#IT REMINDS ME OF HOW THE MOVIE MIDSOMMAR REALLY BRAINWASHES YOU

[a-blu-jay]

In the light of the whole doomsday arc and chaos I think it's important to like,,, clarify ? Some points ppl r makin even tho theyre prob not gonna see it.

Also!! This is all /roleplay and talking about the characters not the content creators

Yes, everyone has fucked up. That's what they're ALL going for, especially the ppl takin the lead when it comes to the writin of the script. Everyone is a fucked up character and everyone is a good character with the exception of Dream.

Now to get some more in depth:

Let's start with c!Tubbo. Since the beginning he's been put into tight and bad situations. Watching his friends get exiled, being made a spy for the sake of Intel to win a war which is So Much Pressure, eventually fighting in said war, being made president of the revolutionized country but then immedietly having to rebuild it, later be manipulated to exile his beat friend and brother in arms etc etc. It's a lot of trauma and greif, it's not false to call him a child solider because that's exactly what he is. Schlatt was right, the moment he died the country was doomed, wether that be from Pogtopia, Technoblade, Dream or the inevitability that the leadership would fall onto Tubbo. He's not infallible and he's not experienced. He's a severely Traumatised teenager. But this doesn't necessarily make him a good person.

Next is c!Technoblade because I have some Opinions. He's a fucked up character. Just like everyone else, just in a more transparent way. A lot of the characters hide the bad things they've done in a way to preserve moral righteousness and such. Technoblade has always been clear and transparent he wants nothing more than anarchy, chaos and the fall of L'manburg. Now, acts of terrorism aren't good, they're pretty fucked up. The great thing about his character is that he's so goddman complex. Just like Tubbo and Tommy he's been wronged. And just like Tubbo and Tommy he's a hypocrite. That's what happens when you have morally grey and ambiguous characters. He made his intentions about anarchy clear and Pogtopia made their intentions about Governments clear, they both chose to ignore eachother which in the end made them Hypocrites. A specific point I want to make about Technoblade teaming up with Dream is that Tommy has NEVER been clear with Technoblade with how Dream treated him. Technoblade couldn't have known what Dream did because of Tommy's trauma about speaking about it and Dream's manipulation. Technoblade teamed up with Dream because they shared a common goal, he doesnt trust Dream and has voiced that before. Also! Tommy's point in their argument in the middle of Doomsday was really interesting, he said (I'm paraphrasing) "why can't you just let people love what they love." A thing to note is that Technoblade DID. After the end of the revolution he left to go live in retirment and solitude and let them fight amongst eachother and destroy eachother. The very same Government he predicted to be corrupt then tried to execute him without trial even though they said he'd be given one. Which is a pretty corrupt thing to do. In the end Technoblade was used and just a little bit mistreated but he's not in the right because of that. Again, he can be seen in the lense of a Villain but that doesn't mean he really is one.

Now onto c!Tommy. His character is deffinetly an interesting one! I think his main fault is his own hubris. He's prideful to a default and stubborn when it comes to the idea he could have done something wrong because of how badly he wants to be the/a hero. Now, I'm not saying he HASN'T taken accountability for some things he's said and done because he most certainly has and thus has grown as a character. Another huge fault is his hyperfixation on the emotions and people attached to objects. Honestly? Tubbo logically wasn't wrong, they're just discs. But in Tommy's head they're a symbol of his and Tubbo's friendship. The problem is when he picks these discs over his actual friendship with Tubbo and how Dream has manipulated him. Dream plays a BIG part in why Tommy thinks the discs are so valuable. If you're told enough times and manipulated into thinking objects hold a significant value to the things important to you then eventually they become fiercely important to you and have some weight to them. I think in the beginning, in Tommy's brain destroying the discs meant his and Tubbo's friendship was over because of the part they've played in their friendship. Again, Tubbo only ever saw them as dics, plastic vinyls that drop from mobs and play pretty music. To another point, Tommy is also explicitly Hypocritical, just like Technoblade. He holds onto the fact that Tubbo and L'manburg and it's people are his friends and he cares about him but then calls Technoblade his friend and casts his emotions aside. The problem is the blatant fact that Tommy used Technoblade as a weapon and after being called out that friends don't do that to eachother he ignores it. In this instance he's no better than Technoblade. A kinda big problem is his character development, which really doesn't have a lot to do with c!Tommy and more with how the writers suggest developing him as a character. I think the main thing is that he goes to Tubbo's side saying how the discs never truly mattered to later saying they need the discs. The discs don't matter. What matters is defeating Dream. But just like Tubbo, Tommy is a highly and incredibly traumatised Teenager.

Next is c!Ranboo, the mad lad! I don't really have a whole lot to say? Just some quick analysis of what his characters ideals are and his actions in everything. Looking at his character he's incredibly paranoid, anxious and probably Traumatised from things we the audience don't know. At the end of the day he's a true neutral character. In one of the tweets cc!Ranboo sent it said that as long as Dream isn't hurting the people he (character Ranboo) directly cares about, he doesn't care what Dream does. For a good portion he was against Dream because he cared about everyone nd dream was hurting everyone. He's joined Technoblade and Ph1lza in the Arctic because he thinks that Dream has gotten what he wants, he doesn't know anything about Dream and Tommy's conversation by the end of Doomsday. Also! Ranboo's ideals/beliefs are anarchist by nature and principle. The reason he has a problem with choosing sides between L'manburg and Dream is because of the hierarchy within those sides, and the obligation that you have to fight that comes with picking those sides. Technoblade and Ph1lza both chose to fight under free will and because they chose too without coercion. Everyone is equal there. There's a really good post somewhere talking about it that'll I'll look for that explains it very well. (EDIT: found the post also hopefully i did the link right)

This is getting painfully long so I'm wrapping it up here with a few last things. Everything has always come down to Dream. The reason L'manburg was built was to get away from the oppressive power that is Dream (another point for Technoblade teaming up w dream, he wasn't there for Dreams stuff, he only knew of Schlatt but I digress). Dream has manipulated everyone, he's running the puppet show with the strings tied to his fingers. He's manipulated Tubbo, Tommy, Ranboo, Technoblade, Schlatt, EVERYONE. He's pitted everyone against eachother because he loves the chaos. Because he knows that if they weaken eachother it'll be a lot easier to take control with less effort put in from his part. Dream has always been the main antagonist from the very very beginning. Sure some could say Tommy started it with the discs but Dream was the one who took them in the first place etc.

He's also pitted the audience against eachother. It's really interesting in how he's actually manipulated the audience. It doesn't matter who's on what side or who's wronged who when the cause for all their greif has always been Dream. The fandom is fighting over traitors and betrayals and villain arcs. It doesn't matter, not when Dream is runnin free with the amount of power that he has.

[sometimesrosy]

Rosy, did you watch Midsommar? I don't think it's the kind of movies you like, but I recommend the video "How Midsommar brainwashes you" that you can find on YouTube. Through that video I learned that there are many people who interpret that the story has a happy ending that represents an empowerment of the protagonist. However, when I watched the end what I saw is that this girl ends up being absorbed by the cult that provides her with a false sense of belonging to a "family". That's not a happy ending, even when we see the protagonist smile at the end. This reminded me of the interpretation of some viewers of The 100 who strangely considered that it was positive that the ideology of Cadogan's cult triumph, even though this implied that humanity has been engulfed and that the protagonist has murdered her emotions, because love is a weakness (physically and symbolically she murdered her own heart!!). And I remember recently someone I follow on Twitter said that when some fans say "Bellamy was right, they should have believed him", even though this part of the fandom hates the ending, what they're really doing is supporting a cult rhetoric motivated by the love we feel for this character.

Idk. The fact that there are people who think that endings like these are positive seems strange to me and scares me a bit. 😬

Anyway... I hope you're okay. I don't visit Tumblr much, but every time I do I come to your site. Lots of love! 💕

Hi! I’m still here, because I work on line and I’m always bopping in and out of tumblr, but I’m much less active. lol. I’m doing fine, ghostwriting romances and homeschooling and querying my sf novel. Just got a full request from an agent, so I’ve got my novel out and active in the world.

You are right. Midsommar is NOT my kind of movie because I don’t like horror, but I did just recommend it to my daughter how does like horror. I will also recommend to her the “How Midsommar brainwashes you,” vid. That actually sounds like something that would work for homeschool, because it’s about media and propaganda, and we read The Hunger Games and A Wrinkle in Time for that matter. (we all decided that AWIT was too young and simplistic for us, but the whole conformity of IT would fit with the brainwashing.)

But what you talk about? With people thinking that’s a happy ending? And with the way they start AGREEING with Cadogan’s cult? Yeah. So the scariest part is that that is happening with real life with the far right, rapture loving, ‘traditional values,’ trump idolizing, fake christians. And that’s one of the reasons the ending of The 100 horrified me so much was that it was replicating the real world conservative cultist ideology (which is the OPPOSITE of the message of the previous 6 years of The 100.) I find the coincidence far too convenient, so now I do not trust The CW (because this didn’t just happen on The 100 but on other shows too,) and tend to think of JR as a collaborator now.

Propaganda is real. And it’s most effective when it manipulates our emotions, strong love or fear makes it more effective. The media we love is not immune to propaganda. And WHO is in charge, whether publicly or behind the curtains, is going to affect whether or not our stories are propaganda and what the messages conveyed are.

I haven’t seen Midsommar, so of course I can’t analyze it, but it sounds to me like they are illustrating this kind of culty story, and some people are so open to the brainwashing, they now think this is correct and good and a happy ending. I believe something similar happened in Fight Club I think? Where it was a statement about a dangerous mindset, and a large portion of the audience just dove right in to the dangerous mindset and thought it was shown as ideal. (It’s been a while since I’ve seen Fight Club, but I think.)

Anyway, it’s so important to have media literacy, so whoever is telling the stories can’t manipulate your thoughts and actions. But you know. Somehow, COINCIDENTALLY, education has moved away from teaching kids to think to teaching them to pass high stakes state exams.  (I lie. I don’t think it’s a coincidence.)