#c!dream analysis

[omegamoo]

one of my favorite parts of c!niki’s arc is manburg era because she was the person living in manburg who was most outwardly rebellious. she never stopped fighting - she made it clear that she hated the schlatt administration and everything they stood for, and so she fought back. she didn’t screw around with a “will-i-won’t-i” she just did. and i think people undersell that a lot, especially in favor of the pogtopian rebellion. but c!niki refuses to pay taxes, she sets fire to the manburg flag, she refuses to cater for schlatt and co. she doesn’t stop! when cschlatt exiles ctommy and cwilbur, she’s the one shouting about it. during the festival, she’s the one who shouts while ctubbo’s getting blown up and says from the beginning how much she hates the new country.

also the festival - if you watch the vod from your pov (which you totally should!!!!!) she just sits there and looks So Pissed Off the entire time. like she doesn’t hide how pissed of she is. she’s downright furious during that entire discussion!

and i think the most crucial part of all of this is what happens to her because of this. she is consistently belittled by c!schlatt - frequently in a “omg shut up”/“would somebody shut her up” in a way that feels like how somebody talks about a bug in the house. it’s misogynistic in many ways, i think - she’s consistently invalidated and overlooked, like her rebellion doesn’t even hold weight.

and then when she finally does more - i.e. the taxes - she’s literally hunted. and she runs, and calls c!wilbur, and she is terrified. and he says “can you just hold out a bit longer? pogtopia’s kinda full right now and we can’t take more people” and she’s like, actively unsafe in manburg and has nowhere to go and can’t go home. and she is told “just hold out a bit longer”

and then. the festival. again, she’s in the audience and watches tubbo get blown up and she’s shouting about it! like screaming at him! and finally c!schlatt is like “you’ve been a thorn in my side for too long” and he has ponk kill her! and she runs and he chases her and nobody follows to help, they just tell her to run. and she’s in the call w all of them and the conversation just moves on while she silently runs and silently gets killed. and that’s when she leaves for pogtopia.

anyways. point being: c!niki and overlooked rebellion.

[charles-simmons]

If there's something I love is seeing how people draw c!Tommy. Especially about his age.

Some people draw him with more childlike features. He looks younger, more "helpless" in a way. You can really see it's a child soldier. Someone who is not ready in any way to be in those situations, but is there anyway with a confident face and a loud voice. It's very visible he should not be there and how wrong it all is.

But other people draw him looking a bit older, looking more like someone who's soon to become an adult. In a way he looks less innocent, even when he's still the victim. He resembles Wilbur a bit more, and he doesn't look as helpless when next to Dream. But here's the thing, he's still a child soldier. He might act like he knows what he's doing, use big words, and act all powerful. And it's not that visible how wrong it all is, but it's still there.

You'll look at him and see this seventeen-ish years old guy, and, in a first glance, it won't feel as wrong. But when you really look at him, that's when you notice how vulnerable Tommy is. Surrounded by people who are more mature, more powerful, and who hate his guts. And you'll start to notice how easily influenced he can be, which seems unlikely for someone who always expresses what he thinks. And you'll start to notice he was never as ready as he says he was. And you'll start to notice how most of the messes he got himself into had completely disproportional consequences to him.

And after all of that, you'll look at him again, and maybe he even looks a bit older, but you can still see it. The child behind the loud voice and the bright smile, holding a sword that is just his size, but will always feel a bit too big for him.

[stemms]

I believe that c!Tommy’s kleptomania is one of the most fascinating and heartbreaking parts of his personality, as it adds layers to his character, and explains certain parts of the lore that some people seem to consider a simple bad habit and display of his childishness. I would like to elaborate on that further and explore the way it changed in the exile arc.

To begin with, c!Tommy has been suffering from kleptomania ever since s1, but contrary to popular belief, he had no malicious intentions. From the very beginning of the server, he was already severely traumatised to the point of having PTSD and lacked self-worth. So, understandably enough, he was craving something to make up for his self-hatred, and robbery became that thing. c!Tommy would mostly steal insignificant things because what truly mattered was the amount of things he possessed, not their value or rarity. After all, if he had a large number of objects in his possession, it meant that he was worthy, and nothing else truly mattered.

Since the very beginning of exile, despite his need to acquire items to stabilise his extreme self-hatred, c!Tommy adamantly refused to accept anything from his visitors because he couldn’t help but assume that the gifts in question were “pity items”, and being pitied was one of the things he hated the most. As his exile went on, the belief that no one cared enough to offer him a gift out of genuine care, only grew stronger due to c!Dream’s manipulation, c!Tommy’s severe loneliness, and the heartbreak of the Beach Party. However, with time, the blond has grown to trust someone other than c!Dream — c!Ranboo. Eventually, he allowed the enderman hybrid to offer him things, as long as he promised that his gifts came from the heart. As much as c!Tommy attempted to hide his true feelings, he cherished every single object received from c!Ranboo. These weren’t just objects, like the ones he’d often steal from people to feel worthy — these served as a reminder that there was something to live for, and at least, someone other than c!Dream genuinely cared about him.

Considering that c!Dream has been obsessed with c!Tommy ever since s1 (which included living in his walls and stalking him) and used his kleptomania and “destructive nature” as an argument to get him exiled from L’Manberg, he certainly was aware of the boy’s insecurity, and was looking forward to exploiting it to the fullest to break- no, shatter him :)

The daily routine of discarding his objects hurt c!Tommy far more than we could’ve imagined, because if we keep his deep self-hatred in mind, he didn’t simply find it upsetting due to being stuck in the cycle of obtaining and destroying his items — it was something more than that. Every lost item equaled a tiny shard of c!Tommy’s self-worth, and soon enough, there was almost Nothing left; he was nothing but an empty shell.

Understandably enough, with time, the teenager has grown to believe that he wasn’t worthy to possess anything valuable of his own — he was meant to earn every little thing, and his best friend tormentor couldn’t be more pleased :) :) :)

[bleue-flora]

Something that I see a lot is the reasoning that Dream’s motive is unity. That staged finale was about uniting the server against him to bring them together even if he couldn’t be apart of that. And honestly I’m just not sure that’s the case. For starters, in the big moments when he talks about his reasoning he doesn’t mention unity he mentions together, he mentions family, he mentions team.

[from early days]

“We just wanted to have a good, safe, productive team. And when one person has a tyranny over everybody else—that keeps killing them, then you can’t have a team.” [clip]

“Listen, from now on we’re going have a civilization, okay? That lives in harmony and… and there’s no ruler. Not even me—not even anybody.” [clip]

[Punz and Dream planning]

“Always, the goal has just been that—it’s all one united server that everybody follows the same rules, there’s no countries, there’s no—you know, any of this. It’s just… One giant like—family, right?” [clip]

[prison]

“I just wanted to… I just wanted to bring the server together. Have it be a happy family, you know?” [clip]

[finale]

“Once we know everything, we—we’re able to live and everyone can be invincible and everyone can live together and be in harmony and—and not have to worry about death or pain or anything, then it’ll be worth it. The ends justify the means.” [clip]

“I want everyone to able to live and be happy and together… and you’ve—you’ve ruined that—you’ve ruined that yourself. You’re the one who separates everyone!” [clip]

And I know for some people unity and together might seem synonymous, but in this context I don’t think they are. I think it’s important to realize that Dream wanted people to not be divided, he wanted them to be a happy family, but families aren’t always united. They don’t always agree, they aren’t always peaceful, they don’t always have the same goals or agenda or beliefs, but a close family always makes up in the end and when all is said and done, generally gets along and is there for each other.

Additionally, the way I’ve always understood it was that Dream didn’t want peace, he wanted people to do the right thing [clip] and he wanted people to be happy which means that conflicts where people are getting upset opposes that. Dead pets, items not being returned, houses being burnt, people being insulted, and offenders refusing to simply apologize [clip] that tends to cause a conflict without resolution that leaves a lasting divide and unhappiness, which goes against Dream’s goal. But I don’t think he was against violence or wars as a whole, after all those happen at the beginning, when things were still simple. The point was that people stayed as a whole happy or content and as long as no one got too upset it was fine.

To keep people happy and safe, Dream also needed to prevent any one person from holding the power, because they would abuse it and use it against people, which we see happen over and over again. This is one of the reasons why he had a problem with Wilbur’s self appointed presidency, it’s why he kills George early on and takes his stuff when he became op before everyone else, it is why he kills Tubbo’s villagers. He didn’t want anyone to be too overpowered and then use that power to harm others. Dream considered himself the mediator and one to balance out the sides, the one to make sure people had their stuff back when all was said and done, the one to help people get revenge for their dead pet. Yes, he broke the very rules he made, which people love to point out makes him a hypocrite and therefore his gripe with Tommy has no footing, but notice what he says in the finale:

“You break all the rules. Tommy, there wasn’t even that many rules. They were simple things: respect others, don’t destroy things. You broke everything—every rule.” [clip]

“Respect others,” that’s the first thing he mentions, because that’s the most important. That’s the one that Tommy broke that bothered Dream the most. It wasn’t really about the stealing or the killing or griefing, after all George and Sapnap did that too. No, it was the lack of respect he had for the people he hurt that bothered Dream the most. It was that lack of respect which led people to be unhappy even when the war was over and sustaining that divide even after the war, which goes against the civilization Dream strived for.

It’s not about unity, it’s about the opposite of exclusion. It’s about Sapnap and Punz who were both friends with clingy duo, but not able to join L’manberg because they are American. It was the divide and separation. Like Ranboo who because of nations and politics struggled to be friends with both Techno and L’manberg.

Dream didn’t want people to be truly united in a cause nor did he want true peace - the absence of conflict and chaos. because you only get those by enforcing them through dictatorship and oppression when you force everyone to have the same opinion and obey. But Dream didn’t want to be a tyrant, that’s one of the reasons why he kept handing the power to a king. He wanted everyone to live in harmony by doing the right thing themselves and he thought that if he could keep the server from splitting that they would.

So then, the reason I think he put himself in prison and planned staged finale, wasn’t about uniting the server even if that’s against himself, but because it was the only way he could see a path to be allowed and accepted back into society. That if he served his time in prison maybe they would see him as a person again and think he got better and let him out, which I’ve talked more about [here] and [here].

“Maybe—maybe I’ll be better and then you’ll let me out.” [clip]

He wanted a family. As Tommy points out in the finale: he just wanted to have friends. He didn’t want to be alone. So it doesn’t make sense for his goal to be a self sacrificial move to unite everyone against him for the sake of unity, he wanted to bring people together into a happy society again, where they spend the afternoon fishing and playing hide and seek, not wars and executions and politics. But he wanted to be apart of that society and family too, because he didn’t want to be alone. Honestly, he probably wanted to be friends with everyone, but the division was preventing that, the propaganda was preventing that, and so prison became the only option he could see to undo that. To allow him back into the family that he was trying to keep together. That’s what staged finale was about - protection for him and Punz and the opportunity of reconciliation [post]. If he really just wanted unity then he would’ve have been fairly pleased with Doomsday, where most everyone sided against his side. If he wanted the whole server against him, then staged finale was an abysmal success, as he points out to Sam in Daedalus plenty of people like Techno weren’t involved. But of course it was never about unity because that doesn’t make sense, it was about friends, and family, bringing people together so that no one was alone and excluded, forming a simple happy community again…

[clingyduoapologist]

The thing about c!tommy that’s so insane to me is that, well, he isn’t especially brave? Like he is never opposed to just running from a fight, he will scream and cry and plead and sob if tubbo pulls out an axe for like half a second. He is really not a paragon in any sense of the word.

AND YET PROTECTION AND FIGHTING IS LITERALLY ONE OF THE WAYS THAT HE SHOWS AFFECTION like if there is a mob hitting you and ctommy loves you that mob is going to die. If you want to hurt his friends he will bite you and claw your throat out. He is not a brave boy but he is a loving boy and I can gonna be sick

[appleflavoredkitkats]

i know we can all argue that any l'manbergian embodies the essence of l'manberg itself but there's a specific sense of poetry that comes to fundy's own toxic connection to l'manberg. i've mentioned before that he literally is meant to represent the ideologies wilbur had when founding l'manberg— peace, no violence, camaraderie— but if it were cranked up to a toxic level.

like. as violence becomes more prevalent and practically status quo in the dsmp, the more fundy fades into the background. quackity literally compares him to the structures in l'manberg fading away. and! and! he's the only one referred to as "from l'manberg" by charlie. not even wilbur or tommy gets referred to as l'manbergians!

and more! the last we see of fundy in general is 1.) when he kills himself by jumping into the l'manberg crater, and 2.) when he pops up in eret's stream donating schlatt's sword to the museum. after, he disappears. we don't know what happens to him!

like you guys. this man has been doomed by wilbur's promise of giving l'manberg to fundy. he will never be severed from it as long as he harbors that blind need for nationwide camaraderie that can never be achieved because no one but him believes in such anymore. fundy's l'manberg! he's always been l'manberg!

[star-cluster-nyx]

Unstoppable force vs Immovable object but it's cclingy duo

You would think that Tommy - unstoppable force due to him always leading/being the face of the conflict (wether that is good or bad is up to you to decide) and Tubbo - immovable object because he's always the one following,

WRONG

Tommy - immovable object

Tubbo - unstoppable force

Let me tell you why; Tommy's sole motivation (and also fatal flaw) is that he Can't move on, he doesn't like change. He wants to go back to the 'good old days' in L'manburg where everyone was friends and the conflict wasn't real. Before cWilbur's mania transformed him into a shell of the man he was, before cTechno, before cDream, before the discs, before everyone and everything it was cTommy and cTubbo against the world, and cTommy Cannot. Let. Go. He thinks this idealised version of his memories is both achievable and the thing that will make everything Right again. Will make him happy again.

On the other hand, cTubbo Does Not like to linger. cTubbo strives to be as logical and methodical in his actions as he can, meaning that, from early on he learned not to rely on his emotions. Which ultimately makes him reject the past as much as possible.

Who cares if cEret betrayed them, they have way too much power to make an enemy of. Who cares if cTechno was the one who took his second(?) life and caused 3rd degree burns all over his body, he is willing to help him find cMicheal and that's all that matters now.

Plus, with the weight of the L'manburg presidency on his shoulders from a young age, he has to make decisions that benefit the collective/the country as fairly as possible, and make them Quick. He has no time for emotions, or trauma. He bottles both very tightly.

There are decisions to be made, people to protect, things to do. He cannot afford to linger on the past, nevermind he Doesn't Want to. Because thinking about it leads to remembering, and... Thats not a path he's willing to follow. He doesn't let himself feel negative emotions, because he doesn't believe it will result in something meaningful. He doesn't understand how that hurts him more in the end, or better yet, he doesn't let himself acknowledge how that hurts him more in the end.

So... Yeah. This is not an in-depth analysis or anything. This is more me trying to put myself in the mind of the characters. Please feel free to share your thoughts!

[simplepotatofarmer]

i don't think c!techno did anything wrong in not 'doing more' during the red festival to help c!tubbo. he stalled for over three minutes. no one else came to help him and he had no idea how effective his fireworks would be because when he tested it on c!niki and c!fundy, only the armor stand 'died'. he thought it was an unwinnable fight for him and he couldn't risk losing because he had one life.

i think his apology, him saying that he should've done more, comes from a place of grief. he watched c!ranboo die. he knew their relationship now, at least some of it. i think he was genuinely blaming himself for not doing better, for everything. he did everything he could, realistically, but i think grief was clouding his judgement.

or, not clouding his judgement, per say. maybe after seeing c!ranboo's death, he decided that he should be willing to die for what he believes in and was retroactively assigning that to his past self.

i think a lot of c!techno's character comes from a desire to do better and i do think that in his grief he picked this as something he could have done better.

[meteor752]

Not to be that bitch and start posting about dsmp in the year of our lord 2024, but like I just explained the entire fucking story to a friend of mine (three hours well spent, thank you), and I need to talk about a thing I just realized, which is the absolute genius of Jack Manifold, and the end of the server

Because, Jack’s whole storyline was that he was a side character. He was a guy who was dragged into the main storylines, dragged into wars and conflicts of the main characters (Tommy, Techno, W1lbur, Dre@m), and died in them. Nothing that he did, or created mattered, because he was always going to be just another casualty, of a conflict he had no part in.

And then the finale happened, and Jack, because of his anger, his spitefulness, his need for revenge, unintentionally sacrificed the server and almost if not everyone on it, just to kill Tommy.

And then they became the casualties. Everyone on the server became him, became the person who was killed by W1lbur during November 16th, became the person dropped into lava for a joke, became the person who was killed during Doomsday, without anyone remembering it.

They became the people who died for someone else’s war.

I have zero faith that it was at all planned, especially with how rushed the ending was, but it’s nonetheless unintentional brilliant poetic storytelling, and I hate the server for it

[sumwan]

It's still kind of sad how c!Dream acts pragmatic about his torture but secretly does want people to acknowledge how messed up it was and that he didn't deserve it. With c!Sapnap, c!Tommy and c!Foolish, he brings it up to achieve certain goals and then drops it quickly once that doesn't work or the goal has been achieved. But then with c!Sam, he insists that he didn't deserve to get tortured and that it is evil and wrong to torture others or to allow it to happen. And then there's c!Punz who talks quite emotionally to c!Purpled about how the torture was not okay (so you can imagine what he said when Dream told him). As much as Dream tries to leverage his torture, I do think he desperately wants to hear others say that it shouldn't have happened, that not even he deserved to go through that.

[sunsetcdiscs]

Grr.. i love discussions about the normalization of bad things for teenagers/ kids, whether it be fictional or real. Esp as someone who has had that happen 2 me

And i think it's smth that's very prevalent in ctommy's story.

C!tommy is chaotic on his own, so in a way he already had violence somewhat normalized? And I think all these little things add up to how he later treats his relationships w others, and specifically what actions he's willing to let others get away with.

There are, ofc, Loads of things that later normalize violence even more (wars, all the conflicts in general). But in my opinion, one of the biggest things that normalizes violence that is Specifically Towards c!tommy, was the fight in the pit w c!techno. C!techno beat c!tommy to a pulp, all the while c!wilbur was cheering and egging him on in the back.

Then ofc exile rolls around, and c!dream literally hits him w an axe right in the first vod. But that's okay, it's not like violence is Unusual, right? He goes through that week not questioning every time c!dream hits him, only questioning why he has to give up his stuff (<- this is smth that's never really talked about when ppl discuss ctommy's sentimentality for objects ? When rewatching the exile vods, i genuinely don't think there was a moment where ctommy went "hey, why are u hitting me?" it was always just "hey, why are u taking the stuff that I worked hard for?").

And then he runs away but ends up living with Mr. " ''minor'' terrorism". Can you see how that really wouldn't be good for c!tommy? Then when they go to l'manburg, it Allll piles up and c!tommy ends up hurting c!fundy and c!connor.

I've seen ppl before say that they ignore this lore moment bc it doesn't make sense, but to me it makes So much sense? Ofc a teenager who is constantly and consistently surrounded by a violent environment/people is going to be influenced by it? Ntm ppl say that they love c!tommy bc he's an imperfect character, and is this not a big part of what makes him imperfect?

One of the biggest reasons Why c!tommy left c!techno was because he realized it was further normalizing violence. Because he realized that He didn't want to be violent anymore

("Techno, if this is what I've become, then I don't wanna be me anymore, man."

"I'm worse than everyone I've hated- I'm worse than everyone I didn't wanna be *looks at cdream*").

C!tommy's talk with c!connor at the end of the community house destruction stream will always be So important to me

("For what it's worth, Tommy, I don't know what went on today, but- Even though you kidnapped me and I'm still kinda dealing with a bit of the trauma, I think that at the end of the day; you're just a conflicted person, not a bad person." SCREAMING VRYING THEOING UPP)

And a convo that's even More important to me, is the one w c!sapnap near the start of the doomsday stream, where c!tommy acknowledges that what he did was Bad, and that it was because of influence from the environment around him

("Sapnap, I'm so sorry, that you did that, and that I made you do that because.. it wasn't right of me. And I-I shouldn't... I shouldn't take out.. ANY of the fucked up shit thats happened to me o- on other people, and I'm sorry." AUGHHHHHHH CTOMNYYY VTOMYYY AJAN)

[yasminthespiritfaninnit]

Not many people realize this about C!Purpled but he’s a naturally noble and just character.

He’s very clearly morally grey but he’s rather noble and caring deep down.

He often helped out people mostly without pay (Like when he rescued Ponk from the Nether), genuinely hated unfair treatment and circumstances (Like the thing about Tubbo’s house being targeted a lot.), and genuinely gave advice to those he felt was in need. (Like how he warned Slime about Quackity. Not to mess with Big Q but to actually help Slime.)

He was pushed away by most of the server, which made him untrusting and bitter. This reared its ugly head during the torturing of Slime and the revenge against Quackity.

But when given a chance, he showed that he truly does give a damn about others.

This doesn’t mean that he’s nice but it means that he does have a heart and used it often in ways that most people don’t see or appreciate.

Cc!Purpled claimed that all that his character wanted was money and power but that’s only half true. The full truth is that C!Purpled was a quietly caring and just young man that was pushed into wanting money and power for a sense of belonging.

C!Purpled wants people to think that he doesn’t care, that he’s untouchable, that he only wants power and money. But truly, he just wants people to look at him and see him. As in truly see him.

Like another poster said, there’s three Purpleds.

The mask that Purpled puts on.

What Purpled thinks he is.

And

What he really is.

He puts on a mask of indifference, greed, and power. Nothing can hurt him. He’s the best and if you fuck with him, there will be hell to pay.

He thinks that he’s broken but becoming stronger. He doesn’t truly care about anyone else but his dog. He is not untouchable but he won’t let anyone see the cracks that he’s desperately trying to patch up.

But, he’s just wounded. He had given and given and then given some more. But he didn’t have anyone return the favor. No one protected him. No one even noticed him. So, why should he care anymore? So, he sealed his all giving and caring heart away. But this is only hurting him. Because he sealed his heart away, he self-isolates and self-indulges in revenge again and again to try and replace the hole left behind.

But it won’t work because he never stopped being that noble and just boy.

He’s just hurt and tired.

Someone give him a hug and a bed, please.

[bleue-flora]

Ok, so can we talk about Punz for a second? Because like when I rewatched that stream the other day, not only did I notice that it was Punz who avenged Dream by killing Tommy and returning all of his stuff, after Sapnap and Tommy had ambushed Dream and refused to return it [details] (making him truly the mvp, who really doesn’t get enough credit). But I also noticed some other fun things.

Specially this.

And this.

Tommy punches Dream -> immediately killed by Punz [clip].

Like okay maybe we could make the point that Dream pays him to kill Tommy and reclaim all of his stuff [clip], but pretty sure Dream isn’t paying him to be so protective.

[clingyduoapologist]

The thing that will always stick in my mind about November 16th is that Wilbur wanted to hurt them. He wanted them to scream and feel betrayed and to curse his name and forget about him, because he didn’t want anyone to mourn. He wanted Tommy to hate him so much he forgot him. He wanted Tubbo to be president just long enough for the loss to tear him up. He would finally be slaying the beast, after all. He just had to make sure that they were all on the same page, that they knew that he was doing them a favor. He wanted to hurt them so badly, all because he didn’t want them to miss him…

[appleflavoredkitkats]

just got the sudden hit of realization that jschlatt technically fits under l'manberg's whole "no violence" principle, even if he technically did a lot of violent things as president. like i know the theme of cyclical violence was just about to get there but i can't help but notice that schlatt does not fit under the "villains who succeeded in the dsmp via physical power" because he isn't good at minecraft.

and i mean that like. in an unfunny-funny way. because it was established by quackity that the violent power that exists in the dsmp goes hand in hand with how good the cc behind the character is at mc, which is why quackity had an entire plotline centered on gambling. how skilled a cc is at minecraft does change what a character is capable of, and explains why techno and dream were those most feared in the dsmp.

so like. with schlatt. like let's be honest, nothing was literally keeping him from being president. gotta rewatch how tommy and wilbur were exiled just so i can double check everything but like. i think it's fascinating to realize that wilbur was somewhat mistaken when he believed l'manberg's core values were completely overridden, because it wasn't. schlatt didn't really gain power by being physically threatening. in fact i'd say he and wilbur are similar wherein their characters are threatening because of their manipulative charm.

idk. like, wow, wilbur's l'manbergian principles were right in some way, just contorted. you can gain power without being a violent minecraft pro

[omegamoo]

c!niki’s anarchy arc makes me feel a little bit insane because. the roots of anarchy are in the masses, specifically when they turn to their sources of stability- religion, and more relevant here, the government - and find nothing but oppression. and when that’s all they see, when the government isn’t doing anything for them, the logical conclusion is to tear it down. there’s nothing worth saving in that government, and why should you trust that any other government will be any good - so take it all apart!!

there’s a whole historical tangent here about absolutism in russia and serfdom and whatever but as it pertains to c!niki:

she is the soul of lmanberg. she sews the flag, she stays there, she lives and loves there. she fights for lmanberg and she fights against schlatt and she commits tax evasion and on and on and on - see previous posts about cniki and rebellion… yeah. At any rate she’s a fighter

but lmanberg stops being a source of light & starts just being a source of hurt. schlatt is bearable - a terrible leader, but lmanberg can be reclaimed. and then wilbur blows it up, because neither schlatt nor wilbur are good leaders, and that’s when it becomes too much. when neither of the people in power are good, when none of these administrations are doing anything to benefit niki (a baker, a warrior, a citizen not in the government, a rebel, a pogtopian). and certainly a kid (tubbo administration) isn’t any better either (although at that point it’s a deep-seated distrust), so that says something about the whole system, the whole government, and everyone niki knows.

if c!wilbur, a person niki loved, is bad, and the government of lmanberg is bad, there is nothing in it for someone like niki. so of course she turns to anarchism. there is nothing a government can do to bring back the wil she knew, to bring back the love found in black-and-yellow walls. everywhere niki goes she is undercredited. she has no reason to trust that lmanberg, the place she loved, will ever get better, and thus: take that shit down