#dsmp finale just gave me the tools to make it make Sense

[embv]

god do i love my canon-divergent au <3

[firesnap]

Rambling about bad c!Crime takes in 2024.

I think the struggle with being a c!Crime fan during peak DSMP was having to deal with the people who would unironically use "vilbur" like it was a badge of honor and the ones who legitimately thought c!Tommy was 8-years-old at the beginning of L'Manberg.

Like, I don't need to rehash a lot of this. A hundred meta essays were about how Tommy was not responsible for Wilbur's mental health, that he was a front row audience member watching Wilbur's decline and begging people to intercede because he was a damn teenager with zero tools in his kit for "help my brother is frightening me and he's ten feet from me but I think I've lost him in this cave."

But you can still see people go "Ok Tommy helped make Wilbur worse."

No. Just no Tommy's worst behaviors didn't impact Wilbur because Wilbur was so far into his own spiral at that point that it just didn't even phase him if Tommy called him insane. You can't put that on Tommy. When Wilbur came back he even said he could recognize the man he was back then was frightening and beyond what Tommy should have had to see.

But, saying Wilbur acted on violent delusions on Tommy or emotionally abused him or isolated Tommy on purpose... Girl this isn't exile arc and you're not getting c!Crime.

Wilbur and Tommy at their best were moments were like... Tommy with a shield in front of Wilbur, Wilbur with a hand on Tommy's shoulder saying to be better than Wilbur ever was, Tommy and Wilbur running through a small nation and dancing on beaches and laughing at how fucking much the other one sucked with every bit of affection in the world tied behind those words. It was a loop of I'd die for you, I'd die for anything but especially you and Who the fuck ever asked you to die??

At their worst they were a negative feedback loop that fed each other. Tommy was possessive of Wilbur, from even the early L'Manberg days, to the point where Wilbur often neglected other relationships to give Tommy attention. He was angry at Wilbur for falling off the pedestal that Tommy put him on. Wilbur was just as dependent on Tommy being always behind him and took advantage of the fact that Tommy wouldn't leave. He dumped his own fears and paranoia and self-hatred at Tommy's feet and then assumed that this person younger than him could sort through it.

And if you can't handle hearing how they fed the worst parts of each other, then maybe you aren't really here for that dynamic. Maybe you've made something else up in your head that you like more. And that's fine, man. Do whatever the server is gone. Just don't act like your personal version is what canon gave us.

Also, something something it's totally fine to dislike Wilbur's finale btw, but as imperfect as the execution was, it was right on board with what they were telling us about c!Crime from right when Wilbur was revived to Wilbur telling Ranboo that, essentially, Tommy would never leave him and Wilbur knew that wasn't healthy. They needed to break the cycle to save themselves and whatever brotherhood was between them.

They were about acknowledging they were tied to each other in fucked up and unhealthy ways, but needing that sense of brother so much that they were both afraid to do anything about it.

[redorich]

(Hermit Canyon AU)

Eventually, the Hermit seems to get attached to Puffy. It makes sense- it's been trading gifts with her for months now, and has even shown itself to her a few times, albeit while invisible.

The other SMPers don't think much of it at first. The more curious members ask Puffy questions about The Hermit sometimes, but she knows little, so they quickly give up. Occasionally someone will try to explore the ridiculously trapped town, but they give up once it's obvious they're not getting in.

The trades grow more and more valuable, and one day Puffy opens her barrel to find a beacon, and enough iron to fully power it. She's stunned, naturally. To think the Hermit is so capable it can kill a Wither just to give a beacon away- she can barely believe it.

(In actuality, they cheesed it on the Nether roof, but she doesn't know that)

She does try to hide it, but word gets around, and after another few failed raids on the town (and some rumours that the Hermit can teleport), things settle down again, as much as they can on the SMP.

Then someone steals Puffy's beacon. {You decide who, because I. don't actually watch DSMP, admittedly.}

Puffy, naturally, is devestated- she can't imagine the work the Hermit put into getting it for her in the first place (the most time-consuming thing was getting the Wither skulls, and it wasn't even that bad). But there's not really much she can do, so she carries on.

Except, the next day, the thief wakes up to find their house full of chickens, Puffy's beacon missing, and every single empty space in their chests filled with strategically renamed light grey stained glass panes.

They go outside to find the entire contents of a cave spider spawner on their front lawn. Alongside a ravager. With speed potions. Renamed Pamela's Revenge.

(Cue half the SMP trying to find out who Pamela is)

Puffy, meanwhile, wakes to find her beacon back in its rightful place, and a beautifully terraformed garden outside her house (Scar accidentally detonated a creeper and naturally had to fix the hole...and then went a little overboard. But it's fine.)

op i want you to know that i considered just posting your ask, because it’s already So Good and practically a fic on its own, but i really wanted even more content so i wrote it myself. ANYWAY here’s sapnap’s terrible horrible no good very bad day xD

It’s risky, doing anything on the wide open Nether roof where anyone can see. Hell, using a beacon at all is risky for the Hermits. Still, they’ve got all sorts of farms and copious amounts of materials at their fingertips. They’re past early game, stuck in mid-game while they wait for Etho to scope out more locations, while they build the second Upside Down (which Grian has named the Upside-ier Down), while they build their joint bases miles out from civilization. 

Having a beacon would make the process faster, they reason to themselves. They certainly aren’t risking being discovered just because they’re bored and getting a beacon is an excuse to do something. And hell, Tango made that giant, super-efficient wither skeleton skull farm right next to his double blaze spawner farm, so they might as well mass-produce Nether stars by killing multiple Withers. It’s not that difficult.

On another note, it’s after they gift Puffy one of their many beacons, in addition to a kit of iron blocks for powering the beacon that the Hermits realize that while their gifts are increasing in expense, Puffy’s are... not. So, if Puffy’s around average in the Dream SMP economy, they’ve figured out where most players meet their limit. She hasn’t stopped dropping by, though, which is nice. Her gifts become increasingly handmade, in lieu of upping the ante on material wealth. The Hermits suppose that hand-crafted items have a value that extends past money. Each and every one of them has something that she’s made for them, whether it be a shawl, a blanket, a set of earrings, a bracelet, or a pair of socks.

Apparently the beacon is more of a Big Deal than the Hermits thought. After all, the rainbow castle has several. However, the Hermits realize that they’ve been shortsighted. While it is true that the rainbow castle has several beacons, the castle is the only place that they’ve seen any beacons.

Sapnap steals the beacon. He doesn’t particularly need it, but he wants it, and stealing is fun. Maybe if he’s lucky, he’ll even start another minor war over it. He hasn’t fought Puffy very much. He wonders if she can put up a good fight.

Puffy’s-- not distraught, but she’s upset. That was a gift from the Hermit, a friend who she’s been pulling out of its shell. She doesn’t have much use for a beacon, but then again, neither does Sapnap; he’s just a dick. Just in case, Puffy leaves a note with the rest of the items she leaves in her barrel:

Dear Hermit,

I’m very sorry for losing the beacon you gave me. I made the mistake of keeping it in a normal chest instead of an Ender chest, so Sapnap stole it. I should have seen that coming. I’ll try to get it back, but if I don’t, please know that I didn’t throw it away.

Thank you,

Puffy.

Sapnap wakes up in the middle of a lake. His mattress is floating, and when he tries to paddle back to shore (once he’s done screaming), the mattress tips over and he receives an unpleasant fishy wakeup call. He trudges into his house for a shower, and finds that the showerhead, as well as all his faucets, have been stuffed with ramen noodle seasoning. 

He looks in his chests for a bucket of water. The first chest he checks is not only full of light gray glass, but also trapped. When he opens it, pufferfish fall out of the ceiling and bounce around. He dies to their poison twice before they finally die. The next chest he opens also has light gray glass, no water buckets, and a trap. This one, though, only releases a metric fuckton of chickens into his house. It’s fine. This is fine.

As he looks through his chests, he realizes something. They’ve got glass in them, sure, and they’ve been raided of water buckets, but... the beacon is gone. None of his other items, like enchanted netherite tools or literal diamond blocks, have been stolen. Just Puffy’s beacon.

Whoever pranked him missed a bucket, so he promptly dumps it over his head in an effort to smell less like pond scum and spicy chicken noodles. It takes the whole day to get his base back in order: he’s got to clean out all the faucets, empty all the glass from his chests, throw out all the dead pufferfish, and slaughter chickens by the dozens.

He can’t sleep. Are you fucking kidding. He can’t sleep. A soft hiss catches his attention, only audible now that the quiet of night has fallen. Is there somehow an unlit cave under his base?

Nope. As he steps outside onto his front lawn, he sees a daylight detector near the door that he missed when he came inside this morning. The daylight detector seems to have released approximately fifteen bajillion cave spiders onto his lawn, and they’re all angry, so he shuts the front door in their faces and goes back inside. That’s a problem for tomorrow’s him.

Horns spear the wall right next to where Sapnap was standing five seconds ago. He yelps. What the fuck is a ravager doing on his front porch? And why the FUCK does it have speed potion particles?!

<Sapnap was slain by Pamela’s Revenge>

<Sapnap was slain by Pamela’s Revenge>

<Sapnap hit the ground too hard whilst trying to escape Pamela’s Revenge>

<Sapnap was slain by Cave Spider>

<Sapnap was slain by Pamela’s Revenge>

<Georgenotfound> who is pamela’s revenge

<Sapnap> ;RVAER

<Sapnap> HELP

<Sapnap> RAVEAGER

<Sapnap was slain by Pamela’s Revenge>

<Georgenotfound> good night sapnap :)

<Sapnap> GEORGE OYU BITCH HLEP ME

<Sapnap was slain by Pamela’s Revenge>

<Georgenotfound> zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

-------

Puffy sees a whole lot of nonsense in the chat when she wakes up in the morning, and promptly decides to ignore it. She goes about her morning as usual, heading out to her front porch to sip a cup of coffee in peace. 

She... has a garden now. Hm. That wasn’t there before. And come to think of it, neither was the beacon she lost.

“Thanks, Hermit,” she says with a smile.

-------

Stress sips a cup of tea, having breakfast in Grian’s rustic sitting room with a few of her fellow Hermits.

“D’ya think we went overboard?” she says.

“...Nah,” Cub says.

[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.

[xoxo-ren-xoxo]

Tommy’s (and Tubbo’s) Character /rp /dSMP

This is a bit of a rant so like be warned. I have nothing against any CCs mentioned in this, this is all roleplay, lighthearted, and just a bit of fun analysis. Mostly this is a ramble about how I see certain people analysing Tommy’s character on tumblr and twt, and why I think they’re wrong. This isn’t directed at anyone specific, just a trend I’ve been seeing that kinda irks me. I don’t dislike the fandom, just a few ‘takes’ have been really weird for me.

TW for everything below: analysing the effects of trauma, abuse, manipulation, gaslighting, and lack of therapy.

I’m not really liking how victim-blamey everyone is getting currently in the dSMP, both in fandom and canon. In canon with certain characters but especially in fan analysis posts and especially about Tommy and Tubbo. People legitimately celebrating that Tommy might start ‘apologising’ for his actions more and 'growing as a person' somehow don’t realise that hes been made this way through a tonne of negative reinforcement. abuse, and gaslighting. And people blaming Tubbo for actions he had no choice in, rather than the actions he did choose.

Currently, as I see it, Tommy is so scared that anyone would find a reason to be pissed off at him that his fighting spirit has been completely crushed. He was exiled and abused when he should have been helped and given an understanding figure to guide him and teach him how to deal with things non-violently. In everyone’s eyes, the problem was that Tommy was creating violence with no real reason, acting recklessly and commiting crimes. Tubbo, having made him a part of his cabinet, knew that this would only harm the country. So instead of talking to him reasonably, he got angry, put him on trial, and punished him with the logbook (humiliating him by making him report back to Fundy, which he obviously hated). Tommy’s actions were, of course, bad, but did he deserve everyone ganging up on him? No. Especially when Tubbo was supposed to be in his corner, helping him out like he always said he would (”It’s me and you vs Dream” etc). This is the first betrayal of trust from Tommy’s POV. He doesn’t understand what he did wrong to its full extent, and no one can explain it to him. 

However, Tubbo was under a lot of pressure from Dream and George, and he’s a literal child President, so his ‘safety over friendship’ actions are understandable. I don’t believe Tubbo is solely to blame for anything he’s done in season 2, but it can’t all be excused. If you are to blame Tommy for his recklessness, you have to blame Tubbo, at least partially, for his disregard for Tommy’s feelings and mental state. There were other ways to go about the entire thing, including the trial, which was just horrible to watch, and agreeing to give Dream the disc, something Tommy gave him in pure confidence that it would be safe with Tubbo. Yikes moment.

At that time, Tubbo knew a lot of things about Tommy. In fact, he probably knew the most about Tommy out of anyone on the server. He knew the discs were incredibly important and a comfort item for Tommy. He knew Tommy had trauma from being exiled in the past. He knew Tommy was abused, or at least manipulated by Wilbur, in addition to growing up in war. Wilbur once told Tommy to stop being reckless, and Tommy listened, changing his attitude because he looked up to Wilbur so much. Then Wilbur said ‘let’s be the bad guys’ and stopped trying to mentor Tommy. There’s a conflict here, because Tommy was told by Wilbur that he wasn’t good enough to be President (links to the idea of ‘not being strong enough’) but he knows that Wilbur was a bad person. But Tommy is never given the chance to reconsile his feelings surrounding Wilbur, both because of Ghostbur and because of the conflict he starts with George. So he is harbouring a mixture of emotions about his mentor and brother, not understanding how to untangle the ‘real Tommy’ from the manipulated boy he became. 

What was going through his head when he stole from George and griefed him? Perhaps the thought that he needed to show he was still the same old Tommy. Maybe the need to ‘prove himself’ as a strong person? It could have just been an outlet for his trauma. He’s grown up in a world where everyone is either a friend or an enemy. George isn’t a friend. How was he supposed to know that hurting him was bad?

Tubbo was pressured into the actions he took against Tommy, but he was pressured far too easily. There is no moment where Tubbo turns to Tommy and makes sure he’s okay, he views him as ‘selfish’ and overdramatic, and sees his actions that way. This makes sense from Tubbo’s POV, he’s struggling to be President in ways that Wilbur *knew* he would, but in Tommy’s eyes this is the worst betrayal he’s ever known. The moment Tubbo (rightfully, but poorly executed) defies Tommy’s plan to hire Technoblade (ahem, seeing Techno as a weapon again) and exiles Tommy is the moment their friendship shatters. They’re two people who don’t understand each other anymore. Two people who are technically in the right, but only hurt each other. 

What Tommy needed was a therapist, instead he had Dream, who put out the fire of rebellion that made him so strong, and Techno, who was trying to help but doing it in the wrong way. 

People see tommy's change post-exile as a good thing because he's not as rebellious anymore and he’s thinking things through a lot before he does them, but they will soon realise that his rebellion was one of his best traits and the fact that no one saw it as anything but a problem really shows. He now second-guesses himself so much and is so scared of being wrong that everything seems too difficult and too dangerous. Every trait can have a positive and negative side. Tommy's defiant nature would have made him the perfect negotiator with a little practise. In fact, he had plenty of good ideas before he was exiled (using spirit against Dream, though it didnt work in the end, for example). The negative side of this was recklessness and the desire to cause problems on purpose, but what he needed was a friend (looking at you Tubbo) who understood that hes been through several wars, was manipulated by Wilbur, and hasnt known a time of peace where everyone who wasnt on his side was out to kill him. Now that ‘fight’ is gone he's just become easier to manipulate.

He may be getting better (see: telling Dream to go fuck himself) but there hasn't been any long-term growth because he was never told what kind of rebellion was good and what was bad. He was just told it was all bad. By Dream (and by Tubbo). Who he doesn't trust. So he's just going to revert back to his old ways because no one told him what was bad in a way that didn't make him feel like everyone was against him. Dream is the enemy (though Tommy’s feelings towards him are complicated, they make his brain go all ‘flippy floppy’) and Dream told him that rebellion was bad, so rebellion must be good always, right? 

And then there's Techno. Techno did nothing wrong except for when he did. Techno is 100% right except for when he isn’t. He doesn't understand Tommy because Tommy was never fully open about what Dream had done and how it affected him. That's not Tommys fault though, because who the fuck openly talks about their trauma? So neither of them are to blame for pretty much anything up until the confrontation at the community house. 

However, Techno's methods and ideology were not what Tommy needed. He was thrown from one extreme to another over and over again, from complete subservience to total rebellion. Neither of these inforce good attitudes in Tommy. One, as stated before, makes it so that he will regain his negative traits again. The other reinforces those violent traits as good, just like Wilbur did. The only difference is that Techno had good intentions, he wasnt trying to use Tommy, which is why he feels so used when Tommy 'betrays' him (Techno doesnt realise that he himself betrayed Tommy by teaming with Dream, he sees it more as a transaction than a personal thing). Techno feels so hurt by Tommy ‘viewing him as a weapon’ that he goes on with his no-mercy attack, completely dropping Tommy at his lowest point. 

Tommy says he doesn't want to be like everyone he's hated. In fact, he say's he is 'worse' than all the villains. This is very obviously untrue, though he was clearly going down a dangerous path with Techno's influence (see: bullying Fundy, spawning wither, kidnapping Connor, and saying that the discs are more important than Tubbo, more on that later). He's not a villain but who exactly has said he's not a villain. Dream? Techno? Neither of them can be trusted in his eyes. They say he's a good guy, Wilbur wanted to be the bad guy, who's right? He doesn't know. He has a crisis of morality. 

And? Some people want to point at that and say 'aha! Character development! He's finally realising his actions have a negative affect on others!' OH GOD NO??? He's a *child* who thinks that he is worse than his abuser. Does that sound like positive character growth to you? 

Lastly, the discs. We know theyre a comfort item blahblahblah. He hates himself for valuing them more than he values Tubbo. He's literally innocent in this. He’s been horribly manipulated by Dream to believe that the discs are worth anything. Theyre really not worth anything if they are being used as tools rather than, yknow, discs. My poor boy. He doesnt trust people, so what can he trust? The discs. But then he says it out loud and realises he misses Tubbo and he wants to be with his best friend again and and and WAHHHH. This also isnt really character growth its just fucking sad leave me alone. 

Anyways what the fuck guys. @ Niki and Jack what the fuck. Yeah we get it it’s miscommunication but wtf. Kinda worried that the actual lore will make Niki and Jack’s hatred of Tommy justified in some way and take on a big victim-blamey vibe, but I’m hoping that everyone is smart enough to not do that. I cannot praise Tommy enough for how he’s portrayed his character. I’m currently hoping that he himself understands the true complexity of it all. I’m sure he does.

Mostly though im actually pissed off at all the people praising tommy's character for 'maturing' when hes literally just got trauma. Nice one, tumblr and twt users. Thanks. Great job. He hasnt 'learnt his lesson', he’s traumatised. What the fuck.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk, leave your responses in the reblogs and comments.

[mcytbdamofficial]

A strange question. If the official DSMP lore of (a) character/s ever heavily changes from what you wrote it as (in example, if c!Velvet turns out to be long dead or the velvetisegg theory is true, or any of the major characters- that their canon lore starts being majorily different), how do you come up with things that would make them "fit in" again? I am just genuiely curious about that

usually a good way to go around things like that is to fall back on what i've already established and try to spin it in the right way. a good thing to use is the nether lore as well as everything with the memories - things like that are unpredictable and pretty much anything can come to light at any point.

(this answer went on for a while longer than i expected so i’ll put it under the cut in case there’s someone scrollin who doesn’t want this whole thing clogging up their dash)

a good example would be the sbi family canon - when phil first shouted the words "you're my son!" a lot of people instantly thought that techno, wilbur and tommy being his sons had been basically canonized (obviously this got debunked later with only wilbur being his son, but at the time that was the canon i went with and had to somehow push in). until a part of the story i wasn't planning to make the sbi family canon, so i had to think of something fast. so i considered how phil, for whatever reason, supported techno's reign during the antarctic empire days. why did he just outright follow him when his acts were universally regarded as evil? initial ideas were he, himself, was rather bloodthirsty, but this new issue came around and i used this blank in the story as a way to explain it - of COURSE phil would support techno unconditionally, he's his son, after all. later on, i managed to strike a balance in the story between phil supporting techno because of them being family, as well as him, himself, having his own agenda in the empire itself (bringing along the bloodthirsty nature of techno, which in turn i later explained with the voices, once those were canonized. that solution to a new canon was practically handed to me, with how i wrote the bloodlust as a voice beforehand. i just had to change it to “voices”).

for your example, i have one idea that could work! if velvet turns out long dead, i could quickly explain it in a simple way. ant WAS getting letters from velvet, but at one point they stopped and he received news velvet had died. ant has been lying about getting letters after some point because he didn't want other people who knew him to get hurt, and maybe he's even in a certain level of denial.

if velvet IS the egg, that could be more complicated, but still doable. tie it all into the source/nether lore, make him some sort of god or symbol of chaos, just play around with the rules of my own world until things fall into place. usually, somehow, i will find a way out just by stepping back and analysing what i already have prepared and thinking of how it can help me insert a new idea into the story without disturbing what's already there. 

this is basically how wilbur being a source came into fruition! initial ideas were him and schlatt decided themselves to not enter the bunker and escape the flood on their own, but how would that make sense? oh yeah, what if one of them IS the flood? then i rewatch the video, and who other than wilbur is putting the commands in to make the water rise! it was too perfect not to somehow include it, yknow? and then boom, i have this cool lore about sources. why not use it? and yes, initially sources were JUST gonna be a passing mention in the captain’s journal. they weren’t ever planned to go this far. and before you know it we have wilbur, kristin, foolish, hannah...

so yeah. what i’m saying is. when in doubt, use nether lore. and that’s how i’ll go around whatever comes of the egg, in the end.

a lot of it also comes down to very careful storytelling and knowing what to change and what to leave alone. when the story started there was a set amount of people that i knew were involved in the roleplay and others i knew would NEVER get involved (keep in mind the story started being written before even the festival happened live, HELL, even villbur wasn't a thing back then), and separated them into small groups based on what i could and what i couldn't play around with. for example;

i could easily change callahan, alyssa, etc around... they're people who barely appear who aren't involved in the storyline. i gave them small appearances to show they're there and mostly kept them to the back.

people who i KNOW will never join the smp can be mentioned, referenced or even included! minx is probably the prime example of this. and if she ever DOES join the smp, by some magical chance? there can always be some magical book in the library that can reverse her from a dreamon to a human. so nothing to worry about there.

future major characters like dream, quackity, niki, etc didn't have much at the start but needed something to push them into their future arcs. in these characters i changed their start but made sure it left space to be moulded into anything they become later - i made niki kind but i also showed her early critisism of wilbur, already sensing she may have a villian arc coming in the future. when season 2 came around, i was proved right so i went in on those small hints more and more.

for characters who have an established arc, start to finish, who it's hard to change in any way, i change nothing - but i look at their past. the obvious people for this are schlatt and wilbur. on the smp they were characters start to finish, their arcs started and ended in the story and had nothing else. so i focused on the past, instead. and boom, suddenly we have 35 smplive chapters of completely original content.

with every character i live small hints of SOMETHING coming in the future. i leave small holes to be eventually filled by canon, and if canon gives me nothing, i fill them myself with something minor. another good thing is to trust fanon - with a fandom like this, where the creators listen to their fans and canonize a lot of popular fanon, it's good to go in on small fanon knowing it will eventually be canon, or even knowing it will make readers happy and will never impact the story, no matter how much it changes (think tubbo having horns, puffy being a pirate/sea captain of some sort, stuff like that)

there are, of course, times when i can’t avoid changing things from canon. phil not knowing who schlatt is, wilbur not knowing schlatt, etc... but i think in those places, those changes serve to improve the story in some way, and i think it’s a welcome change in the end. this story is definitely leaning more into AU than RETELLING, but i don’t think it’s such a bad thing. while faithfully retelling every major plot point, it adds its own elements and creates a somewhat new and exciting story people can enjoy anew. i think that’s what i strive to do the most in this fic - not retell the story word for word. you’ve already seen the videos. you don’t need that. what i DO want to do is create an engaging read for both avid fans who have seen every stream and casual fans who want the lore to make a little bit more sense to them. and that’s that.

god that went on a while didn’t it haha...

okay so to summarise - whenever something major changes in the canon lore, i have various ways of going about it. usually for some characters i would have left behind hints of SOMETHING and will just try to fit them into whatever change has showed up, or try to at the very least explain them with the new development so it doesn’t seem out of nowhere.

if that is not possible, i look back on all i established and think how i can use it to my advantage. could someone have been forgotten in an old world? is there some sort of nether anomaly that could have caused this? is this character a reliable narrator and have we gotten the full truth? there are a lot of ways to change things around with it being completely out of the blue but seeming fitting for the audience - you just have to really think it through, plan it, and make sure you know exactly what you want to do before going into it.

and finally, if there truly is no way to change a thing, shift canon completely and make sure it doesn’t change the base story. allow me to use the sbi as an example again, since i think they’re a good tool for this;

techno will take tommy in and help him recover from exile, same as canon, because he is his brother, as bdam canon states. at first he’ll just do it because phil wanted him to, but soon it will become a matter of family. when tommy betrays techno, it will hurt him more deeply BECAUSE they’re brothers. when he comes back to phil and tells him what happened, even phil himself will become enraged. the two themselves have been shown to have a history of resorting to violence and aggression in the story (look back at the antarctic empire), so doomsday wouldn’t seem out of  character, or, at the very least, out of the question, when two men like them are pushed to their very limits by a betrayal like this. still, it would be unfair on tommy, but on both sides there would be something justified and something they did wrong - and that’s how you balance a good conflict in any story.

so yeah. i hope this long ass essay made sense. a lot of work goes into making sure this story flows naturally, so i’m glad someone finally asked something like this where i could reveal just how much work goes into it!!!

[ruby-whistler]

(Just for time- any name I refer in here is all character unless specified!)

Nah, cause I'm convinced that the vault was 100% a set up and there's so much that is just left unexplained that proves that:

The Elevator

The Polished Blackstone room

The Gold/highly lit stand for the discs

The enderportal

The attachments

The Avenger's Endgame bullshit at the end

Ranboo

(1) - I don't know why, but this was one of the bigger ones to annoy the hell out of me as to why it looked so complicated. Dream- as far as I remember- hasn't had that many creations with such complex machinery/redstone engineering. Even more so to the extent of making an elevator that can function going up and down with a platform big enough to fit multiple people on.

(1) - Not only that, but we never even got to see the inner workings of the redstone itself- it may seem like an unnecessary detail, but as far as I'm aware, not many people are able to make redstone this complex in order to properly function as an elevator (in Minecraft terms). Dream just doesn't seem to fit within that category because- again, as far as I'm aware- the most complicated redstone device he's made has been the doomsday one, and even then, it wasn't even that complicated- nowhere near the level enough to make an entire elevator by himself.

(2) - Maybe it's because of the amount of times I've seen Dream login to the server and how infrequent it had been in the past, but I don't see how Dream could mine up so much Polished Blackstone, especially to use in this specific purpose. Dream doesn't even have many structures to his name, even his own base doesn't even have any materials that could suggest he would need extra Blackstone for. If it had been made out of obsidian, I could believe it considering all that material had been used for walls around L'Manburg. (Plus, it's been confirmed by the CCs that creative mode is barely used as is, so this makes mining this much Blackstone/Polished Backstone make even less sense.)

(2) - I feel like this is strongly indicated with how much Ranboo had been supposedly mining at the time and had a ridiculously low durability on his tool set so often, sure he could be mining for something totally unrelated, but if that were the case- why would he be so "unaware" of why his tools are so low to begin with?

(3) - Now this is where the bullshit meter starts kicking higher. Why would Dream display the real discs so proudly and in such a gaudy manner, especially when it functionally served no purpose? Not even the walls he had around L'Manburg or the obsidian grid were as flashy. Gold floors, bright lights, the portraits of the discs side to side by the very clear escape portal™, hell, they were even positioned to be directly in front of the elevator so that Tommy and Tubbo would first notice them and would try to run for them. AND THERE WERE TWO ENDERCHESTS RIGHT NEXT TO THE PORTALS AND THE DISCS.

(3) - What kind of Saturday cartoon evil villain™ leaves such an obvious flaw, even when taking into account that Dream is supposedly a strategist? What kind of strategic mastermind would leave an interdimentional chest that could potentially have back up gear and various other items to assist his enemies out in the open like that especially next to a portal where they could easily escape? Not even Jack Manifold would make such an oversight like that.

(4) - The placements of the portal and where Dream, Tommy, and Tubbo all stopped off at the end of Dream's grandiose speech were all much to convenient/coincidental. It was like it was choreographed so that when Dream was specifically away for the duo, Punz and whoever else would be able to step in and "separate/rescue" the two from the big bad Dream despite the fact that Dream could've easily killed the two if he really wanted to by being near and crit'ing them out.

(4) - Plus, the portal was already lit. Which leads directly to where they would've been. Again, from a strategic standpoint that makes no god damn sense. Why leave an obvious portal out in the open like this so that your enemies could try and come and find the people you're trying to supposedly kill?

(5) - Oh yeah, but the bullshit alarm is blaring. Albeit with a bit of wavering doubt, I thought that the attachments room was the most solid part of the plan, at least, if we're going with the mindset that Dream's ultimate goal was to take control of attachments, force everyone to be friends/unified again, and achieve his ultimate goal of peace and unity on the server. But as I thought more on it, some of the attachments... Don't make sense for Dream to know.

(5) - How did Dream know about someone having an attachment that was bedrock? How did Dream know about Punz's shulker box? (I know Drista gave it to him and cc!Dream was there for that, but canonically it makes no sense.) Why did Dream specifically think that Enderchest was Ranboo's only primary attachment? How did Dream know about Dogchamp despite Purpled and him never properly meeting in canon?

(5) - Sure Dream could've gone snooping around and managed to find out, but some of these attachments he doesn't even properly know of unless he had to walk up to someone and be like: So hey, what are you emotionally attached to that would make you utterly destroyed when it's gone? :D

(6) - How in the ever loving fuck did everyone manage to get there?

(6) - This one is clear that Punz lead the charge on this one, but why did everyone flat out believe him? Beforehand, everyone was deadset on staying back, regardless if it was on Tommy and Tubbo's word. But Punz? Alone? He managed to convince everyone? Even if they had a neutral opinion on Dream, to go with him to the vault to rescue the two? Nobody questioned how he even knew about where the portal to the vault is, or that it even had a portal? Nobody? Not a single soul? Or how nobody even questioned how Punz knew that Dream had taken the two down there and didn't just send them off into their own exile?

(7) - Ranboo rarely ever metas about the lore. Unlike most CCs in the DSMP, cc!Ranboo has a particular way of making sure that chat doesn't spoil him on plot points going on, so I highly doubt he would "accidentally" recite Dream's speech, word for word, bar for bar in a room he hadn't even been in yet. Nor even was there for (it's heavily hinted that Enderwalk was present during the confrontation instead). Plus, although it was confirmed unintentional by the CCs later on, Ranboo and Dream were both staring at each other, and I don't think it was to keep him in place- considering Enderwalk went to go visit Dream as often as he could before his ban and Enderwalk seemed to be on good terms with Dream even before the whole Doomsday Era.

Nah, the whole confrontation makes no sense, even down to the cherrypicking examples of it all. If it somehow gets confirmed that the confrontation wasn't staged and that Dream was somehow this cocky, I won't make a fuss, but I'm not gonna be entirely too thrilled at the idea.

But contrary to popular belief, I don't think Dream did this with only Punz or Enderwalk, I think those three were the main ones to set up this whole thing, but considering the redstone and the attachments that Dream wasn't supposed to know of. I don't know, but something about that screams like there was one other involved, the question is- who would also help Dream like Punz or Enderwalk too?

This one is an old one, but I absolutely agree. The Disc War finale is, with all due respect, either egregious writing with no character continuity in the slightest, or c!Dream faked the whole thing. It's way too suspicious not to be obvious. That's a banger analysis.