Ok, I recently wrote an essay [here] talking about the definition and duties of civil engineering as well as the ethics because of the brain rot @swordfright gave me with calling Dream Sam’s ultimate engineering project. So, because I actually am a civil engineer I took it upon myself to design the title and summary of quantities sheets just like I do at work for roads but with Dream as the project instead. And in honor of angst day sponsor by @sixteenth-day-event, I figured I’d share it because I feel like it kinda works for the prison of the mind prompt.
“Sam’s “ultimate engineering project” he deemed too damaged like a bumpy road or crumbling building that wasn’t worthy of patching and filling in the cracks or reinforcing, that’s too eroded to be fixed and preserved. So, Sam strived to tear him down to the bedrock so he could remake, remold, and reengineer Dream according to his design for the common safety, public health and well-fair.”
{These are very similar to the actual sheets I make day to day, which I shall not share for the sake of doxing my location, but yea pretty much everything has a significance. Some of it doesn’t necessarily make sense but that was because I was more so taking inventory of what we see in lore (so you know I counted ;) lol)}
If there's something I love is seeing how people draw c!Tommy. Especially about his age.
Some people draw him with more childlike features. He looks younger, more "helpless" in a way. You can really see it's a child soldier. Someone who is not ready in any way to be in those situations, but is there anyway with a confident face and a loud voice. It's very visible he should not be there and how wrong it all is.
But other people draw him looking a bit older, looking more like someone who's soon to become an adult. In a way he looks less innocent, even when he's still the victim. He resembles Wilbur a bit more, and he doesn't look as helpless when next to Dream. But here's the thing, he's still a child soldier. He might act like he knows what he's doing, use big words, and act all powerful. And it's not that visible how wrong it all is, but it's still there.
You'll look at him and see this seventeen-ish years old guy, and, in a first glance, it won't feel as wrong. But when you really look at him, that's when you notice how vulnerable Tommy is. Surrounded by people who are more mature, more powerful, and who hate his guts. And you'll start to notice how easily influenced he can be, which seems unlikely for someone who always expresses what he thinks. And you'll start to notice he was never as ready as he says he was. And you'll start to notice how most of the messes he got himself into had completely disproportional consequences to him.
And after all of that, you'll look at him again, and maybe he even looks a bit older, but you can still see it. The child behind the loud voice and the bright smile, holding a sword that is just his size, but will always feel a bit too big for him.
c!techno is way more perceptive than people tend to give him credit for. he knows people. he always has been able to read them well.
in the prison, he says to c!quackity:
"what do you got, like, an empire or something? you always got an empire or something, bro. It’s just… it’s in your nature…"
and he was right! techno absolutely read him. for better or worse, he knew that about quackity, understood the sort of thing he'd be led to do or create. just like he had a sense of what would happen in the manburg/pogtopia war though he didn't want to believe it.
and that's what throws people off, i think. that sometimes, despite what techno's instincts are telling him, he gives them the benefit of the doubt. he's not bad at reading people, he's not any less perceptive, he just applies that in a way that's different than the others.
Okay i NEEEED to rant about Pogtopia because I know it was a ravine and shit but I need people to consider: lava caves
(all photos taken by me cause I explored one the other day and that’s where I got this idea)
Lava caves or lava tubes are HUGE super long caves that were carved out by literal lava flows and now just sit there and they’re cool as fuck
they’re cold as shit and the roof can vary from being dozens of feet above your head to being so low you have to crouch
there’s piles of rocks and ice formations and sand gardens and they are PITCH BLACK if you don’t have any lights and they paths can be crazy wide or super narrow and the ground is full of drop offs
ones that are made for people to explore have railings and stairs in certain places too and some even have built in lights or like the one I explored let you rent a flashlight
also a fun sidenote the ground is super hard packed sand full of holes from water dripping and it’s so hard packed that you don’t leave footprints (this would not help with Wilbur’s derealization)
anyways I think this would all work SUPER well for pogtopia cause cold/dark/shifting atmosphere/adding railings and pathways is already a thing in pogtopia
some more images that I yanked from google:
anyways PLEASEEEE consider spreading my vision Pogtopia lava cave/tubes for the win I’ve never been more right about anything in my life
i will never get over the way c!wilbur's character explored themes revolving around perceiving yourself through a narrative and projecting conventions of storytelling and media onto your own life out of a need to become part of something greater and more “beautiful” than yourself. the complicated relationship between life and art: which imitates which? the attempt to aestheticize your own suffering in the hope of creating a “masterpiece” that makes it all somehow worth it. convincing yourself that you are a character on a stage and must play your part so you don’t have to admit to yourself that you’re tired and hurting and it’s easier than putting in the work to heal. just. god. c!wilbur’s story means so much to me
i think in both regards to story, and in terms of meta/real life
doomsday and the destruction of l’manberg killed the server.
whether people were for or against or apart of l’manberg or not, it was a gathering point that brought people together to talk. it was a place people would hang out. it was a place with lots of chests to steal food and supplies from. in new l’manberg so so many people spent their time their even if they were completely unaffiliated or lived somewhere else.
storywise when it was destroyed, the story just lost a central characteristic for conflict, and a very important thing. l’manberg wasn’t just a place. it was ideals it was imagery, it was a goal, it was safety it was so many things, and with it gone with no hopes of returning, no matter how many new places people built they were all empty and never the same.
and with it gone everyone literally had to go their own ways. everyone who gathered there went far far away to make their own homes.
on a meta standpoint, people like talk about how much they miss old dream smp streams and that’s because of the non serious lore streams. where walking down a path and bumping into someone could lead to goofing off or serious talks.
where tommy could build a pathway from manberg to pogtopia for prime and for the upcoming rebellion, and get caught by a vice president who decided it was his day off and he was going to roleplay as a mcdonald’s worker.
it’s how you have tommy and tubbo goofing off on the server not doing lore, only for schlatt to see and they go lore mode and have to make up a pregnancy excuse.
it’s how you got silly serious moments. it’s also just straight up how you had people interact. if everyone lived hundreds of blocks away, it’s harder to just randomly run into each other while building or running to do something, meaning you’re less likely to talk, and less likely for anything to happen.
when l’manberg acted as a central hang out spot, people built their homes in close proximity, they would stick around the area and things naturally happened.
destroying l’manberg was, in my opinion, the worst thing they could have done. doomsday did very very little narratively to the story. the community house gathering did more to the story than doomsday did. and it was awful because tommy rallied people behind him to fight in doomsday not for him, but because if they could do this to l’manberg what would stop them from doing it to every other group.
and everyone fought, and despite an entire server fighting it was pointless.
the only thing doomsday did was force people to hide. and you can make claims for ranboo who went to live with phil and techno- but ranboo’s character arcs could’ve had a very similar outcome by staying with almost anyone else.
no l’manberg ultimately just drove everyone away, and there was never any serious or successful move to make anything on that server take its place, to fill the hole, so there was nothing to actively pull things together. no driving force or motivation, nothing to supply passive roleplay, nothing to bring people together.
everyone lost on doomsday. that loss of l’manberg meant no one could ever win again. just think about it. after doomsday, it was loss after loss.
the final disc confrontation? tommy and tubbo lost. they were rescued, but they lost their fight, and it was a trap anyway.
dream in prison? well he has punz on the outside, doesn’t matter, and he can control ranboo, and he still got to kill tommy AND ghostbur. it was a loss. and he escaped.
every single fight after. quackity lost, wilbur lost, tommy and tubbo lost again, and again. the server for everyone ended in a loss.
there was not ever a win again. usually in stories, after losses, you want something good to happen to make those hardships worth it. just like when good things happen you want bad things to happen to make it worth it, you need a balance.
think of the revolution. the up and down rollercoaster. the freedom into war into loss and death into hope into loss into compromise into win.
the election was a nail biting race where depending on who you voted for, was lose and a win. for tommy and wilbur it was a loss, but they quickly gathered things up, they had hope, and they had energy, and a plan, and techno joined and they were confident. there were ups and downs up until doomsday, afterword no character seemed to get an up. any positive was immediately trivialized. for example tommy’s decided to try and heal and make a hotel which was immediately turned into a problem where people tried to fight him over it and then he died. or he got a pet that made him happen and everyone tried to set it free or kill it. he finally starts to feel safe no relax and dream breaks loose, and he is endlessly stalked the entire time, and he dies alone with his abuser and his abuser’s accomplice.
there is never an up after doomsday, and killing l’manberg that day killed the dream smp.
Have you ever considered the parallels between BeeInnit, the bee, that c!Tubbo received as a gift and c!Clingy’s relationship during exile-presidency? If you remember c!Fundy saying “It’s just like Tommy, just not as annoying” to which c!Tubbo responded with “Just like Tommy”, the connection becomes apparent.
c!Tubbo’s bee being kept on a lead, occasionally poking at c!Ranboo, could symbolise c!Tommy’s deep attachment to c!Tubbo, as well as suggest that c!Tommy considers c!Ranboo his friend and trusts him, despite their relatively short time knowing each other.
c!Tubbo leaving the bee behind, causing it to fly around in confusion and hesitation, could represent c!Tubbo’s decision to prioritise the country over c!Tommy, resulting in a fracture of their connection; as well as c!Tommy believing that his best friend hates him, as he grapples with exile.
c!Ranboo picking up the bee for c!Tubbo to prevent it from getting lost and ensure its safety, could signify the idea of c!Tommy seeing c!Ranboo as his only friend besides c!Dream, and c!Ranboo reassuring him that people, and especially c!Tubbo, genuinely miss him.
And finally, c!Tubbo reclaiming the bee may be a metaphor for c!Clingy’s eventual reunion.
The interaction that takes place between Sam and Techno at the start of his prison visit is arguably one of Sam's strangest moments. He seems close to not even letting Techno in.
So, Sam's weird behavior, in order:
TECHNO: Hello.
SAM: Technoblade?
TECHNO: Hi! Is this the warden?
SAM: Yes.
TECHNO: Yoo, mister warden, what's up! Can you come out to talk to me? I'm trying to visit this prison!
SAM: You're trying to visit the prison?
TECHNO: Yeah, man! I mean, I heard everyone else was visiting the prison, and I just— I wanted to be included, y'know.
SAM: Okay, yeah. You can go ahead and go through the portal.
At the beginning of this interaction, Sam's tone suggests that he didn't expect to see Techno here. When Techno says he wants to visit the prison, Sam sounds confused and reluctant, but decides to let Techno in anyway, despite no visitors other than Quackity being allowed into the prison at this time.
SAM: Hm. I heard you might come for a visit.
[CUT]
TECHNO: I'm trying to visit Dream! Can we get that arranged, y'know? I know I didn't call ahead, but, like...
SAM: There's— I'm not really letting anyone visit Dream right now.
When Techno enters the prison lobby, Sam implies that he got a warning from someone—which we can assume to be Quackity—that Techno would arrive. This is after Sam acting confused about Techno's arrival just sixty seconds ago. Then, when Techno says he wants to visit Dream, Sam says he's not letting anyone do that, despite already letting Techno in to do exactly that. Which other prisoner did Sam expect him to visit, Connor?
TECHNO: One second, everyone's yelling at me to make you louder on discord.
[CUT]
TECHNO: So anyways, you said you were gonna let me visit Dream! That's fantastic! *chuckles*
SAM: Well, we weren't letting anyone visit Dream.
TECHNO: [overlapping] Yo, yo, Sam, mister warden, sir.
SAM: [overlapping] Why do you want to visit Dream?
TECHNO: Believe me, I know what your concerns are, and don't you worry. I already got my parents to sign the permission slip. I can go on this field trip, alright? *pulls out Quackity's note and hands it to Sam* I got— I got a voucher.
SAM: *quietly* Okay. *louder* Well, there's some things we have to do, if you want to enter the prison.
We see Sam's continued reluctance around allowing Techno's visit to take place, right up until he's presented with a "permission slip" from Quackity, at which point Sam hesitantly agrees to it. Even after it's been implied that Sam and Quackity discussed and planned this exact situation beforehand, Sam won't actually honor the agreement until he sees it in writing. This also comes with the implication that Quackity knew that Sam was looking for any reason at all to turn Techno away, and took all the measures he could to prevent that from happening.
The result is that we get a Sam who doesn't seem to have made his mind up yet about what he's going to do. He doesn't want to make Quackity mad, but he also *really* doesn't want to have anything to do with Techno. Could any of this conversation have been an act? To convince Techno that Sam was oblivious to his arrival and therefore had no malicious intentions? Eh, it's possible. But it looks more to me like Sam is trying to wriggle out of whatever arrangement he made with Quackity by playing the ignorance card, not caring how strange his behavior is coming across.
Wilbur Soot has compared himself to the poem of Ozymandias countless times before. This is something us fans know.
He’s made reference to it on a handful of occasions, and has even had Fundy read the poem allowed. There was an entire animatic by Sad-ist about him as Ozymandias.
Ozymandias is this poem about this king, a supposed great ruler of a great kingdom, the king of kings. There’s a catch, and the heavy hitter of the poem. It doesn’t matter, no one remembers it. All that is left behind is a broken run down statue and a name with none of his greatness attached.
It’s easy to say that Wilbur compares himself and thinks of himself like Ozymandias, a man who may have been beloved by many, who may have had many greats, but left nothing behind that wasn’t wrecked or ruined. He has no legacy that will outlive him.
This is increasingly sad when you realize what c!Wilbur has done over the course of the last several apology streams. He is trying to make people’s last memories of him positive. Whether it’s because of their choice to never speak to him again, or his own. He keeps stating he wants to leave (whether it’s potentially him dying, or simply leaving off on his own), so he wants to leave the people he cared about and wronged the most with some positive memory of him, something that will remain of him, even if small.
He even says to Eret that he’s left behind and done one of the hardest & most important jobs of all, bringing people together.
Wilbur is still unable to see how he is the base, the one who brought everyone together in the first place, he’s the one who started it all, and the one that still manages to unite everything and everyone through one seemingly unbreakable thread that is him and his creation and belief in L’manburg.
I think then, c!Eret saying that he doesn’t want to be like Ozymandias, he wants to leave behind a legacy, something greater. He wants to leave behind some positive impact on future generations, namely through history and the telling of it and the preserving of it.
There’s some bit of bittersweet irony of Eret not knowing that Wilbur sees himself as Ozymandias, and how he speaks how he doesn’t want to do what Ozymandias had done, that he wants to be greater (doesn’t everyone?).
There’s something bittersweet about Eret often praising Wilbur for leaving behind something so great, L’manburg, and being such a large impact on everyone’s lives. Something that Wilbur can’t see himself.
i understand how it can kinda seem like eret's own mistakes were glossed over in this stream but i also do think that's just because. eret already dealt with that. he regretted his betrayal almost immediately, he went against dream and joined pogtopia's side in November 16th, he built a museum to honor the past centering The Caravan and left a note written "I'm sorry" in the replica of the final control room. he understood people's grievances, apologized, and continued to be nothing but kind to them (almost adopting fundy, letting tommy use the museum for therapy, helping tubbo get michael back). the point isn't if what he did was better or worse than what wilbur did, it's that he's been putting in the work for years now to make up for that, while the best wilbur could do was give a quick apology and leave (no matter the reason). so yeah, i think eret definitely has the right to lecture wilbur abt this
sometimes i think about how fascinating dsmp was from the stance of like....
depending on the characters you were interested in, you kind of got entirely different lore experiences
Like a lot of people who were into the "main" story or the "main" characters kind of...missed a super great deal of the story? cTommy fans I feel like. didn't actually get to see much of the greater whole, because there was so much more going on along with it
Meanwhile, cFundy fans saw something so much different, and we kind of saw a lot more, too? which is ironic considering he spent a good chunk of time self-isolating
and cSam fans saw SO MUCH because he was kind of like. a massive web tying a lot of stories together in a way that not a lot of people think about
What's often interesting to me, is Dream spells it out in the finale and people often still don't get it, so I thought it'd be interesting to see what he was actually referencing here. To see where it all started.
[24:27] Tommy: “That first war, me and Tubbo versus you–how it should have ended–why’d you take it?”
Dream: “Tommy, you ambushed me and killed me. You stole all my shit! You tried ambushing me in a little cave–you don’t remember that? I feel like you just–your memory is just–gone.”
So here is the ambush Dream is talking about, where Sapnap and Tommy basically decide to just kill Dream and then kept all of his shit. [Death 1]
He gets killed again when he tries to take back his stuff. [Death 2]
Tommy kills him for fun right after he respawns with nothing. [Death 3]
Then after Dream gets his stuff back (via our boy Punz) and he takes the discs to get Tommy to stop, he gives Tommy back his items. But unsatisfied, Tommy goes after Dream, gets one of his discs back and hides it in the little cave. Dream tries to find it, while Sapnap and Tommy try to stop him. They are unsuccessful until, Tubbo brings them axes and they sneak up and corner Dream in the little cave, ambushing and killing him. Once again, taking all of his shit, (including, yes, the other disc.) [Death 4]
[27:58] Tommy: “Think about that, we could’ve been friends but no because you have to figure out the reason you have to get–”
Dream: “Yeah we could’ve but you–you ruined the chance of that long ago. It was you.”
Tommy: “I ruined it?”
Dream: “You ruined it!”
And I don’t think it’s unfair for Dream to say that in the finale, because for Dream it’s this stream early on, these moments that started it all. It’s these instances of of Dream getting murdered and robbed and made fun of over and over. Him, trying to not just make peace for everyone, but also reclaim respect and peace for himself. It’s Tommy chasing after Dream when he has nothing to kill him and rub it in his face. It’s Dream, even after all of that, giving back their items. It’s these instances of violence taken too far to the point they clearly pissed Dream off and didn’t care or follow his very simple request of just giving an apology and his belongings back that shape my distaste for Tommy and sympathy for Dream. It’s these moments that I feel like are gone from Tommy’s and our memory that highlight a different story.
[28:34] Dream: “Yeah, we could have been friends if you weren’t a little shit.”
i’m having thoughts about c!tubbo in 2024 and we love that for me
tubbo has been so many things he was a soldier, a revolutionary, a spy, a president, a husband, a father, a friend and something came of that, tubbo had power, something so many people on the server yearned and fought for and tubbo had it because of those people,
he learned and it came from the his under schlatt, the abuse he had to endure, it came from the wars he fought against dream over and over, it came from listening to the obsessive ramblings of wilbur, from the final disc fight, and from the green festival mimicking his own execution,
tubbo learned from his experiences and that is what made him powerful because while he held on to the past he also moved forward, he allowed the lessons taught from the past to guide him, and while they might have guided him in questionable ways at times he had power because his experience caused him to know how to hurt others as and/or even more than he had
c!techno and food and the rules of hospitality is so interesting to me because he shows a lot of care and love through food. he comes to pogtopia and creates a potato farm to feed his new allies, he gathers dandelions to make suspicious stew with saturation so these new friends stay fuller longer. he keeps food on him and gives golden carrots to c!ranboo when they need it.
and minecraft as a medium for storytelling is perfect to show this aspect of a character, food as a love language if you will, because a core mechanic of the game is food and eating! it was honestly such a small but brilliant character choice and i applaud cc!techno for it.
So, here's some of my c!disc duo conclusions, since I've been seeing people talk about it. I have a lot of fun reading people's opinions about this, so, please, feel encouraged to add yours too and/or disagree with me
c!Dream:
-What he did to Tommy was abuse and he did do terrible things in general
-No, he is not an evil mastermind or a psychopath. He's just an asshole, like a lot of people in that server. He did not have half of the control people like to think he did. And I don't think he could even be considered a villain, especially because the dsmp is not black and white, there are multiple sides to everything.
-Prison arc was completely inhumane. He was tortured, desperate for human interaction, and suffering a lot. Nothing justifies the treatment he got.
-The pain he went through during prison does not redeem him.
-His character does not revolve around Tommy, even if they're a huge part of each other's story
c!Tommy:
-He's not completely innocent. He did do terrible things. <- even if it's easier to forgive him because of his age and because of the people around him and the context he was in. I personally think his side is understandable, but it's important to at least acknowledge he did do bad things, regardless of the possible motives
-He knew about Dream being tortured in prison, and not only he didn't do anything about it, but supported the idea <- he was abused by Dream and it's not a surprise he'd act like that. But again, it doesn't change the fact he did y'know. Let's not pretend he didn't do things
-He was a child and not to blame. <- Some people might disagree, but even if he was the one to get himself in trouble a lot of times, I genuinely don't see how you could blame a teenager. Sure, he started a lot of the fights, he caused a lot of problems, he did a lot of bad stuff to a lot of people. And of course there would be consequences to his actions, but I genuinely can't see how someone can say he deserved what he went through. That kid needed supervision, I genuinely believe it's not his fault.
-Just like Dream, he is a very flawed person. Many of his decisions are reckless, selfish, and even just straight up cruel sometimes. He was not an angel, and there were times he was in the wrong. Doesn't mean he doesn't deserve compassion (again, just like Dream).
-When he said sorry to Dream at the finale, it didn't mean he was forgiving him. Tommy was apologizing for the nuke (aka. for killing them) because he had just seen that maybe there was a chance Dream could get better. He apologized bc he was killing a human, someone that had potential of becoming a better person.
-You can't "make Tommy the victim". He is a victim.
In general:
-They're complex characters, they're not just black and white (it's easier to simplify them into a angel kid that did nothing wrong and a emotionless psycopath that's obssessed with them, but that takes away their whole complexity and it's just not true)
-Quoting tumblr user milktearosethorn (who I have never interacted with in my life but has a opinion I agree with) "They're two soldier on opposite sides, forced to fight when they were both too young. And if it weren't for that, they could've been friends, in a kinder world. That's why the finale is so good" <- I love this bc it's true and I agree.
also my friend helped me like. process the thought in words but like. the reason fanon c!schlatt drives me nuts is less just that he's evil and shitty because manberg schlatt IS, it's that they conflate his entire character with who he is at his worst and not. his normal self
which like, is understandable given that's all we get to see in dsmp, but it's jarring to anyone who's seen smplive and knows that they're one character, because manberg schlatt is not at all like schlatt in smplive, who is a mildly annoying nuisance who gets along well with kids and runs a cryptocurrency scam for the hell of it and has a good relationship with his business partner
i just wish that people would treat him as more than just. this tiny fraction of who he is when completely alone and at his worst