#techno critical

[dream-critical]

hello! so I’m a fan of Technoblade and recently some stuff popped up about a few racist jokes he’s made. It was brought up in comparison to Dream, but there were clips/evidence so it’s valid nonetheless. The popular opinion seems to be that it’s good that he ignored it as most of it, though not all, was from 2 or more years ago, but I’m not as certain here. He has a really distinct sense of humor that I really enjoy and I want to, I guess, not be a hypocrite in how I choose who to support. As far as I’m aware, he’s never directed hate towards anyway nor has he done anything too recently, and it’s mainly just badly timed or iffy jokes. Obviously no one’s perfect and there’s no content creators that are, but I guess my main question for his situation is: if he’s changed since then, is it okay that he never addressed it in the first place?

i am an avid technoblade enjoyer and yes i’ve seen all of the controversies around the jokes he’d made before too. i’ve been watching techno since circa 2016 and i can say that he’s changed and grown a lot over time. however, i still wish he’d address it. even if it was 2 years or so ago, it would be nice to hear him own up to it now because those jokes were, i feel like, very much in poor taste and bad timing.

i guess it’s. good? that he didn’t make a fuss over it comparing to dream? but that doesn’t really make it much better, imo, since he still ignored everything. like for example the lesbian hitler joke, i can confidently tell you that techno has definitely changed since then, but would it be nice if he acknowledged that that was kinda fucked up? yes. and the same goes for pretty much everything else.

so to answer your question: no, not really. it’s good that he’s growing and changing, it’s good that he now knows what he said in the past was fucked up. but to be honest those are just speculations that are willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. it would be better, both for him and the minorities he’d hurt by those jokes, to hear him apologising and assuring us that he has in fact has changed, and he won’t be making the same mistakes again.

[simplepotatofarmer]

if i'm honest, the mcyt fandom has the biggest case of 'except for the acceptable target' syndrome. they'll make posts about 'handling cringe' but make it clear the acceptable cringe is not dsmp fans or dream fans. they'll talk about growth and nuance and change but it's never applied to the people they hate. bullying is wrong, of course, unless you're 'driving out' the dream fans.

there is always an exception to any of these statements, there's always someone who you're allowed to treat poorly and i really hope one day the fandom can move away from that and be kinder.

[fridgeza]

"you have your own freedom! just let people love what they love, man! you are selfish!"

letter for an old poet, boygenius / techno & tommy, doomsday

[rianademoncat]

I need some art help

I can’t ever draw lineart and actually make it look good?? I always like my sketches so I always just use those but I feel like they might be too sketchy

This is my sketch

And these are my tries at lineart

I tried using my sketch pen then a different pen, idk if its the pen, how I do my lineart or what but it just never looks good ☹️

[ellenthefox]

"From what I gathered, there were no responses, and it was strongly alluded from Q that you wouldn’t be allowed to play on both servers if you were a part of the QSMP. Which totally makes sense for Quackity, as there’s not that many creators on the QSMP and it takes a lot of time to make all the mods and updates for content and you want it to be as active as possible." What is he actually talking about right now??? Someone has either lied to him or he is 100% making this up. I could eat my words later but Phil and Wilbur were already on another SMP! Anyone remember Origins??? Yeah Phil slowed down the origin stream for the time being cause of the egg arc but the implication was he'd put effort in again when others did (looking at you tommy this is your server xDD ) So what the fuck is Dream trying to say here? ALSO the "personally have experienced an elevated level of in real life threats & stalkers & even had the police involved in somebody showing up at my house, & even putting trackers on my family vehicles, surrounding this drama, for the first time since pre-face reveal" What were the people wearing fucking Quackity merch or something??? Dream you've had a massive history of people trying to doxx and find you, how the fuck could you possibly know it was specifically to do with the QSMP/USMP situation?? What good has making this novel accomplished rather than going about creating the USMP and bringing those communities together in your own way was going to accomplish??

[dr3amofagame]

ctechno was not the nice dude everyone wants him to be

oooh interesting take lmao. im gonna insert a courtesy "c!techno is generally a good person and does good" disclaimer bc like, c!techno is generally a good person that does good and cares about people and gets ridiculous amounts of hates for stupid things all the damn time, for the record, but also ... i cant say i dont get what you mean in part?

i think there's a phenomenon with c!techno sometimes where people can make him either too much of a paragon or strip him of too much agency in a way that's weird to me. i mean like, "he's canonically 3 years old" jokes aside, this guy isn't someone whos just doomed to be taken advantage of everyone unless they "respect his boundaries 🥺🙏" and can't assert himself at all and whatever, yknow? like, he can AND DOES assert himself when he thinks it's necessary. he can AND DOES act like an asshole sometimes!

like c!techno is a full, well-rounded character. he gets too angry sometimes and does shit he regrets. he has to make efforts to change. he has feelings, he gets hurt, he lashes out. he's too dismissive sometimes because he copes with shit through humor. he isn't perfect, and that's ... a good thing? it's a good thing that he's a full well rounded interesting character with flaws. but at the same time, pointing out said flaws and treating them as flaws isn't damnation!

like, for example, right, it's perfectly understandable for him to feel used and betrayed by c!tommy. was he also kinda mean to c!tommy in the aftermath in a way that can be pointed out? i mean. yeah of course! and like, of course he was grieving and hurt and in a lot of emotional pain when c!ranboo died and did that probably play into his attitude towards c!dream post-prison break? absolutely! was stripping a guy that is literally being chased down by his literal torturers and a server of people who want to kill him of his armor and telling him he can keep a weapon For A Favor and then going "awwh we didnt get him to use his necromancy powers :/" absolutely still kind of a generally asshole-y thing to do? i mean, YEAH ???? like, if they werent doing that bc of some kind of plan, that was still kind of a jerk thing to do? in a way that's very understandable, because c!techno is a character that becomes more of a jerk when he's stressed and in emotional turmoil. and this isnt about damning him or condemning him ... but i don't see the point of erasing said moments either.

shrug anyway i think c!techno overall was a pretty damn nice dude and a good guy and im kind of trusting that u dont mean this in the same way as certain c!techno takes ive seen back in the day that felt like crucifying him every time he made a joke that broke the fourth wall aSKFJLasf. c!techno should've been meaner, actually, for the record. and it's so awesome that he put c!sam in a prison and cask of amontillado'd that guy, GOD BLESS

[raineyraven]

yknow this is a thought that has been rattling around in my head for a long while, so i figured i may as well share it.

almost everyone is very well aware that the dream smp is a very morally grey narrative. we all know that, there are no perfectly righteous or purely evil characters, etc etc.

the thing that's been grating on me of late is that the fandom reactions to significant lore events don't really.. reflect this knowledge. hear me out.

ever since the red festival i've felt acutely aware of this. one of the longest-running debates in this fandom was who was in the wrong for tubbo's execution. techno for pulling the trigger, tommy and wilbur for not helping him. i saw post after post after post debating it the rest of that year. and i heavily disliked it. seeing people watch these characters have to improvise with an unpredicted circumstance and react to it imperfectly, reacting how their characters would be expected to, and then deciding to label some as right and some as wrong. to put them on those levels of morality, rather than viewing it through the morally grey lens the narrative has pushed. again, it just grated on me. treating these characters' decisions and actions as either wrong or right instead of treating them as decisions that move the narrative in fascinating ways and give us a window into their character.

i. dislike. when characters are made to embody either good or evil and have their flaws made respectable and palatable and easily overcome instead of more.. human i guess? it doesnt work for me, thats why i love the dsmp like i do. it's so human.

my brain started revisiting this train of thought after the c!wilbur and c!eret stream in may. the fandom reaction to that was.. a lot. again, post after post i saw opinions on c!eret did worse and c!wilbur's apology didnt make sense, or c!eret was right to be angry at c!wilbur for villainizing them, or any other number of thoughts that stem from the view that one of these characters are right and the other is wrong, that some actions and words were morally justified and others weren't.

very little did i see posts stepping back to look at this conflict in its purest form: a part of the narrative. talking about how fascinating it was that wilbur decided to apologize to eret now, how eret finally admitted how his words had hurt her. every discussion i saw was riddled with the question of did eret really deserve an apology from wilbur, was eret in the wrong for forcing a better apology out of him, who hurt the other more and who really deserved an apology from the other.

i could not help but think back to tubbo's execution after that stream. morally grey characters, morally grey decisions, viewed through the lens of sorting out who's right and who's wrong. who deserves what and how much do they deserve it. what moral box can we put this character into next.

and i've seen this pattern with so many other conflicts!! tubbo's decision to exile tommy, techno betraying pogtopia, doomsday. the narrative places absolutely no blame or condemnation on either side of these conflicts, it doesnt label either as wrong or right, so i guess people just. draw their own conclusions on it? it's weird to me, this need to discuss and debate the rightness and wrongness of these known morally grey characters and their morally grey actions and decisions. which one is better than the other, which one deserves to be listened to and the other condemned, which ones deserve to fight for forgiveness for the rest of their lives and which ones get to recieve it straight away. obviously, i'm not saying people shouldn't have opinions on these topics, i suppose just the constant insistence on subjectivity rather than objectivity when discussing controversial lore events like these irritate me.

i don't particularly know what i hope to achieve with this. i'm certainly not trying to attack anyone who's done this, just expressing my not understanding. it's just a weird way to discuss a morally grey story to me. i'd like to know if anyone else shares this sentiment, or if i'm just spouting nonsense. i don't think i am. this habit in the fandom has been frustrating me since i joined it in august 2020.

[mushroommutt]

Imagine a fic where after Tallulah got killed in the fight with the code monster just for a moment that felt like minutes or hours she saw a stranger who looked like her papa if he was all grey.

A stranger she spent not enough time with that smiled at her the same way her dad smiled at her even if there was a bit of confusion mixed in

A stranger that was waiting for a train that'll never come. That's silly, she remembers her abuelito said that he and her papa came to the island on a train too

A stranger that makes her miss her papa a little less and a little more when she respawns again.

[tjodity]

My first nonfiction thing on ao3! An analysis of Technoblade during Tubbo's execution!

[mollymauknroll]

F.R.I.D.A. in like a month

[quaranmine]

it is genuinely amazing to me that after YEARS of it being a common thing that there are people who quite literally refuse to comprehend the existence of roleplay, characters, and storylines in mcyt. some of whom who will even argue that you're the one incorrect about this.

[simplepotatofarmer]

c!techno is woman-coded because fandom said he had a victim complex and was a guilt tripper for expressing his very real hurt.

also because other characters kept dismissing his emotions because they were inconvenient. (fandom also did this.)

and because everyone keeps erasing his agency for the things he decided to do and wanted to do and then pretending he had agency for all the things he was quite literally forced into.

[cmyknoise]

So.

With c!Wilbur’s apologies to c!Techno, and Techno’s claims of being lied to about Pogtopia’s plans on reinstating L’manburg as a country, and how he was betrayed. Let me remind you of a moment. 

A conversation between c!Techno and c!BBH which occurred before Tubbo and Quackity told Techno about their plans on reinstating the L’manburg government, and before there was a war, and most certainly before this ‘surprise’ betrayal of them reinstating a government and assigning a president. 

Badboyhalo was talking to Technoblade about the Badlands. He was talking about if Techno would be okay with an anarchist group [the Badlands], and questioned what Techno’s plans are. 

Techno states that he’s fine with an anarchy, that he’s not okay with killing cats, and then he states this;

"I want to leave a smoking crater from which not only will Manberg never recover, but from which no new country can rise in its place. History will FORGET that a country ever existed in this area."

Again. This is before each and every excuse c!Techno has given to Tommy, Wilbur, Quackity, Tubbo, literally everyone, on why he’d set withers on this place. 

He claims he was betrayed by them reinstating government. He claims that Wilbur had lied to him and that he didn’t know about them planning to reinstate L’manburg. Despite evidence of Quackity and Tubbo literally telling him.

But maybe you can brush it off on he wasn’t listening, or he didn’t take them seriously. 

But this absolutely proves that he was planning on blowing this place up regardless of whether they reinstated government or not. This is evidence is before Quackity and Tubbo tell him. This is before the war. This is before the betrayal. He was already planning on blowing the place to smithereens even before Dream had offered and egged him on. He was never going to let this place go peacefully. He was never going to give a new government a chance of being peaceful. It was deemed corrupt before it's creation.

And this behavior is repeated with Doomsday when Tommy works with him. In his To-Do List, he had always had 'destroy L’manburg' listed at the top. Every time Tommy would say he didn’t want to destroy L’manburg, or said he just wanted his discs he didn’t want revenge, Techno would change subjects until he stopped bringing it up all together (vocally, to Tommy. visually he’d highlight the destroy line in the list to chat every time he opened up the book). 

It didn’t matter, it would have never mattered. Doomsday was going to happen no matter what. Dream planned on destroying the place, Techno planned on destroying the place. There would have been no way to convince them otherwise, and Tommy had tried every time it was brought up. It just so happened that a perfect opportunity and cover arose for it to happen then and there.

Tommy’s “betrayal” of Techno by siding with Tubbo (mind you, he’d done so because he realized he no longer wanted to play this cycle of revenge, and he didn’t want to be a bad person, and he didn’t want to hurt his best friend. He chose Tubbo over Techno, just as Techno would’ve chosen Phil over everything in the same situation). 

Tommy’s “betrayal” of Techno was used as a scapegoat reasoning for his destruction, turning a plan that would’ve happened no matter what, into a ‘lesson’ to be ‘taught’ and an ‘act’ of ‘revenge’. 

This is exactly the same as what happened on November 16th. Wilbur was the only official ‘traitor’ to L’manburg deemed by Dream, as Wilbur had been the one on this spiral and dead set plan to blow the place up, egged on and encouraged by Dream. He had no idea about withers, or that Techno had betrayed them in the first place until recently. He had no idea. He still doesn't even know they had a part in Doomsday. He still thinks it was all his fault.

Techno on the other hand, had known before there could have even been talks of betrayal, or before Wilbur could have even ‘lied’ to him. His mind was already made up. 

Pogtopia’s “betrayal” of Techno was used as a scapegoat reasoning for his deadset plans of destruction, that was planned far in advance of the war. 

They are scapegoats that he still uses to this day, and has even built upon adding details such as adding that Wilbur and Tommy had deliberately lied to him, or had deliberately tried to hurt him, which is simply false. In both of these situations, he’s planned from the beginning what he had wanted to do, regardless of how these “betrayals” made him feel. 

***This post is tagged appropriately with critical tags, so if you don’t want to see or hear c!techno critical, you should block the tags. This isn’t a post for debate or argument, it’s an analysis and well, critical post. That’s the point. Thank you. 💛

[sleepypuffpastry]

c!techno immediately pinning the blame of exile onto c!tommy and offering up c!tommy to c!dream for a favor

vs

c!wilbur literally having an instant fever dream about murdering the shit out of c!dream for what he did to c!tommy in exile

[thenietzscheanwife]

𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚊𝚢 𝚒𝚜 𝚊𝚗 𝚎𝚏𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚝 𝚝𝚘 𝚋𝚞𝚒𝚕𝚍 𝚊𝚗 𝚒𝚛𝚘𝚗𝚒𝚌 𝚙𝚘𝚕𝚒𝚝𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚕 𝚖𝚢𝚝𝚑 𝚏𝚊𝚒𝚝𝚑𝚏𝚞𝚕 𝚝𝚘 𝚏𝚎𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚒𝚜𝚖, 𝚜𝚘𝚌𝚒𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚖, 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚖𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚖. 𝙿𝚎𝚛𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚜 𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚎 𝚏𝚊𝚒𝚝𝚑𝚏𝚞𝚕 𝚊𝚜 𝚋𝚕𝚊𝚜𝚙𝚑𝚎𝚖𝚢 𝚒𝚜 𝚏𝚊𝚒𝚝𝚑𝚏𝚞𝚕, 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚗 𝚊𝚜 𝚛𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚜𝚑𝚒𝚙 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚒𝚍𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚏𝚒𝚌𝚊– 𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗. 𝙱𝚕𝚊𝚜𝚙𝚑𝚎𝚖𝚢 𝚑𝚊𝚜 𝚊𝚕𝚠𝚊𝚢𝚜 𝚜𝚎𝚎𝚖𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚘 𝚛𝚎𝚚𝚞𝚒𝚛𝚎 𝚝𝚊𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜 𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚢 𝚜𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚘𝚞𝚜𝚕𝚢. 𝙸 𝚔𝚗𝚘𝚠 𝚗𝚘 𝚋𝚎𝚝𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚗𝚌𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚊𝚍𝚘𝚙𝚝 𝚏𝚛𝚘𝚖 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚎𝚌𝚞𝚕𝚊𝚛–𝚛𝚎𝚕𝚒𝚐𝚒𝚘𝚞𝚜, 𝚎𝚟𝚊𝚗𝚐𝚎𝚕𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚕 𝚝𝚛𝚊𝚍𝚒𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚄𝚗𝚒𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚂𝚝𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚜 𝚙𝚘𝚕𝚒– 𝚝𝚒𝚌𝚜, 𝚒𝚗𝚌𝚕𝚞𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚙𝚘𝚕𝚒𝚝𝚒𝚌𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚜𝚘𝚌𝚒𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚝–𝚏𝚎𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚒𝚜𝚖. 𝙱𝚕𝚊𝚜𝚙𝚑𝚎𝚖𝚢 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚝𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚜 𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚏𝚛𝚘𝚖 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚊𝚕 𝚖𝚊𝚓𝚘𝚛𝚒𝚝𝚢 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗, 𝚠𝚑𝚒𝚕𝚎 𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚒𝚗𝚜𝚒𝚜𝚝– 𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚗𝚎𝚎𝚍 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚖𝚞𝚗𝚒𝚝𝚢. 𝙱𝚕𝚊𝚜𝚙𝚑𝚎𝚖𝚢 𝚒𝚜 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚊𝚙𝚘𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚜𝚢. 𝙸𝚛𝚘𝚗𝚢 𝚒𝚜 𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚛𝚊𝚍𝚒𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚍𝚘 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚘𝚕𝚟𝚎 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚘 𝚕𝚊𝚛𝚐𝚎𝚛 𝚠𝚑𝚘𝚕𝚎𝚜, 𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚗 𝚍𝚒𝚊𝚕𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚢, 𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚝𝚎𝚗𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚘𝚏 𝚑𝚘𝚕𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚒𝚗𝚌𝚘𝚖– 𝚙𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚋𝚕𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜 𝚝𝚘𝚐𝚎𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚋𝚎𝚌𝚊𝚞𝚜𝚎 𝚋𝚘𝚝𝚑 𝚘𝚛 𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚗𝚎𝚌𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚊𝚛𝚢 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚝𝚛𝚞𝚎. 𝙸𝚛𝚘𝚗𝚢 𝚒𝚜 𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚑𝚞𝚖𝚘𝚛 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚜𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚘𝚞𝚜 𝚙𝚕𝚊𝚢. 𝙸𝚝 𝚒𝚜 𝚊𝚕𝚜𝚘 𝚊 𝚛𝚑𝚎𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚕 𝚜𝚝𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚐𝚢 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚊 𝚙𝚘𝚕𝚒𝚝𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚕 𝚖𝚎𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚍, 𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝙸 𝚠𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚜𝚎𝚎 𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚎 𝚑𝚘𝚗𝚘𝚛𝚎𝚍 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗 𝚜𝚘𝚌𝚒𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚝–𝚏𝚎𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚒𝚜𝚖. 𝙰𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚘𝚏 𝚖𝚢 𝚒𝚛𝚘𝚗𝚒𝚌 𝚏𝚊𝚒𝚝𝚑, 𝚖𝚢 𝚋𝚕𝚊𝚜𝚙𝚑𝚎𝚖𝚢, 𝚒𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚒𝚖𝚊𝚐𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚢𝚋𝚘𝚛𝚐.

𝙳𝚘𝚗𝚗𝚊 𝙷𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚠𝚊𝚢, 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙲𝚢𝚋𝚘𝚛𝚐 𝙼𝚊𝚗𝚒𝚏𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚘. 𝟷𝟿𝟾𝟻.

[sing-me-under]

Because I keep seeing finale neg at least once a day despite the fact that I hit “don’t recommend” on the ones that still cross my dash… The finale has gone through one tedious game of telephone because people cling onto a dialogue that really needs the urgency of the voice acting to understand. Improv on a time limit isn’t the greatest way to convey a story, but taking the lines at face value is really the worst way to experience it. They didn’t see the way Tommy keep shifting around anxiously waiting or the way Punz kept moving in and out of frame to get Dream’s attention. They didn’t see how Tommy “limped” after being revived and cornered, too exhausted and confused to keep fighting and so choosing to talk to the end. They didn’t hear the exhausted way Tommy apologized as the nuke got louder and closer as Punz kept urging Dream to escape or the way Dream’s pity voice switched to his usual accusatory voice while escaping.

And just a reminder that just because I enjoyed and accept the finale doesn’t mean I think it was great. I just think it was understandable. There are like a thousand different ways this could have ended better, especially had other creators taken part (particularly Sapnap), but this ending wasn’t OOC or bad imo.

Just because someone is a terribly shitty person who’s done awful things doesn’t mean they aren’t allowed to have emotions. Dream is offered redemption, but he doesn’t have the chance to receive it. Hell, given more time, he probably wouldn’t have even taken it, especially since Punz was still there, and Punz has no deeper, older motive (especially not one so thoroughly twisted beyond recognition that rationally it directly conflicts with Dream’s wants) behind the want for power. People forget that Punz was still there, trying to keep Dream against Tommy but was mostly ignored.

I think that if it hadn’t been for the White Screen, Tommy would have still lost. There was no winning. People who didn’t watch the stream didn’t know that they were cut off before they actually had a chance to make a choice. It was a small spark of something, the smallest idea of something other than what they were, but it was cut off before it could actually be properly considered because that last understanding would have required a lot more time to fully flesh out. I’m actually really upset that I haven’t come across any fics that dive into “what if they actually didn’t die to the nuke and talked just a little bit longer, how would the rest of that conversation go” that isn’t just “Tommy kills Dream” even though that defeats the entire point of his character arc.

Unfortunately, even people who did watch the stream just took everything at face value without recognizing the nuances within their block people actions. ALSO. THE DREAM AND TOMMY AT THE END ARE NOT THE ORIGINAL DREAM AND TOMMY. THEY ARE COMPLETELY NEW AND DIFFERENT CHARACTERS TO REASSURE THAT THERE IS A SEASON TWO DSMP. STOP PUSHING THE AMNESIA NARRATIVE. LET THEM HAVE A NEW DYNAMIC.