACT THAT THIS NARRATIVE SPANS OVER HUNDREDS OF HOURS WORTH OF TWITCH STREAMS.

[instituteled]

i’ve mentioned it before but my pet peeves about fandoms in general are reducing characters to one or two traits and ignoring everything else. 

but here especially — some of those things that way too many people are sleeping on are for one his fucking anger management issues — his first response to something annoying him is almost always violence. not all violence is physical (even though we have that too with leitner) but it’s mostly psychological warfare. martin and melanie being nuisances? trauma read them. it’s also the fact that on the other hand they make him to be some evil genius mastermind. it’s easy to appear smarter than everyone when you can read them. he’s smart, yes, but also neglecting obvious things like knowing about his own employees and their motivations, which he admits multiple times (”i didn’t care to look” towards martin, “i knew some trauma drew you to us but never looked” to tim, paraphrased bc i cant be bothered to look up the exact words don’t @ me), and generally thinking he is the smartest person in the room, both out of arrogance and because his ability makes it really easy to feel superior to others, which is also why he becomes so lost (and scared!) towards jon because he cannot see him anymore! there’s a certain arrogance that comes from handling things the same way always that makes him predictable (also the never bothering to actually check the tunnels at least after gertrude was gone. yes, they block his sight, and the idea to physically search for some clues never occurred to him). that, and he’s fucking impatient! “but myles, he waited till old age to complete the watcher’s crown” because he didn’t know he’d be able to body hop after, he thought it was his only shot at it, so he waited as long as he could, because his fear of death overruled it, “but myles he took two hundred years for the second attempt” no, he only figured it out briefly before the canon events, like only months or even weeks before (it’s around gertrude’s death between march 12 and 15 2015 (theres several dates but that timeframe makes the most sense for her timeline, although it might also be 2016 which would make it two weeks before jon records his first statement, so the timeline as usual doesnt make sense) assigning jon as archivist. so it’s pretty much rushed; and most of the other marks are too, especially the further we get — all that he had any hand with, anyway, and especially the actual apocalypse statement is rushed and way before it should have happened because he grew afraid of losing everything and impatient to finally have his plan set in motion and i can go into heavy detail about that but it’s for another time 

[mallowbees]

i dont know much about TMA but ,, could you tell me a bit about avatars? I want to make a sona really bad because they look so cool haha

Oh heck YEAH I can!!

Right so!! Avatars are people who have had experiences with or behavior that aligned with one of the 14(15 kinda?) fear entities and end up serving them!! Throwing people to their, for lack of better words, god, to feed off of their fears and occasionally try to kick of rituals to make their god strong and getting some sweet powers as a reward!

!! It’s gonna be kinda hard to avoid spoilers with explaining this, so I’ll try to keep it to the minimum but some spoilers for avatar people’s stuff :’D !!

The 14 are as follows (I’m just gonna snag most of this from the wiki but anything not in italics is me):

The Burried :

Also called The Center, Choke, Too Close I Cannot Breathe.

The fear of claustrophobia, small spaces, of being unable to breathe and the underground and dust. Being at the centre of everything and it is all pushing down. Fear of being trapped without enough space.

Notable avatar person I can think of is 18th centry guy who worked in a grave yard and would nap in the graves cause it was quiet and when they installed bells incase someone was actually alive when they burried them they could ring it, so someone rang it and he cut the line because he thought they were nice and deserved to sleep, also early episode lost johns cave is a good example but doesnt have an avatar in it so hfgh

The Corruption :

Also called Filth, The Crawling Rot, or The Hive.

This entity is linked closely to our feelings of disgust, of feeling revulsion and fear of corruption, disease, filth. Manifests as mould, bugs, rot, decay, infection. The feeling of your skin crawling.

Jane Prentiss, she wanted to be loved and found love in a bunch of worms in a wasp nest in her attic, so she became their hive, she loves her worms and her worms love her, they sing

Also other guy I genuinely don't know his name he just made everyone sick at that retirement home with disease and hung out at hill top road a few times, got sealed in concrete and he always looked like he was skin and slightly rotting

The Dark :

Also called Mr. Pitch, The Forever Blind, The Sandman

A manifestation of our very primal fear of the dark, of what lies beyond what we can sense. What might be in it?

One of the oldest of the Entities.

Uhh cult kidnapped that one kid i think that was them, i dont know who the dark avatar is actually

The Desolation :

Also called The Lightless Flame, The Torturing Flame, The Devastation, Blackened Earth.

This entity deals in fear of pain, of loss, burning, fear of unthinking or cruel destruction.

Acolytes are enriched by destroying the lives of people who had things to live for, destroying things before their potential is realised. In exchange, the cult members can create heat--but not fire--and gain the ability to make their skin run like wax.

They burn from the inside and consume everything in flames, Jude Perry and Agnes Montague are the two i know, Agnes was born into it and died because of forbidden love and Jude set her girlfriends flat on fire so hgfhfg

The End :

Also called Death, Terminus, The Coming End That Waits For All And Cannot Be Ignored.

This entity deals in the fear of death itself, uncaring and unstoppable.

No known attempts at a ritual, presumably because it sees no need to, as Death claims all in the end.

Oliver Banks!! Had dreams of strings that tied people to their deaths, actual rational avatar, also didnt ask for this but he does pretty well. Also commited identity fraud

The Eye :

Also called Beholding, The Watcher, The Ceaseless Watcher, It Knows You.

This entity is fear of being watched, exposed, followed, of having secrets known, but also the drive to know and understand, even if your discoveries might destroy you. Fear that you’re suffering for the sake of something watching.

Elias!! Horrible man!! Can body hop! Just wants to watch the drama unfold and get more power. Knows lots of things and compulsion ! Also Jon because he reckless curiosity kinda screwed him over there and yeah. And that one security guy who got consumed by a watcher lietner watching other people via security camera, rip that guy

The Flesh :

Also called Viscera.

Born from the fear of animals bred for meat, and in the human realisation that we are just animated meat and bones.

Manifests as strange bodies being twisted, reshaped, and butchered.

Thought to be the newest of the 14, born around the time of the Industrial Revolution

Jared Hopworth! Got a Lietner, runs a gym to change bodies into what people want until they're practically not human anymore, likes most bones if they're good bones

The Hunt :

Hunting and chase and violence, this is an animalistic fear, very old and primal. Fear of being hunted, being prey.

Less able to affect people due to our self-removal from the food chain. Self-proclaimed monster hunters (and those who do the same without referring to themselves as such) run a strong chance of becoming Hunters and then having a need to hunt and kill monsters.

Daisy! Things get kinda messed up when you combine non-human impulses with a person so! Murder! violence!

The Lonely :

Also called Forsaken, The One Alone The fear of isolation, of being completely cut off and alone. Fear of being disconnected.

Peter lukas, Martin, grew up lonely and shunned idk what you expected, can literally vanish, cool aethetic- Also that one girl who married one of the lukas’, nayomi? But she wasnt an avatar just with one

The Slaughter :

This entity feeds off of pure, unpredictable, unmotivated violence. Strong ties to war. Fear of not knowing, where, when, how or if pain will come but that it will. Can be violent like a frenzied killer or calm and regimented like soldiers firing on the battlefield.

Melanie! Anger! Murder! Stabby stab! Justificated feeling that your anger is right!

The Spiral :

Also called Es Mentiras, It Is Lies, The Twisting Deceit, It Is Not What It Is.

This entity is fear of madness, of being lost, that your world is wrong, that your mind is lying to you. It deals with deception, lying, deceiving the mind and senses.

Michael! Helen! I don’t,, really know what to say on this one hgfhfg

The Stranger :

Also called I Do Not Know You.

Fear of the unknown. That creeping sense that something isn’t right. Also of unfamiliar people. Manifests as objects pretending to be humans, like mannequins and taxidermied people.

Theyre not people they arent who they arE

The Vast :

Also called The Falling Titan.

This entity deals in our fear of our own insignificance in this universe, of losing yourself in too much space. Its effects involve void, vertigo, and falling, but also anything to do with openness and open spaces, fears like Agoraphobia, fear of deep water.

Simon fairchild is honest to god just vibing hes having so much fun also reeeally long lifespan he likes watching people fall off this and falling off himelf, also mike crew who didnt ask for this but just kinda ended up there anyway cause he got struck by lightning on a hill and got a book

The Web :

Also called The Spider, Mother of Puppets.

Deals with fear of being controlled, entrapped, being trapped and not knowing it, and your will not being your own, of being manipulated. Manifests as spiders and spider webs and patterns like spider webs.

The Extiction :

Also called The Terrible Change, The Future Without Us, The World Is Always Ending

The 15th Entity hypothesized by Adelard Dekker to be currently emerging. 

It is not yet confirmed to actually exist, if it is yet to be officially born, or if it is a combination of other powers and their overlap. It deals with the fear of catastrophic change, the destruction of humanity and its replacement by something different, especially via mankind's own causing.

Man-made elements are one of its hallmarks.

Avatars of other Entities would like to prevent it from emerging if possible.

Nobody on this one yet but yeah!!

So!! Usually it’s either the thing you are scared of embraces you and flips your behavior on its head, (Scared of being alone? Make other people alone! Scared of falling? Make other people fall!) Or something you like vibe with embraces and justifies you even if it scares you (Want to know?? Huh?? Buddy? Wanna Know? Or you just want some love? Get u some worms) Like if your experiences fall under one of the categories you probably go there if you’re not afraid of it, or if something happens and you’re terrified of it but not dead you’ll probably end up there hfhghgfh

Oh also here’s a what entity are you quiz if that helps ghfhfgh: https://uquiz.com/quiz/zxE9GQ/which-tma-entity-are-you-aligned-with?embed=False

Basically, does it scare you a little? Does it vibe with you a bit? There you go! You have an entity now! Have fun! HFGhfh