#tw exile arc mention

[sunlitmcgee]

I find it weird that to this day there are people who say that exile wasn't good or didn't make ctommy seem lonely enough because we saw people visiting because like. even way back then when i first started to watch around the beginning of the arc, I always saw each stream we got as like...a glimpse into a specific moment of a very long time period. Like. Tommy's clothes and skin getting more worn out and tattered made me go "oh okay so it's been a while in-universe since the last we saw him" and I just assumed we, the viewers, were getting snippets and highlights of a prolonged period of isolation and abuse that were broken up by the brief visits from other characters.

I've ALWAYS thought of exile as lasting AT LEAST a few months. I don't know why this is still such a point of debate.

#tw abuse mention #c!tommy #dream smp #exile arc

[swordfright]

Tell me about how the structure of the medium impacts the story 🔫

My brother in Christ, prepare yourself for the most boring essay you could possibly imagine. I'm going to over-simplify a few things here for the sake of Getting To The Point, so bear with me.

I think a good starting place is that DSMP is an example of New Media. The go-to definition most folks use is this one: that New Media are stories told via "communication technologies that enable or enhance interaction between users as well as interaction between users and content." In other words, NM is basically this category of stories made up of convergent elements, which satisfy a multimedia requirement, and are heavily reliant on both participatory fan culture and recent advances in technology that allow creators/audiences to communicate with one another instantly.

There's a couple ways you can understand DSMP as a New Media, but as far as I'm concerned, one of the most interesting is prosumption. The term "prosumption" describes a creative situation where a piece of art is being produced (at least in part) by the same people that consume it; they're both audience and creator. DSMP is a really great example of this phenomenon, because A) it's serial and therefore the CCs had ample opportunity to respond to and engage with the audience's reception of their story; and B) because the chat feature allows CCs to interact directly with their audience during roleplay rather than after the fact. These features, among others, kinda set the stage for DSMP to function as a highly prosumptive piece of media.

In particular, the stuff that interests me is the stuff to do with storytelling convention (genre, perspective, etc) and how prosumption turns all that on its head. There are a number of altercations in DSMP canon where the course of the story is altered because of real-time interactions between the CCs and their chat - particularly times when a CC's chat warns them about events happening at the same time elsewhere in the server. In this kind of scenario, the CCs are static, they can't really leave their own stream. Their viewers, on the other hand, are able to jump between streams and talk to each other to figure out what's happening in the overarching story. When this happens, viewers have choices to make: are they going to tell a CC what's going down on the other side of the server? If so, how are viewers going to communicate those events? Viewers are biased, they directly inform CCs, and the information they divulge (as well as how they divulge that info) goes on to influence CCs' actions and thus the events of the story, to some degree. In my opinion, this is a pretty new and exciting way to prosumptively construct a narrative! Media has always been interactive to some extent (especially serial works), but the interaction being live and in real-time is pretty significant in my view because it can exert unique pressures on a narrative.

Speaking of audience choice, that brings me to the next thing I want to yap about: ergodic storytelling, a term that refers to stories “negotiated by processes of choice, discernment, and decision-making.” For reference, a good non-MCYT example of this would be hypertext fiction, because it's generally characterized by the ability of the interactant (that's the reader, in this hypothetical example) to explore material provided by someone else, either as a kind of conceptual landscape (think setting in a video game), or as puzzle pieces that must be put together in order to give the interaction the "big picture" of the story. Basically, with hypertext fiction, there is a core text (the main document that forms the skeleton of the story) and there are multiple hypertexts branching off of the core text - and whether the reader ends up reading those branches, and in what order, inevitably shapes that reader's perception of the whole story.

So here's where it gets tricky. In the case of DSMP, where is the core text located? Is there any one identifiable core text at all? Or is it more appropriate to consider each individual stream or VOD as its own singular core text, with the related Twitch channels and Youtube recommended in the sidebar being "branches"? Alternatively, if the streams and recordings distributed on the server members’ official channels are the central text in the grand hypertext fiction that is DSMP, then can adjacent spaces where audiences do the work of creating and archiving lore be considered their own story branches? I don't have answers to these questions. No one does. That's part of what makes DSMP exciting.

To translate the above quote out of Academia Hellspeak: in an ergodic story, the audience has agency, but the agency enabled and allowed by the text varies in its intensity and mode. Yes, stories told ergodically necessitate choice — and therefore enable agency, turning the reader or viewer into interactant — but that element of choice doesn't always look the same. Some hypertexts are more choice-reliant than others, or are choice-reliant in different ways. So, rather than being a choose-your-own-adventure story, DSMP is more closely analogous to a story where the audience chooses the perspective through which they view plot developments, in addition to having some influence over how plot developments unfold.

(☝️From a 2021 Polygon article, if you think I sound crazy☝️)

The web of choices DSMP presents to viewers is very complex, even compared to other forms of choose-your-own-adventure game. Because each CC approaches the task of story-creation from their own angle (bringing their own narrative baggage to the writers’ room, so to speak), those shifts in perspective this Polygon article describes often also constitute shifts in genre. For instance, cc!Wilbur brought his music production experience and interest in musical theater to the server, cited operas and stage musicals as some of his main inspirations; and accordingly, much of c!Wilbur's most crucial arcs observably draw from those sources. When you watch a c!Wilbur stream, you’re watching a story about statecraft, about revolution, about the triumphs and tragedies of ego that play out during the process of nation-building. On the other hand, cc!Quackity has repeatedly identified Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul as his primary influences; accordingly, his RP character’s story is closer to a piece of gritty prestige television in some places (especially LN series). Unlike with c!Wilbur, a lot of c!Quackity's tension does not revolve around a romanticized fantasy of revolution but around more personal conflicts: securing your place in a new regime, navigating exploitation as both exploited and exploiter, etc. In terms of both plot beats and character arcs, Wilbur and Quackity’s respective storylines embody many of the genre conventions the content creators are working within.

Moreover, a shift in genre often entails a shift in style or mode. Because cc!Wilbur was heavily inspired by musical theater, the presentation style of his character’s storyline is correspondingly both theatrical (i.e. only loosely scripted, nearly always televised live, and improv-heavy) and musical (featuring multiple instances of Wilbur singing in-character ballads and anthems.) On the flipside, Quackity’s streams (especially the later ones, since I'm mostly focusing on Las Nevadas era here) demonstrably mimic the prestige TV shows the CC draws his inspiration from, with lore sessions being pre-recorded rather than televised live, featuring distinctive sonic and visual aesthetics popularized by neo-Western thriller dramas. So, where a piece of media like DSMP is concerned, shifts in perspective entail shifts in genre, which in turn entail pronounced shifts in style. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say it's an entirely new story depending on which character the viewer decides to follow. In that regard, what initially appears to be a single choice (whose perspective to watch a plot event through) has the power to determine a wide array of other elements, as viewers’ responses to the options presented to them will decide the overall tone of the section of the story they're about to watch.

While I think the genre-switching is genuinely super cool, lately I'm a lot more interested in perspective-switching and how it's related to viewer empathy. One side-effect of DSMP being televised live is that yes, you can watch a plot event from 30+ different POVs, but you can't watch every POV live. Typically, you either have to switch between multiple streams, or you need to pick one streamer to watch live and maybe later you'll watch other characters' POVs as you see fit. This has an impact on your perception of how that plot point went down because watching something live feels very different from watching something after-the-fact. I haven't done study on this, so what I'm about to say is mostly conjecture, but I wouldn't be surprised if viewers felt greater empathy for (and greater degrees of kinship with) characters whose POVs they watched live.

The choice of which character to follow also has observable impacts on other kinds of narrative conventions (who is the main character of DSMP? the boring answer is c!Dream because the server's named after him, but the real answer is the protagonist is whoever's POV you watched most of the major plot events through) but to be honest, those questions don't interest me as much.

So, going back to perspective and empathy. I think viewers' reactions to Exile are a really solid way of exemplifying the thing I'm trying to say, so this is the part of the yapping where we gotta bring up the dreaded Exile discourse.

Even though the Exile VODs are available and new viewers can go back and watch them, those viewers experience the Exile arc in a way that is fundamentally different from the experience had by viewers who had to wait in between updates as the videos were being streamed serially in real-time. I would argue that viewers who were “present” during the whole arc noticeably felt the brutality of c!Tommy’s treatment to a greater degree, because the audience was effectively forced to sit in exile alongside Tommy’s character - stewing in anxiety, looking forward to the possibility of appearances from other characters, and living in fear of Dream’s next visit, etc etc. Obviously you could also make this point using c!Dream's time in Pandora as an example, but I'm using Exile here because I've actually seen a lot of fans bring this up when discussing the arc: "people who didn't watch live Don't Get It," "the reason newer fans don't see Exile as scary is because they didn't have to watch it live," that sort of thing. And while I have certain qualms with some of the implications here, I do think these are really fascinating responses! These sorts of responses show that viewers consciously perceive their viewing experience as having been fundamentally different from others' based on a temporal element that's unique to serial fiction!

This instance of a divergence in collective fan experience is an example of choice being rendered unavailable to viewers by virtue of the story’s structure and means of distribution; audience members who happen to accidentally miss streams or who begin following the story after major events have occurred will never be able to engage with and witness those events as LIVE viewers, merely as retrospective ones. They don’t get to make that choice, but they do get to make choices about which perspective (and therefore genre) they get to experience the story through. So it follows that each aspect of DSMP, a semi-ergodic story, can be categorized as either ergodic or non-ergodic, and whether a particular storytelling element is ergodic can change depending on WHEN the viewer began tuning in to the story.

I have a lot more shit to say (shocker) but I'm gonna cap it here for now. Though I do want to add that this is kinda why I have a lot of patience for the crazy diversity of interpretation you tend to get in DSMP fandom. If you took a random sample of fans and asked them what they think of various arcs, characters, and plot events, chances are they would all have fairly different things to say. To me, that's a feature, not a bug. Obviously I have my own opinions, and obviously I do think it's possible for a given interpretation to be "bad," i.e. not grounded in the text - but I have a lot more patience for it here, in a fandom where agreeing on what "the text" EVEN IS presents a challenge. We can't all agree on who the main character is, so I don't ever expect us to agree on more nuanced questions of theme and conflict resolution in the narrative. Again, that's a feature, not a bug. I don't think it was ever possible to reach a consensus with a piece of media like DSMP because of how inextricable the audience is from the story.

#dream smp #tw cc!Wilbur mention #in case anyone wants to avoid that right now for obvious reasons #sorry for yapping for so long but I did warn you #also sorry for letting this sit in my inbox for ages #I got so busy and it was hard finding a spare moment to sit down and collect my thoughts #dsmp exile arc #asks #long post

[proudfreakmetarusonniku]

ok so here’s all my thoughts on the hypothetical exile raising sim i’ll never end up making

- it’s like one of those indie horror games that seems cutesy but isn’t. it never loses like the very adorable anime artstyle but it doesn’t skimp on blood and stuff. however, the narration consistently treats everything like it’s perfectly normal.

- there’s fourteen days, you plan them each out individually one at a time.

- all the activities, stats, ect have to do specifically with how c!tommy sees you (c!dream). nothing to do with any sort of skills or personality. closest is c!tommy’s mood and overall opinion of you.

- there’s a few semi-randomised events each day. these can involve visitors, gifts, your own time in new l’manberg when it’s relevant to c!tommy, but usually it’s c!tommy doing something and you reacting.

- there’s a lot of separate ways to reward or punish c!tommy that effect his stats in different ways. most are blatantly fucked up.

- you can also set general rules for c!tommy to follow. what items he’s allowed to keep, whether he’s allowed visitors, his food intake, stuff like that.

- c!tommy has a pretty modular appearance but it’s all based on how you treat him. injuring him will lead to him getting bruises and scarring. if he’s happy, he’ll take care of himself more. any deaths (from suicide or c!dream) will lead to his hair growing more white.

- c!tommy can escape, but this isn’t an end. there’s multiple methods of getting him back, but most really negatively impact him in some way. this can be a boon if you’re going for the “good” endings.

- on that note, the endings are ranked by how c!dream would see them. getting c!tommy under your control would be positive, him escaping a negative.

- there’s a hidden ending if you don’t abuse c!tommy at all where you become actual friends, but it’s revealed to be a daydream from c!tommy in exile.

- i think it’d be the sort of game with a lot of little hidden flags that change endings subtly but in a way that adds a lot of replay value. there might be one protege ending but details will differ depending on how c!tommy progressed.

#dream smp #exile arc #tw abuse #tw isolation #tw starvation #tw murder #tw suicide mention #primeboys (derogatory)

[lepidopteragirl]

hm yes i love talking cq being a tricky little guy whos maybe just a little too enthusiastic about grabbing the presidency and taking down everyone in power over him during the election arc about but why do literally like a good 2/3s of the takes i see talking about it discuss how what happened in manburg made him go from a Bad character to a Good character once he saw that schlatt was Bad bc he did Bad things to lmanburg, which allowed him to have an Epiphany and become a good character (joining cwilburs side) after seeing this

#analyzing cquack in manburg without heavily centering the fact that he was abused is bad its a bad take #an exceptionally bad take even #cquackity did not deserve what happened in manburg #narratively or otherwise #like yeah sure he's not a perfect guy and he doesnt necessarily have pure intentions. fine yea cool thats great i still love him #like yeah okay you're not a cquackity main not everyone can be gorgeous sexy incredible like we are #but its not hard to talk about cquack being not a perfect person in the election arc while still acknowledging him as one of if not the #most hurt by cschlatts administration and not treat it as a fair narrative consequence smile #like i dont have to be an inniter to understand exile was fucking horrific and that would not change no matter how many houses ctommy burnt #why is it so hard 4 yall hm #oh yeah its bc those wilburians only recognize two peoples lore as actually meaningful or worth respect thats why! #tw abuse mention #discourse

[dreamsclock]

one of the reasons that i’m really excited for volume 2 is for all the old lore to be wiped clean, so people can finally stop talking about fucking exile— like yes it’s important, but the world doesn’t revolve around it

i mean to be fair i don’t think season two is gonna wipe old lore clean !! i’m p sure they’re gonna be playing the same characters, and i’m ALSO pretty sure that most fans aren’t going to let exile just die. you’re right, the world doesn’t revolve around exile arc, but neither does the current storyline, and people still find ways to bring it up — i’m not convinced it’ll be any different in the next season.

that being said, though, maybe with new lore that happens more frequently, people will finally begin to talk about the new lore rather than fixating so specifically on (incorrect interpretations of) exile !! c!tommy is (as most people probs know) one of my favourite characters and it makes me sad to just keep reducing him to only exile. with c!tommy in the next season, i’m hoping people will begin to see his character through different lenses, because there’s so much more to him than just exile.

#also tbf. (stares at my fixation on church prime stream lore that is mentioned once ever😭) #> asks !! #> analysis !! #> dream smp: season two #tw discourse #tw lore discourse #tw exile arc

[autistic-fandom-trash]

Me when c!Dre@m shows up during and after exile arc.

#dream smp #dsmp #c!dream neg #exile arc #tw murder mention

[skeptical-frog]

Tommy: But when all hope seemed lost, I had an epiphany!

Tommy, earlier: I'm going to throw myself into the sea. 

#exile arc #i'm not sorry #mcyt incorrect quotes #dsmp incorrect quotes #tommyinnit #tw implied suicide mention #frog incorrect quotes

[imsosocold]

When did the Tommy gore party cake art trend start?

#tw gore #tw gore mention #exile arc #c!tommyinnit #c!tommyinnit birthday party #dsmp fandom #dream smp fandom #dsmp fanart #dream smp fanart

[cr0wseye]

Exile arc as itself was probably one of the best depictions of abuse and mental illness and a whole bunch of other things that exists in a medium similar to DSMP yet (one very unscripted and more casual, with a large reach to an audience) but ends up falling flat when taken out of the vacuum of itself.

CCs struggle to balance how serious it was versus it being a large and important and, pretty unavoidable thing that happened, so you either get things like people going to logstedshire, looking around, going "something horrible happened here", but never bringing it up again because they are scared of handling something so serious, or CCs that don't understand the narrative weight or seriousness of exile and make jokes like "oh haha ctommy deserved it" when he slightly annoys them.

#my posts #c!tommy #ctommy #tommyinnit #dsmp #exile arc #tw abuse mention #this isnt offering a solution as I dont know of one #just a culmination of thoughts about things ive seen mentioned and brought up

[perianthkat]

Masked man manipulates vulnerable teenager for convoluted reasons. The masked man is responsible for the teenager being vulnerable. The masked man is powerful, and isolated the teenager and holds power over them. Due to this, the teenager attempts suicide, but fails to do so. This leads to the teenager almost having a villian arc, but they turn back at the last moment. There is also a theme of the masked man continuously causing the death (non-permanent) of the teen, and the masked man refuses to let the teen die. Also possibly the masked man wants the teen to be their companion or something??? Can't remember...

There's also a theme of getting killed over and over again without rest.

Death is character development, and there is mpreg to some degree.

Am I talking about TGCF by MXTX or the Dream SMP.

#tgcf #dream smp #like seriously how are there so many similarities #i mean c!tubbo and xie lian are also similar in the fact that they were both 17 year olds that were put underneath a ridiculous amount of #pressure and they were heavily changed due to this and they were forced to be the mediator #chronological #chrono #perianthtalks #like seriously #tgcf spoilers #for the record #im talking about exile arc and the whole character!disc duo thing #and xie lians past #tw mpreg #tw suicide mention

[abandonedandforgottentimes]

I've seen a lot of posts absolutely bashing ccs on the dsmp for their character choices during lore and I just want to talk about it a little bit. This is going to get kind of long, so buckle in.

As stated above, I've seen a lot of people bashing character choices on the dsmp. Now, it's perfectly okay to say, "I don't agree with what this character did." Because that is a perfectly reasonable reaction to many of the character choices that c!dsmp characters make- they're questionable at best! However, I do think it's wrong to shunt those beliefs onto ccs and start to demand that they change their story or apologize.

During exile, I saw a lot of people get upset at Dream and act like he was genuinely logging on to ab*se Tommy every day. It was a heavy topic, and it was phenomenal acting, a fantastic story. But that's all it was. Dream is just some guy in Florida and Tommy is better than ever, they're friends. But still, people were genuinely upset by it and at Dream specifically.

I also remember a lot of people getting mad at Techno for breaking Dream out of prison or for doomsday, for the pit and Tubbo's execution. Like, not mad at c!Technoblade, but at ACTUAL cc!Technoblade, not wanting him on the dsmp anymore. Like, Techno obviously never supported real t*rrorism, it was just another piece to the story they were all telling. Still, people seemed unable to make that distinction and were genuinely mad at him over a character.

I've seen a LOT of people come at bbh for character choices recently, I think because a lot of them revolve around Tommy. The prime path, their pranks on each other, c!bbh's victim blaming. People keep trying to get cc!bad to take it back or apologize or change his character, and they get upset when he won't do that. Saying that they don't think he should even stream dsmp because they don't like his character (which is kind of funny, tbf, but still).

As a lot of ccs are bringing their stories to an end in preparation for season 2, I see posts like that cropping up again. Mad at Eret for character choices, at Sam, at Tubbo, even saying that they 'don't deserve their characters.'

The ccs on the dsmp are telling a story with their characters. You don't have to like it, or even agree, but you don't have a right to tell them how to tell that story. You have to learn to understand the distinction between what is a character and what is the cc. Dream doesn't support ab*se, nor bbh victim blaming.

All that said, I do have a bit of sympathy because that kind of behavior definitely speaks to someone being younger. I read an interesting discussion on an ff forum a while back about how a lot of this behavior tends to come from younger fans who haven't learned boundaries yet and can't quite comprehend yet that another person's art doesn't have to conform to their own beliefs. But I do think it's a boundary and a respect that a lot of people, (especially, unfortunately, in this fandom), need to learn.

It isn't your story to tell. It isn't your place to demand changes. You can ask, but you can't get upset at the repsonse. Please chill.

#rant #discourse #this isnt a new pattern by any means but i sure am getting sick of it! #dsmp #badboyhalo #bbh #dream #tw abuse mention #tw exile arc

[dsmpkinfessions]

small cw for slight transphobia , exile mention , and ctubbo neg (maybe? idk if it counts as neg if its my memories n experience??)

--

as a ctommy kin i feel jealous of other tommys that like their Tubbo . my Tubbo wasn't a very good person to me or anyone really and he wasnt a better friend either, he'd misgender me then immediately apologize saying he didnt mean it even though he was telling me that i was, "such a girl sometimes" (i was and am Transmasc) . Its just frustrating sometimes becuz i know not all Tubbos are like that but my "dearest friend" was such a prick and im so dependent on him and he's everything to me even if i dislike him . He didn't regret sending me to exile even after i told him what happened . it just hurts sometimes . to all Tommys n Tubbos that like each other, cherish each other for me please ! you all deserve the best . To any Tubbos, I bet you're awesome and 10 times better mine was :-] <3 -Sil0🦜

#this is the second tommy ive met thats had a tubbo like this chat r u good im worried - Mod Tubbo #dsmpkin #dsmp kin #dreamsmpkin #dreamsmp kin #dream smp kin #mcytkin #mcyt kin #tommyinnit kin #Sil0🦜 #transphobia tw #exile mention #cw exile arc #(honestly idk if its c!tubs neg either so i. shall leave it. the tumblr censoring featur will grab it probably)

[proudfreakmetarusonniku]

Throughout the month of December, I’m going to be making several Exile Arc essays to explore my favourite arc in all of media, ever, and as a celebration of its two year anniversary! This essay is about going into detail about the severe physical and psychological harm Exile caused to Tommy- both the obvious and those a bit more speculative. Obviously, everything here is to do with the RP characters. Discussion of abuse in detail is inevitable, along with suicide, kidnapping, torture, mental health issues, and self harm, so be warned. And without further adieu, onto the essay!

——

If there's one thing that cannot be overstated about Exile, it's how much it utterly broke Tommy. Of course, he's always been traumatised and mentally ill- he's had symptoms of PTSD reaching back to the L'Manberg war, and emotional issues dealing with extremely low self esteem and a desperate need for validation well before that- but the cheerful and innocently chaotic nature he had never was stripped away before then, and it never quite recovered.

There is not a single part of Tommy that hasn’t been impacted by the meticulous damage, both physical and emotional, he went through in Exile, and every time those wounds started to heal they were picked wide open. And that’s just what we see in the explicitly stated text- reading between the lines into the implications, looking at real world psychology and biology, and with a little bit of real world experience into how those traumas manifest, an even bleaker picture is painted.

Yet, oddly enough, even the most obvious parts of Tommy's trauma from Exile often go unremarked upon and unexamined. Part of that is likely due to a lack of knowledge about the psychology of trauma, part of that is people not watching Exile, and unfortunately some of that’s due to the incredibly toxic and cruel nature of this fandom to relentlessly demonise all but one heavily idealised and often infantilised favourite character. So, to ensure everyone knows the absolute baseline going in, I'll provide a 100% factual, no speculation included, detailed recap on how Exile affected Tommy.

Most well known, perhaps, is the suicidal tendencies and self harming habits Tommy picked up. He’d refuse to protect himself or do MLGs, he'd sleepwalk into drowning himself every night, and he considered suicide on a regular basis. He also starved himself, which ties into something else about Exile- Tommy never had enough supplies. He only had the food Dream gifted him, and was rarely running on more than stone or iron tools unless they were gifted by Dream. Of course, he never had any armour or weaponry, leaving him incredibly vulnerable to mobs and forcing him to stick to Dream's side.

This made Tommy reliant on Dream, which twisted into a sick, unhealthy sort of loyalty and “friendship”. He was lead to see a lack of abuse as a reward, and even to see some of the actual abuse as bonding activities. Dream would constantly gaslight Tommy about his own feelings, insisting he was lying if he ever said a negative thought about Dream, and would often talk about how he was the only person who cared, forcing Tommy to rely on him for any sort of emotional bond. This developed a trauma-bond so deep that even months after Exile Tommy still felt conditioned to see Dream as a close friend and genuinely missed Exile on some days.

Tommy was heavily isolated, with few people visiting (and, according to Eret, few people even knowing where Tommy WAS). The few visits he had were often used as a way to hurt Tommy further by Dream- for example, leading Lazar to participate in the abuse (when he didn’t know the full scope of things obviously, he just wanted his armour back and didn’t realise how desperate and beaten down Tommy was), or taking visitors to the Christmas Tree when Tommy wasn’t even allowed to step through the portal.

The whole Beach Party was the absolute cruellest example of Tommy's deliberate isolation. Not only did Dream send Ghostbur somewhere dangerous to him to get him out of the way, he made absolutely sure no one would get invites, yet lied heavily to Tommy about how everyone must have got them and they simply didn’t care. This left Tommy incredibly distrustful of people by instinct, something he was never able to shed fully.

Tommy was HEAVILY physically abused on basically a day to day basis, especially towards the beginning of Exile. Dream would hit Tommy with his tools if he refused to follow orders- something that made Tommy scream in pain more than once and something he feared more than dying. Sometimes, this would leave Tommy very nearly dead, and sometimes Dream would do it simply for being too slow in putting his armour in the hole. Even outside of that, Dream would punch Tommy very frequently, to the point Tommy stopped reacting to it eventually, and would frequently blow up his items while he was in range of the TNT, causing him to get hit by the blast.

Even kindness was a weapon used against him- Dream would often lovebomb Tommy with meaningless gifts, and would often follow up every time he was especially cruel to Tommy with extra attention and doing whatever Tommy wanted to do. This left Tommy unable to realise how messed up Dream's treatment of him was, and made him rationalise all the times Dream hurt him as not that bad, or his own fault. In fact, it was only the dispelling of the illusion when Dream threatened to leave him alone and only come and watch that caused Tommy to even consider escaping, because up until that point he was conditioned into complete and total trust.

Tommy very quickly stopped sleeping, and fell into such severe hallucinations he couldn’t distinguish what was real and what was in his own head- at one point assuming that the real Tubbo was another hallucination because he’d seen so many. He also noticeably started experiencing delusions- believing he was dying on some occasions, and believing the logs were communicating with him in some way (this is why Logstedshire is built around them!)

After Exile, Tommy frequently has severe panic attacks around anything related to it, from lava and smiley faces to something as innocuous as a plains biome. Physically, he’s mentioned feeling a lot weaker, and he never quite seemed to recover. He also developed chronically shaking hands after Exile, something he frequently notes.

Now all of this on it's own is incredibly disturbing, but that’s just the basics. There are several things implied about Exile and it’s aftermath that we don’t explicitly see, Tommy displays symptoms of multiple mental and physical illness outside of PTSD as a result of Exile, and as a bonus, as someone who experienced something very similar (though much less extreme) I've decided to share exactly how some of this would feel! Don’t worry, there’s no trauma dumping here, just details on stuff like flashbacks.

First, it’s heavily implied Exile lasted longer than we see on camera, anywhere from a few days up to several months. Tommy repeatedly mentions Exile as being much longer than it was in real-time during the events, however, this could be chalked up to him not being able to tell the time due to his isolation and stress. What IS more concrete proof of this, however, is two things- Tommy's skins, and the mention of events that we don’t see.

For Tommy's skins, not only do we see him visibly deteriorate with his clothing turning to rags and his eyes going dull and bagged, we also see something very interesting. If you look very closely at Tommy's fringe, you'll notice his hair has been growing a little. It’s only a few pixels longer, even at the end, but this would indicate Tommy must have been in exile long enough for his hair to grow out to a noticeable degree, and it’s unlikely it would have grown that much in just under two weeks.

The second has to do with something Tommy brings up offhandedly- Dream getting upset at him when he didn’t collect armour and weapons for him to blow up as part of their “bonding ritual”. This isn’t something that happened on camera, and presumably happened on a day we didn’t see, and considering the point Tommy was at (being utterly obedient and devoted, even excited to see Dream) it’s unlikely to be something he'd make up… unless his hallucinations are worse than indicated (since, as far as we know, they’re limited to visual hallucinations, and that’d imply auditory and potentially touch hallucinations), which would be disturbing in its own right.

Another disturbing implication comes from much later in the series, from one of Aimsey's streams. During this, Aimsey met Tommy and gave him some gifts, which he responded to by attacking star and then claiming in the chat he thought star was going to hurt him. At first, this sounds like an excuse, but taken in the context of Tommy frequently being lovebombed after being abused, it makes a whole lot more sense. Tommy had grown to associate being given things with being beaten and hurt.

Finally, in terms of implications, there’s the disturbing parallels between Tommy's behaviour in the finale and his behaviour in Exile. On both occasions, they were extremely emotionally distressed and self hating- Tommy had basically blamed everything wrong with the server on himself the day before, and possibly did so again (it’s not entirely clear what exactly he's apologising for, and considering the prior fact it’s unfortunately possible that it was his own existence and not just accidentally upsetting and hurting people at the start of the server). On both occasions, they spent the whole time working around DREAM'S needs and emotions, ignoring their own.

They gave empathy to a degree that they were neglecting their own feelings, and, incredibly disturbingly considering we KNOW Tommy is conditioned into seeing Dream as a friend, he comes out of Limbo- a place we KNOW is in all occasions traumatic and psychologically torturous- saying that he and Dream could have been friends. The parallels between this, along with Wilbur's suicide, are so absurdly blatant (and deliberately drawn, on several occasions!) that I’m surprised very few people seemed to pick up on it (and a little uncomfortable that a lot of people are treating Tommy's blatant spiral into suicidality and falling back onto his conditioning as either a good thing that’s a sign of healing that all victims should aspire towards, or proof he's evil and cruel and mutually abusive and deserved everything that happened to him, as someone who's gone through those backslides themselves and knows how much they suck, but that’s a topic for another day).

For a look into biology/psychology, during Exile Tommy's hallucinations and delusions might be a simple response to stress and sleep deprivation… but there’s another, even more tragic possibility. Psychosis can be triggered by stressful situations, and not only are delusions and hallucinations a symptom of psychosis, but so is agitation, difficulty concentrating, difficulties in controlling impulses, paranoia, and muddled and disordered thoughts. All of these are things that Tommy struggles with, and considering he started experiencing delusions again in the Finale- much like Wilbur- the fact these symptoms aren’t a one time response to extreme trauma but appear to have been a constant struggle in Tommy's life makes it entirely possible.

Tommy's reluctance to eat during Exile, even when he’s starving, has a tragic resemblance to the beginnings of an eating disorder. It’s unfortunately common for young people in traumatic situations to develop these, as food intake can often be the only thing they can control. Tommy didn’t have a lot of food to begin with, but he still often refused to eat what he had available, and I do think it’s entirely possible it could have easily gotten a lot worse. Tommy's always struggled with disordered eating- he started binge eating golden apples immediately after this, for instance, and he stopped eating again after Dream escaped the prison- and this all seems to come back to Exile. While Tommy might not have body image issues, he’s definitely got an extremely concerning relationship with food, one that’s common among young people who are victims of abuse.

And for something physical- Tommy's shaking hands and weakness are possibly a result of the physical damage done to him by Dream. Specifically, it matches up to nerve damage- which can be caused by physical trauma to the nerves, which I imagine being hit by an axe could absolutely cause. Both weakness and uncontrollable spasms are common symptoms of damage to the nerves, especially in extremities like the hands and feet.

Finally, and to round this out I'd just like to share a bit on how exactly it feels to be in Tommy's shoes, because I think understanding that makes him much more understandable as a character! For one- you really do feel like you’re dying. It physically hurts to be under so much stress, and you feel incredibly sick, sicker than you’ve ever felt.

You also really do blame yourself. For young people in that situation, you have an instinctive trust on what authority figures say, even if you hate them. You really start internalising what they say, and it sticks with you forever, really. You always assume you’re in the wrong, you always apologise, you get that sick-feeling like you’re dying again the second you think you’ve upset someone. It’s hard to notice- I didn’t until I watched Exile, myself!- but it makes every day extremely stressful.

And flashbacks are as messed up as they sound. You actually do see and hear things from the past a little, but in my experience it's more like you can feel all the emotions and you go back to the thought processes of the time. It’s like you’re right there in your brain, like you got sent back in time to experience all the horrible stuff again, and it’s something that sticks for hours and makes it hard to do anything. It also makes it extremely hard to make perfect decisions- something I think people need to take in mind more talking about Tommy!

Anyway, what are your thoughts? Feel free to share- I love talking about Exile in any context and I’d love to hear other peoples opinions! I hope you enjoyed me talking about my special interest haha.

#dream smp #dsmp analysis #c!tommy #exile arc #primeboys (derogatory) #tw abuse #tw mental health issues #tw Ed mention #tw suicide #tw lovebombing #tw hallucinations #tw isolation

[ilikestuff69]

Live Action ATLA Rant

(Spoilers obviously)

tw: mentions of abuse

(If there is a better way to word that trigger warning or if I missed anything please let me know)

This rant is gonna be about the Agni Kai against Zuko in Ozai in the live action adaptation of Avatar: the Last Airbender.

Now first off I want to say I’m well aware that adaptations will change things and I am all for that as long as the change makes the story better. Like I love the changes made to Bill and Frank and Henry and Sam in the Last of Us adaptation. But I will complain if the changes made weaken the story being told. And that’s what happened with Ozai and Zuko’s Agni Kai. So here are my reasons as to why I don’t like the changes made. (Also if you like the changes made, that’s totally fine, this is just for me to rant about something bugging me).

1. Zuko fights back in the Agni Kai. Now this is gonna probably be the most of the rant so let’s break it down.

- Zuko wouldn’t have been banished: in the original Zuko was banished because he literally refused to fight in the Agni Kai and it was seen as dishonorable and an insult to the Fire Nation. But having him fight back is him engaging and honoring the Fire Nation tradition. Yeah, he lost, but he wouldn’t be banished for that. When Zuko and Zhao have their fight and Zuko wins, Zhao isn’t exiled, Zuko wins and gets to put Zhao in his place. Losing is not dishonorable and Ozai shouldn’t have been able to banish him for that. But that’s very nitpicky, I’ll be honest about that, so let’s move to the next point.

- It takes away from Zuko’s character arc. Zuko isn’t a violent person. He was raised by his mother to be kind. He stood out in his family because of this. So when the Agni Kai comes, he refuses to fight his father and is marked and banished for doing so and the only way to earn his honor back is to find the Avatar, which is a seemingly impossible task to do. Being banished and abandoned by his family (besides Iroh) leads Zuko down a dark and violent path searching for the Avatar for years because he’s been to led to believe that violence is the only way his family will forgive and accept him. Then, in season two, Zuko and Iroh are branded traitors for helping the Northern Water Tribe which causes Zuko’s search for the Avatar to stop. While in hiding, Zuko sees firsthand all the damage the Fire Nation has done to the other nations. Also him and Iroh are able to set up a pretty normal life for themselves and Zuko actually seems happy. But then, when Azula promises that Ozai will be proud if Zuko helped her kill the avatar, Zuko relapses back into his violent tendencies and helps Azula, betraying Iroh in the process. When it appears that Aang had been killed, Zuko is welcomed home and crowned the prince of the Fire Nation once again. So he’s happy now, right? He got everything he wanted, right? No he’s not happy because he realizes that this isn’t actually what he wants. In fact Zuko hates himself. He hates himself for allowing and contributing to all the violence the Fire Nation is committing against the other Nations. He hates himself for betraying his uncle, the only person in his family who actually wanted to help him. He hates himself for doing all these awful things just to earn the approval of his father, a man who saw Zuko as an embarrassment for just being who he was. He hates himself for forgetting what his mother taught him and becoming more like Azula and Ozai. That’s why, when Zuko turns on Ozai, he tells him that the Fire Nation needs to enter an era of peace and kindness to make up for the era of violence they’ve been in for years, but they can never do that as long as Ozai is the Fire Lord and that’s why Zuko joins the Avatar and help him take down Ozai. Zuko wasn’t violent growing up. He wasn’t like Azula or Ozai. He stood out because he was kind. Ozai saw that as a weakness and when Zuko begged to not fight him, Ozai saw Zuko as an embarrassment who needed to be punished causing Zuko to go down the path he goes down in the series.Having Zuko choose to fight Ozai in the Agni Kai feels like it negates so much of that.

- Zuko almost wins. In the live action adaptation, when Zuko fights against Ozai, they imply that Zuko is strong enough to beat Ozai. I’m sorry, what? Compared to Ozai, Iroh and Azula, Zuko is arguably the weakest firebender in the family. He learns sword fighting so he didn’t have to only rely on his firebending. How is Zuko able to almost beat Ozai in a one-on-one? It also just looks bad from a writing standpoint. In the first season, you are showing that the main villain could easily lose to his son? Ozai should seem unbeatable. When Aang fights Ozai in the finale, Aang almost loses to Ozai until Aang accesses the Avatar State. Ozai shouldn’t be almost losing fights to children who don’t have god-level powers.

- There was a better way to have a fight if they wanted to have a fight. If the creators really wanted to show more of a fight between Ozai and Zuko, they should’ve had Zuko stay on the defensive for the whole fight. Have Ozai be relentless against Zuko as Zuko is just barely able to avoid or block the attacks, while trying to get his father to stop. Not only doesn’t it make Ozai look more ruthless, but it makes you feel more for Zuko as this child tries desperately to stop his father from hurting him only to inevitably fail. And you can still have Ozai express disappointment in Zuko for not even trying to fight back, seeing it as Zuko disrespecting their tradition. But idk, I’m not a writer.

2. They make Ozai look sad when he burns Zuko’s face. I’m sorry, but why are we trying to make Ozai look sympathetic? He’s an abuser. He’s actively choosing to burn his child. He’s not doing it because he’s forced to or anything. It was his decision. Sometimes villains don’t have to be complex to be good. Ozai is an evil man who abuses his children constantly. He doesn’t get to look remorseful as he’s doing it.

3. The Agni Kai was so much smaller in the adaptation. In the original, the Agni Kai took place in front of hundreds of people and this is important to Zuko’s character because not only was he punished and exiled for how he acted in the fight, but he was also humiliated as all those people watched as his father punished him for wanting to not fight his father. Making it such a small event just makes it feel less impactful than it could’ve been.

4. Having Iroh speak out against the Agni Kai takes away from his character. (This is also kinda nitpicky but that hasn’t stopped us before so why should it now?). In the original, Iroh not speaking out or trying to stop the Agni Kai is something that he deeply regrets. He watched as his nephew was humiliated in front of hundreds of people and didn’t do anything to help him. That’s why Iroh is with Zuko for a majority of the show. He knows Zuko. He knows who Zuko was before the Agni Kai and why he’s been acting the way he is while looking for the avatar. He felt like he let Zuko down and wants to help Zuko get what he needs. It’s why Iroh never chooses leaves Zuko side and having Iroh try to stop Ozai just lessens that a little bit for me.

To wrap it all up, i think the changes made to the Zuko and Ozai Agni Kai in the live action adaptation of ATLA aren’t good changes and weaken a lot the characters involved in the scene. But that’s just my opinion.

(Sorry if some of this was wrong or didn’t make sense, I’m writing this at midnight and just kinda going off memory for some of the details).

((Also, If you actually read all this, you’re awesome btw. Have a nice day!))

#avatar #avatar the last airbender #atla #zuko #prince zuko #fire lord zuko #atla zuko #ozai #fire lord ozai #atla ozai #uncle iroh #iroh #atla iroh #princess azula #atla azula #azula

[mellorphic]

In Defence of c!Niki - a Four Part Analysis of Every Arc

People who didn’t watch C!Niki see, in the fandom, a big sister type character with girlboss energy who wants to kill a child. Niki isn’t that. She has a well-written narrative which focusses a lot on her relationships with others. Here is me breaking it down!

PART ONE: c!Niki’s Early Days

PART TWO: c!Niki’s Rebellion

PART THREE: c!Niki’s Disillusionment (you are here)

PART FOUR: c!Niki’s Healing

TW FOR THIS SECTION: brief mention of sh, derealisation, a lot of discussion on grief and death. Let me know if I should add more tws

I don’t think c!Niki’s disillusionment arc started on Doomsday, randomly. I think it started on the day of the festival, when Niki watched her friend die, was chased out of her home, and saw how much her best friend had changed.

Despite her anger at Tubbo for his speech (which sounded very pro-Schlatt) she still told Schlatt to let him out once Schlatt and Quackity started to box him in. It still had not been revealed quite yet that Tubbo was a spy, yet Niki still stood up for Tubbo regardless of how she felt about him. That’s the thing about Niki. She is a good person with sound morals who will support people even if their views don’t align with hers, because she knows what’s right and what’s wrong and she won’t let ‘wrong’ happen to anyone.

Once Techno killed him, Schlatt literally fucking exiled her.

N: You killed him!

S: yeah, I did. I did fucking kill him, Niki.

N: you are so cruel- how could you do that? After everything he has done for you?!

S: he’s been a thorn in my side since-

N: I DONT EVEN WANT TO BE HERE.

S: he-

N: I DON’T EVEN WANT TO BE HERE!

S: […] you can leave if you want

N: ….Where am I supposed to go?

Manberg may not be Niki’s home but L’Manberg is and it always will be. That’s why the thought of leaving for good hurt her so much. Wilbur comes out into the open after she says this, and he defends her.

S: you really crawled up here on the day of my festival, celebrating my country. That you are not a part of. And you started- you started crying.

W: You sounded like you were gonna murder another person.

S: no, I was only gonna murder Tubbo.

W: you sounded like you were gonna go for Niki.

S: he’s the only person- well I mean, Niki..

N: what?

S: I might murder Niki, actually. I might murder her.

Wilbur tells her to run. Fundy gives Schlatt arrows but he and Quackity tell Schlatt not to do it, all the while Niki’s getting chased out of the country she used to love. This solidifies for her the fact that she truly has lost everything. Ponk chased her down and he killed her - Ponk, who a few streams before, Niki had called a friend. Earlier Techno had also killed her, when he shot at the audience after killing Tubbo. According to the wiki neither of those are canon deaths but I think they should be. At the very least, being killed by Ponk should be.

She joined Pogtopia that day, and Niki already had heard about Wilbur’s plans from Tommy. He, her and Tubbo had all vowed to get L’Manberg back and at this point in time, Tommy was the person she trusted the most. Her relationship with Tubbo had been ruined because of her thinking she was on Schlatt’s side - and even now that she knew he hadn’t been, it didn’t change the fact that he did not stick up for her while she was there. Her relationship with Wilbur was still a close one but she was scared for him and worried for L’Manberg’s future. But Tommy hadn’t wronged her, and she knew she could trust him to help with Wilbur.

Her birthday party was where she really saw the extent of Wilbur’s mental decline first hand and was completely powerless in stopping it. The day had been going so well, and she’d been having fun, until Wilbur went to blow up Manberg. Niki had to beg him to stop playing the anthem and Quackity talked him down from blowing it up, but Niki was terrified.

This is when Niki began working on her Secret City - intended to be a safe space away from the conflict, or a last resort for refugees if the war went badly.

On November 16th, Niki was hopeful, especially after Techno revealed his armoury. That day, Niki also defended Eret when they were accused of being the traitor, saying she trusted them and that they helped her. Once again, proving her loyalty and the fact she was grateful for people who stuck by her side.

We all know what happened later. After they got L’Manberg back, and were cleaning up, Niki found the TNT Wilbur had placed under the podium. She made sure nobody else saw it and she hid it again. Because after everything, Niki still believed in Wilbur. She was still loyal to him. She still saw the good in him and trusted that he wouldn’t. But he did.

She’d kept her promise, she’d been loyal to him and L’Manberg, and it didn’t change anything. She didn’t manage to help anything. And Wilbur, the one person Niki believed would always be there for her, no matter what, betrayed her. And she couldn’t even ask him why. So after that she was left hopeless and never wanted to let anyone in again. But as much as Niki didn’t want to, that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

Tommy reminded the L’Manbergians that the L’Mantree was still there. And I think Niki found that comforting, at the very least. She asked Tubbo what they were going to do with Wilbur’s body and his only response was “let him rot”. She and Tommy were the only ones who didn’t laugh.

At this point Tommy became a constant, for Niki. He’d been there since she joined, he was the only one who understood that she still wanted Wilbur back, and in her eyes he was able to take on his role in the sense of inspiring them all.

So, of course it hit her hard when he tried to blame her for burning down George’s house. Then, he’s exiled and the next time she heads from him it’s because he blew up the community house - we know he didn’t, but Niki didn’t. She begins to see Tommy as someone who just causes problems on the SMP, nothing more. She thinks he’s arrogant and a nuisance and that he doesn’t care for anyone.

When it comes to Niki’s character it’s vital that we understand - she has been through so much pain that got overlooked by everyone around her. At this point, she was poor, grieving, and felt as if nobody in New L’Manberg listened to her. She was going through the lowest point in her life and nobody in that nation seemed to care.

And she couldn’t hate everyone for it so she needed someone to blame and that happened to be Tommy. He didn’t deserve it but he was an easy target. And it’s true that he wasn’t kind to her, but he wasn’t the only one, and he was obviously going through his own things. But Niki was angry and she needed somewhere to put her anger. Is that fair? Not at all. But it’s what happened.

N: L’Manberg has not been L’Manberg. For many weeks. Maybe even months, maybe even.. maybe even, I don’t know.. since the start? […] I want the people to realise L’Manberg is not what they think it is. I want them to open their eyes and stop being in this circle.. in this circle of fighting for it. Because that will not bring us anywhere.

Do I even need to say anything? She fought for it for so long, on her own, and lost everything and everyone anyway.

On Doomsday, she spoke to Ranboo.

N: Do you.. do you really think L’Manberg should be safe today? …Ranboo, I will- If you think that we should fight for L’Manberg today, I will fight with you. Because I believe in you. And I always believed in you.

R: I think we should. […] the thing is, if we don’t fight with them, then what are we showing them? We’re showing them that we never cared about them.

N: .. i care about them, I really do. But I got.. hurt by them… They always talk over me, Ranboo. You know how that feels.

R: yeah. But like you remember yesterday, sometimes you just have to get louder.

N: You’re right..

R: sometimes you just have to get louder until they have no choice but to hear you.

And good god, isn’t that exactly what she did? Something something, peaceful protest is ignored (striking at her bakery, not paying her taxes, verbally standing up to Schlatt). OSomething something, she got louder. (Burning down the L’Mantree, blowing up her bakery)

An underrated line from Doomsday though? Niki telling her chat that she needed to save Puffy. I think she was muted so you’d only hear the line if you were on her stream, but she tried to help Puffy after and seemed distressed that she couldn’t get to her. Puffychu crumbs.

She held it together until she saw Ghostbur, believing she was hallucinating and repeating to herself that Wilbur was gone and that he betrayed her. She doesn’t want to care, but she does. And the idea of Wilbur still existing terrifies her, because what does that say about her grief? And if her grief isn’t justified, then the things she’s done definitely aren’t. As long as Wilbur is dead, Niki feels like she has a reason for her anger.

During her meltdown Niki is rambling. ‘Wilbur is dead’ becomes ‘L’Manberg is dead’ which becomes ‘L’Manberg is gone’ which becomes ‘I am gone’ and ‘I am L’Manberg’. This reveals a lot about Niki, even if it may seem nonsensical at first glance.

I’ve made a post before about how for crime boys, L’Manberg is interchangeable with the other person (For Tommy, it’s Wilbur. For Wilbur, it’s Tommy.) And I think that this is the same thing for Niki. L’Manberg is Wilbur. Wilbur couldn’t live without L’Manberg, and L’Manberg isn’t the same without Wilbur.

Then, she is gone and she is L’Manberg. Niki isn’t the same person she used to be and she’s starting to think that she can’t live without L’Manberg either, not happily, anyway. But at the same time, she helps to destroy it because the memories are too much to bare, and all it does is remind her of all the times she’s been hurt there. She can’t see the good in it anymore.

Destroying her own bakery was somewhere between emotional self-harm and trying to separate herself from L’Manberg as much as possible. There could’ve also been a sense of survivors guilt? Everyone else’s homes and things were destroyed but Niki’s bakery was untouched, and she found that really unsettling.

She talks to Jack about why she burnt down the tree, saying it was because she’s lost everyone.

J: that’s not a very good way of going ‘hey, I wanna be friends again’, burning down their sacred tree.

N: i don’t want to be friends with any of them again! Have you seen them?

J: then why do you care?!

N: because it hurt me! […] we both have been ignored by all of them all the time. We walk behind them slowly and-and carefully because they will ignore us all the time but we wanna be part! We wanna be part- we’re like little puppies, aren’t we?! Like little puppies, just walking and walking. But they’re never going to see us. All we are for them is something to take something from. […] whats the difference between these people and us? When we lose something, we lost it. And we grieve it. And it will be a part of us. When they lose something? They move on and they find something new.

I feel like people who think c!Niki is badly written or don’t like her just watch this stream and think she is overreacting because they don’t know her lore. But none of this came out of nowhere.

The thing is, Niki was ignored throughout Manberg and New L’Manberg by Tubbo and Fundy and sometimes even Eret. Niki has had things taken from her by Schlatt and Tommy. She has seen everyone move on from Wilbur when she couldn’t.

I think the other characters did care about her - Wilbur definitely did and Tommy did too. Karl did, Eret did, Puffy did. But it’s so difficult for her to see that because the love is so quiet in comparison to everything else. She’s no longer an idealist, she can’t see it when it isn’t right in front of her. And that doesn’t mean she’s wrong. She’s not completely right, but she’s not wrong about being used and feeling unwanted. That did happen.

So why does this turn into hatred at Tommy? Like I said earlier - he was a constant. The only one she still had after Wilbur, but he didn’t seem like he cared about her. In Niki’s eyes he became just like the rest of them - he used her left, and then when he came back she thought he’d replaced Wilbur with Techno and was now replacing him with Tubbo.

(I’m not saying I think that’s what happened but it’s what Niki saw. This part of my analysis is also partly speculation and partly based on things Niki said after the fact, because I can’t find the vod where she and Jack decided to target Tommy specifically, I think there’s a missing one between Niki’s Doomsday vod and the one where Jack tells her about the nukes.)

She directs her anger at him also because it gives her an ally. Jack blames Tommy for most of what’s happened to him, because Tommy resulted in him losing his second life; if Niki agrees that it’s his fault then she has Jack. So unconsciously she starts directing her anger more towards him.

The thing about Tommy is that he’s loud. He’s annoying. He can be rude. He doesn’t take things seriously, especially when he’s being painted in the wrong, because he doesn’t know how to handle it so he just deflects.

That makes him a really easy target for anger. But the vast majority of what happened to Niki was never Tommy’s fault. She blames him for Doomsday, she’s angry that he used her, and she’s processing her grief of Wilbur through hating Tommy. That’s why she does what she does.

#dream smp #niki nihachu #c!niki #c!niki analysis #dsmp #nihachu analysis #the syndicate #dsmp season 4 #dsmp season 3 #healing arc #wilbur revival #Niki’s secret city #orphic talks #in defence of c!niki

[zorishy]

Reclaimed bur/tropesona lore post

🟢DSMP

Casper/Ghostson (exile arc but when he isn’t visiting tommy)

Despite Tommy having been exiled, L’Manberg was still Ghostson’s home.

The spirit made a little underground home for himself, situated beneath a crane left behind after the city’s reconstruction. It had to be underground to minimize the risks of rain or floodwater getting inside and burning Ghostson alive. On rainy days, Ghostson would get around town via the sewer tunnels that connected to his house, allowing him to go shopping and meet up with friends without the risk of getting wet.

The ghost would spend most of his days in L’Manberg shopping at the various markets throughout the city, taking friend on walks, and just relaxing at home while knitting or enjoying a good book. Sometimes while on walks, he would come across some interesting plant or bones discarded by a predator and bring it home, using whatever treasures he found to decorate his house. It was a simple and uneventful existence, but a welcome one for Ghostson. He had always enjoyed the simple things in life, something that couldn’t be said for Wilson.

Despite the spirit’s attempts at living a normal happy life, Ghostson’s mind was constantly ravaged by sorrow. Everyone could tell how Parker’s death had affected his family, including the ghost.

TW: Beyond this point contains mentions of character death, substance abuse, and suicidal ideation (so a lot of angst)

Sally had lost a life in the explosion that destroyed L’Manberg and hadn’t been seen since. The shapeshifter’s family blamed the Minecraft family for their beloved child’s death and cut contact. Tommy had vandalized George’s house after the nymph had slandered his brother’s name, getting him exiled from L’Manberg. When the exile was announced, Technoblade had lashed out and attacked Tubbo, calling him a traitor and a tyrant. After the assault, Technoblade, now wanted for attempted murder, disappeared into the forest. Fundy was afraid of Ghostson, confused as to why his father was suddenly so different. Philza… there aren’t words to describe what Phil was going through. The angel had killed his own son and was now being haunted by a cheap imitation of him that could barely remember a thing about who he was meant to be.

Ghostson tried to stay happy for his family, but his attempts at staying positive only made him come off as uncaring and tone deaf. The ghost’s memory problems only made things worse. The ghost could tell what he was doing wasn’t helping but didn’t know what else to do. He felt like he had failed everyone he was supposed to care for.

After a while, Ghostson started drinking in an attempt to cope with his situation. The unhealthy habit wasn’t really a problem until one incident where Fundy saw his father’s spirit drunk at the winter solstice celebration. That event was enough to make Phil put his grandchild up for adoption, deciding the fox boy needed a parent who would properly care for him. The angel never told Ghostson about this until the paperwork had been signed and the child was no longer his.

Ghostson cried himself to sleep that night, mourning the loss of the one family member he had not managed to let down. He thought about trying to lose his remaining two canon lives, hoping that it would bring Parker back so he could fix everything, but he was too much of a coward to ever go through with it. Besides, if it didn’t work then both the ghost and Parker would be gone. He couldn’t risk leaving Tommy with no one.

#Zorishy’s tropesona lore #tropesonas #burs reclaimed #bursonas #ghostbur #Angst #depressing shit #Sorry for smacking you upside the head with ghostbur angst lol #Symphony of gods and dreamers