So While I’m All For Drawing The Conversation Away From Legality, Trauma, Innocence, Bashing C!Tommy

… No, What Tommy Did Factually Was COMPLETELY Insignificant Compared To Dream

Tommy:

Caused chaos when he joined the server, but non maliciously. He wasn’t the only one to do so, however, and was often joined by other characters. He also wasn’t the first- Ponk’s tree had gotten attacked at one point before he even joined.

Killed Dream… along with Sapnap, which resulted in Tommy getting punished and Sapnap not even getting a slap on the wrist. Dream doesn’t even mention that Tommy didn’t do this alone, placing all the blame on Tommy when he wasn’t all to blame.

Engaged in the disc war.

Sold drugs with Wilbur- namely, these drugs were potions (so, not anything addictive or harmful), however he DID try and scam people with them, which is probably the greater crime here.

Helped found L’Manberg, out of a genuine belief in its peaceful nature and words over weapons and because he trusted Wilbur. Regardless of your thoughts on L’Manberg, at worst Tommy was naive here, not malicious. That doesn’t mean that Dream’s feelings over this are invalid, obviously, but it does mean absolutely no serious harm was intended.

Continued to engage in conflicts with Dream after L’Manberg was founded, though again this was clearly non-malicious- he and Dream genuinely were friends, and hung out together, and Tommy seemed to think they were in good fun.

Stole Spirit’s leather during one of these conflicts.

Accidentally burnt down George’s house trying to grief it with Ranboo. While he was technically VP, he had tried to turn down the role to avoid this exact situation.

Tried to use Spirit’s leather in an attempt to get Dream to leave him alone.

Tried to keep items in hidden chests in Exile- keep in mind, the fact there was a rule against this wasn’t communicated to Tommy until after he broke it, and most of what was in there was shit like pictures of Tubbo.

Left Exile- however, Tommy wasn’t even breaking the rules here, he wasn’t barred from Techno’s house.

Tried to fight back against Doomsday, though this amounted to nothing.

Killed him in the Disc Finale - something Dream had staged, so it’s unclear if this was even a slight or something Dream wanted.

Upon visiting him in prison, killing Pussboi (the prison cat- yes, that’s technically her name, Tommy calls her that and while Dream says he named her he never explicitly says what he did name her. It’s funny call her that more).

Doubting the Revive Book worked.

Indirectly being the one of the causes of his torture- however, this was because Dream murdered him, and Tommy was horrified visibly when Dream told him at Logstedshire, meaning this would be something ridiculously unfair to assign blame onto Tommy for.

Broke into his house with Wilbur, though Tommy didn’t realise that Dream lived there until much later and wanted to leave as soon as Dream showed up.

Trying and failing to kill Dream.

Trying and failing to kill Dream again. Well, technically he succeeded for like ten minutes, but still.

Committing murder suicide with Dream- this was out of a genuine belief it was the only way to save his friends.

Dream:

Stole Tommy’s discs as a punishment for Tommy stealing his stuff.

Engaged in the disc war, escalating much faster than Tommy did in a lot of ways, including downright stalking.

Built tunnels under Tommy’s base, something he was uncomfortable and surprised with.

Attacked L’Manberg, which regardless of whether it was right or not was incredibly distressing to Tommy.

Blew up Tommy’s house specifically.

Killed Tommy in the Final Control Room- this is canonically the event that gave Tommy PTSD. This was a war crime.

Killed Tommy again in a duel- one Tommy lost fair and square, and one suggested by Tommy. This, unlike the previous death, wasn’t a war crime as well.

Continued to engage in conflict with Tommy after L’Manberg was founded. Again, the two of them remained friends during this time, so this also was presumably not intended as anything specifically harmful.

Gave Wilbur TNT on his self destructive path, though it’s likely this didn’t end up affecting too much.

Betraying Pogtopia for the revive book, when Tommy trusted him and thought of him as a friend.

Framed Tommy for griefings he didn’t do in the weeks leading up to Exile, and while the exact reasoning is obviously unclear in hindsight it seems likely that it was to get Tommy exiled no matter what- he had plans for it explicitly after all.

Built walls around L’Manberg and threatened Tommy and Tubbo. He also said he didn’t care about anything but control over Tommy (and then by proxy the server), and regardless of whether Dream was telling the truth that doesn’t change the mental impact it might have.

While Tubbo obviously was the one who got Tommy exiled, Dream deliberately pushed him into it and later would tell Tommy that he was the one who did that.

What he did do was himself exile Tommy from the Greater Dream SMP, leaving him stuck only in the wilderness.

Blew up Tommy’s summer house and made him watch.

Forced Tommy to give up and destroy his items.

Hit Tommy with weaponry until he cooperated. This nearly killed him on several occasions, and Tommy explicitly called it very painful.

Would constantly insist that Tommy’s feelings that he expressed weren’t real, and he was just exaggerating (for instance, insisting that he was just messing around when he said he hated him).

Insulted and berated Tommy on several occasions, to the point of distress.

Insisted he and Tommy were friends, despite Tommy being uncomfortable with it, and conditioning Tommy into believing it through love-bombing and isolation.

Deliberately lying about how his friends didn’t care about him to keep him isolated and dependant, and making him feel like any visitors were just there to gawp at him.

Hit Tommy with his fists whenever he displeased him, to the point Tommy stopped reacting to it at all (Tommy in later streams would confirm this was almost certainly intended to be physical abuse, and not just general Minecraft body language).

Kept the rules Tommy had to follow inconsistent and didn’t ever fully explain them to Tommy, leading to him getting punished for things he didn’t even realise he wasn’t meant to do (or was).

Forced Tommy to hear his friends having fun in the Greater Dream SMP seeing the Christmas tree while he was forbidden from even looking under pain of death.

Showed no concern to Tommy self harming or barely eating, and only seemed to be upset by him attempting suicide because it’d interrupt his conditioning.

Gave Tommy meaningless gifts often in an attempt to lovebomb him, something  that has lead to Tommy interpreting gifts as a sign of aggression later on.

Forced Tommy to destroy his own stuff on occasion, under threat of further physical abuse.

Conditioned Tommy into seeing a lack of abusive behaviours as something deserving of thanks.

Let Tommy throw a party, then deliberately sabotaged the invites so Tommy would think he was alone, and spent the evening alternating between lovebombing him and telling him no one cared about him (except, implicitly, himself).

Killed Mexican Dream in front of Tommy for seemingly no reason other than him interrupting his manipulation and abuse.

Tried to gaslight Tommy into believing Mexican Dream died of an overdose, and tried to convince Drista that Tommy murdered him.

Conditioned Tommy into seeing certain parts of the abuse as bonding rituals he should be thankful for.

Did all of the above in an attempt to force Tommy to help him in some way- in hindsight, it seems likely that this involved the experiments with the revive book some way.

When finding Tommy had hidden chests, threatening to leave him alone despite him being Tommy’s only human source of contact at this point and banning him from the Nether, something he had no authority over.

Refused to let Tommy apologise and try and fix things in favour of punishing him.

Destroyed everything Tommy had built, leaving him with little food and nowhere to sleep, and making him watch.

Killing Mushroom Henry, the only other living being Tommy had with him, and making him watch.

Forcing Tommy to give up everything- including innocent items such as his pictures of Tubbo- and blowing them up, making him watch.

Repeatedly hunting down and watching Tommy after he left to Techno’s, despite the fact Tommy wasn’t breaking the rules of exile nor was Dream actually in charge of enforcing them.

Mocking Tommy at the community house and using him as a scapegoat.

Blowing up Tommy’s home, which he’d explicitly tell Tommy was because it entertained him (again, regardless of whether this was true it has the same effect on Tommy’s psyche).

The whole Disc Finale, regardless of being staged, was intentionally intensely traumatic and distressing for Tommy. He was threatened with a return to the same abuse he was under before, and forced to say goodbye to his friend in Tubbo’s mock execution.

Had Tommy trapped in the prison with him, something that caused him intense distress, and declared it was going to be like exile- essentially, threatening to abuse him again.

Murdering him for a third time because he questioned the Revive Book, despite Tommy begging for him to stop, in his own words to prove a point.

Leaving Tommy in Limbo- something he knows from personal experience is distressing- for the equivalent of two months. (This, effectively, means that Dream used it as another punishment method in his abuse!)

Needled Tommy on information he already knew, seemingly just to distress him further, and asked Tommy to basically become his personal experiment- regardless of whether this was a genuine attempt to get Tommy to join the revival experiments and become essentially a God with him or not, it still greatly distressed Tommy.

Revived Wilbur, something he knew deeply distressed and would be torture for Tommy regardless of whether the intentions were to do so or it was just a byproduct.

Almost immediately after breaking out of prison, going to physically and psychologically torment a terrified Tommy.

Threatening Tommy with not only repeated killing and revival- something Tommy feared more than anything- but also with making him immortal SOLELY to torture for eternity, leading to Tommy to feel like (and I directly quote) his toy, puppet, and plaything.

Psychologically torturing Tommy by putting a disc of his torment under his house and trapping him there, along with leaving threatening signs.

Destroying his discs- they were fake, but Dream didn’t know that. This was, however, to prevent Wilbur from committing suicide again.

“Sparing” Clingyduo only because they desperately begged only to force them into a twisted experiment where one of them had to sacrifice themselves. While this only resulted in the destruction of the discs, Dream couldn’t know that.

Threatened to kill everyone on the server- it’s unclear if this was true or not, since this contradicts what he says later on (which I’ll get to), but this broke Tommy completely and left him suicidal again.

Laughed at Tommy talking about his attempted suicide.

Continued to torture Tommy even during the final stream- killing and reviving him, and then downright dismissing his agony immediately after.

Continued to blame Tommy for everything up until his very last moments, and never actually apologising once.

Potentially completely lied about his motive and plans to change. Making the server immortal like he suggested in this stream contradicts what he said in the previous one, where that would destroy the End and the server itself so he needed to kill everyone to balance it out, so in one stream or the other he had to be lying.

(The only things listed here is what effected each other, but I think it’d be unfair to bring in anything else. What Tommy and Dream did to, like, Jack Manifold or someone doesn’t effect the other’s feelings on them)

Dream’s list also has a lot of ““probably’s”” just because on most cases we haven’t gotten a direct explanation of why they did it like in Tommy’s case, or they’re in an unreliable circumstance, which unfortunately makes his exact motives unclear. We know broad strokes, but not every reasoning like we do with Tommy in a lot of cases. This isn’t something I can fix without even more wild speculation, sorry!

As you can see, while Tommy isn’t perfect, what Dream did to him is the equivalent of hitting someone who slaps you in the face with a hammer, and then insisting it was their fault and continuing to hit them with said hammer while they try to apologise. Dream is an unreliable narrator himself, and needs a scapegoat to explain how him driving away all his friends couldn’t possibly be his fault (I might make something expanding on this later).

The tragedy isn’t that Tommy and Dream were equally bad for each other. The tragedy is that Dream is so lost at this point he can’t see the difference. His attempts at making the server closer lead to him losing sight of what was okay, leading to him seeing torture as equivalent to being a troublemaker, and this means his plans were ultimately futile because who would want to be friends with someone like that?

The closure Tommy got wasn’t that he was bad too, or that Dream was misunderstood. Hell, it wasn’t even that Dream wasn’t a villain, not exactly. It’s that he was a pathetic man instead of a God. One with immature and childish goals who blamed others for his own faults. Dream was a human, a fucked up one, and not some sort of unstoppable force that would haunt him forever.

And, most importantly, it was proof that he didn’t deserve what happened to him. Because, y’know, doing all this in the name of not wanting to be alone is completely insane and unjustifiable. Hell, it’s proof that makes his exile and the repeated threats of immortality worse, because if that was the exact intention behind them, it fully means that Dream didn’t even do this out of hatred, despite his claims to the contrary, and how could any pain caused be justified then?

Tommy and Dream are not equal in terms of suffering. Not even close. But they’re human, and time and again Tommy has tried to appeal to the part of him that doesn’t deny it. He can acknowledge where he fucked up and try to fix it… and that’s the difference between him and Dream. That’s why his list is so much smaller. And that’s why it was always too late.

thinking about the image of c!dream letting himself lose two lives, his body breaking apart with scars and wounds from torture, skin and bones from almost a year of starvation, with hardened and burnt skin from literally living inside an obsidian box surrounded by lava-- all for a plan we have absolutely no information about, and one that he was so eager to continue right after he got out.

i'm... in awe, genuinely.

the fact c!tommy said he felt like a fucking pet in exile of all things always breaks my heart. like, he also described himself as a toy and a puppet but for some reason that one just always fucks me up the most. i guess bc it really shows that his insistence that c!dream hates him is a desperate survival mechanism? like, you don’t hate a pet. it’s obviously an incredibly fucked up demeaning and dehumanising way to treat a person, but it’s not a way you treat someone you hate. because, like, obviously c!dream doesn’t hate c!tommy. he's got very complicated thoughts on him, but he doesn’t hate him, even if he hates and resents parts of him.

and like, deep down, c!tommy knows that? he gets c!dream a whole lot more than he lets on, and he knows that c!dream on some level sees him as a friend, even if that’s in an incredibly unhealthy and abusive way. but he has to convince himself that c!dream hates him. because if c!dream doesn’t hate him, then what’s the point of even struggling against his conditioning and trying to heal? c!tommy is desperate for friendship and validation, and he feels abandoned by everyone else. if he lets himself ever believe that c!dream will ever provide him that stability and affection he desperately longs for, he'd fall back into his exile mindset so quickly, because he doesn’t care if he’s tortured or hurt- he openly acknowledges that exile was torturous to him even when he’s still struggling with seeing c!dream as a benevolent friend in bedrock bros- because he thinks he deserves it. he just doesn’t want to be alone.

if i had to be accurate i think exile was not at all obsessive or systematic abuse, i genuinely think it was revenge gone wrong wait hear me out. we have proof that the whole cdream is obsessed with ctommy theory wasnt realistic or canon and if we take into account how weirdly cdream sometimes acted in exile with the whole letting tommy have fun with the trident etc we can kinda make paralels to similar stuff irl which is why i always looked at exile as revenge based bullying gone horribly wrong. like cdream really did act like a highschool bully and you know why it comes across like that? because both ctommy and cdream are hella young. a lot of people wanna make it more traumatic more abusive more horrific or gory or whatever but the simplest explanation is often the first one, it was all bullying. and i find it very very weird how people on the other side did not consider bullying bad enough for it to be taken seriously so they had to invent intestine cakes and whatever the fuck else just to consider exile "bad enough" to be taken seriously when bullying is already more than bad enough.

isolating the victim? check. aking them do something against their will? check. lying to them? check. pretending to be their friend? check. making them believe their other friends abandoned them? check check check.

also the way it was done, like really? literally the trope of no one coming to the party and victim sits alone feeling sad? what is this, a cartoon show about the power of friendship??

exile was neither "not a big deal" nor "horror movie levels of abuse" it simply was a sad arc with themes that do hit too close to home for many. the psychological ramifications that came from it? whole nother issue that needs a seperate analysis because yes, bullying victims can and do develop paranoia and some of the other stuff ctommy exhibited but not all like the whole ctommy still being scared of cdream, following him obsessively even months after it was clear cdream wanted nothing to do with him anymore, etc did throw me off because thats not really regular bullying or even abuse victim behavior??? i digress

tldr exile was bad thats a fact but it wasnt SAW movie franchise levels of bad

sorry for the rant, wanted to get my lore thoughts out

tbf exile being 2 weeks of vengeful peer abuse, also known as bullying, is straight up just canon

the "obsession" take that we specifically had issue with had a lot of issues in the way that it very deliberately rewrote c!dream's entire character to explain ALL of his actions through an obsession with c!tommy. specifically, there was a lot of malice ascribed to him LONG before exile in order to say that c!dream basically wanted to do something like exile from the very beginning to c!tommy, but wasn't able to until exile happened because c!wilbur was protecting him or some other shit. that reading relied on the worst possible faith retelling of everything c!dream has ever done + a good amount of just straight up narrative rewriting to emphasize how young and innocent and vulnerable c!tommy is and how obsessive weird creepy stalker grown ass man who wanted c!tommy to himself c!dream apparently was from day one, a take that emphasizes exile as The End Goal of months of obsession instead of being in service to some other goal as is canon. that's the obsession take that was passed around quite frequently that we specifically took a lot of issue with.

on the other hand, c!tommy being c!dream's victim because c!dream disproportionately blames him and took all sorts of shit out on him and found a degree of vindictive pleasure in hurting him is literally just. canon? that's canon.

it’s incredible how i only have these thoughts when i don’t have the energy to elaborate, but here’s why i think the prison arc will be then followed by a reframing of c!dream, straight from the hero with a thousand faces:

Czytaj dalej

/dsmp /rp

Rewatching VODs again and it's sad to see how at the start of his imprisonment, Dream was trying so hard to downplay the prison's conditions and stay optimistic about them.

During Tommy's first visit, he says to Tommy, "It's not too bad, right? I can write and I can read and they bring me food." He talks about the new game he can play with his clock.

When Bad visits, Dream admits that Sam sometimes gives him less food when he burns his clock, but that he's not starving because he "[has] potatoes." He says that Sam is "treating [him] amazing" and that he's fine when Bad asks him if he's okay.

Tommy visits him again a month after the first visit, and by then Dream's attitude has changed entirely. Tommy says he's been suffering from success, and Dream replies, "Me too. Except for without the success part, just suffering." Then when Quackity visits him the first time and asks how he's been, Dream only says, "I've been."

Later after Techno gets locked up with Dream, he no longer attempts to downplay anything. Techno jokingly complains about Dream not being positive, and Dream can only think of saying, "Since you've been in here, I haven't been tortured. So I'll give you that much, that's been better." He tells Techno how there's absolutely nothing to do in the cell and how he's been eating nothing but "raw, disgusting potatoes" for the past months.  

Dream did his best to convince himself and others that everything would be fine, that he could deal with the prison's conditions. He tells Sam that he thought the prisoner (himself) "would be fine with potatoes, would be fine with not seeing the courtyard." That he didn't realize how bad it would be. But the longer his imprisonment lasted, the harder it became to deal with it. Dream tries one last time to ask Sam for better food and to see the courtyard and then is forced to give up, trapped behind glass and with no hope of ever getting out.

there was a story of a failed friendship

(This is gonna be a long analysis)

I love angbang soooooo much. So much that I looked into all the religious subtext that their relationship is full of. Someone help me...................I mean it’s hard to separate the cannon from it’s religious connotations.........I needed to know all I could about angbang so here goes:

Okay I think Sauron and Melkor’s relationship was supposed to be an illustration of Idolatry.

The way Tolkien talks about their relationship seems to back this up.

On one hand he says: “but there was seen an effect of Melkor on Sauron: he spoke of Melkor in Melkor’s own terms: as a god, or even as god. This may have been a residue of a state which was in a sense a shadow of good: the ability once in Sauron to at least admire or admit the superiority of a being other than himself.”

And:

“While Morgoth still stood, Sauron did not seek his own supremacy, but worked and schemed for another, desiring the triumph of Melkor, whom in the begining he had adored.”

Now to put plainly it seems Sauron worshipped Melkor. He thought of him as god, and at least in the beginning adored him. He did not desire his own triumph, but the triumph of Melkor. He worked and schemed for him, for someone he admired and adored, for someone he seemed to revere.

It should be noted that the word “adore” is used to describe the way the valar and elves feel towards Eru. This makes it seem that Marion worships Melkor in the way the valar/elves worship Eru. That this feeling is good and “holy”

(I believe the word admire is also used in the same way)

But of course we are talking about dark lords, and Tolkien has admitted his stories are religious works. Naturally Sauron’s feelings for Melkor cannot from a religious lens be viewed as on the same level with worship and admiration of Eru.

This is displayed when Tolkien expresses only Eru can give TRUE love and independence. He also states that no sub-creator can give love in that same way, and that it is a wish for loving obedience. Then it is stated that can only turn into robotic servitude, which is inherently evil.

Now this is most likely a jab at Sauron, but it is NOT invalidating the strength of his original worship and devotion. It seems to be implying that as Tolkien said: “This may have been a residue of a state which was in a sense a shadow of good: the ability once in Sauron to at least admire or admit the superiority of a being other than himself.”

And that: “(he worked)desiring the triumph of Melkor, whom in the begining he had adored.”

(Again the words adored and admired again. Those in themselves were considered holy and devout feelings, things pure and selfless. Given to an idol they in the eyes of Eru become corrupt.)

Now it seems Mairon’s admiration and worship of Melkor was in essence the same in feeling as those who worshiped Eru, (they both feel admiration and reverence) but is inherently unholy and sinful. Something to be abhorred in its denial of god.

Or it could be that Sauron’s clear admiration for Melkor was a shadow of the gift Eru had given him, one that turned into sin as time went on. It was a shadow goodness and selflessness, but became corrupt.

Either way there are clear parallels between Sauron’s worship of Morgoth and Idolatry. Apparently just because you worship someone it doesn’t mean it’s holy. Sauron gave himself up, became imbued with evil and corruption, but his worship towards Melkor ran deep and kept him loyal for a long time. He denied Eru, but as Tolkien said in his words: “(Sauron)wasn’t a true atheist” as he instead looked to Melkor. But in worshipping Melkor he denied Eru.

Now Tolkien does seem to imply Sauron’s original feelings for Melkor were valid and pure, that is until they turned into denial of the true god and his love. Then of course Sauron’s feelings must have diminished into a shell of all true and holy love. Something with only semblance of such a “holy” thing as love for god.

SIGH.....Tolkien how come I had to raised by theologians to understand this reference. I never liked theology but of course my parents taught me to read Middle-English.

So what we can garner from this is it seems Sauron’s original love/devotion to Melkor was true and valid, but then became corrupted and twisted when it turned into denial of Eru. It became a shell of true love, something that caused him to remain in loyal and constant service to Morgoth through the millennia.

OR we can just focus on how it was all written from an unreliable narrator and thus we can do what we want!

Plus why does Sauron’s love of Melkor have to be inherently unholy! Why is love in itself not a pure and selfless action?

Tolkien made clear Sauron schemed for Melkor, desired the triumph of Melkor during all the time he served him. Even if his love was only holy in the beginning he still remained constantly selflessly devoted to Melkor, even when it contradicted his own goal. It would have been obvious to Sauron Melkor wished to destroy, while Sauron himself wished to innovate and control. You cannot innovate out of nothingness. But he still worked for Melkor, desired Melkor’s success and was implementing Melkor’s plans. What about that besides who it’s given to in unholy in any way?

Now there is the argument that a big part of his service to Morgoth was based of if his desire for power. Now as much as it might seem that was true from how he is described being drawn to Melkor’s strength, the fact that Tolkien said he did not seek his own supremacy, but desired the success of Melkor, and worked and schemed FOR someone other than himself, I do not think it could ever be reduced to simply that.

He seemed close to selfless in his actions as he was scheming and giving himself up for someone else.

I disagree with Tolkien. I believe reverence in itself is good and true. I believe to adore, to be selfless is good and true, though of course it is no excuse for committing evil. I just mean to me Sauron retained something good, even amidst the cocoon of his evil. So I guess I choose to interpret this in a different way, I choose to see his devotion not as inherent sin but as a fragment of good within him, which is almost what Tolkien meant honestly

But like it’s still love. He is working and scheming and striving for the success of someone other than himself. Tolkien said he desired Melkor’s success, and that his feelings for Melkor were the shadow of good. He is selfless in the fact he is truly desiring the goal of someone else above himself, and he is acting on it.

[ are you sure you want add this character to this location? it may affect the further plot of the game. ]

redbanquet!dream 🩸

Thinking today about how Daedalus wasn’t c!Dream’s revenge fantasy, it was his closure fantasy.

In his heart of hearts, he was fantasizing not about destroying Sam, but about Sam understanding. Sam acknowledging what he did. Sam conceding that what he did to Dream was…

(Sam apologizing? Did a tiny, shameful piece want that, picture it, what it could look like?)