#friendly reminder bc my psych class makes this misunderstanding a bit of a pet peeve sjdhfgsk

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just because I’ve been seeing “gaslighting” get thrown around a lot more recently—friendly reminder that gaslighting is specifically “a form of psychological abuse where a person or group makes someone question their sanity, perception of reality, or memories”, not any form of psychological abuse ever.

smp!dream is a manipulative, lying bastard (everyone say thank you irl!dream for fleshing out his character in such a cool way!), but he doesn’t actually gaslight very much.

for example: destroying tommy’s shit? not gaslighting, just destructive, spirit-breaking, and possible conditioning. calling himself tommy’s friend when he clearly isn’t? not gaslighting, just lying. saying tubbo said everything’s better off without him? not gaslighting, just lying. all shitty things to do, obviously, but not gaslighting.

what would be gaslighting is if dream started telling him, “oh, I’ve only ever been your friend and have never been an enemy, tommy, don’t you remember? we’ve always been on the same side, I’ve always tried to help you! what war? what? no way, you’re just confused and making things up, that’s not what happened. man, your memory sucks.” —that is gaslighting.

if tubbo came to visit and tommy saw him, and dream came over afterward and said, “what are you talking about? you’ve been alone this whole time, tubbo’s still back in new l’manburg. you know he’d never visit you. you must be seeing things.” —that is gaslighting.

#gaslighting cw / #dream smp #dreamwastaken #tommyinnit #friendly reminder bc my psych class makes this misunderstanding a bit of a pet peeve sjdhfgsk #/rp ofc ofc! i hope the use of smp!dream cleared that up #also if any legit psychologists wanna correct me—feel free #this is just what i learned from classes :V #general thoughts