#probable george character analysis coming up

[sideprince]

A movie question I wanted to throw your way: what do you think about the decision to use a decent amount of physical acting on Rickman’s part for comic effect? I’m thinking his snatch of thin air in Philosopher's Stone, his creeping along the table towards Ron and Harry in Chamber, his dramatic point in that same scene, his walk up to the stage for Dueling Club, his whacking students in Goblet and Order, etc.

On one hand, I feel like this does match the tone of the books; he canonically lurks and prowls and points and snatches at the air, and his menace is often undercut by a physical description that’s meant to be some level of comedic. On the other hand, we don't see Snape nearly as much in the movies as we do in the books, so this aspect of his character seems somewhat overinflated by the movies?

TLDR I don’t think these decisions in the movie were completely out of left field, but it also feels off for some reason. Idk I don’t know how exactly to verbalize my feelings on the matter and wanted to hear your thoughts!

It will probably come as no surprise that I feel like any answer to this question is inseparable from the absolute hatchet jobs that are Steve Kloves' screenplays for the HP franchise. This reply is going to end up inevitably long (you ask me about my favorite subject, you suffer the consequences), but all of it is ultimately framed by the problem of having to make the best of a badly written script. (**edit: This post is way too long. Run away. Don't look back.)

The writing doesn't support the story

The first thing that jumps out to me is that there's a separation between where and how these comedic moments are used, up until the end of GoF and after. They're more a part of the story only until Harry's story arc reaches the point of Cedric's death, when he first witnesses death in the way that allows him to see thestrals after. GoF is when the story takes its first dark turn, and up until then the tone and story is much more in line with children's literature, so it makes more sense that Snape is portrayed in a bit of a playful way. After GoF - even though the films reveal it as an aside and much later than the original story does - Snape resumes his role as spy and becomes more integral to the story as a key character and is thus no longer just a foil in a children's story. I think what doesn't work about it is the inconsistency. The books have comedic moments with Snape too, which are cartoonish, up until the end of DH - I feel those are also out of place, but at least their existence gives a basis to what's done in the films.

Nevertheless, one of the biggest problems with the films is that they're badly edited. I'll leave that analysis for another post (you're welcome), but essentially these comedic moments feel inconsistent in part because there's often a disconnect between the performance a director has asked of his actors and the tone that's established in the editing room once pacing and a soundtrack are added. Any vision a director had for these films was muddled by the involvement of big studio producers and limitations. This is made more jarring by the way that Kloves has interjected light, funny moments in awkward ways throughout the scripts. He struggles overall to convey the world that Rowling has created, and if it weren't for the brilliant production design of Stuart Craig, Kloves' failures would be much more obvious (again, worthy of its own roast post).

Take the scene where Snape whacks Harry and Ron on the head in Gof: why are the students all studying in the Great Hall? Why are various years sitting together? Why is Snape overseeing them? It's a scene almost verbatim out of the book (Fred asks Angelina to the ball casually, he and George tell Ron and Harry to get dates "before all the good ones are gone," we find out Hermione already has a date), but like pretty much every scene that originally takes place in the Gryffindor common room, this one is moved to another location for no discernible reason. The main difference in the change is how restrictive it is: in the common room the children are free to be themselves, but in the Great Hall, under a strict teacher's nose, they have to be quiet and restrained. Another subject that would need its own post is the myriad of ways Kloves goes out of his way to rewrite settings and characters to avoid allowing them to express themselves or grow as characters, and how hard he works to stifle and limit them in ways that are convoluted and work against the story, as if he himself couldn't deal with any kind of emotional vulnerability (in a way, his scripts are a desperate cry for help). This directly contributes to why so many of Snape's comedic moments feel off.

The changes in the scene in GoF don't even make sense from a production perspective, as they required more actors, more lighting, and more setups. Instead of using the cozy setting of the common room to establish camaraderie between the students, Kloves replaced that energy and lightheartedness with Snape in a way that's uncharacteristic. The scene, as he wrote it, is already light and has humor, but Kloves doesn't trust it - he feels the need to exaggerate it and the casualties, as always, are the characters and their portrayal. It's as though he's following a formula and saying, "this page number/scene number must provide relief from the tension of the story" and then doesn't consider how following that directive fits into the rhythm of the narrative. It's closer to being an isolated scene akin to a comedy sketch than to a scene that's part of an act that's part of a film. It's worth noting that, in GoF, Kloves interjects this scene as if he's forcing this moment of comic relief into a story that didn't require it and then relies on playing off of Snape's usual seriousness as its crux. In OOtP, when there's a callback to it as Snape smacks Ron with a book again, it's no longer the point of the scene, but an aside in a comical montage focused on Umbridge (OOtP was also the only film not written by Kloves, so this moment is more likely the result of Michael Goldenberg trying to maintain a consistency with Kloves' work). Overall, I think that feeling of something being off is, again, more rooted in the writing than the performance.

Rickman as an actor playing Snape

There's a lot of criticism in the Snapedom of how Alan Rickman portrays Snape, but not enough acknowledgment that none of the characters are portrayed well, and most of it comes down to Kloves' writing of them. Book!McGonagall insists that all students under 17 are evacuated before the Battle of Hogwarts, where Movie!McGonagall only cares that the Slytherin students are locked in the dungeon, everyone else can stay, what does she care if first years die? Book!Hermione is intelligent and empathetic while Movie!Hermione is a two dimensional maternalistic harpy whose main job is to be a mouthpiece for plot exposition. Book!Ron is funny and brave and fiercely loyal, while Movie!Ron throws Hermione under the bus, is cowardly, and is reduced to a flatly written sidekick. Book!Harry is complex and while I could list a million examples, I'll stick to this one: in PoA when he finds out Sirius betrayed his parents, he's enraged but has no reply when asked if he'd want to kill Sirius. Movie!Harry says with conviction, and without prompting, that he wants to find Sirius with the explicit purpose of killing him. Every single character takes a hit because of how Steve Kloves writes them, and Snape is, sadly, no exception.

While some film shoots allow for improvisation, a big budget production on a tight schedule with scenes that require a lot of prep work can't afford to make many changes. So, for example, while Ralph Fiennes was asked to improvise his scene as Voldemort at the end of DH2 when he re-enters Hogwarts victorious (and that's why the dialogue is redundant and that weird hug with Draco continues to plague us), it could be done because the wardrobe and set and cast were already in place and the time required had already been scheduled in. It wouldn't be possible, though, to add an additional scene - like Snape going feral in the hospital wing at the end of PoA - unless it was written into the script. Additional actors would be required, which would mean coordinating with their schedules and adding them to the budget, not to mention scheduling in additional days with the crew who may already have other work lined up. It would require either pushing every other shooting day back - which is near impossible - in order to use the hospital wing set while it's still up, or tacking on production days to the end of the shooting schedule and rebuilding the set on those days. This can be done for necessary pickups that round out existing scenes, but you can't really say, "hey I decided we need a scene here that didn't exist before" without causing huge problems. Because of how contracts work, any significant scene changes would have to be sent back to Kloves who would have to write alternate scenes and/or dialogue, and even then if you wanted to fix a specific character's arc - like Snape's - you would have to add in so much that it just wouldn't be feasible. Screenplay lengths have to fall within a certain number of pages, because each page is approximately a minute of screen time, so adding a few more to a finished script mid-production is very difficult. The actors have to make the best of what's on the page. Which brings us to Alan Rickman, his choices as an actor, and what informed both him and the character of Snape.

Alan Rickman was a RADA trained actor, so his approach to a character involved a lot of physical work as well as character analysis. As far as I know, he was the only actor to contact JK Rowling directly to ask about his character, because he wanted to make an informed decision about how to play him since Snape was so nuanced and gray. Unlike some of the other actors (like Michael "DIDYAPUTYANAMEINDAGOBLETOFFIYAH" Gambon) Rickman read the books - those that were available when he took on the role, and each as they came out afterwards - and used them to inform his understanding of his character beyond what Kloves wrote (presumably in crayon with all the e's backwards). In interviews and Q&A's it's clear Rickman was fond of the HP books and story, and had a thoughtful process taking on Snape's character. He did not see him as a villain, because, as he's said, he didn't approach characters with that kind of judgment. And while I'm sure the egregious amounts of cash Warner Brothers threw at the actors was inevitably a factor for all of them, several of the ones playing teachers or other adults have said that they took on their role because a child in their life insisted on it, despite them being unfamiliar with the books, whereas Rickman's process was to read Rowling's books in order to decide whether to take the role. Again, he was a RADA trained actor, and thus had a meticulous approach to his work that followed a thoughtful, considered process and a decision based on whether he felt he could embody a character in a way that did them justice/if they were interesting enough to him. By the time he started shooting PS, he also had experience directing a film and was working as a director in theatre as well as still acting, so he understood the process from the perspective of not just an actor, but also as someone behind the camera, someone working with actors both as a peer and director, and someone sitting in an editing room.

We know from his diaries that he became increasingly frustrated with how his own process and expectations clashed with that of the producers on Harry Potter. He wasn't interested in renewing his contract after the first few films (goodness knows how much money they offered him in the end - his wife has said that he never let anyone else pick up a tab in a restaurant and if they argued, he would just say "Harry Potter."). He writes about seeing the films at premieres and being frustrated with how little story and development there is (especially for Snape), which makes me think there are deleted scenes somewhere that haven't been released. At one point he writes about a premiere party where he had internally lost patience with the three Davids (Yates, Heyman, and Barron). It's obvious that there's a discord between the work he wanted to do with Snape's character and what choices the production made:

He describes how, during the filming of the Yule Ball scene in GoF, there was an attempt to get him to dance but he refused because he didn't think Snape would dance:

It was a rare moment of potential for improvisation because, again, the set and cast and timing were already accounted for, and in this case there wasn't even dialogue. The scene where he smacks the boys with the notebook - as far as I know - was scripted. So there's a difference there in how much freedom he had, as an actor, to say no to what he was asked to do. Even in the above diary entry it's clear that, given his way, he felt the character wouldn't even be present in that scene, but he had no choice. This tells me that when he had more freedom to make choices, he did so based on his understanding of Snape as a character and, given that he was an actor who was both very respected (and got away with more than most) and also someone who could get argumentative about his character choices, I think this is the most apt lens to examine his physical work with Snape through.

Knowing that he wasn't interested in continuing the role of Snape after the first couple of films and that he was often frustrated with the lack of characterization and story arc, his physicality in his first scene in CoS (when he reprimands Harry and Ron for flying the car) says a lot. (Caveat that one of the reasons he didn't want to renew his contract was that the shooting schedule restricted his schedule and he wanted work on other projects, but I can't help but wonder if that had been the case had HP provided a more satisfying process.) It's almost certain that he had read all the available books by the time the scene in CoS was filmed, including PoA where Snape becomes apoplectic with rage in a way that, to a child reader, is comical (and intended to be) and to someone analyzing Snape is clearly rooted in triggered trauma.

Alan Rickman knew from the outset that Snape's motivation was his love for Lily, so he would have understood the dynamic between his character and Sirius re: who Snape thought sold Lily out to Voldemort. He would also have understood that Snape's reaction in PoA was more about distress and anxiety, and that this was connected to the promise Snape had made to protect Harry for Lily's sake. This would have therefore informed his portrayal of Snape's anger at Harry in CoS, and it's reasonable to assume that Rickman was trying to walk the line between the way Rowling portrayed Snape in full unhinged rage in PoA, what this tells him about this character when angered, and the connection between the moments in PoA and CoS when it comes to Snape's anxiety over Harry's safety. Unlike the author of a book however, who has full control of how they tell a story, Rickman was an actor in a film - an inevitably collaborative medium which therefore made his portrayal reliant on the decisions of others as well.

Chris Columbus, the HP movies, and feral Snape

PS and CoS were directed by Chris Columbus, the guy who directed both Home Alone and Home Alone II and Mrs. Doubtfire. He was a successful director from the 90s tradition of children's movies whose sensibility was informed by the era's attitude towards children's media: kids wanting to see themselves in narratives, in ways that felt empowering and allowed them to process the confusion of a world run by adults in playful, quasi-cartoonish ways within a 3 act structure where the villains - mean adults - get their comeuppance because it feels fair. One thing that set Harry Potter apart was that the villain was not the mean adult; Snape, the mean adult, is a character kids can hate and project their own experiences onto, but Voldemort is a true villain who represents evil and is vanquished by the hero. Chris Columbus established a tone for the first two films that was no longer apt by PoA, not only because it didn't work for the story, but because that 90s era of children's movies had ended and the culture moved on to more complex narratives (and Columbus has focused more on producing than directing since, because his style doesn't work for audiences anymore).

What's ironic about the way Snape's scene at the start of CoS comes off is that, in the book, there's a great comedic moment that's left out:

This is cut from the film, and instead it's Filch waiting at the top of the marble stairs who catches Ron and Harry being late and delivers them to Snape (I don't know why, the scene in the book is much more dynamic and would have taken up about as much time on screen). Rickman, meanwhile, is using the information he's gotten on who Snape is from the books, and imbuing some of that feral Snape energy into his portrayal of a Snape who is genuinely angry:

(Thank you for making these gifs @smilingformoney , they are truly the gift that keeps on giving.)

The thing is, no matter how much of feral Snape Rickman brought to this, no matter how menacing his performance is, this moment still lives within the dynamics of a Chris Columbus children's film. It gets cut off by Dumbledore's entrance - meant to be a comeuppance for Snape, since Dumbledore (being the voice of wisdom and fairness in this world) prevents him from punishing Harry and Ron (you know what, at least in the books they got detention, but ok). Despite Rickman's performance, Columbus as a director has framed this scene in the same context as the one Kloves cut. The tension is brief, and the focus is on Snape being foiled, because it's what children want to see - a mean adult experiencing consequences. It's down to the editing and soundtrack, choices Columbus made in the editing room. In addition, we don't know how many different ways an actor tries a scene, only what ends up in the final cut of a film. The process of the work done on a set is often much richer and more diverse than what an audience sees in the finished film.

Tbh I think this is also why Snape's feral moments were cut from PoA: it's a darker film, but had to straddle the line between being for both children and tweens and not getting too playful, nor too intense. As much as I want to see feral Snape on screen, it's extremely difficult to make work in a narrative that is about Harry and his friends. It either skews too intense, making the audience uncomfortable because seeing an adult becoming unhinged and in pain is difficult and frightening for most young people, even adults, and would therefore take away from Harry's goals and narrative as well as his changing relationship to Sirius (all of which is already barely supported by Kloves' writing). Alternately, it could also skew too comical and over the top, which takes the audience out of the tension of the film's climactic moments.

If Snape's story had gotten more focus and screen time, an unhinged moment would be better justified because the audience would have been more invested in the character and their arc. PoA sidesteps pretty much all of the most compelling parts of the book, which is the realization that Harry is not only connected to Sirius personally, but that his dad, Sirius, Lupin, and Pettigrew created the Marauders Map, that they were animagi, that Harry's patronus takes the form of his father's stag, and that Snape was initimately connected to all of them as well. For me, reading the end of PoA was what cemented Snape as someone who would be crucial to the narrative and whose role would increase as the series went on. As a result of Kloves skimming over these essential plot twists, Snape is a minor character in the film, showing up mostly as a foil who tries to expose Lupin and then catches him and Black in the Shrieking Shack (this also sets his character up to be minimized in every film down the line, which has a worsening impact as Snape becomes increasingly integral to the plot).

One thing I find interesting is that Snape's comical physicality changes over the films. In PS and CoS he's menacing, a looming, larger than life figure the children fear and easily assume to be a full-fledged villain. By GoF there's a relationship embedded in how he interacts with Harry and his friends. He's no longer terrifying, just intimidating, more of an adult Harry challenges than someone he must defeat. The comedic effect now comes from a rapport within an established dynamic between characters. By HBP, the only comical moment is at Slughorn's party, and it's no longer Rickman who uses physicality - the action happens around him, and the comedic effect is in his lack of reaction to any of it. In other words, he's no longer the comic one, he's become the straight man in a (badly written) comedy sketch (with abysmal timing, what even).

Ultimately, as with most of the characters in the HP films, Snape is undermined by the writing. Rickman was stuck working within the confines he was given. No matter how well he may have understood the character, the limited screen time and character development were always going to stifle how Snape was portrayed on screen. I'm very much pro Let Snape Be Feral but I also don't fault Rickman in how little we saw of that.

How Feral is Snape?

If I'm honest, I feel like the Snapedom has taken the Let Snape Be Feral thing and has started forgetting that he wasn't all-feral-all-the-time. The point of Feral Snape is that it's a heightened state of tension in a character whose trauma is being triggered. Apoplectic Snape wouldn't have an impact at the end of PoA if that was his usual way of being. And, as you so brilliantly showed @said-snape-softly Snape's speech patterns are primarily quiet and controlled, his speech gets softer the more dangerous his mood, and it's only after he reassumes his role as a spy that the description of his speech becomes increasingly volatile (but is still controlled). Feral Snape's definitive aspect is the lack of control shown by a character who usually is so exceptionally capable of self restraint and compartmentalization. So again, while I would have loved to see Feral Snape on screen, I think it's also important to acknowledge that this is not the defining feature of his character and is more about what those moments mean to his arc. Their absence is primarily due to poor writing that didn't create space for them (including what leads up to them), and the direction that didn't carve out any kind of niche for them, not Rickman's choices as an actor.

In fact, Snape as a character is defined by descriptors of his voice more than any other character by far. I have my own theory about why this is, and it has to do with Alan Rickman being inextricably connected with how Snape is written. Chris Columbus said that Alan Rickman was always Snape as far as he was concerned, because when JK Rowling showed him a sketch of Snape she had made, it looked exactly like Rickman. I don't think this is accidental.

Alan Rickman was always intended to be Snape

First, what's important to remember is that before Harry Potter, Alan Rickman was best known in the 90s for playing both villains and sad romantic leads. His signature defining feature was his voice. I think it was Ang Lee who described the casting choice of Greg Wise and Alan Rickman in Sense and Sensibility as wanting Willoughby (Wise) to be dashing and Brandon (Rickman) to be sexy (if this was Emma Thompson and not Ang Lee, my apologies, I can't remember where I read this and can't find the source). This is how Rickman was perceived by audiences up until Harry Potter. And I know a lot of the Snapedom considers him to be sexy as Snape too, but the general audiences of the films don't, so please don't @ me, I'm just setting up a point here.

This is relevant because, as we find out in the end of the books, Rowling wrote Snape's motivations to be rooted in romantic love (I'm very nobly putting aside, for the sake of focusing on Rowling's intentions, my personal interpretation that Snape's feelings for Lily were platonic, please acknowledge how brave I am for this). She pulls a lot from gothic tropes into how he's written, and as much as she's talked about the character having been inspired by a chemistry teacher she disliked, and as much as she's talked about Snape being both morally grey and someone she personally dislikes, she also romanticized him. Between this and what Chris Columbus said about her sketch of him, it's hard for me to ignore that this character, conceived of in the 90s, wasn't written with Alan Rickman in mind from the beginning, especially since Rowling herself has said that she envisioned him in the role. Whether or not he lived up to Rowling's imagination is, frankly, his choice and Rowling's problem.

The story of how Harry Potter was written according to JK Rowling is that it started with the idea coming to her on a train ride in 1990. She completed the PS manuscript in 1995. While everything I'm about to say is absolute conjecture, I can't help but wonder at the connection between these films and the way Snape was written (spoilers ahead, no regrets, these films have been out for over a quarter of a century - forgive my reviews, I can't help myself):

1988: Die Hard comes out. Alan Rickman plays Hans Gruber, a villain who is a genius, composed, controlled, and soft-spoken. (Great film, a classic, the only valid Christmas movie.)

1990: Truly, Madly, Deeply. Rickman plays a man whose wife can't get over his tragic death, nor can his own ghost, who comes back to spend more time with her. No one else can see him, and they can't really share a life anymore. She eventually lets him go as she realizes that his spirit doesn't belong in the mortal world and her own life can't move on as long as she clings to it. (Beautiful film, will break your heart and put it through a shredder.)

1991: Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves. Rickman is the Sheriff of Nottingham, an unhinged, feral villain who wears all black complete with billowing cape. (Terrible film, disaster of a period piece, Rickman's performance is the only redeeming thing about it. Halfway through its press tour talk shows started booking Rickman instead of the lead, Kevin Costner, because Rickman stole every scene.)

1995: An Awfully Big Adventure. Rickman is an actor who comes back to his hometown to revive his role as Captain Hook in a local theatre production of Peter Pan. In the process he has an affair with a young ginger stagehand who reminds him of his lost love, a vivacious woman named Stella with bright red hair who, as far as he knows, birthed his child - a son - before she died. It turns out the girl he has an affair with is his daughter, which he realizes when he visits her home where she lives in the care of her aunt and uncle - whose name is Vernon - and connects the dots of who this girl's mother was. (He then rides his motorcycle out to the pier, screams "Stella" at the heavens like he's in a revival production of Streetcar Named Desire, trips and hits his head on the edge of the pier and falls into the water, drowning. I can't make this up. Mike Newell directed this. The same guy who directed GoF. As if following in the vein of the 90s movie obsession with incest as the controversial-trope-du-jour wasn't enough. I don't even need to review this, just sum it up.)

1995: Sense and Sensibility. Rickman plays Colonel Brandon, a forlorn, grieving man who lost his first love at a young age and spends most of the film pining for the only other woman he's ever had a romantic interest in. Wears all black, rides a black horse.

Given what a well-known actor Rickman was in the 90s - especially in England - and how connected his characters all seem to be to various aspects of Snape, it's hard not to see a connection. The entire premise of Truly, Madly, Deeply sounds like the inspiration for the Resurrection Stone in Deathly Hallows. The redheaded lost love whose child is left in the care of an Uncle Vernon in An Awfully Big Adventure is difficult to look past. All of these characters either exude menacingly soft-spoken Snape energy, feral Snape energy, or forlorn because of his lost love Snape energy. As a result, I feel like it's almost inevitable that Rickman inspired Snape, especially when you consider how known he was for his voice and how frequently Snape's voice is used to describe him. When Rowling said that she envisioned him in the role, it makes me wonder if she meant during the casting process for the first film, or well before it. I think his previous roles were a contributing factor in how the character was written in the books. After Tim Roth - who was originally cast in the role - had to back out due to scheduling conflicts, she got her way. Authors don't often get to choose who plays their characters, but in this case it worked out as the production thought Rickman was a good fit as well.

I'm done, I promise

So where does this leave things at the end of this horrendously long post? Rickman's choices of how he physicalized Snape - comedic or not - are only part of a larger whole. He was playing a character who was written based on his other roles, and limited by the shortcomings of how Steve Kloves translated that character from Rowling's books into his own screenplays. Whatever Rickman did on set was limited by that writing, by the directors he worked with, and by the choices made in the editing room.

I'm fascinated by the idea that Rickman was playing a character written with him in mind - but not really him, the him who embodied other characters whose echoes show up in Snape. It's difficult enough to contend with an actor playing a character in a screenplay you wrote with them in mind when you're directing your own script, because they'll never be what you imagined in your head. But for that process to get filtered through several directors, a team of producers, another writer who changes your work, and an editor, let alone throughout a decade of films - that's downright wild. The original intention gets lost and reinterpreted like a game of telephone, and I think that a lot of the consistencies between Movie!Snape and Book!Snape are down to Alan Rickman's nuanced and generous nature as an actor. If I'm honest, I'm not convinced that every Snape moment that comes off comical was meant to be so by Rickman. But again, film is such a collaborative medium that his intentions aren't the only ones that matter, ultimately, at least they aren't the only thing that ends up in the final cut.

My take, personally, is that I'm more interested in critical analysis than personal criticism. I respect that everyone has their own vision of a character and fandom is absolutely here for, among other things, having a place to share those thoughts and feelings. But a character is rarely going to appear on screen the same way you see them in your head, and that's not always going to be a fault, even if it's a disappointment to you. It's interesting to hear different people's perceptions, but there isn't that much to discuss there - you can't refute how someone feels, and you can't argue that their truth is what it is, to them. Whereas with critical analysis there's a lot more to talk about and examine, so it's where my own interest is much more invested.

[thataddylady]

Analysis: Phillip Crane 'To Sir Phillip with Love' Pt. 1

So I was asked to do a fleshed out analysis of Phillip Crane as a character and what on earth is so appealing about his romance with Eloise for those of us who loved not only her character but her book as well. It was meant to be one post but honestly it turned into a novella so I'm gonna do this in sections. His book with Eloise was my favorite in the Bridgerton series. Phillip Crane is a very complex character. He isn't charming or dashing, he isn't setting off fireworks anywhere. The ones who aren't a fan think he is a toxic rapist at worst or a boring nerd at best. I am not here to argue against that case. I'm just gonna make mine.

Regarding Sir Phillip

Before I can get into why I loved him with Eloise, I thought I'd do a breakdown of Phillip and his back story as presented in the books. So much of his character and mannerisms are informed by his history so to miss it is to misunderstand him IMHO.

Phillip Crane as a character, is a deeply emotionally scared man. He has so much compounded trauma it's not funny, starting from his father's abuse from childhood onwards, his brother's death, his marriage to Marina and ultimately her death which was both tragic and traumatic. Now I know many of you who are familiar will go "She was depressed for ten years and ultimately committed suicide, how is this HIS tragedy?" This is a fair point to bring up. #man pain. I will get to that, I promise.

The book however only has Phillip's POV and when it opens he is six months out from her funeral so not much time has passed. A snapshot of Phillip's life as presented in the book is he and his brother suffered from horrific abuse at the hands of their father. He has visible scars on his back as an adult from the beatings he endured as a child. His escape was two things, his brother George and attending school. He's a plant nerd, and he comes into his own through academic scholarship. His brother, who was a real paragon by all accounts dies at Waterloo, and Phillip is yanked out of school by his father for more abuse to whip him into shape as his heir. Part of this is forcing Phillip to marry Marina. They are both still mourning his brother. His father as some point drops dead of a heart attack right in front of Phillip mid abusive diatribe and Phillip inherits the baronet.

From Phillip's recollections he and Marina were had a decent marriage until her depression becomes extremely bad after the birth of the twins. There is an unfortunate scene (not the first in the Bridgerton series) where Phillip visits Marina at night after receiving permission from her. The sex is horrible because she is not in a good place and he doesn't clock it until it is too late. Going off of their previous times having sex he assumes he is doing something wrong which is why she is not responding. He doesn't realize that she is in fact legitimately not in the mood and her consent in her current mindset is not reliable.

Is it well written? We can debate it. But what it is meant to convey is a tricky situation where sexual consent used to mean something and now it does not. This experience ends up being scaring for both of them because even though he received consent which used to be reliable, this time it was not and he feels like he raped his wife. Marina is upset because the whole experience was probably demeaning for her and she isn't in a place where she can understand or communicate her wants or needs. There are those who argue that Phillip is a rapist but to me seeking consent and receiving it moves this more into really bad or traumatic sex. The consent is never rescinded.

At worst he should have noticed sooner, but at best he's better than Daphne.

Either way this event sets the tone for the next decade of Phillip and Marina's marriage. He swears off sex with her because he realizes that she isn't in a place to consent to it, and instead spends the years raising their two children and trying to help her out of her depression. With what is available to him he does his best but a modern audience knows that this is a losing battle for both of them once Marina's depression becomes what we would classify as clinical. In the end after a decade long struggle on both their parts, Marina tries to drown herself. Phillip stops her and she succumbs to 'lung fever' or some related illness shortly after.

About Marina

Marina Crane is a tragic character; she loses George (Phillip's older brother) the love of her life and is forced to marry his brother with little ceremony or time to grieve. She is written as already having issues with depression before the death of her fiancé, and develops what seems to be postpartum depression after the birth of her two children with Phillip which is left untreated (cause it's 1800') and it devolves over her marriage with Phillip. Because this is set in the 1800's there is no real help for the level of depression Marina suffers from for a decade. She is unable to connect with her children or live well, her husband is unable to help her and in the end she dies from the effects of a su**ide attempt locked inside her own personal hell. It is rough going.

Now while it is true that Marina is a tragic figure, I feel that it is too easily ignored that Phillip is as well. He is someone who has compounded trauma, who also had no escape from his situation and is doing his best to help someone who cannot be helped without any proper tools or assistance at all. He's not Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre who's annoyed about his mentally ill wife and locks her in the attic and denies her existence. He actively tries to help Marina any way he knows how. He seeks advice from neighbors or health professionals, tries every approach and nothing is effective.

Just as Marina was trapped in a marriage with a man she didn't love with an illness she couldn't win against, Phillip was also trapped in a marriage with someone who couldn't communicate, who was a ghost of themselves and everything he does is ineffective.

In this day and age with the medicine and knowledge we have the awareness around mental illness is still sorely lacking, but it is a better understanding than the 19th Century.

All of this is to say both can be and are true. They are both victims of a series of tragic and unfortunate events and circumstances.

There is a reason there are support groups not only for those with depression but the caretakers of those with clinical depression and those who have lost loved ones to it. It is deeply traumatic to feel that you are the reason someone cannot get out of bed in the morning, that if you just tried harder they would be able to pull themselves out of it. If you have been in close to someone who is depressed clinically or otherwise, you know it takes a toll watching it. The longer you are witness to it the harder it is to stay 'logical' about the truth of what is happening. That it isn't personal, the individual isn't "not trying" because of self pity or laziness, they simply cannot control their thoughts or emotions.

If you are a person who encounters it upon occasion it is a bummer but you can shake it off. If you are living with someone suffering from it, it is mental and emotional torture, especially when you feel responsible and ARE responsible for the person's health and wellbeing. The feelings it engenders are dark and complicated. It leaves you twisting between bitterness that they won't try harder, shame that you didn't try harder or be better to help them and are blaming them for your incompetency and grief over the fact that they are slipping away and you cannot help. There is also a 50/50 shot between anger and numb resignation about the entire situation.

These are Phillip's actual feelings when it comes to Marina. Phillip does not see himself as a victim of her depression. He's not just 'pissed that he couldn't get laid by his sad wife'. He's someone who is trying to cope with the result of being handed a series of increasingly bad cards with no room or space or help to manage it all.

He has been second choice his whole life and by all appearances (to his mind) has failed to be the person he was meant to be. Namely, his brother George. George dies because he's serving his country while his baby brother gets to go to learn about plants. His father is abusive and dies because Phillip wasn't good enough to match George. Marina took her life because Phillip wasn't George.

He cannot separate his marriage from his grief over his brother that he never got to process, his feelings about watching his parent drop dead and the life he's been enduring since birth. It has been blow after blow by the time we meet him in the first chapter and it is probably the first time in over a decade that he has time to begin to process his life.

Only he can't because he has two children who are used to having their father around and don't understand why he locks himself away in his green house all day and cannot play with them.

Ok I think that's enough about Phillip, Part 2 will tackle him and Eloise in the book.

Feel free to leave your thoughts but I am not gonna tolerate attacks. If you have beef keep scrolling please.

@whatsaweekend here's the first part of what you inflicted on yourself LOL.

[roseyuri]

oh my head is full.

Ik pnpyns parents gotta be HOMOPHOBIC ASFF

I think pnpyn is picking "safe men" like a lot of comphet sapphics

now.. this can either be with men that are unattainable, like celebrities or men you know won't like you..

OR

with men that already like you, and because they like you, you get into a relationship to convince others (or yourself) you're perfectly straight

she "fixates" on men that already like her, so she tries to force herself to like them. she's definitely aware she's atleast interested in women in a non straight manner, and is trying to push it down. Probably dislikes minji for bringing those feelings up and instead convincing herself that attraction is hatred (love and hate are two very similar emotions)

I think pnpyn in the argument got distracted by minji cause she's pretty and... Got mad. She's probably terrified of people suspecting she's gay, and will immediately refute the claims. some people do this by presenting as homophobic but... She's an idol I don't think she's doing that LMFAO

It's probably a really sensitive topic.. I bet she picks male celebrities she likes out of a catalog of "safe" guys she has in her head LMFAOO

her relationships never last long because she doesn't love them in the way they want or the way SHE herself wants.. the comphet is beating her ass

This will create a veeeryy interesting dynamic.. I feel her on a spiritual level I realized I was gay watching charlie's angels because LUCY LIUUU😭😭😭😭😭

poor pink 2000s girl watching mean girls seeing Regina George ik her ass was just convinced she appreciates the outfits... girl.

anyway I think that she probably has a lot of resentment towards herself because of this. she probably views herself in a bad light and definitely berates herself if she catches herself staring at minji because "girls can't like girls she's probably straight why are you being weird" and such.

especially in a country like korea. I'm hispanic and it used to be really bad here, if you were gay in public you risked your life and family. it's gotten better, but not only is she an idol but living in a not very accepting country.. and it's obvious her parents probably caused this so she risks losing her FAMILY. she probably thinks her members would hate her too so I can't blame her for being defensive. If someone even tries to make a joke about her not liking men I think she would SPIRALLLL she'd be like "FUCK THEY FOUND OUT" and be like uhmm no im not gay lmao have you seen (male celebrity) hes so hot (lie)

overall, while I can't gather her character from just one work, she definitely puts on a "unbothered girlboss" persona to hide her self hate and paranoia. she probably actually doesn't like herself at ALL.

do u think she is terrified of liking women in a male way. like how men belittle her and only see her for her looks do u think she's afraid to find women attractive in case she's "acting like a man" and also belittling them and such because that's like. lesbian experience.

one day she's gonna be found taking an am I gay quiz shaking and crying at the results guys mark my words.

ALSO. hope she has a breakdown over realizing (accepting) she's gay btw❤️I hope she actually starts crying screaming convinced her members r gonna HATE her ong

also.. other people can send analysis I don't own analysis LMFAOOO I would love to see other ppl take a crack at it especially characters I don't rlly understand (wowyn)

like I'd love to get a little more insight on specific characters from the lense of people with wildly different experiences. there is no such thing as copying character analysis I do not own this!!! u r not competition ur my friend.. coworker, even. All of us working together at the analysis factory 😞😞 we should unionize 🤓

I would love if people who have experienced comphet come and give character insight on pnpyn as well!!! I hope to see more ppl sending analysis but RICHGIRLYN IS MINE‼️💥💥(JOKE)

the mitski song I condemn her with is come into the water (maybe I'm the same as all those men, writing songs of all their dreaming— but would you tell me if you want me? cause I can't move till you show me)

-🎏

this is an amazing first analysis on pnp!yn I feel like some of ur views on her might change a little as the story goes on but I’d say most of things you think about her are pretty spot on.

I always find it funny that it’s hard for u to analyze wow!yn’s I feel like because ur not the biggest fan of her it makes it hard for you to understand her because there’s some asks that I’ve gotten on her and they’re pretty spot on with her. but she rlly is my most complex yn so that kinda makes me glad that you have a hard time understanding her that means my job is done

[voidedparts]

a note flutters down through the void

it reads:

tell me about a thing. any thing you like. use as many words as necessary :)

I'm going to start writing this as I go because if I wait till the end I'll forget a lot of bits. Okay? Here we go.

I wanna talk about Lockwood & Co. (books and Tv series) and the idea of one's appearance as their armor

Spoilers for the show, and the books (all of them). Read at your own risk. THAT MEANS YOU TAIGA! (iykyk)

So this interest all really started when I finished watching Lockwood & Co. and in my sorrow for not getting another season I turned, as one does, to AO3.

And something I noticed, only two times but that's enough to pique my interest, was writers referring to Lockwood's outfit as his "armor". Most notably when referring to having pieces of it taken away. And that made me super curious. Sure, I could chalk it up to one of the writers saw the other refer to it that way and really liked it and used it themselves, but I'm not inclined to believe that idea because I feel like there's something substantial here. Even if not literally, purposely mentioned as "Lockwood thought of his appearance as his armor", if one analyzes how a character is written, one can find evidence of things like that. And even more so when analyzing the visual media of tv shows, because actors have to communicate so much through body language too. All in all, written and visual media do not do things for the heck of it. There's meaning behind everything.

And another reason for doing this is 1) Lockwood is one of my favorite characters, and Lockwood & Co. is my current obsession, so getting to analyze him and this series would be awesome for me, and 2) it got stuck in my brain and now I want to explore it because if I don't I think I might explode.

I don't know if this is going to be anything at all, but a free ramble pass is a free ramble pass, yaknow? And in my endless need to make everything cool, the ramble is going to be set up like an analysis (perhaps better than my last one, which just devolved into me fangirling over the visuals of a tv show with minimal commentary. And there's nothing wrong with that.) that hopefully makes sense to at least someone.

So let's jump right in. I think I'll start with the show because it is freshest in my mind (I'm in the middle of reading the books right now)

As I'm thinking about this, several things are coming to mind. Firstly, isn't it interesting how much we see Lockwood in his "professional clothes"? Like, and my friend pointed this out when we were watching the show, we nearly never see him in casual clothes like we do Lucy and George. Which sort of works to make him stand out (I may come back to this thought later) among the cast. The most we see is actually at the end of the last episode, when they're all gathered around the kitchen table, where Lockwood is wearing a T-shirt (most probably due to his shoulder injury and it being too much of a hassle, and probably a pain, to put on a collar shirt and tie so he just didn't bother but yaknow). Consequently, this is also the same time when he decides to open up about the bedroom he forbid the others from going into, by showing them what's behind it. Obviously in the show they leave it on a cliffhanger (😡) but in the books they tell you a bit more. So I'm seeing it as 'vulnerable visually = most vulnerability.' Almost all other times when they're at the house, he's wearing his collar shirt and tie, which I believe represents him being more at ease with Lucy and George, and if we follow the armor theory he purposely took off an armor piece (the coat) to show that relaxation. But one could argue "Void, he just doesn't want to wear the coat around the house! You've got nothing here!"

Sure, we can argue that, but I think I've got an answer for that.

Let's take a small peek at the books for a moment. In the opening for The Screaming Staircase (which is nearly perfectly followed by the show, I was impressed) it's mentioned that Lockwood is wearing gloves. They forwent the gloves in the show, probably because it didn't look or work right, but that doesn't really matter here because I'm taking both show and books as relatively identical canon, so stuff in either one can be used for the entire analysis.

Why is he wearing gloves? Well, maybe it's cold. They are after all wearing coats, and it's London, and they imply, by the dead leaves all captured on the porch, that it's fall, maybe late fall. But it's mentioned again, later (find this, I don't remember where.)

And along this idea of gloves, let's glance at the section about his coat. Many places does Lucy mention that it is long, but the one I'm particularly interested in is the scene where they are all together on the last job before Fairfax visits them. George makes the comment "That coat! It's too long! It almost killed you the other night as well." (The Screaming Staircase, 189.)

Lockwood doesn't deem to answer, but it struck me as interesting nonetheless. Why comment that? But most importantly, to me, it seems like George has complained to Lockwood of his long coat being too much a hassle previously, perhaps more than once. Yet, Lockwood keeps the coat. Because it's part of his armor. It's part of his visual identity, and that identity is his defense.

Something else I was thinking about when I woke up today (at this point I've started The Whispering Skull!) is that even when practicing with the rapier, we're lead to believe that Lockwood is not wearing the same casual type of clothes as the others. In the scene, Lucy describes George wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt, but for Lockwood it's "...sharp fencing slacks and loafers; he'd removed his jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves a little way." (The Whispering Skull 32)

Curious, I think, is the fact that Lockwood also opens up a bit in this scene. It's not much, but he does speak about his childhood just a little. And it's directly mentioned as such by George to Lucy once Lockwood has left ("I'm surprised he told you as much as he did." 37). So, a removed piece of armor (the jacket) and a little opening up about his past? Seems pretty symbolic to me!

Also, and this is something I JUST thought of. The capes from The Creeping Shadow and The Empty Grave serve as protection (read armor) that is worn.

Even in The Empty Grave (I think it was, it's been a minute since I've read the books) When Lockwood takes Lucy to his family grave, he's got all his armor on. (Now I know a character has to have his iconic design, but trust me fr).

All in all I may be grasping at straws here. BUT I like to think that it was somewhat intentional. All in all (again) I love Lockwood & Co and I am very sad it was cancelled but if you haven't read the books you should still do that.

Thanks for coming to my ted talk!

[hildred-rex]

this pinned post is permanent now too...

Alright, the temporary blog image has grown on me. It's a cropped square from page 31 of A Collection of Emblemes, Ancient and Moderne (1635) by George Wither.

The header image is Monhegan, Maine (1922) by Nicholas Roerich. Everyone should go look at more Roerich artwork immediately; his are some of the most consistently beautiful paintings I've ever seen.

Anyway...

I'm:

Cinnamon or Hildred by name, accurately referred to with any pronoun set other than he/it.

@/voidblue on pronouns.page.

Generally, my thematic color is blue and not yellow, but it doesn't make sense for Hildred Castaigne to be blue. In fact, I think he'd be somewhat offended. This makes making this account look like me... somewhat difficult. (Update: I've given up entirely. This is Hildred's blog theme now. The Imperial Dynasty of America was secretly the Imperial Dynasty of Tumblr User @hildred-rex's Blog Theme.)

Under the readmore: a list of fandoms I partake in, more detail on my exploits in gothic literature, a noncomprehensive list of other things I've enjoyed, and a "last updated."

Fandoms:

gothic literature (predominantly horror) in general; this gets its own list lower down!

The League of Extraordinary Gentlefolk.

Arthur Machen (have not read everything yet!)

Dracula by Bram Stoker.

The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers.

The Parties are for Losers series by Ferry. (I don't want to give them a random notification for no reason, but they're nopanamaman on tumblr.)

The rest of Ferry's songs are also very good!

currently reading Homestuck due to a D&D campaign (I promise this makes sense in context)

[more when I remember them]

I decided a few years ago that Lovecraft was seminal to the cosmic horror genre and that therefore I should read all the fiction he ever wrote; to my recollection I've read everything listed on Wikisource except "The Street" and "The Rats in the Walls," provided it's extant. (Not sure this counts as a fandom?)

I'll have to come back and add a "music I enjoy" section later.

More on Gothic Literature:

(Listed = I've read it; bolded = I can probably do analysis of its characters; italicized = I don't remember it well; underlined = I really want to reread this and will when I have the time. Small is notes and commentary.)

This is only what I've dredged up from my brain at the moment and I have probably read more; this'll be updated as I read and/or think of stuff.

Dracula (1897) by Bram Stoker. (Curiously, I've never actually done Dracula Daily.)

The King in Yellow (1895) by Robert W. Chambers. (Bolding only goes for the weird stories, including "The Demoiselle d'Ys," and is strongest for "The Repairer of Reputations." I've found myself unable to get through a few of the romances & cannot make heads nor tails of "The Prophet's Paradise" except that it feels like someone accidentally published his sheet of idea-collection paper. Admittedly, because of that it makes a pretty good transition between the weird stories and the rest.)

The Three Impostors (1895) by Arthur Machen. (I utterly adore this book.)

Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) by Robert Louis Stevenson. (I really loved reading this one, but was very sad by the end. I had Opinions on most of the characters and will again when I reread.)

The Great God Pan (1890) by Arthur Machen.

The Inmost Light (1890) by the same author. (Hello Dyson!)

Jane Eyre (1847 originally; I think Dover reproduced from the third ed.) by Charlotte Brontë. (Worth reading, but GODDAMNIT JANE. She's the closest I've found to a fictional representation of how I think, especially about making complicated decisions, which (a) made her very relatable and (b) made the end of the novel all the more what-the-fuck. Also GODDAMNIT CHARLOTTE because of the authorial racism and also the not realizing how unhealthy the core relationship is.)

The Vampyre (1819) by John William Polidori.

The Shining Pyramid (1923) by Arthur Machen. (I didn't like this one when I last read it; Dyson felt off.)

The White People by Arthur Machen (has the most cursed name of anything ever).

Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1831, not yet 1818) by Mary Shelley.

The Red Hand (1895) by Arthur Machen.

[Am currently reading more Machen.]

Miscellaneous Things Enjoyed:

This time in alphabetical order.

The Anatomy of Tobacco by Arthur Machen. I feel I must clarify that it's a comedic work that I'd estimate to be of novella length. Reader beware, this book contains random untranslated and even untransliterated faux-Ancient Greek.

At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft.

The Case of Charles Dexter Ward by H. P. Lovecraft. It feels like reading a textbook with a central plot besides the advancement of history (and with a nicer writing style). Content warning for racism and off-handed mentions of the colonial American slave trade.

Fourteen by Peter Clines. This book gets in one's head and doesn't leave.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and its ensuing series, by Douglas Adams.

Last updated 2024-07-03, YYYY-MM-DD. Created sometime in late-ish November 2023. Edited 2023-12-07 and 2024-03-31. Backdated to Louis Castaigne's birthday in a year that would make him 42 years old at the founding of this blog.

[syre-stane16]

Analysis of the Phantom Blood Cast

Jonathan Joestar: written to be a paragon figure that the rest of the JoJo’s take the example of.

He is the one the other’s images are formed from. He is kind and gentle and believes everyone still has good in them. He still believed that DIO could repent and return to the light.

He reminds me of the father in the story of the prodigal son. He would forgive anyone as long as they regret their choices and work towards improving themselves. He probably would give up on DIO’s case due to the man being unapologetically evil.

He would be proud of his descendants and all JoJos that came after him. while they have their flaws, there is no denying that they all fight for good, in their own ways.

Erina Pendleton : a character that doesn’t have much of a purpose in the plot, she is stubborn but as kind and gentle as Johnathan. Unlike Johnathan, she doesn’t believe that everyone can be good deep down.

She takes no shit, like we see in battle tendency. She is loyal.

Robert E. O. Speedwagon: another paragon character. The basis of all later Jobros. He is the reason I didn’t come away from phantom blood thinking it has classist undertones.

He and Dio had a similar background. Heck, Speedwagon continued to live in poverty whilst Dio got adopted into a noble family. While Speedwagon does steal and mug people, it’s so that he and his gang can survive.

But he’s loyal, and has a set of values that he abides by. He lets Jonathan go, despite the man being his target because he pulled punches and only did what he needed to defend himself, and Jonathan was pretty respectable about it too. No swearing or calling the peasants ‘Dirty mutts’.

Basically Speedwagon is best boi and Dio sucks more because he existed and said, ‘your past is no excuse to be an asshole.’

Dio Brando: literal manifestation of the phrase, “Be bi, go for the eye.”.

When we were introduced to Dio, it’s safe to say that we felt some sympathy for the kid. We rooted for him when he killed his father.

When he kicked Danny, we probably lost all that .

It would seem that he could use that second chance he got from George to better himself but he didn’t.

Whenever Johnathan reached his hand out to forgive the man, he shots in his palm and slices his wrist before running off into the woods, middle fingers up.

dio respects Jonathan and hates any other humans.

[yesterdanereviews]

Surf Nazis Must Die (1987)

Film review #584

Director: Peter George

SYNOPSIS: After a devastating earthquake reduces Los Angeles to rubble, the beaches become the battlefield for a number of gangs who want to rule the waves. After a group of neo-Nazis seize the beach, and a young man is killed, his Mother decides to take revenge on the Nazis that murdered him...

THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Surf Nazis Must Die is a 1987 post-apocalyptic film. The film's title might sound completely off the wall and nonsensical, but actually refers to the neo-Nazis that existed around surfer culture in Los Angeles from the 1960s onwards. The film is set in a post-apocalyptic version of L.A. after a huge earthquake reduces the city to ruin...well, probably. We don't really see the city in ruins to establish the location or context, and there's also no real indication if just the city is in this post-apocalyptic state of lawlessness, or it is the wider world. Anyway, in this state of chaos, various surfer gangs battle it out for control of the beaches. While the film embraces some more outlandish elements that you would expect from the title, including the various surfer gangs of Nazis, ninjas, and the like, the film on the whole is fairly tame and subsequently, rather dull. There's barely any other story other than Nazis just terrorising people, and every scene in which something happens is followed by long shots of people surfing, which by the time you return to a scene with dialogue or plot, you can't really follow what happens from one scene to the next. There's a story concerning some drug deals, a kid hanging around the Nazis to his Mother's disapproval, and a Mother taking revenge on the Nazis for the murder of her son, but none of these elements really add up to anything, or come together in any way.

Despite the silly concept, there is an element of the film taking some things seriously: the Nazis radicalising youths, the preaching of their purity yet clearly engaging in deviancy; there's some effort to write the bad guys as the bad guys , and to show their hypocrisy. Don't get me wrong: this is not done in an overly impressive or interesting way, but it is there. probably the most memorable character and plot element is "Mama," a middle-aged woman who is put into a care home after the earthquake, but always manages to sneak out to cause trouble, and her mission of vengeance which becomes the focus of the film when her son is murdered by the Nazis, is at least somewhat interesting. Not only is her straight-up approach to the Nazis being to call them out and hunt them down refreshing (because we don't really need to have nuance in dealing with Nazis, I thin the film is trying to say), but having a middle-aged black woman as the main character is such a rare occurrence it almost makes the film feel fresh. Again, there's still not much substance, but the no-nonsense approach the film takes is somewhat fun while it lasts.

Overall, Surf Nazis Must Die fails to live up to its bizarre name: it's mostly dull viewing with barely any plot, and random footage of surfing that serves no purpose other than to extend the runtime breaks the film up into isolated scenes that serve no overall purpose. There's some attempt to offer something unique with the "revenge" story arc, and dealing with Nazis in a straightforward way, but other than that, it's a dull, low-budget flick that offers nothing really exciting or interesting.

[brainrotallthewaydown1312]

I've just finished The Whispering Skull and I have feelings

I'm going to put a spoiler cut here for anyone who hasn't read the books yet, fair warning this will probably get a bit long

I have very complex feelings about the way the end came together.

I stand by what I said before. Pamela Joplin was worlds more developed than Albert Joplin. the way things fell together at the end, largely being BBC sherlock-ed together felt very flat compared to the way it snapped into place in the show.

I also like the final fight for the glass better in the show. I like Lucy using the skull and I like where that could have gone for the skulls development. I also like the Lucy and George moments during the bone glass scene in the show better. there was still a sense in the book that they were really coming together in this scene, but that part of it didn't hit as hard and I really like that aspect of it.

I did, however love how George beat the glass. as a fellow blind as a bat bitch I love a solid use of glasses like that. it's definitely something that George would have thought of and definitely something that could have worked. it has less narrative weight moving forward but I do love it. i also liked his fake out death. it really hit me in the gut.

Kipps role in the ending of the book strikes me as odd. he was more present for the whole scene, and both heard Lucy confessing about the skull and he also would have heard Lucy's side of the conversation she had with it during the fight. he also has no reason to keep his lack of talent a secret because it's already known. he just fully knows about Lucy and the only thing keeping him from mentioning it is the thin thread of mutual respect from surviving the bone glass together. I see how this leads into the development I've been told about where he joins the team, but it feels more like a loose end than it should. I like in the way the show did that better. it also builds towards him joining, but it brings in a more emotionally complex aspect to the start of that arc. and I like the fact that it consequently makes them closer in age. I think aging Lockwood's team up a little and Kipps down a little was a very good decision. it puts them on a more even playing field that fits them better in my opinion.

my broadest conclusion at the end of book 2 (and I'm guessing my hottest take) is that I have found the biggest weakness in the writing of this story. it's that we are limited to Lucy's pov. these books would have been much better in third person. don't get me wrong, I love Lucy (most of the time) but she is only rarely the most narratively interesting character, and too much is happening without us. I get what Stroud is going for with it. and I think he succeeded at what he was going for. I just have so many things I want to have seen that Lucy would have simply not been there for. not even just things from the show like Lockwood's cemetary fight or flo and George on the boat, but things about what Lockwood is doing literally ever or details about kipps' team watching them. and I think some of them being missing add to the mystery of the series, but plenty of these things would have added to it. and i almost always prefer first person. I just think that this story choosing it with Lucy specifically has taken away some potential narrative value from things

it may not sound it from my thoughts I've been posting, but I am loving these books. i am still creating my own franken canon in my head as I go like I was before, but the books are growing on me. I just show my literary love through intense analysis and critique. can you guess which character I'm most like?

I can't wait to start the next book

[kiuda]

c!Dream and the Theory of Attachment

“They are not excuses, they are reasons”

~c!Dream

Disclaimer:

I am doing this just for fun! I am a psychology student, but don’t claim to be an expert on the theory nor psychology as a whole (obviously lol). This analysis is inherently flawed because of the focus on just one theory. It shouldn't be viewed as a serious thing, just a practice task I guess. 

Because of the lack of information about c!Dream’s past (especially family & childhood, which are important to the theory) I am forced to make some assumptions and guesses based on the current behaviour of c!Dream. It is also important to remember that I consider myself a c!Dream apologist, so my view of him might be different.

Another thing I need to mention is that, given the nature of DSMP, sometimes it’s hard to say which part of c!Dream is c!Dream and which is cc!Dream. I want it to be clear that I don’t want to speculate on cc!Dream’s relationships nor psychoanalyse him.

Anyway the theory of attachment is one of my favourite parts of psychology, so I decided to combine it with the complexity of c!Dream :D Hope you enjoy the read! (and pls don’t take it as a serious diagnosis or something for whatever reason lmao - it’s all just for fun ^^)

All talk below is about characters!!!

Why do I think he has not developed a safe attachment in the first years of his life properly?

    I think Dream had no ‘safe haven’ figure in his life. No one was always there when he was exploring the world and trying to find his own place in it. Why? No idea. We don’t know what happened during Dream’s childhood, but I think that by looking at his current behaviour we can theorise.

    He is very childish under all that ‘villain persona’. Dream doesn’t seem to trust easily. He keeps people at an arm’s distance, even his closest allies – just look at Punz. Does he know the plan? Yes. But are we sure he knows the whole plan? I’m not sure. Dream doesn’t share his pain with him either – says that what happened in prison was just a mistake, but a non significant one.

    He is also not… very… smart. The famous ‘he can’t read maps’ post comes to mind. He is clever and has a lot of ideas, but he doesn’t think through all of his plans. His big plan hinges a lot on the reactions of others to his persona (Tommy especially). He usually goes with the first thing he comes up with – it’s more about survival instinct than a smart idea.

    Another point is him relying on anger and violence a lot. Look at the conflict with El Rapids – he had trouble forming his thoughts and opinions clearly when under a lot of emotions and distress – or even the Spirit speech during which he turns to anger fairly quickly yet again.

    He wants to be seen as threatening, dangerous. The question is – is it just for his persona? Just for his plan? Or is it something he can’t really control? Is he able to hide them as well as he does later? Or is it something he learns with time?

    Moreover, look at how he reacts to the loss of someone/something he attaches to (or that he feels is under a threat)! The already mentioned Spirit incident – at first he tries to control his emotions, tries to get the leather (the thing he is attached to) back, but with each moment he loses a bit of his cool and the constant taunting makes him snap. He is afraid. Afraid of losing the last memory of his horse, the last thing he has from them. He wasn’t there when they died, he had to trade for the leather, he isn’t willing to let it go. And sure he says he doesn’t care, but… Really? Do we really believe the guy, who traded one of the disks for it, would just not care about Spirit? I find it doubtful.

    He seems to be deeply afraid of being betrayed. Especially after the fiasco with Sapnap and George – he is still hurting, still feeling unsure in some way. They were his attachments, people he trusted. And probably still are in some way. He most likely doesn’t want to go through that again – look how hesitant he is around Techno, someone that is kind and friendly to him. Dream doesn’t trust Techno. Not at first. I would say the moment he begins to trust him is the prison stay, when they are forced to spend time together and Techno witnesses Dream at his worst (maybe including a breakdown or two). The proof for that attachment (or the beginning of one?) is the time Quackity comes back – Dream is afraid of Quackity, but he is willing to protect Techno. He stands against Q and tries to bargain with him. He cares about Techno, and doesn't want him to go through Limbo. In turn, Techno trusts Dream, wants to help him. And yet Dream is still surprised when Techno comes back for him.

    Let’s get back to Punz for a bit – Dream could have someone by him all the time, could make a plan that takes less from him, that expects less from him and yet his priority is making sure Punz stays hidden, stays safe. He wants to make sure the only person that was and still is by his side stays safe. Punz has been with Dream since the first conflict. They know each other, and trust each other. They themselves say it’s more than a job now, that their money is less important than what is between them. And even after the prison Dream still wants to make sure his ally is safe – he could (should?) want someone friendly by his side, but he isn’t willing to have that if it means Punz is in danger.

    That brings me to the next question – why do I think Dream has developed an insecure/avoidant style of attachment?

    Because of how he behaves – both around others and by himself (not that we ever saw him by himself). One of the characteristics of this attachment style is the over controlled emotion regulation. Sounds familiar? Dream is the king of explaining why he shouldn’t be mad, why he shouldn’t hurt – look at the prison arc! How does he act so unbothered, so detached from the torture? Sure, we can see some cracks (especially during Techno’s stay and Bad’s account of the sandwich story), but he is scarily good at compartmentalization as well, which could tie in with the tendency to over control his own emotions.

    Dream not only denies his own feelings and hurts, but also seems to misinterpret (or misunderstand) the feelings of other people – look at the break up of Dream Team again. It’s almost like Dream doesn’t understand why George could be hurt. In his mind, such a thing is not a big deal. It’s something you shake off and go on with your day. Something he does many times.

    Another part of this attachment style is the perception of self as successful and others as unreliable or untrustworthy. It could tie in with the lack of a safe attachment during childhood – the need to fend for yourself. Dream does seem to portray those traits. It’s hard for me to determine which parts of his ‘I am the Admin of the server, the leader, the god’ are a part of his villain persona and which ones are the traits of the actual character, but I think even the fact of his persona (the one that is supposed to make others fear him, to make the plan work) being like that might suggest some things. Speaking of the plan – it’s worth it to mention the way Dream seems to think he is the only person who can make the server good again. He is the successful, powerful one, others can’t do that.

    Some of you might probably think “Okay Kiuda, but what does it all actually mean? Why does it matter?”

    Well, the Theory of Attachment was formed based on studies about children. What does it all mean? It means that we have some clues (guesses more like) about what Dream’s childhood was like. And what it all suggests is a lonely childhood. Either with no parental figure or with no figure that was willing (or able) to be there as support while he was getting to know the world. This might be why he tried to get closer to Puffy – maybe he desperately wanted to feel close to a mother-figure, maybe he tried to get close to Bad as well – the father of his best friend. Maybe that’s why he sounded so defeated when he told him to stay in the cell. Maybe it was another failed attempt at finding that healthy attachment, that healthy relationship.

    Ultimately it all could mean one thing – Dream is lost. He needs someone to show him that trusting others is okay, that people are ultimately good and that he doesn’t have to (and shouldn’t) believe he is the only one able to save everyone.

[blacksunscorpio]

Hi lovely bruja! I don't know if you've written about this before but do you know any hidden talents of the signs?

Hidden Talents of the Zodiac Signs

Aries

These Militant natives are actually pretty good dancers. You will find many busting a move at the club or telling you over their lunch break that they used to breakdance on the corner of the local bodega when they were younger. Ysabelle Capitule, Val Chmerkovskiy, Bryan Tanaka, etc. Many as well are good with Children. Quite surprising considering how self [1st house] focused they are. Why you ask? Because they are the children of the zodiac themselves [0 degrees]. As a result, their hyper fire energy draws children in.

Taurus

Singing. Yes, I know this particular talent people thing Water signs or water mercuries have the monopoly on [Rihanna a Pisces, Carrie Underwood, Lana Del Rey a Cancer, etc] but as I mentioned here in my post about musical talent in the birth chart, many Taurean’s actually have golden pipes. Adele, Bon Iver, Janet Jackson, Stevie Wonder. Gang’s all here. I believe it has something to do with Venus as their ruler. Venus is also about creativity and art and singing is probably the most ancient art of them all.

Gemini

Selling. Yes, people tend to think the biggest talent Gemini’s have is journalism or writing- and these things are true. But these Mercurial natives could also sell salt to a slug, ice to an Inuit, and Raid to a bug. Because of their knack for witty banter and wordsmith-ship, they find it easy to win people over. Quite the handy talent when seeking to make a hefty commission. [Think Jordan Belfort from Scorsese’s ‘Wolf of Wall Street’]

Cancer

Acting. These Moon-lit natives have such emotional range and intuition that they’re able to capture the slight nuances needed to embody different characters well. Speaking of emotional range, because these crustaceans are probably the most emotional of all the signs, they’re able to influence the emotions of others as well. Something needed to get Rotten tomatoes to give you a decent score or influence the masses to flock to your film premiers. Actors such as Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Frances McDormand, etc. all share this sign and the moon as their most elevated planet. Another aspect helpful for acting.

Leo

Cooking. Yes, you’d be surprised how many of these leonine natives fancy food. But a Lion’s gotta eat, right? Because of Leo’s love for the finer things in life and their penchant for laziness from time to time, a full stomach is something they are quite keen on. They Love to experiment with recipe’s using only the finest herbs and spices. You say “organic”, they say “sold”. So Charcuterie boards, Sunday feasts, even a cooking competition and they’re in there like swim wear. One of my older brothers is a Leo and when our Mother was working night shifts and we had no money to eat out, he was the one who would find a way to turn all the scraps in the cupboards to something edible [and delicious]. You’ll find many famous cooks are born under the Sun’s sign, I.E Julia Child, Giada De Laurentis, Geoffrey Zakarian, etc.

Virgo

Writing. Yes, Virgo is earth but their ruler is cerebral Mercury. Ruler of the 3rd house. As a result, these natives live in their heads just as much as Gemini’s do. They’re knack for perfection and eye for analysis makes them excellent writers and story tellers. They can help paint the picture in the most technical sense and can come up with worlds upon worlds of history and lore. George R.R. Martin of ASOIAF fame, J.K. Rowling, Stephen King, R.L. Stine [Mercury in Virgo] all have this placement.

Libra

Business. Libras can be known as superficial fashionistas but that’s not completely true. These cardinal natives air first and foremost, and AIR sign. Which means they are quite intelligent. That, and their pre-disposition towards balance and equilibrium makes them highly adept at knowing when to buy and sell. In addition, they’re ruled by Venus who rules the 2nd house of money resources. As a result they have their hand in many ventures. Will Smith, Snoop Dog, Even Kim Kardashian are scale babies. 

Scorpio

Playing Matchmaker. Yes, Scorpios Can be ruthless. Yes, Scorpios can be unforgiving. Yes, Scorpios will go out of their way to find you and fuck up your life if you betray them. But besides all the Michael Corleone stuff- there’s also a deeply caring and romantic streak within these Mars/Pluto ruled natives. Their savvy of the human psyche, investigative nature, and deep understanding of passion makes them very aware of who would be best suited for whom. Just instinctually. A Scorpio grandmother might scan a crowd at her granddaughter’s dance recital and be able to pick her husband out of the crowd; or you might find two people recapping the story of their meet-cute only to hear them say: “our friend hooked us up!”. Don’t be surprised to find that said friend was born between October/November. 

Sagittarius

Survival. Yes, this is indeed a talent and not just saved for their neighboring arachnid cousins. Like, Scorpios, Sag’s have a talent for landing on their feet. They can find their way out of many a sticky situation. Their penchant for honestly and bluntness has a way of regaling others to listen to them when they speak. They can come off like Cult leaders even with their evangelical-like zeal. People flock to their fire. They also have this little thing called Jupiter in their back pocket- planet of fortune. These bastards just get lucky. Even when they put themselves in reckless adventure seeking situations, they always make it back to tell the tale. 

Capricorn

Comedians. Yes, I know this is the last thing you’d expect from a Saturnian given the sometimes incorrect evaluation that they’re just boring, backstabbing social climbers. But their austere nature gives them a very dry view of the world. A.K.A, Sarcasm. Highly intelligent as well, the best comedians can often deliver a one liner with with wit and bluntness. Something Caps have the monopoly on. They’re also quick on the draw and able to read the room well. Capricorns do well with taking in their surroundings and observing others, so when they tell their jokes, it’s funny because it’s true. Steve Harvey, Seth MacFarlane [NN in Cap], Jim Carrey are all Sea Goats with a comedic flare. 

Aquarius

Art/craftsmanship. Seriously, these Uranian Aliens have the Midas touch when it comes to creating things. No, not just nifty inventions with cogs and wheels akin to a steam punk novel. They are great with sewing, stitching, creating clothing, or just making random shit out of nothing. You can find them knitting in the back of class or making their own facemasks during the pandemic because what the stores were selling just wouldn’t suit. Very creative minds in regard to textiles. Narciso Rodriguez, Christian Dior, and Cristobal Balenciaga are all Uranian Natives.

Pisces

Photography. Now, this may not necessarily be hidden but I think it’s one of the talents these fish have that gets overlooked. Most believe they paint or draw, play an instrument or sing, but I find Pisceans have great eyes [figuratively in this sense.] They are often hidden behind the lenses of a camera, snapping photos of nature and capturing the little nuances the rest of us miss. You might not even know they have this pastime or hobby. And because of their tendency towards indecisiveness and disorder, photos give them the instant gratification they crave and all the options they want when it comes to the perfect shot. You want one of these natives at your wedding or graduation to shoot those timeless moments. Steve McCurry, Diane Arbus, Mary Ellen Mark all hold strong Piscean energy.

[artdev]

I’m probably gonna get attacked for this lol

Tommy Character Analysis

From a sane yet angry child

The character of Tommyinnit is one of the worst characters on the entirety of the Dream SMP. Yes, the other characters have their flaws, and they have all done some very horrible things, but Tommy has continuously made bad decisions. These decisions have done nothing good for himself and have caused suffering for the other members of the SMP. In this essay I will provide reason to the fact character Tommy fucking sucks and every other character, yes including Dream, are so much better and have redeeming qualities to their characters. I will give a disclaimer: this is about THE CHARACTERS not the CONTENT CREATORS

Tommy’s First Days on the SMP

Tommy’s first day on the SMP was the last day of peace that server would ever see. From the get-go Tommy did nothing but cause nothing but problems for the original people on the server (Dream, George, Sapnap, Bad, Sam, Ponk, Callahan, and Alyssa) which resulted in a ban from not only from Dream, after refusing to obey under his exile he was put in, himself but also from George. The bans were lifted but everything spiraled from that point on. Tommy was the spark that started the disc war. This was a war that spanned over a series of months because Tommy would not stop killing Dream, so in return Dream confiscated tommy’s discs as a punishment, it was Dreams server, so he was not going to let Tommy go around causing problems without consequence.

Quick history

L ’Manburg

L’ Manburg started out as nothing but a drug caravan, started by Wilbur and tommy, would grow into a large country separated by large black walls keeping everyone out and let only a select few in. After a war Tommy did the only selfless thing, he would ever do in his whole time on the SMP. He gave up one of his discs for L’Manburg’s independence, after losing a dule with Dream. In all this tommy keeps up his thieving and antagonizing ways.

The election

The election was Wilbur’s attempt to regain power and respect within his country, there were multiple parties, POG 2020 (Wilbur and Tommy), SWAG 2020 (Quackity), Schlatt 2020 (JSchlatt). POG 2020 was the overall winner but was beat out by 1% by Schlatt and Quackity who had formed a coalition. With Schlatt as the president and Quackity as the Vise President the country is changed to Manburg, the walls are torn down, and Tommy and Wilbur have their citizenship is revoked and are banned from Manburg.

Pogtopia and Manburg v Pogtopia

Pogtopia was the ravine that served as a base for Tommy and Wilbur after the election. This is when techno (my fuckin beloved) had joined and sided with Tommy and Wilbur with the promise of chaos and war. With techno on their side, they start to build up and prepare for war. The war between Pogtopia (with the old residents of Manburg) and Manburg (pretty much everyone else on the server). The war ended with Schlatt having a heart attack in the remains of the destroyed drug van, Tubbo becoming president of Manburg, followed by Wilbur blowing up the country, with assistance from techno, and his grand death at the hands of his father.

Exile

Tommy was sent into his third exile by Tubbo after Tommy once again was causing problems for Tubbo and the new L ’Manburg. Tommy was sent thousand and thousands of blocks away from the greater SMP and he was not allowed to return unless he wanted to die. After spending months in exile with Dream coming by every day and taking Tommy’s things, and tommy almost taking his last canon life, tommy had escaped exile and went to the closest place he could go. Tommy set up a base under Technoblades retirement home and was soon discovered by Techno. Despite Tommy stealing Techno’s items and just being a annoying ass bitch, Techno let Tommy stay. With the help of techno tommy was able to sneak in and out of L’ Manburg.

Final L’ Manburg War

After a confrontation in the remains of a now destroyed community house, Tommy had sided with Tommy, another declaration of war, with Dream and techno going to blow up L’ Manburg. Tommy planed with the other members to gather resources to face off the most powerful people on the server. In the end L’ Manburg lost and was destroyed with nothing left but a sizable crater in its place.

The end of the disc war and drams imprisonment

The end of season two of the SMP was the end of the disc war, after tommy and Tubbo meet up with Dream at the top of a large mountain, where the three fought to get the discs. Dream eventually leads the two brits to a bunker where Dream had been collecting the attachments on the server, like Tommy’s cow henry, Ghostbur’s sheep Friend, and open slots for other pets and Skeppy. While Dream was going to kill Tubbo he was stopped when the entirety of the SMP, lead by Punz, came through the nether portal that led into Dream’s base. They surrounded Dream and caused him to surrender, and landed him in pandoras vault, a large prison built by Sam under Dreams request. Whist Dream has been in prison Tommy has visited a few times and has done nothing but was nothing but an annoying child to an already suffering man. During what was supposed to be Tommy’s last visit he ended up being locked in the cell with Dream due to a potential security breach in the prison, meaning tommy was stuck with Dream for what was only supposed to be a week. Tommy was stuck with Dream for more than a week, like was stated in the terms and conditions of the prison, this extended time alone with Dream was bad for the both of them and it led to tommy losing his last canon life. Tommy was revived by Dream three days later and was freed from the prison shortly after, now out and full of fresh trauma.

Present events

After being revived and released back into the world tommy swore that he would kill Dream. As of tommy’s most recent lore stream there was an attempt. Tommy armed with invisibility and fire res pots, under the cover of Ghostbur paying Dream a visit, snuck into the prison to kill Dream. When tommy finally go to Dream’s cell, he got to trigger happy and took out the axe to soon which ended in tommy being caught by Sam and left Ghostbur stranded with Dream on the other side of the lava. Now that Dream had Ghostbur he would be able to bring Wilbur back and that exactly was happened, Wilbur is now back and as crazed as ever with 13 and a half years of isolation on top of that.

Tommy and His Trauma

I will not ignore Tommy’s trauma, nor will I downplay what he’s been through, cause truly been through a lot. That being said his trauma should not be used as an excuse to blow off what he’s done, if one is going to do that you better danm well not go around and ignore others trauma. Tommy has been through some horrible things, his exile, Dream’s manipulation, being beat to death in prison then being revived, losing not only a brother figure but also a place he called home, as well as the manipulation from Wilbur, these things can really do some damage to a kid or an adult. Tommy though uses his trauma to excuse any wrong thing he does. There are characters on the SMP with similar trauma, Jack Manifold was the first character to come lose all his canon lives but he came back out of spite, both Tommy and Jack went through something similar. Jack, however, doesn’t use this trauma to make excuses for being a massive prick. Jack uses what he’s been through as motivation, while it’s one of his motivations to do something bad, but he doesn’t use it as a hindrance. Now let’s look at someone has experienced the same things as Tommy, Tubbo, Tubbo went through almost everything Tommy went through plus more. Tubbo was manipulated by Dream, saw his country get blown up TWICE, hell he had to mourn the death of his best friend on TWO SEPREATE OCCASIONS, he was killed by someone he thought he could be trusted, was manipulated as well as verbally abused by Schlatt when working in his cabinet. Tubbo has gone on to build his own little town, start a family, he had run a country pretty danm well and created NUKES. Tubbo doesn’t let what happened to him hold him back from doing great things or keep him stuck in his old ways, Tubbo was able to break from what he originally was, a side kick, and has done wonders.

Tommy and His Relationships

Keep in mind this is not about whether Tommy cares about people it’s about how he acts and how that affects others. Tommy cares people so I cannot shame him for that, but despite that he still causes problems for said people.

Tommy and Dream

Tommy and Dream have never gotten along, anyone with fuckin eyes can see that from a mile away, they are always at each other’s throats and always butting heads. Dream is normally pretty levelheaded, until Tommy comes around. When Tommy was trapped in the cell with dream that was bad from the start, but the extended time was even worse. Tommy has always been an aggressor towards Dream, during the war for L ’Manburg when Dream was meeting with Wilbur, Tommy lashed out at Dream and put the independence of this new nation on the line to try and fight Dream. Now on to more recent examples, Tommy’s death. When Tommy was trapped with Dream in the cell Dream was pretty stand offish, if anything he was excited at first, being stuck in a cell with no one to talk to is pretty fuckin lonely. That excitement was sure to be short lived. Tommy is quick to start antagonizing Dream, hitting him, hurling insults at him, and just being all around unpleasant, Tommy would also take things like Dream’s clock and books and throw them into the lava just to upset him. Tommy also killed the one thing in prison that Dream had, a cat that he named hope, another thing Tommy took away just to show “what happens to things you care about”. All these things would build up over time which lead to Dreams burst of anger and caused Tommy’s death.

Tommy and Technoblade

Time to get absolutely PISSED. Techno was never a person to Tommy, he was just the Blade, a weapon to be used till he was not needed. Ever since Techno first logged on Tommy though he had scary dog privileges, getting mad at techno for when he went and assisted Wilbur in the destruction of L ’Manburg when techno had made it clear he was not a fan of government. After Tommy had fled from his exile he went to hide under Techno’s home without Techno’s knowledge, before he was discovered by Techno, he would steal from him and use them in useless ways, such as decorating his hidey hole with gold blocks or how he stole Techno’s gapples and ate them when he didn’t need to, practically wasting them. Once he was found by Techno, Techno let Tommy live with him despite being a leach, he let tommy eat the gapples, and even assisted in getting tommy in and out of L ’Manburg, he even hid Tommy from dream and lied to one of the most powerful people on the server to keep tommy safe. Techno was very patient with Tommy and what does Tommy do? He goes around and goes back to Tubbo, the man who exiled him in the first place, actively backstabbing Techno, and when him and Dream team up and destroy L ’Manburg for the second time he has THE GULL to get mad and shame Techno for it, it’s fucking awful.

Tommy and Tubbo

Tommy and Tubbo are great friends, I can’t lie about that, but he still manages to make shitty decisions that affect him. When Tubbo was president of the New L ’Manburg Tommy started causing trouble, all starting when he (and Ranboo) burned down George’s house, forcing Tubbo to put his vice president under a probation. Even after being put under the probation, he still caused problems. Tommy made Tubbo choose between the safety and freedom for his country or his best friend staying, in the end it was tommy’s fault for being casted into exile, he just wouldn’t behave and follow the rules. He also constantly pushed Tubbo’s trauma to the side to put a spotlight on his own, making him the center of attention, ignoring someone who’s supposed to be his best friend. Now, I will say, he did do something good for Tubbo, during the final disc confrontation he gave Dream the disc’s they were fighting so hard for in return for Tubbo’s safety, I have to give credit when credit is due.

To The C!Tommy Apologists

I know people are going to come after me for this, to any Tommy apologists reading this, please just can it /nm. In canon tommy is about 20 something? You can’t keep using “Oh HeS a ChILd!’ CC!Tommy is a child. Yes, I understand he’s traumatized, so is every other character on the SMP, he isn’t special. Also, PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD LEAVE US DREAM APOLOGISTS ALONE. All your arguments are so similar and you all thing dream, who is obviously mentally ill, deserves the everyday beating which is incredibly fucked up. Now I know not ALL Tommy apologists are like this but it is a lot of them, regardless of what dream did, he does not deserve to be rarely fed and he does not deserve the constant torture. Also please stop wit the whole ‘dream is obsessed with tommy’ shit, I can’t remember the tag for it at the time of writing this, but it is the creepiest thing I’ve seen and everyone portrays dream to be some yandere stalker and its just not poggers to be honest, and it comes off as very predatory which is ALSO not poggers. To any tommy apologists friends I know IRL this is not directed at you and just know I love y’all.

[stellocchia]

So, I once made a post about c!Tommy and c!Dream’s relationship throughout season 1 (which you can find here), but today I was thinking, why not do the same for the Exile Arc?

There are some people that still don’t seem to have a comprehensive idea of what actually went down during that time (either because they joined the fandom afterwards or haven’t watched it at the time) so I’ll try to do that here. I’ll cover the first 2 streams here, and then continue in the next part because this is gonna be way too damn long otherwise...

As always I’ll be talking only about the characters and the roleplay from here on out and also I’ll be touching on some very heavy topics under the cut (such as gaslighting and abuse). Also this is gonna be another one of my Overly Long Analysis, so... you know... be warned of that.

I’ll be going through this vod by vod, so It will be so long... God why do I always do this to myself?

Let’s start with TommyInnit Is Exiled From The Dream SMP... which is the vod when Tommy actually get’s exiled.

So, the exile scene per se has been covered a 100 times over, but, right after Tubbo asking Dream to “please detain and excort Tommy out of my country” Dream yeets Tommy off the walls and then he immediately establishes the general idea of how it’ll be in exile: “I don’t think you wanna die Tommy. You need to- to listen to me”.

Also it is to be noted that in this “exile” time and time again Dream establishes arbitrary rules that were most certanly not meant in the initial sentence (which is why it’s much more of a kidnapping then an actual exile). Starting from before they even leave L’Manburg completely. In fact when they are still in the vc with the others and still just down from the obsidian walls, Tommy and Dream have this exchange:

“Do I have any time to speak words? What can...” “NO. NO. NO. NO!” “what the...” 

And then right after (just after leaving the vc):

“Do you have food?” “Yeah...” “Good, we’ll be going a long while still” “Am I not allowed- well surely- surely I’m only exiled from L’Manburg-” “Oh, no no no. You’re exiled from everywhere that’s been touched”

The sentence was only for him to be exiled from L’Manburg. Dream theoretically only had authority over the Greater Dream smp in any case, so how come immediately Tommy’s “sentence” becomes being exiled from “everywhere that has been touched”? What authority did Dream have to exile him from the Badlands? Or the Holy Grounds (considering those are widely considered neutral)?

This is from right after Ghostbur joins them:

“Well, I don’t- I don’t have to come with you” “Well, I mean, I’ll kill you” (...) "I don’t have to follow you! I don’t-” “Tommy! Then I’ll just kill you. What happens if I kill you?” “I die...”

Again, technically Tubbo only asked Dream to escort Tommy out of his country, not all the way to his place of exile. Tommy here is right, he is exiled, he is not supposed to have a jailor going with him, he is not supposed to be imprisoned. All he supposedly had to do was get off the lands he wasn’t allowed into and then he’d be good. Of course Dream’s plans were different there.

Also the trend of constantly undermining anything Tommy is feeling at any given moment sure doesn’t stop with the Exile Arc! 

“No, no! I don’t want to head anywhere! I wanna to go back! I wanna go back!” “Fine fine, we’ll head this way then. It’s fine, this is fine” “I don’t wanna go!” “Tommy come on...”

Honorable mention to Dream talking about the first time he exiled Tommy:

“Do you remember- this is actually funny! Do you remember the first time you ever joined the server? And uhm... you got exiled? By me?” “Yeah?” “It’s kinda like that, except now if you don’t listen you die”

And the conditioning begins all the way here, with Dream trying to decide Tommy’s emotions for him:

“Oh... I hate you” “*laughs* Okay Tommy, you don’t hate me” “No, no I definitely do” “Noooo, you don’t hate me”

Cue Dream just blowing up Tommy’s second Summer Home after he explained that it was supposed to be a safe haven for him and Tubbo. Also note that Dream is already getting rid of any mob attacking Tommy even if at this point he still had armour and weapons to defend himself. I talked about this before, but Dream does seem to want Tommy to be as dependent on him as he is on Tommy, which is why during exile he made him dependent on him for protection/safety and company and in prison for food. Also Ghostbur going: “I don’t think this man is very nice...”, thank you Ghostbur, I wish you could remember that, but you’re trying your best and I appreciate it...

“How long is- how long am I exiled for? When can I just go back?” “You can’t (...) if you go back you die”

Again, not Dream’s decision to make. Tubbo was the one exiling Tommy meaning that, if Tubbo actually had the decision power in that istance, Tubbo was the one who should have decided when he could come back. Also, again reiterating the point from before:

“I thought I was only banished from L’Manburg, that was the deal, not the entirety of the smp-” “Oh no. No you’re banished far enough where they don’t see you”

Also, a little look into Tommy’s mentality here:

“Tubbo said he wasn’t thinking with emotion, but with reason, but: what the fuck is the point if there isn’t any- any emotion?!”

This is honestly why he is Dream’s exact opposite and probably why he finds him fun, while Tubbo is irrelevant to him. Tommy thinks emotions should always be taken into account when making decisions and he values sentimentality over everything. Dream is the opposite, to him emotions are irrelevant and sentimentality is a weakness. Tubbo is a bit of both, which makes his clash of ideologies with Dream a lot less evident. 

Anyway, they get to the island and Dream builds Tommy a dirt shack for him to set his spawn into. And then there is the first istance of Dream taking all of Tommy’s stuff (building blocks and food included) and blowing it up. Which, again, is in no way an actual exile condition. Tommy is in jail basically. He got kidnapped and now he is in jail. Also right after that Dream gives them food and obsidian (of course acting like he is doing them a big favour, when he actually just created that need), which Tommy bromptly refuses, later burning the obsidian.

Also Dream’s parting words here are: “I’ll see you never”. Which couldn’t be less true! There is quite a bit more after that, of Tommy and Ghostbur settling in, finding a ruined portal with some armour and the village nearby and Techno visiting, but this is about c!Dream and c!Tommy and it’s already incredibly long as is, so maybe I’ll talk about everything else another time...

Onto the next one: Tommy Is Alone in Exile with Dream...

This stream starts off with Bad visiting Tommy to give him a few presents (which consist of Chirp, 2 diamonds, an enderchest, and almost dead diamond pick with silk touch, some coocked chicken some bones and a few stacks of oak wood logs). Also Tommy sees Logsteshire for the first time. Then Dream arrives and he is not happy about the present (something something, having other people giving Tommy useful stuff would make him less reliant on Dream). Also Bad seems to be slightly scared of Dream since he immediately tells Tommy that he should not say that any of the stuff he gave him was from him. Anyway, Dream destroys everything, but Tommy, with Bad’s help, manages to save Chirp. Here’s their exchange in this scene of course:

“Tommy?” “Yes! Yes?!” “Do you have uh... something you wanna put on the floor here?” “Yes *throws in 3 red concrete blocks*” “Anything else Tommy?” “No! You’re evil by the way, you’re an evil man-” “Come on... I know there is something else you wanna drop down here...” “No there-... *gives disk to Bad* I don’t reckon there is!” “Okay are you sure...?” “Yes!” “Alright... how about uh- how about your armour Tommy?” “No this is- I actually earned this myself” “I know you did! Just drop it in the hole Tommy” “No, no! You can’t just come and demand things from me! I’ve been exiled, I’ve done your shit! What- what do you mean-” “Tommy~” “What?” *Dream hits Tommy with an enchanted netherite axe* “Drop them down~” “Hooooo okay okay okay!”

So, in case anyone was wondering, physical abuse is there as well. And this is fully depicted as physical abuse. Like, normally, with this being Minecraft, it is implied that violence is generally inconsequential, here though c!Tommy reacts to it clearly in pain and shock. There is no doubt there. 

Sapnap arrives at this point as well. After that Dream makes it a point that Tommy cannot have the enderchast that Bad gave him because you can never have enough random arbitrary rules when kidnapping someone apparently! 

“Why are you here? Why are you here? What- what could you- what could you possibly want more from me? You’ve tortured me-” “I’m just! I’m just... keeping an eye on you Tommy” 

I’ve highlighted this because, considering the last time Dream was there he said he would never see Tommy again, Tommy’s confusion here is more then understandable. But of course Dream acts like it’s obvious that he would be there and that it’s necessary to make sure that Tommy is not “up to no good”. Also, another extremely important exchange: 

“You’ve exiled me you stupid manipulative green bastard!” “Yeah I know! I know! And you know why I did that” “Yes? Yes?” “No, you know why” “Why?” “Because you don’t listen to me ever. You’re the only person who doesn’t ever listen to me (...) listen, you are like a little annoying bug in my room and it pisses me off so I take you and I put you outside and that’s what I did. And now I’m just making sure that you stay outside”

So... the bullshit about this being about George’s house is out of the window by the first proper exile stream. Also Dream goes in the ever increasing list of villains who, if annoyed enough, will reveal all their evil plans to the protagonist. Like Tommy screaches enough and Dream will immediately go in evil monologuing mode...

“So what do you actually want from me then?” “Well nothing, I’m just here to talk to you. Tommy, we’re still friends ok? Just because I exiled you doesn’t mean we’re not friends-” “Just because I killed your friends and family doesn’t mean we can’t be bros...” “Well, it’s true!”

Ok so, it’s confirmed that Dream would still go on with this “friendship” facade even if he killed Tubbo or Wilbur then. Also:

*Tommy sees a creeper* then in the most monotone tone ever: “Help me” Dream sprinting from the other side of the cave: “TOMMY!”. I love this scene and I love this two dumbasses (and I mean the cc’s here). Also, to go back to the serious stuff: once again Dream is the one killing every single mob around Tommy because he blew up all his means for defence. Also Bad and Sapnap are still there as well, but Dream is always the on interveening (mostly because he is the one following Tommy around more closely). I’ll have a few of the more interesting quotes here afterwards until the next interesting scene:

“If I had 8 legs I would fuck you all up” “Oooh, no you wouldn’t” (Dream de-valuing Tommy’s anger once again)

“Stop following me” “NO” “Well okay then...” (honestly this was just funny...)

“Can I call you Wilbur? Or is it Ghostbur...?” “You can call me whatever you like” (for those saying that Ghostbur not correcting Tommy was weird)

“Alright Wilbur, what do you need an enderchest for? I might make an exception but-” “We- we need it so that we can access our stuff from the old world, the old world” “But not to go back” “How would we be able to go back with an enderchest?” “Well I don’t know maybe there is stuff in there that’s... better” “Tommy do you have anything that could get you to go back? In the enderchest?” “A boat? What’d you mean?” “Yeah to be honest we just need wood to get back, it’s not really-” 

Here we have Ghostbur poking holes in one of the new rules that Dream added that day. As a matter of fact, why would an enderchest be dangerous? Tommy mostly keeps sentimental stuff in there and a bit of iron. Still that’s the whole point: Dream is trying to get Tommy under his control so he needs to bring him to a point where he’ll listen to his orders even when they don’t make any actual sense. Also, btw, Dream doesn’t actually give them an enderchest after this exchange.

“Do you want to come with me Tommy? Do you want to come with me and visit the old library?” “No no no” “Yes! Yes please!” “No he wants to stay here with me” “I don’t. I definitely don’t” “He does! He’s just trying to be nice to you Wilbur. He’s trying to be nice to you” “I’m not Wilbur, I want to come with you” (way to gaslight an amnesiac ghost...)

“So how long is Tommy supposed to be here?” “Like a week?” “Oh, a week is not bad!” “*laughing* No he’s here forever” (Like goddamn, imagine if every minor griefing was punished with permanent exile!)

“M-maybe like- does Tommy gets like visitations? Like once every month he get’s to go to L’Manburg-” “No! No no no” “No visitation, huh?” “No visitation” (well, let’s thank Sapnap for trying...)

So, after this Tommy gets his plan to go through the Nether and find a quick way to and from L’Manburg to, perhaps, sneak in unnoticed at some points. Dream “allows” him here to go to the Nether (even though technically there is no reason why the exile would extend to there as well), so they get to work on fixing a ruined portal. “Did you know, I apparently blew up a nation and killed everyone” (thank God we have Ghostbur, he makes everything better). One thing I want to note though: at this point Tommy still kills the mobs attacking him when Dream is not stalking him and doing it for him, which is kind of nice. We are still at the first exile stream though...

“Can I go back for like an hour and see all my friends?” “No, they can come here though. I-I mean Tommy, I think- I think that someone could come here and visit you, but you can’t ever go back. Like I-I don’t have anything against people coming here and visiting you if they want to. They don’t HAVE to, but they can if they really want to” “Tommy think of it this way: whenever you’re in prison you can’t just go and visit your friends, but they can come and visit you” “They can come and visit you, yeah, that’s actually a very- that’s a perfect analogy”

I wonder why the best analogy for Tommy’s situation is not a f*cking exile analogy, but actual prison. Maybe because he is confined to one place, not allowed to keep any personal items and never allowed to go back? Also they actually get to Nether hub at this point and there is the famous scene with Tommy looking at the lava: 

A curious thing about this scene (aside from being a clear indication of the beginning of Tommy’s depressive spiral) is both that Dream didn’t seem to particularly care about Tommy dying up until now (and in the future as well) as long as he is the one to kill him. Meaning that he seemed fine with it as long as he had control over it. And yet at the end there he agrees with Tommy’s statement of “it’s never my time to die” which kinda makes me think that Dream by this point was already entirely set on his idea of Tommy needing to be alive for Dream to control the whole server. Tommy and Dream head back to Logstedshire after this scene.

*Tommy looks at the lava while standing very close to the edge* “I’ll go back through just to... check and see” *Dream hits Tommy away from the edge* “Come on” *Tommy goes back to the edge and Dream pushes him away again, this time covering the hole* “It’s not your time to die yet Tommy” “It’s never my time to die” “That’s true” 

“Home sweet home...” “Home sweet home. I think it’ll be good! People might visit you all the time, I mean, I can visit you! It’s- it’s actually fun to come here! It’s a little bit- it’s a change of scenery, you know?” “It’s not fun to be stuck here” “Well... you’re not ’stuck’ it’s your vacation home!” “Can I go back? I’m ready...” “No but you can leave this area, you can go somewhere else. This is just- like, I took you far away, you can go further if you want”

So, if anyone is wondering, this is not, in fact, Dream giving Tommy more freedom. Especially considering that when Tommy does leave Logstedshire later on Dream literally hunts him down, so no, that was never an option. What Dream is doing here is make himself sound benevolent by comparison by telling Tommy that the only other options he has are worse since they are even further away.

“I’m here for a good time, not for a long time” (more hints towards Tommy’s depressive spiral)

“Guys how do you know when it’s too much?” (and again)

“Can I go and see the tree?” “Tommy, you can’t go and see the tree” “Dream why don’t you let him just- it’s not in L’Manburg! Why don’t you let him just see the tree and then escort him back?” 

Ghostbur my beloved, pointing out holes in Dream’s rules all the time. Something tells me that’s the reason why Dream tried to kill him later on...

Anyway! This concludes this first post because it’s... Oh fuck this is REALLY long.... welp! I’ll make the others in the next few days! 

[carcinized]

for all your analysis needs, i present to you minutes 51:43-1:09:56 (all arguments in the ruins of the community house) of the green festival vod transcripted. i spent hours and hours on this PLEASE reblog

---

Tubbo: Tommy did this?

Dream: Tommy blew up the Community House.

Tubbo: I don’t understand.

[Indistinguishable yelling]

Dream: We were this close to peace! We were this close! I trusted you guys for once ever!

Tubbo: Wait. We had no--we had nothing to do with this, Dream.

Fundy (overlapping): This has nothing to do with us.

Dream: You- you- you didn’t- you didn’t- you- you didn’t know- at all. You had no idea.

Ranboo: There’s no affiliation.

Fundy: No! No! No! No! No! No!

Quackity: Why would we affiliate with some dumb shit Tommy does?

Tubbo: Zero idea!

Quackity: Why?

Dream: Cause Tubbo--Tubbo, listen. You still have his disc.

Tubbo: Yeah? What about the--

Dream: That means you’re affiliated. No matter what. That is his most prized--

Tubbo: It doesn’t--

Dream: --possession. And if I don’t have the disc, or he doesn’t have the disc, then guess what! You are affiliated! You have the disc!

Tubbo: I don’t-- I don’t-- I don’t--

Dream: Look what he did!

Tubbo: I don’t know why he would do this!

[Unintelligible arguing]

Ranboo: He has nothing to do with--

Dream: This was the oldest building on the server!

Fundy: Yes it was but he was-- [banging desk] he was supposed to stay away, Dream!

Tubbo: I don’t--

Fundy: He was exiled!

Dream: Yes, and he came back.

Tubbo: Why?

Dream: And you know who knew he came back?

Fundy: Why--What is this--wha- wha- Why would he--

Tubbo: Who knew he came- Woah, woah, everyone be--Who knew he came back?

Dream: Alright, listen. [pause] I’ll tell you in a minute. This is what needs to happen, okay? Look, you--you need--you have to--he has to pay for this. He can’t just--He can’t just come and like--listen, this is terrorism!

Tubbo: Yeah--

Dream: This is the worst--This is the worst event that has ever happened on the server. This is the oldest building. The most historic building on the entire server. And the only major structure of the Greater Dream SMP.

Tubbo: I can’t believe he would do this.

Quackity: Why?

Tubbo: I can’t bel- I can’t believe it.

Quackity: When?

Dream: I need you- I need you to--

Quackity: Are we getting walled out though? I don’t- I don’t- I don’t get it! What- what- what- what affiliates us to him?

Fundy: Yeah, exactly.

Dream: Because Tubbo has--Tubbo is the president and Tubbo. Has. The disc.

Tubbo: I don’t--

Ranboo: But aren’t you supposed to be the one who’s watching him the entire time?

Tubbo: You were meant to enforce his exile, Dream. I don’t see how this comes down on us.

Ranboo: You have to enforce how he’s been exiled.

Dream: How- how could I enforce his exile if I don’t have the disc.

Tubbo: You have one of them, do you not?

Dream: I have one. I don’t have both. I need both.

Tubbo: You need- both. [pause] I actually just can’t believe he would do this.

IDK WHO THIS PERSON IS CRY: This- this needs to be handed over and burned, right now.

Fundy: It’s- it’s- this has nothing to do with anything!

Dream: See, Punz has been around, Punz knows.

Quackity: Stop affiliating us!

Dream: Callahan is even here! Callahan’s even here to see the destruction.

Fundy: This has nothing to do with anything!

Dream: This is the worst thing that’s ever happened. Just--

Ranboo: This doesn’t have anything to do with L’manberg.

Quackity: But this isn’t our fault, we didn’t do this!

Fundy: It really isn’t! This is what Tommy did! We- we- we’re--

Dream: Okay but listen! You’re right, you’re right, you’re right, you’re right. This is what Tommy did. I won’t--I won’t blame you.

Tubbo: Okay.

Dream: But give me the disc.

Fundy: What?

Quackity: What?

Fundy: That’s--this is--

Dream: Listen! If you’re not affiliated with Tommy, then give me the dumb disc! That’ll solve everything! Everyone wins here! I bet you--Sapnap, Callahan, Ponk, Badboyhalo, everybody, Awesamdude, literally everybody here!

Fundy: Tubbo?

Sam: We built this house before anybody else was even on this server.

Ponk: Yeah!

Sam: I can’t believe this.

Fundy: This is- I-

Sam: I…

Ponk: This has gone too far.

Tubbo: There must be another way, surely, surely. Is there any other way?

Dream: No. There’s not- there’s not another way, Tubbo.

Punz ? : Fundy, you can hand over the disc.

Ranboo: There’s gotta be another way. There’s gotta be.

Tubbo: So you’re saying--I need to give--Is one not enough? Both of them are--It just seems--

Dream: No because if you have one then he’s always- he’ll always have faith that he can just get it back because you’re affiliated. Look, I- you, if you want nothing to do with Tommy, then have nothing to do with Tommy. Don’t- don’t associate yourself by having the most- one of the most prized possessions on the server. He just destroyed the most prized building on the server. This has been around since the beginning!

Tubbo: I just can’t believe it.

Quackity: It doesn’t- it doesn’t make sense! Ohhh my god. I don’t understand why we have to--

Tubbo: I just don’t believe it.

Quackity: --why we have to keep suffering the consequences of his stupid actions.

Tubbo: He was meant to be gone!

Fundy: He was gone! He was gone!

Ranboo: He was gone!

Fundy: When did this- when did this happen?

Tubbo, claiming his dog: Oh, sorry, that’s mine.

Dream: It happened- I don’t know, I logged on and the Community House--

Fundy: It literally- I literally-

Dream: I don’t know. I logged on and it was- I was in the Community House and I was just in water.

Tubbo: I don’t-

Dream: This was my safe place to… y’know, be safe. But listen, listen.

Fundy: What’s the reason for telling--

Dream: I need the discs. I need the disc.

Fundy: Dream--

Tommy: No!

Tubbo: What--?

Tommy: No, no. Li- li- li- li- no, no you- you don’t--

Tubbo: Uh…

Fundy: Tommy?

Dream [referring to Tommy’s in game character, who is invisible but wearing armour]: Is this you? Are you in this?

Tubbo: Is that--

Tommy: Yeah. Yeah you don’t need-- You don’t need--

Dream: Tommy, listen. You fucked up! I’m- I- I don’t ca- Like listen. Tubbo’s going to give me the discs--

Tommy: It’s what--No! No, Dream, Dream, Dream, Dream! This doesn’t look like something I would do?

Dream: YES! YES IT LOOKS LIKE SOMETHING YOU WOULD DO! WHO ELSE WOULD DO IT?

Technoblade: Guys, guys. Tommy didn’t do this, okay? He didn’t do this.

Punz ?: Okay Technoblade.

Fundy: That’s Technoblade? Why- why are you both here?

Tubbo: Why are you here?

Technoblade: GUYS! Okay, listen. Listen, I know I’m probably not the most reliable person to the government, but Tommy wouldn’t lie to me, okay? He said he didn’t do it--

Tommy: Yes! I don’t lie!

Technoblade: He wouldn’t lie to me.

Tommy: Unless he--

Dream: He lied about burning George’s house down! “He wouldn’t lie” he’s the biggest liar on the server!

Niki ?: He lies about everything!

Technoblade: He wouldn’t lie to ME, Dream! He’d lie to you but he wouldn’t lie to me!

Dream: He’s the biggest liar on the server!

Tommy: No!

Dream: Technoblade, I don’t think this involves you.

Jack Manifold: That’s true.

Technoblade: Now I- I didn’t wanna be involved either, but Tommy ran in, man! I--

Fundy: Wait, so Tommy did do this?

Dream: Yes, Tommy did this.

Ranboo: Why?

Tubbo: So, I mean the fact that you’re here kind of proves his point. You’re not where you’re supposed to be.

Dream: Yeah, you’re supposed to be exiled! You’re not supposed to be here!

Tommy: Yeah, yeah! We thought- we thought- we thought we could--

Dream: Why are you here?

Tommy: We thought we could give our friend a pat on the back with knives!

Dream: You destroyed--

Technoblade: I mean you’re out here accusing him of crimes and you’re saying just defending himself makes him guilty?

Dream: He’s not even supposed to be here!

Technoblade: Ah, yeah. Whatever. Laws, cringe.

Tommy: No, you can’t- no, this- no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Technoblade: This isn’t even part of L’manberg, this is part of--wait I don’t know where this is actually.

Dream: Tubbo, just give me the disc.

Ranboo: Dream SMP.

Tubbo: I’m- I just-

Technoblade: Ah, yeah, Dream SMP. Thank you, Ranboo.

Tommy: You’re not gonna-

Ranboo: You’re welcome.

[Tubbo opens the enderchest and Tommy hits him.]

Tommy: Woah, stop, stop it!

Fundy: Are you actually--?

Tubbo: Woah!

Tommy: What the fuck! You’re not just gonna give him the disc, are you?

Tubbo: You- you’ve literally proven time and time again that you can’t be trusted!

Tommy: What? What, no I haven’t. No, no, no, no, you have to exile me! Don’t give him the disc cause as soon as we- as soon as we, y’know, take down [unintelligable] then we’re fine! We’re fine! We’ll be- we’ll be back! [pause] w-

Tubbo: I don’t think that’s an option anymore.

Tommy: Tubbo, you spend all this time, you do all these speeches, talking about how I was a bad friend, how I was the one being reckless, and going out and doing things, and being bad! But… you won’t even stick up for me right- right at my lowest point. Do you know- do you know what he did to me in exile, Tubbo?

Tubbo: No!

Tommy: You don’t.

Tubbo: I thought you died!

Tommy: But you didn’t come and see me. And you still don’t care I’m here. You know what? You’re the shit friend, Tubbo.

Tubbo: Yeah, well, at least- this has your name written all over it!

Tommy: IT WASN’T ME, IT WASN’T ME! This has nothing to do with [unintelligable]

Tubbo: You’re literally acting exactly as you acted when you burned down George’s house!

Tommy: Yeah, but in my defense, that times- that time was funny.

Tubbo, laughing: That is not a defense!

Tommy: That just wasn’t me, this wasn’t me, this wasn’t me.

Tubbo, still laughing: That is not a defense!

Tommy: This wasn’t- I promise- let me--Eh. Listen to me.Seriously. Seriously, man.

Tubbo: Seriously?

Tommy: I don’t need to prove myself to you. This wasn’t me. Trust me. Jesus Christ. For once in your life, Tubbo, trust me!

Tubbo: I did trust you. Once. The first time all of this happened. And I won’t make the same mistake twice. [He opens the ender chest, taking out the disc.]

Tommy: Don’t you dare.

[Tubbo holds the disc in his hand and Tommy gasps.]

Tommy: Tubbo, you betrayed me. You betrayed me.

[Tubbo holds his axe for a moment before moving to hold nothing again.]

Tommy: You know that, right? You know you betrayed me.

Tubbo: Yeah, well at least I’m not--

Tommy: What- don’t- don’t get out your axe. What- are you tryna- You betrayed me, Tubbo.

Tubbo: I didn’t betray you! You betrayed everything you had built with presidents prior just to go off on this little tyrant-

Tommy, overlapping with Tubbo: No. You BETRAYED ME! Everything, all of this, this is what Wilbur--You betrayed everything.

Tubbo: I don’t think I have.

Tommy: Just look. You know what? You got your axe up? [Tommy eats a gapple.]

Technoblade: Tommy-?

Tommy: Yes?

Technoblade: Tommy, there’s like 30 people here, there’s like 30 people here, Tommy- Whatever you decide, whatever you decide, Tommy-

[Tommy hits Tubbo, Tubbo hits back.]

Technoblade: Make that decision wisely, Tommy--

[Tubbo and Tommy start to full on fight.]

Technoblade: Oh, god. Oh, we’re goin’ in, we’re goin’ in-

Fundy: No, no, don’t actually, DON’T ACTUALLY, NO-

Quackity: No.

Ranboo: No, no.

Technoblade: We’re goin’ in-

Tommy: You BETRAYED me, Tubbo!

Tubbo: NO! You failed the nation!

Technoblade: We’re goin’ in-

Ranboo: No, no, no, no, no, no-

Tommy: You BETRAYED me!

Tubbo:That is just NOT TRUE!

Tommy: I- what- you did! You did! You betrayed me!

[Fundy screeches.]

Tubbo: No, I didn’t!

Tommy: Everything! This is what Wilbur wanted!

Technoblade: Hey, Fundy!

Tubbo: You gave up on the nation-

Tommy: He wanted you to betray everyone! To forget what was right.

Tubbo: No! No, you betrayed everyone when you went off and did your own thing and teamed up with the very person who blew up the nation!

Techonblade: You’re not in L’manberg, guys, you’re not in L’manberg.

Tommy: You left me to die.

Tubbo: Tommy, you teamed up with the very person that blew up the nation!

Dream: OH, I WANTED TO DO THIS FOR A LONG TIME-

Tubbo: Tommy, you teamed up with Technoblade, I didn’t leave you to die, I was not invited. [pause] Where are you?

Tommy, reappearing: You betrayed me.

Tubbo: I didn’t betray you, you teamed up with the very person that destroyed our nation the first time!

Tommy: Our nation- Tubbo, the discs! The discs were worth more than you ever were.

Tubbo: Not-

[Dream gasps and laughs excitedly.]

Niki: Oh… god.

Tubbo: I don’t- [pause[ You meant- You-

Tommy: Just…

[Both Tommy and Tubbo take their armour off.]

Dream: Hey.

Technoblade: Hey, you-

Tommy: Give him the disc.

Technoblade: Tommy-

Tubbo: You want me to… give him the disc?

Tommy: I’m not…

Dream: So gimme the disc!

Tommy: What am I…

Tubbo: What- I- d- are you sure?

Tommy: Yeah, this…

Tubbo: Are you sure?

Dream: Yeah, you heard him. He realizes he needs to pay. That’s what he- he’s finally realizing.

Tommy: They were, they… Just not true.

Tubbo: I…

Tommy: I’m sor-

Tubbo: I… [undistinguishable beginnings of words]

Tommy: I- I’m sorry, Tubbo.

Tubbo: I’m sorry.

Tommy: No, no.

Tubbo: Do you want me to-

Tommy: Just- no. Just give him the disc.

[Tubbo gives Dream the disc.]

[Dream whoops excitedly.]

Technoblade: Tommy- Tommy are you sure about that decision, Tommy-

Tubbo: I don’-

Fundy: It’s already made…

Technoblade: The difficulty just went way up, Tommy, I’m just sayin’-

Tommy: What am I…

Tubbo: I- I don’t-

Tommy: What am I doing?

[Dream laughs.]

Technoblade: Tommy- Tommy-

Dream: Thank you, Tubbo.

Technoblade: Tommy, what are you doing-

Tommy: Techno-

Dream: I really appreciate it.

Tommy: I’m so- I’m so- I’m- I- y- this isn’t me, this isn’t- I mean, I look around, and I’m not the person I wanna be.

Technoblade: Tommy, what are you saying-

Tommy: And I- I- I w- I- I- I- [sighs] I’m so sorry.

Technoblade: Tommy, we could get out of here, Tommy, we could pearl out, I’d cover your escape, Tommy- We can still get out of here, Tommy! We can regroup! We can plan for another day, Tommy!

Tommy: Techno, Techo- if this is what I’ve become-

Technoblade: Oh, we’re surrounded.

Tommy: -then I don’t wanna be me anymore, man. I- I- I’m- I’m-

Technoblade: Tommy, what are you sayin’.

Tommy: I’m sorry.

Technoblade, after a pause: What do you mean, Tommy?

Tommy: I’m with Tubbo.

Technoblade: HEH. Tommy, when I said- Perhaps I wasn’t clear yesterday, Tommy, when I said that I’m going to destroy L’manberg and that you don’t- you don’t have to help me. When I said you don’t have to help me, Tommy, I MEANT THAT YOU COULD SIT IT OUT! NOT SWITCH SIDES AND FIGHT AGAINST ME!

Tommy: I’m not- Techno, what am I doing? Wha- What am I- W-

Technoblade: You’re betraying me is what you’re doing, Tommy!

Tommy: [unintelligable] Technoblade! The discs- [splutters] I- [splutters again]

Technoblade: You just told him to give the disc to Dream!

Tommy: I’m worse than everyone I didn’t want to be. [pause, sighs] I- you know that- you know- you know-

Technoblade: Tommy. Think hard- think hard about this before you make this decision, Tommy.

Tommy: I-

Technoblade: Cause you can’t undo this. You can’t undo this decision, Tommy.

Tommy: [sighs] Technoblade, I know what I’ve done and I hate me for it. I’m sorry.

Tecnoblade: Wowww. WELP! One v 30 it is! Who wants to go up first!

Dream: No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Listen, Listen, listen.

Technoblade: Oookay.

Dream: Tubbo, Tubbo.

Tubbo: Yeah.

Dream: I- I- I- yeah, well, thank you for giving me the disc.

Tubbo: Mhm.

Dream: I just wanna say that you’re an idiot.

Fundy: Wha-

Dream: You. Are. An absolute idiot. And you have no power, and you are the worst president that has ever been president electe- because you’re no president at all!

Fundy: No!

Dream: Listen, listen! You’re not even president!

Technoblade: TUBBO SUCKS!

Dream: You’re not even president! Quackity is more president than you. I’M more president of L’manberg than you! You listen to- you get pushed around by everybody on this server.

Technoblade: YEAH, TELL ‘IM!

Dream: Because you ARE AN IDIOT. You are a BUFFOON. You are a FOOL. You fall for everything.

Technoblade: YOU ARE A COWARD.

Dream: YOU JUST GAVE ME THE ONE THING I NEEDED TO DESTROY L’MANBERG. I DON’T CARE ABOUT L’MANBERG. I don’t care about anything, I’ve said this before. The only reason I did not destroy L’manberg was because you had the disc. I had to be friends with you to get the disc! I don’t care about you. I’m not your friend. Okay? I cared about getting the disc back, and I got it back. I got it back. And that’s- that’s- that’s the only thing that really matters! You can’t even run your nation right! RANBOO IS A TRAITOR! YOUR MOST TRUSTED FRIENDS!

Ranboo: Wha-

Tubbo: No, that’s not true.

Ranboo: No-

Dream: No, it IS TRUE! READ THIS BOOK!

Quackity: I fucking knew it.

Tubbo: What? Ranboo- what? Wait- What is this? [reading the name of the book] ‘do not read.’

Ranboo: I’m not- I’m not-

Dream: It’s his memory book! He was meeting with Techno and Tommy and told them everything!

Tubbo: What? Ranboo, you were the most loyal, you literally-

Fundy: What the FUCK, Ranboo?

Dream: It’s all of his own memories! He writes it down!

Technoblade: I mean all of this didn’t happen, I’ve never met that man in my life.

[Tubbo reads out of the book.]

Dream: You can’t even run your own nation correctly, Tubbo!

Technoblade: I can’t even spell Ranbo.

Dream: Listen.

Tubbo: What?

Dream: Tubbo- You, like- ugh. You- L’manberg is weaker than it’s ever been, and it’s because of you! You have- you have destroyed everything! You have ruined your friendships! You have ruined L’manberg’s allies! You have- you have just- You’re a horrible president, Tubbo.

Technoblade: YEAHHH! YOU SUCK, TUBBO!

Tubbo: Yeah. You’re right.

Dream: Techno.

Technoblade: Yeah?

Dream: You got any withers?

Tommy: Wha- wha-

Technoblade: Oh, I’m likin’ where this is goin’, Dream.

Fundy: No, no, no, no, no.

Tommy: Stop-

Tubbo: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no-

Ranboo: You can’t.

Technoblade: Are you sayin’ what I think you’re sayin’, Dream.

Dream: Oh, I’m saying what you think I’m saying.

Tommy: I’m [unintelligable], Tubbo.

Technoblade: Are you callin’ in that favour, Dream? To destroy L’manberg?

Dream: No, no I’m not calling in my favour. You would destroy L’manberg either way, are you kidding me? No. You would destroy it anyway, I’m not calling in my favour.

Technoblade: You know me so well.

Dream: Listen, listen.

Technoblade: I’ve got a few wither skulls, Dream. We can work something out.

Dream: Alright.

Technoblade, laughing: If we can get out of here alive.

Dream: Alright, listen, here--how ‘bout this, how ‘bout this? L’manberg is being destroyed, okay? Tomorrow, at 3pm. Say your goodbyes.

Tommy: No, no, no, no, no.

Fundy: No! No! No! No!

Dream: Say your goodbyes!

Tubbo: No, no, no, no, no!

Dream: Say your goodbyes! TOMORROW! It is being destroyed!

Technoblade: Why are we givin’ ‘em a day?

Fundy: No! No! No! No!

Dream: Listen! Tomorrow! 3pm!

Technoblade: I could do this in like three minutes!

Dream: 3pm tomorrow, you and--say your all goodbyes. Say your goodbyes. I- I’m tellin’ you, we are-

Technoblade: Whose dog is this?

Dream: We are destroying it-

[Tubbo gasps as Tommy kills his dog. Everyone else follows suit.]

Puffy: Tommy, that was Tubbo’s dog!

Tubbo: You killed my dog!

Technoblade: Wow.

Tommy: No-o!

Tubbo, laughing: Bruh! Come on, man!

Technoblade: You betrayed me, you killed Tubbo’s dog.

Tommy: It was a misclick! It was an accident!

Technoblade: Aw, yeah, it was a misclick!

Ranboo: Whoops, whoops.

[Tubbo laughs.]

Tommy: Hey, in my defense, it did bite me.

Dream: Listen, listen, when I’m saying destroy it, I’m not talking about- like, we’re gonna finish Wilbur’s job. We’re gonna destroy it all the way to bedrock.

Technoblade: Let’s chunk error this!

Dream: We’re not--yeah, we’re gonna chunk error this.

Tubbo: I…

Dream: Alright? We’re not even talking about just blowing up some TNT, alright? We’re gonna do TNT machines, cannons, we’re gonna destroy everything, withers, every wither possible.

Technoblade: Ah, yeah. I’m likin’ where this is goin’.

Dream: Everything’s gonna be gone! So, listen. You have one night, say your goodbyes forever.

Tubbo: I don’t- I-

Dream: Say your goodbyes forever!

Tubbo: What?

Quackity: What do you mean?

Tommy: What the fuck.

Dream: That’s- That’s it! That’s all, I’m leaving. [He begins walking out of the ruins of the Community House.]

Technoblade: We- we- we could give them, like, thirty minutes-

Tubbo: I don’t-

Dream: See you tomorrow.

Tubbo: What? I- I- I don’t-

Technoblade: Wait, he’s leavin’? Wait, wait- he just dipped?

Tubbo: What?

Technoblade, laughing: Wait, he just left? Oh, oh this is- oh. [He aims his crossbow wildly, looking at everyone surrounding him.]

Niki: Oh…

Fundy: Oh…

[Everyone surrounds Technoblade, hitting him.]

Technoblade: Mm, mm this is awkward, wait- Wait, wait, hold on, hold on a second here- Wait, hold on, lemme get my words in- Talkin’ is a free action, let’s hold on here, alright?

Tubbo: Oh?

Technoblade: Tommy. Give me back my axe. You’re not worthy, I was wrong.

Tommy: [gasps, then pauses] No. No, you know what, Technoblade? I am worthy. And you’re not- you’re not gonna side with Dream to take down L’manberg, are you? What the f-

Technoblade: I- I- I- I- I’ve- I’ve been so transparent about how I’m going to destroy the government.

Tommy, overlapping: WHYYYYY Why, no, no, no, go away.

Technoblade: I’ve explained my reasons, I’ve been like, I’m destroying it because of A, B, C, they executed me, they betrayed me, you betrayed me- you know what, Tommy? You’ve made a decision today that can’t be undone. And you know what? I respect you, Tommy, you know, you’re free to make your own choices, as wrong as they are--that’s what anarchy is about. It’s about freedom to do what you want. But all I have to say, Tommy, is that I hope you don’t come to regret it. Anyways, I’m gonna dip, there’s like thirty people here, [He escapes, swimming through the water around the ruined Community house] SEE YA, I’M OUT, BYE

Tubbo: NO!

Techonblade: SEE YA, IDIOTS! BYE, I’M OUTTA HERE! OH!

Fundy: I lost my b- oh, god damnit.

Technoblade, off camera: WAIT I ACTUALLY LOST ‘EM? SEE YA, IDIOTS! SEE YA, GOODBYE, HAHAHAHA! HAHAHA, NOT EVEN CLOSE!

[lewis-winters]

Hi but I actually really want your detailed character analysis for each guy in the Craver interrogation scene 👀

Oh anon, the monster you have unleashed.

Ok so like. This is only one of many of my (often contradicting, bc if I am anything I am a flip-flopping bitch #taurus-gemini cusp) readings of this scene. But it certainly is the most interesting:

Ok, so let's start with the three boys outside of the beating room. Namely, Floyd Talbert, Ron Speirs, and George Luz.

There is only one agitated fella in this frame, and it's not George Luz. George is very secure in himself here-- there's tension lining him and making him stiff and his attempts at humor fall flat, but the fact that he is making attempts at all is a sign that he knows who he is in this moment and he knows what he is being called to do. And that's to distract Tab.

Tab, on the other hand, is struggling with two sides of him. One is the vindictive side that wants to be in the room with the other guys. But that side is largely trumped by his very rational, very Company 1st Sergeant side. He isn't agitated because he wants to join in. He's agitated because he knows he should stop them, and he's right. He should. Though the beating is "justified", the Military Police will most likely not think so. He's 1st Sergeant, he's in charge of most, if not all of the men in there. If the MPs investigate this incident, he will have to be the one to answer for them. And also I just think he doesn't want to see anybody get into trouble. Except he can't go in there and stop them because they have a point, or at least, they think they do. Craver hurt one of their own, and now there is no reasoning with them. Look at who's inside: Bull and Martin and Malarkey. NCOs, just like Tab. None of them outrank him, but they are still leaders in their own right. And if Tab were to go in there and stop them, they'd chew him out for it.

Tab is waiting for someone like Ron to come in and stop it. Because Tab knows he himself can't.

Except. Except. Except.

Ron doesn't stop it. Ron, in fact, enables it.

And this is where we also see Tab start to lose respect for Speirs.

IRL, Winters said that Tab resigned as 1st Sergeant because he kept comparing Speirs' leadership to Winters' leadership, and though the show itself doesn't actually make that the official reason for Tab's resignation in the next scene ("I miss being back amongst the men"), there are traces of it in this scene.

When Ron enters the room, the first thing Tab asks him is "How's Grant? Is he dead?" Speirs bypasses that question entirely for the sake of joining in on the beating, gun drawn.

From Tab's point of view, that means Ron has every intention to kill Craver.

And, of course, if we apply what we know from what IRL Winters told us, that means Tab is also thinking, in that moment; "No, Dick would never do this. Dick would never let it get this far."

And you can actually see that moment of clarity + subsequent disappointment (as well as relief at finding out Grant will live and disbelief that this just fucking happened) on his face here:

Furthermore, this is also the moment Tab (and, by extension, every body else in the room) finds out that Grant is going to make it after Ron tells them.

So not only is Tab thinking; "Dick would never do this. Dick would never let it get this far," he is also thinking "Why the fuck didn't he tell us that in the first place?! If Dick had been handling the situation, we would have gotten the news immediately! He wouldn't have allowed something as risky as this happen!"

And he's right.

But in fairness to Ron, this is probably the first time any of Easy has seen him lose his cool.

Because Ron is actually losing his cool here. This is his "it's my dog!" moment. He let the anger get to him, and therefore he made a terrible miscalculation.

I've already talked about this in this Grant/Speirs ask, but let me reiterate it here:

We (and Easy Company) are very used to thinking that Ron acts without compassion, mercy, or remorse, therefore when we first view this scene, we think that what is out of character for him is not shooting the replacement. We (and Easy, but especially Tab) are wrong. That is probably the most in character thing about Ron in this scene. What is truly out of character for him here is him drawing out the gun with the intention of shooting this motherfucker in the face.

See, one of the reasons why we think he doesn’t act with compassion, mercy, or remorse is because in the first half of the series, we don’t see him outside of the glimpses Easy company gets or the stories they exchange. But after episode 7, he’s suddenly with us all the time, and we see that his advice to Blithe was more of a… miscommunication, in a way.

Act with no compassion, no mercy, and no remorse toward the people you want to protect your men from. But this is where this scene gets complicated. At first glance, we think "ah, yes, he's protecting his men from this replacement."

Except-- there is literally 1 replacement vs. at least 1 squad of men (roughly 9 to 11 men). Why the fuck does a squad of soldiers (veterans too!) need protection against 1 replacement who has not had the same training and combat experience as them? They don't need protection here, they can handle themselves.

Oh, and another thing that adds to this predicament: Ron knows that Chuck is going to live.

Out of everyone in that room, Ron is the only one who knows that Chuck is actually going to live. So his internal struggle isn’t so much “oh I should act with no compassion, mercy, or remorse– but easy company has ~changed~ me.” In my opinion, his internal struggle in this moment, the reason why his hand trembles as he's preparing to shoot Craver, is this: “If I shoot him, I'm not protecting my men. I'm taking revenge.”

Which isn’t in his moral code.

Ron acts with no compassion, no mercy, and no remorse, yes, but there’s a certain level-headedness to him that keeps him in line at all times: only against those he's protecting his men from. Sure, he’s prone to bouts of petty anger sometimes (see in the next scene: More and his photo album), but he never lets that get in the way of his judgement (see: More didn’t back down, but neither did he do so in a disrespectful way and Ron recognized that, therefore he conceded his own defeat and didn’t punish More). He does what is necessary in the moment and never takes it beyond that.

But Chuck’s shooting drives him to the point of wanting to take revenge. He enters that room, gun drawn, with all the intention of shooting this motherfucker in the face. He knows it's a bad move. But he does it anyway. And him entering the room with his gun drawn enables everybody else. We, as an audience, have to remember that what they are doing is illegal and is very, very punishable by military law. Also: beating someone up like this, no matter how fucking vile, isn't the right thing to do, either. But sure, the MPs might be gracious enough (or if a certain Nixon is generous enough to tip them to look the other way), to let them probably get away with it on account of saying that the replacement tried to fight them and they simply fought back (yes, that does sound like rhetoric used to excuse police brutality; isn't that what this is in a way?). But if Ron pulled the trigger? If Ron had actually killed him? That would have been fucking bad.

It's not a Captain's job to enable his soldiers to do something illegal that'll most likely get them court martialled and/or killed. It's a Captain's job to protect his men. From their opponents, as well as from themselves.

In this moment, Ron is not doing that.

I know we like to get all vindictive and be all like "yeah that's what he deserves, this is justice!" but this isn't justice. This is revenge. And, again, revenge is not part of Ron's moral code. If only because revenge, more often than not, gets people killed instead of keeping them protected. If he shoots Craver, that will not only implicate him. It will implicate everyone else in the room.

He realizes it here:

Ron only comes to his senses when he already has the gun trained on Craver's face. Portrayed beautifully by Settle, might I add.

... This is a reach on my part, but I think his next movement is very powerful-- idk if it was written into the script or if this is just something Settle decided to do, but after he wipes the blood off and he turns away, Ron then takes his hat off. Which to me invokes in me the image of a king taking off his crown, or an executioner taking off his hood. It's almost as if he's relinquishing his authority in this moment-- not over Easy (since he does give them an order literally seconds after he takes it off), but over the right to be judge, jury, and executioner.

He recognizes that he did a whoopsie.

You know who I think also recognizes it?

George fucking Luz.

Look at his face. Look at his fucking expression here:

This is the face of a man who knows the what ifs and the could haves. He's put two and two together and he's pissed.

That's why I think another layer of him staying outside isn't just to comfort Tab. It was self-preservation. He still had his wits around him at this time-- arguably he and Tab are the only ones thinking straight in this moment; it's no coincidence that it looks like he's looking at Tab here-- and a part of him believed that Ron would, too. Except, he didn't. That's why he's angry. Ron came up short.

Or idk, I could be projecting, I mean I would be pretty pissed off in his position. Pissed at Craver, but also pissed at Speirs-- if my Captain, my leader, the guy I trusted decided to do something reckless like that and put all the lives of my fellow soldiers on the line simply because he wanted revenge or simply because he wanted to scare people and therefore get a grip over the situation, I would be angry, too. Remember, Speirs has a layer of protection, somewhat. Probably wealthy family, some wealth squirreled away. Not to mention he's a commissioned officer less likely to be used as a scapegoat. These men, everyone in that room, are enlisted working class men. Most likely, they don't get the luxury of a scapegoat or a tip off or bail. Had Speirs gone through with it, they'd have a body on their hands. And if the family of this replacement pushed, the MPs will no doubt pick someone in this room and pin it on them. Or hell, they'll take everyone, punish all of them, and then execute several. They were just lucky this replacement didn't actually have anybody on his side.

This was dangerous. But Ron let it happen. He didn't protect them like he promised he would. And to some degree, George and Tab know that.

Although, I can argue, everybody in this room realizes that. Except, they realize it too late.

They realize it the second Ron pulls the gun.

I've said it before, in this ask right here, that Liebgott flinches in this scene. Which is funny, considering when Ron enters the room, he's the one who's most in Craver's face. Him and Babe. Which is understandable, considering the three of them were close, as can be gleaned from the Last Patrol. Of course Lieb and Babe would get dibs on Carver's face. Of course they're the ones who get to bloody them up good. Carver shot their best friend-- of course they're angry. Liebgott especially-- I feel like this is the episode where he lets all his anger out. For ep 1 - 9, he's fine. He's funny and jovial-- a little irritable, especially in the Last Patrol, but only at Web, really. And not even by that much. What he mostly is, is tired. And that's it.

But this is after Landsberg and after the mountain top, too. He's angry and he has no outlet. So of course he's the one getting the most hits on Craver. And when Speirs enters the picture, he's delighted in some way. But it doesn't last.

At first he's watching Speirs (as beautifully depicted in this gif set), he is the only one watching Speirs. Then, Craver is pistol whipped and held at gun point and what does Joe do?

He flinches. Babe also flinches. And then they, and the rest of the room, look away. They all look away. From Bull to Babe to Johnny to even Pat and Popeye. Frank physically steps back. Malarkey literally closes his eyes. The only one looking is More. It's almost like the weight of what they have done has finally sunk in for all of them.

But, it's not enough to spur them to stop Speirs. In fact, except for Malarkey, they turn back to look.

Because, like Speirs, the need for revenge is pulling them toward this need to see this replacement die. But unlike Speirs, they don't know if Chuck is alive or not.

And that's where it gets Yikes. And in a way, maybe Tab is right. If Dick had been in Ron's position, 1) this replacement would have been given to the MPs immediately, and; 2) Grant's safety and the news of Grant's safety would have been the top priority. And though that would have not quelled their anger, they would have at least been comforted by the knowledge that Grant was going to live.

Listen, Ron abides by the same code of honor Dick and all the other officers abide by, and he has held up that same code of honor many times. In different ways and through different methods, yes, but always with the same goal in mind: protect. Always protect.

But not here.

Ron did not give them the comfort of knowing Grant's status and he put them in a dangerous situation. He did not think of them first. No doubt spurred on by his own trauma and his own simmering anger and lack of a proper outlet, a proper enemy to take it out on, he was blinded by his rage and simply thought of himself and his revenge. Not his men.

Ron slipped up. They're just lucky he caught himself before it got any worse.

[ender-thorn]

62

you know what, maybe this will be a regular thing if i can actually have coherent thoughts after a guided evolution update. are they coherent now? idk but they definitely are thoughts.

first off, hannah? we love when people check to make sure you're comfortable with stuff before they check over you. also, the thought that he told the team that he's spider-man? that was the main shocker to come from the beginning of this chapter. i also found it odd on her opinion on him at first. im not very good at the whole character analysis thing but, at first at least, she cared more about what this could mean for medicine than tommy's safety. she's reading all the files, and shrugging off ponk's comments about how they think something more's going on.

of course george is in the room, but she's also firm in her belief thats its not her business so she doesn't pry. at this point, shes probably only seen him briefly so she doesnt have any information on him - beside the stuff in the files - so you can't really blame her either. but she also doesn't question a lot for others privacy as she doesn't pry into why ponk took some convincing to get on board.

she also clearly thinks highly of dream. as readers, we know that dream is a sadistic bastard who we would gladly curb stomp if given the chance, but characters perspectives of him are different. We saw earlier with his interactions with phil and kristen that he's "kind" and a pretty chill and considerate boss for the most part and hannah notes that "dream's a nice guy and really shows it in the way he interacts with theseus". and again, hannah turns a blind eye to dream being a bit forceful with tommys wrist because it's not her business.

as the experiments go on, shes getting more and more concerned with how dream treats tommy but continues to push it down because who is she to doubt her boss when hes been nothing but kind to her? dream scolding tommy before the tests even begin, lying to him about the time of day, telling tommy off for shivering, telling hannah off for being careful to him and checking up on him, she chocks all this up to things being different in bio engineering compared to pharmacy.

reading povs where that character is in a form of ignorance is always so annoying yet interesting because we always know more than them. we see all these signs that she only half gets before brushing them off when we know things are VERY wrong right now. we know that tommy isn't "sick", we know that dream is automata and a prick, we know that tommy is in very real, and very serious danger while all the characters around him don't. not even tommy himself knows.

AND THEN OH BOY THE FUCKING SPIDER

i, do not like spiders. as much as i consume spider-man content (and a lot at that), spiders are and will always be, one of my least favourite things in the world. i can appreciate them, some of them are even.. cute? but the thought of one crawling on me? fuck no.

so let me tell you, when a giant spider starts crawling up this kids leg, his hand and then up to his neck? while he's blindfolded?

jesus. fucking. christ

i just want to know what everyone else thought about this. this kid is screaming in pain when it bites him. he indents the arms of the chair.

i just- god

and even around this, tommy actually vaugely remembers when he was first bit, he remembers being underground. plus him "paranoia" when dream comforts him, is most definitely the sense trying to warn him. the sense is also probably the one reminds him that dream is hurting him, the one that tells him to go home, and the thing that feels satisfied once the room goes silent. who knew that even with his memory lost, tommy still doesn't fully trust the sense when it comes to people he trusts.

ponk clearly knows somethings up too, not just because of his comment to hannah. he watches tommy with a sad look in his eye, he also doesnt seem to fully trust dream either.

i just need everyone to communicate. so many characters are so close to putting all the pieces coming together: the family knows tommy's spider-man and that automata has him (and suspect hes alive), karl knows tommy's alive and that dream has him, ponk knows that dream isn't treating his "brother" right and that theseus is spider-man, quackity doesn't trust dream and (rightfully) thinks he's up to something, puffy knows that dream is her son and is a sociopath (and tubbo knows that guided evolution is connected to dreams company), jack and sneeg are investigating spider-mans identity as well as trying to dig into guided evolution, ranboo and the other sm fans are surely gonna notice spider-man being missing (especially if sapnap or quackity or anyone else start committing crimes and he doesnt show up), schlatt will surely use all of this again spider-man.

and yet after all of this, wilbur is yet to know that his brother is missing, or that he's been spider-man for the past 6 months or so

screaming- crying even, let my boys be happy @fathermooshroom

[noobsomeexagerjunk]

My Dream SMP Opinions, Takes, & Biases

These takes may change!

(also read my dsmp fics here!)

- Viewer of the Dream SMP since November 27-28, 2020; my first POV of bias is c!Ranboo's, though it should be known that cc!Schlatt is what drew my interest in the Dream SMP

- unironic lore centrist

- c!Everyone enjoyer! I am bound to watch anyone and everyone with lore with the exception of big lore events with several people streaming, in that case I watch the POV I am biased towards/is easiest to watch first. I look for missing info from other POVs after

Pros of following me for dsmp analysis purposes:

focus on smaller/less popular CC's and their character lore

as much as possible, relative objectivity

Open to meta discussion

Cons of following me for dsmp analysis purposes:

pay enough attention to my posts and you'll find my unpopular biases

I will reblog conflicting takes one after the other

I will make sure to destroy your echo chamber

- I am particularly open-minded when it comes to the variety of lore styles on the server, along with their clash and cohesion

- I disagree with the concept of Death of the Author a lot, so know that I have a tendency to not only respect but treat CC intent as king; I am likely to call out and point out their flaws as writers but I make sure I never let that bother me

- other people complaining about CC writing absolutely do bother me though, and on the rare occasion it happens, you may catch me being angry about them

-I believe in a CC's right to tell off their audience and for them to draw the lines of when this is necessary

- Will demonstrate apologist behavior for c!Ranboo, c!Eret, c!Ponk, c!Connor, c!HBomb, c!Purpled, & c!Michaelmcchill, and yes, all at once! Whatever they all have in common should tell you what kind of characters I like. Crit (especially /neg crit) on these guys and the CCs' writing regarding them are not found here, and you’ll probably find that instead on other blogs.

- WHATEVER HAPPENS HAPPENS

- Feel free to @ me directly or send me an ask/anon, especially in discourse! Do be polite!

- i want this server's narrative to have a happy ending and exhibit hopepunk themes! This heavily influences which characters I like! If that isn't achievable, a thoughrough exploration on existence and living will suffice.

- People Not Sides Defender!!! I unironically think People Not Sides work and I want the narrative to say so; if you think this is unfeasible or invalid you're not gonna find me or most of my takes agreeable, like most of my biases are the way they are because of this

- every character's arc has something to learn from—arcs that share common lessons constitute the Dream SMP's narrative themes

- no ideology in the SMP is superior to the other, however I believe the only cause worth fighting for in the server is the cause that acknowledges all beliefs can coexist and that people can and should work towards that kind of peaceful coexistence; the only people who shouldn't be shown compromise are those who believe in causes that are the antithesis to the concept of compromise and live up to those specific causes

- almost no one in the server understands healthy attachments, or how to healthily keep things and let go of things

- self-worth is intrinsic and way too many powerful characters fail to realize this, which causes more problems for everyone

- I have a dislike for characters who want to be the epitome of anything, especially if it's something not worth losing your humanity to

- c!Quackity and c!Techno critical (mixed feelings); they're getting better but they are functionally still idealogical extremes so :/

- c!Dream critical (mixed feelings); what are you up to?!?!

- c!Sam critical (mixed feelings)

- c!Wilbur critical (positive)

- c!Punz neutral (mixed feelings)

- c!Clingy duo sympathetic

- c!Rocket duo sympathetic

- c!Phil, c!Foolish & c!Puffy critical (positive)

- c!Karl, c!Sapnap, c!Fundy, sympathetic

- c!Bad, c!Ant, c!Schlatt, & c!Slimecicle neutral (positive)

- c!George & c!Skeppy neutral (negative)

- c!Hannah & c!Boomer neutral (mixed feelings)

- c!Eryn & C!PK neutral (positive)

- c!Tina & c!Aimsey sympathetic

- L'Manburg critical—it's founding and revolution was valid but I haven't been happy with what's it been doing after that. L'Manburg the people and L'Manburg the institution are separate for me, and I have neutral (negative) feelings about the latter. My views on the former depend on the individual. I consider all administrations as identifiable with the faction.

- Las Nevadas the institution critical, i disagree with what it stands for but c!Slime dying for the country gave it dignity; my opinions on Las Nevadas the people vary per person

- Syndicate the group apologist, i think a proper execution of what the group believes in should be practiced by everyone on the server; my opinions on the Syndicate the individuals vary per person as well

- Badlands neutral; still wary of their political goals to this day

- Kinoko Kingdom neutral

- Snowchester apologist

- neutral towards The Greater SMP and New Manifoldland

- rooted for team Pro-Omelette during the Egg arc, though I have my sympathies for the individual members of the Eggpire

- rooted for team Foolish during the L'Sandburg conflict

- still grieving Little Penis Land, the Supreme Fridge, and all the lemon trees

- oh, and El Rapids

- Endersmile truther

- DreamXD anti, I think the server can flourish if we got rid of him

- Doomsday conflicted, mostly because I think the L’Manburgians shouldn’t have to grieve forever methinks, but also L’manburg the country had a right to play its course

- this user is conflicted about the humanity and personhood of ghostbur

- i believe in c!Dream's entitlement to the server but I don't like how he asserted that

- in denial of the toxicity in c!beeduo's relationship and c!puffy

- as much as i despise c!Q and c!Techno, the people who found what the communities they made as a source of healing are valid in their choices

- dsmp analysisblr's least deranged c!connor enjoyer and most deranged c!michaelmcchill enjoyer (self-proclaimed)