bitches be like "techno was clear in what he wanted" AS IF EVERYONE ELSE WASN'T? TOMMY MADE IT CLEAR HE DIDN'T WANT TO HURT TUBBO AND L'MANBURG
BUT TECHNO DIDN'T CARE AND HID FOR WEEKS WHAT HE WAS PLANNING and straight up lied to Tommys face. it's only until tommy proved himself (by torturing one of his friends) did techno even tell him what he planned to do. Tommy protested against this, but techno didn't listen bc, and I cannot stress this enough, techno doesn't care about Tommys opinion.
the man complains tommy only saw him as a weapon, like for weeks tommy wasn't the one calling techno his friend and techno wasn't the one denying their relationship was anything other than business
he's got a victim complex, he can't see how his actions have hurt others. Only how people have hurt him
@leaflinerambles asked me for an essay so i complied
Here’s why c!tommy deserves better
Tommy Danger Kraken Careful Innit deserves better.
(All of this is about the characters btw. Sometimes i don't put c! Because honestly its a lot of putting that so just know that unless it says cc! I mean character)
Now, I know that can be a bit of a controversial take for.. some reason??? People may say that actually, he deserves to face the consequences of his actions and deserves to be punished.
. What the fuck.
That's a sixteen year old. That a teenager. He doesn't deserve to be 1. Abused 2. Traumatized 3. Manipulated 4. Used and 5. Taught a ‘lesson’ that i'm sure he’s been taught far fat too many times.
Tommy is a complex character. As we all know, he's regarded as the ‘protagonist’ of the dream smp or the ‘main character’. Now, of course, being the main character is a very subjective term and that is a whole other fucking essay that im not gonna get into right now—
BUT.
I do think in a way Tommy has been involved in a lot of the more.. main plots. From season one to season three.
And of course, with being the ‘main character’ (again, a purely subjective term because it depends on the point of view you watch) come a lot of things and a lot of trouble. Mainly, from our main ‘villain’ of the series.
C!Dream, the fucking bitch.
As we all know, c!Dream has had a weird obsession with c!Tommy since.. probably the beginning?
He liked to antagonize Tommy, but that wasn't exactly special. The man liked to antagonize everyone! He seemed to just want the most chaotic option, which of course ended with him antagonizing others often for his own entertainment.
I think, in a way, Dream always saw the smp as a game. His own little puppet show, where he could move the strings. He wanted complete control
But Tommy was more stubborn than the others. Tommy actively went against Dream from the start, like we see in the disc war. Or L’manberg, or during manberg, or new lmanb—
You get the idea.
Tommy never gave in, and Dream’s obsession grew.
So.. exile happened.
And like, i'm not sure what exactly dream was planning but i'm assuming he wanted to like.. ‘break’ tommy?? Make him more ‘compliant’ to his twisted game?
C!Tommy was, to put it simply, abused. No sugar coating, that was straight up abuse and gaslighting and manipulation. The burning his armor? Making sure no one got an invite? Keeping Tommy at low health? EVERYTHING??
That was all clear manipulation. Tommy.. went through a LOT in exile. It still affects him as we know. ‘Plain biomes, small holes, logstedshire’ among other things have been added to his list of stuff that sets him off.
(And also the waking up drowning?????)
And i know, Dream almost had tommy in his grasp. He almost broke him.
But Tommy resisted. Tommy pulled back at the last second, in that dirt tower. He was strong enough to realize what dream was doing was wrong an he ran from a toxic environment and situation and honestly? Good👏 for 👏 him 👏.
But the trauma stayed, in many ways. And even during the raccoonit arc, tommy didn't really.. get a chance to heal?
During the techno and tommy arc, tommy seemed to direct his hurt into lashing out at others. He got angry, he lashed out, and he hurt people. Even if im a tommy apologist, i can acknowledge that during his time of poor mental health he hurt other people and he had to apologize (and he did!! But im getting to that)
Now. I am.. very conflicted when it comes to techno and tommy’s relationship. I do believe that, somewhere deep inside, they both cared about each other. However, bias and fanon influence can get in the way so i'm not touching on that.
The one thing i'm saying? It wasn't exactly a healthy dynamic. And again, not saying anything because bias could get in the way, but Tommy realizing the error of his ways and realizing he HURT PEOPLE is such a huge milestone??
He took responsibility by joining tubbo again. He said how his trauma did not excuse shit and he acknowledged it and he tried to CHANGE.
Even when faced with people who exiled him, who shunned him or who weren't there to visit during exile, he decided to be better and he once again took the role of the troop rallier even when he KNEW how impossible the task would be. He SAW Techno’s wither skull vault. He knew it was a losing battle.
But he stayed strong. And he fought for L’Manberg, for the last reminder he had of Wilbur (and oh, wilbur and tommy’s relationship in canon is a whole other can of worms god—)
Just for it to get destroyed.
By his abuser, and two people he had trusted. People he RELIED on.
Blown, to the ground.
And then dream.
Dream saying their story isn't over. Their story would NEVER be over.
. Bone chilling. Genuinely so.
And still. He faced Dream. He faced his abuser, the person who in his own words ‘ruined him’ and he refused to back down.
He refused to let Tubbo die. He refused to lose.
And in the end, Dream was sent to jail. Retribution was sent!
.. right?
Wrong.
Because even after that, Tommy continues to be haunted by dream or by the literal CULTISTS trying to kill him.
And to top it all off, he gets fucking trapped in prison with his abuser surrounded by a bunch of triggers in a small cell. And have we mentioned how he's canonically claustrophobic?
Yeah.. that was bad.
One week. Trapped with his abuser.
And still, he stayed strong. Still, he refused to give in and stayed himself,
And what did he get for that?
Death.
Beaten to death by his abuser of all things.
And he was trapped in the void for two months. Two. Months.
But in the human world? It had only been days.
And he was so so shaken by it. He couldn't even touch other people, he couldn't take any damage, he was treated as a ghost by people, he was called a ‘science experiment’ and the one thing he wanted? Normality? It was taken away from his forever.
Again, by his abuser.
Hes a traumatized child soldier whos done plenty of wrong in his life, but he's also a kid who needs to heal and learn to have healthy relationships because one way or the other every healthy mentor figure in his life turned against him or got corrupted and now he feels alone and he DIED and he needs fucking therapy come on.
And we KNOW the dream isn't done. Far from it. We know dream will never, ever be done. He's too obsessed with the game, with his favorite toy to let the game end. To let the people rest
C!tommy is so broken and jaded and traumatized. But still, he chooses compassion. Despite the trauma, he refused to hurt his best friend. Despite it all, he refused to blow up him home. He stays true to himself and he stays strong and even when the world tries to mold him he doesn't break.
And believe me, the world tries to break him and mold him so many times. He’s been manipulated or used before by others, but he still keeps his attachments and he still keeps himself and i think thats fucking admirable.
So yeah. I wholeheartedly believe tommy deserves better as do the other members of bench trio because honestly they're also children and they all deserve to heal come ON.
I'm rewatching the festival, in particular Tubbo's execution.
(Oh boy.)
I'm not going to do a full transcript, but what basically happened was:
1. Schlatt told Technoblade to execute Tubbo
2. Quackity realized what was going to happen began to plead for Tubbo's life.
3. Fundy began to protest the execution.
4. Niki began to protest the execution.
5. Tubbo began to plead for his life.
6. Everyone else stayed silent.
Also let suppose that Technoblade knew that Tommy and Wilbur were present and they certainly (at least Tommy) wouldn't be aboard with the idea.
So... where is the peer pressure??? In any case Technoblade should be pressured to NOT kill Tubbo because most of his peers, the ones who supposedly peer pressured him, were against it...
Technoblade is very weak willed to the point where a single man can make him murder a teenager in cold blood, just like that. And he did it, no regrets. He followed Schlatt's orders (like anarchists do, as you all know) and fired those fireworks, then he turned around to kill the people who pleaded for the teenager's life, then he avoided all responsability without saying sorry and then he beat another teen to the death...
I hate that the great majority of people who don't like c!Tommy are c!techno apologists who think he's always in the right and don't realize he's written to be an antagonist and I hate that there are so many c!techno apologists like that because c!techno never really has any narrative consequences of substance and also that c!techno himself always acts like he has the high moral ground and like he's above everyone else and every goddamn person. I also hate that most of their arguments to defend c!techno involve bringing down c!Tommy in some way.
I know that's not cc!technoblade's style at all, but sometimes I really wish he'd straight up say that he's not really intended to be seen as the good guy theses days :/
I have a history quiz due on Sunday, why am I writing this character analysis of a sixteen-year-old minecraft streamer for fun-
I am hyper-fixating on the Dream smp. This has caused many problems for me. I have been in the fandom for a semi-short amount of time, since Tommy’s exile, but I was immediately attached to him, because of the arc he was in and the relationship with c!Dream. I was amazed at how much he actually went through because I only had a quick rundown from a friend. And this ‘much’, I think, actually validates the many ‘controversial’ choices that Tommy has been forced to make. Keep in mind that a lot of these choices that Tommy made were unwilling- and sometimes both of the options have very big consequences. My name is Nix, I kin the gremlin child, and thank you for coming to my very biased ted talk. Essays are just scholarly rants, and I will now rant about this angsty block gremlin child.
I feel like we forget that he is a child. I feel like those who criticize c!Tommy forget that he’s a literal child. He is 16. And he has already been through an unspeakable amount of trauma. It’s almost sickening, the fact that a lot of these adults know what Tommy’s been through, they know that he’s a kid, and yet they treat him like an adult, and they expect him to act like an adult and punish him when he doesn’t. They expect him to make choices like an adult like he hasn’t been traumatized like he hasn’t been through literal wars, saw his best friend get blown up by his brother, had his other brother blow up the country, had his father kill that brother, and then get emotionally manipulated into isolation until he almost fucking killed himself, and then that first brother and his father blew up the same country again with the guy that emotionally manipulated him into almost killing himself. He is still a child. And the adults of the server seem to fucking forget that. Puffy is one of the only people to stand up for him, and yet no one listens to her. Big fucking surprise. But she stands up for him still, because she understands the fact that Tommy is a child and he should not be expected to act like an adult. She understands this. And no one else seems to. Ghostbur treats him well, but that’s because Ghostbur treats everyone well. I’m not saying that everyone should treat Tommy nicely because he is traumatized, what I am saying is that they have no excuse to treat him like shit. These adults should treat him nicely because they should be decent human beings (Or piglin hybrids or half-enderman or furries or whatever else). They shouldn’t be fucking assholes to Tommy especially because he’s been hurt by assholes almost all his life (on the server, I mean). They should be nice to everyone, but especially to Tommy because he’s been hurt so much. The people who believe that Tommy should ‘learn a lesson’ (cough cough Philza) and try and ‘teach’ that lesson through violence (COUGH COUGH PHILZA [and technoblade but like, techno’s an enigma that I’ll talk about later]), like, it’s not gonna work! It hasn’t worked the ten million other times they’ve tried before! Like fucking jesus the kid already lost his disks and his country and half of his family, what more lessons can you teach? Like yeah. Tommy, he has fucked up in the past. He’s made mistakes. But I personally believe that he’s been held more than accountable for all of them. Stop. Using. Violence. To. Try. And. Teach. Tommy. A. ‘Lesson’.
Most of this does stem from c!Dream and his iron grip on the serve, and I am a firm fucking believer that he was the one to blow up the community house with the sole purpose of framing Tommy. Because that is something Tommy would do. Because he's ‘grown up’ in an environment where the only way to work through your issues is to blow shit up. Tommy knows that there are other ways, but every time there has been a conflict, violence seems to be the only way out. And it is perfectly in line with Dream’s character to know that and use that against Tommy. I think Dream also knew that Tommy would end up going back to Tubbo in the end, too. That’s another thing, I don’t think Tommy betrayed Techno. Like, yeah, Tommy left him, but he didn’t betray Techno in the normal sense of the phrase. One stream before that, Techno legit said “Oh I’ve just been using you as a pawn for my own personal gain up until now but y’know now I actually don’t physically want to kill you so good job I guess. By the way, I’m blowing up everything and killing everyone you’ve ever loved whether you like it or not. You don’t have to help me, you can just let it happen and sit it out I’m cool with that-” LIKE BITCH EXCUSE ME? Tommy has given up two lives, his disks, he’s been exiled twice, his country has been blown up twice (by that point)- and now Techno is telling him that he’s gonna blow it up again? Because you people seem to forget, Techno blew up Tubbo first. Techno. Shot. First. Sure the butcher army didn’t have to go after him when he went into retirement, but Techno shot first intending to kill Tubbo, did that, got away with it other than Tommy yelling at him right after it, and then worked with Dream to spawn withers and blow it up after they killed Schlatt. Sure, Techno gave them gear. But during that, whether he was knowingly contributing or not, Dream was corrupting Wilbur and Techno was contributing. Once again, knowingly or not, he was still doing that. And Tommy realized this. Tommy cares about L’Manburg. He cares about Tubbo. He cares about Wilbur. And Techno hurt all of them. Tommy didn’t forget that. And yeah, Techno stood for Tommy during that whole ‘this guy’s with me’ thing, but like, Techno still offered to hand Tommy over for the favor. Techno could have kept his mouth shut. But Techno still saw Tommy as somewhat of a pawn for his own personal end- blowing up L’Manburg. He said, ‘Oh we’ll get your disks, Tommy, don’t worry, but you know I’m gonna just gonna side with the guy who isolated you from everyone you ever cared about first to blow up one of the only things you have left of Wilbur but you know, government bad, they took everything from me, don’t mind the fact that I killed your best friend and blew everything up no it’s all their fault-’ Techno saw Tommy as an opportunity. Techno didn’t care about Tommy’s well-being, until maybe the day before but even then. (Yes, I know about the ax and Ranboo giving it to Techno and all that bullshit and how he’s hesitant to let anyone in bc everyone has ‘betrayed’ him but he said. To Tommy. Directly. That he was simply using him for his own personal gain). At least Tommy was open about what he actually wanted.
The disks, I feel like, are more than just disks. They represent all the sacrifices that Tommy’ ever made for L’Manburg. Notice how, yeah Tommy wanted the disks back when he had L’Manburg, but that ‘I-want-my-disks-back’ arc really picked up when he was in exile/when L’manburg was taken from him. L’Manburg and the disks are interchangeable. If Tommy has L’Manburg, he doesn’t have the disks. If Tommy doesn’t have L’Manburg, he wants the disks back. And he’s said this from the start. That’s why he gave the presidency to Tubbo was because he knew that he would be a bad president. He wanted his disks back. That want has always been there. But notice that when Tommy gets to Snowchester, he says to Tubbo “I want the disks back.” Not ‘I want L’Manburg back’. Tommy wants the disks. He knows he’s lost L’Manburg, (even tho L’Manburg is the bond between him, Tubbo, and Alive/Ghostbur but that’s a rant for a later date) so maybe he can get his disks back. One thing I should touch on is Tommy’s struggle between choosing his disks and choosing people. Don’t get me wrong, I know that if it came down to Tubbo or the disks, he’d choose Tubbo, but in little things. Like when Tubbo invited him to stay in Snowchester, Tommy didn’t respond but instead asked for his help in getting the disks. Tommy has trouble getting his priorities straight in minor things. I think that’s why Tubbo is such a good fit for Tommy. Tubbo knows that Tommy would choose him over the disks if it came down to it, and Tubbo understands what Tommy has gone through, and Tubbo understands that even when Tommy can get a little too fixated on the disks, he will still put his friends first. That’s what the others don’t get. That’s why, I think, Tommy told Tubbo to give Dream the disks on the 5th. Because Tommy realized that by saying “The disks were worth more than you ever were” he is putting the disks above Tubbo- he’s putting himself above Tubbo. And this ties back into the emotional trauma that Dream inflicted on him, he was told that Tubbo didn’t care about him, that no one cared about him, and Tommy wanted to not be that. Tommy wants to care about people, and because Dream had invalidated what care was shown to Tommy, he believes that that is the bare minimum. He believes that ‘being kind to other people’ is the norm, especially considering the way he was treated before the exile. Dream has made it so, that in Tommy’s mind, the only way to show someone you care about them is to put them above yourself. So by saying that the disks matter more than Tubbo, Tommy is putting his own needs above Tubbo, and therefore, he doesn’t care about Tubbo anymore. And he still cares about Tubbo despite Dreams, and Techno’s, best efforts. He felt that the only way to apologize is to give up what he wanted, to make sure that Tubbo knows that Tommy does actually care about him. Granted this could have completely backfired. Tubbo could have seen that as, ‘If the disks are worth more than me, and Tommy’s giving up the disks like they’re worth nothing, then what am I worth to him?’ but thankful Tubbo knows that Tommy didn’t mean it. Because Tubbo knows Tommy for who he really is when he’s not hurting, or manipulated- when Tommy is Tommy. Not Techno’s sidekick. Not under Dream’s influence. And Tommy knows Tubbo knows.
This is why, in the end, Tommy was always meant to side with Tubbo. Because Tubbo and Tommy have cared about each other from the start, meanwhile Tommy went to Techno at his lowest, and Techno, for the most part, was using him for his own personal gain. Tommy knows that he wasn’t himself, too. When Tommy offers for Tubbo to move in with him, Tommy was doing that as a sign of ‘Hey, I’m trying to heal, I know I’m fucked up, and I need you to help me.’ Tommy is trying to heal. Tubbo, and Puffy, and Ghostbur (Maybe Wilbur will, too) are trying to help him heal. (Ghostbur less so, only because I don’t think he has a proper grasp of how much Tommy has been put through, but he’s trying his best and I love him for it) And maybe, the other adults on the server will start acting like adults and quit expecting Tommy to be one. Tommy is a threat- to Dream. Dream knows that Tommy is the main protagonist, and he knows that Tommy can take him down. He’s tried to turn everyone against him, and it was working for a while. But maybe the others will understand what Tommy’s (and tubbo, of course, but I’m gonna give Tubbo an essay of his own later) been put through, all the choices he’s been forced to make- with all options being not very good, and actually try and help to take Dream down. Because Tommy does want his disks back, but he also wants to make sure that Dream won’t hurt anyone ever again. The disks would just be a plus. I’ve been Nix, and if you couldn’t tell, I am a Tommy apologist.
