#dsmp meta

[casually-prish]

people who left the dsmp fandom in 2021 always think posting positively about dsmp on their 6 follower blog that averages three notes will get them sniped by a firing squad

[sunnyonline]

Augh augh augh augh OKAY SO:

- In a writingverse of Dream SMP, even if the inventory screen is canon, "armour" is defined as an emotional/personal quality assigned to clothing. c!Wilbur's coat in Pogtopia, while also obviously about his cathartic "villain" spiral and wanting to feel dramatic after keeping his pain so private, could also be interpreted as a piece of armour for him. A big, heavy coat can make one feel safe. It protects against the cold of Pogtopia, even though it would still be damp and cold enough to be felt through the layers of wool, even though c!Wilbur would probably often have cold hands in Pogtopia.

-> This would give opportunity for the very good "c!Tommy receives c!Wilbur's old coat during Exile," as a comfort from Ghostbur. maybe. I've seen cool fanart for this idea but haven't interpreted this yet. Something something an item of protection, but also c!Wilbur choosing the coat, while c!Tommy inherits it, and is cast as a villain and an exile due to external circumstances and abuse.

--> With the horrifying implication of c!Dream demanding c!Tommy drop the coat in the hole, and c!Tommy being like, "No, it's clothing" and c!Dream being like "Okay, sure..." as though it's a favour to him.

Also would give opportunity for c!Niki to return to the button room after Nov 16th to scavenge the hood. There is also the idea for c!Wilbur to have more than one coat, and for her to wear a different one, this was implied during her birthday party, but I like the idea of there being ONE coat, thematically.

-> c!Niki carries rage and grief and, notably, a desire for destruction, and c!Tommy wears it as protection as a villainised exile. They both inherit parts of the coat, parts of the mantle, and wear and transform it in their own ways. Maybe c!Tommy stitches the tears and holes in the coat. (Maybe not the sword hole, though. Maybe he keeps that grief, that wound, open, and runs his fingers along it. Maybe he clings to the coat sometimes, at night, during Exile, and misses his brother. Maybe when Ghostbur leaves he stops wearing it for awhile, but doesn't throw it away. Maybe there's a scene where he takes it off, and leaves it somewhere nearby, and then it rains and he's apologising and desperately scrubbing the mud off.) Maybe c!Niki leaves the hole in the back of the hood where c!Philza's sword plunged through. Maybe c!Tommy washes the coat one day, and c!Niki doesn't. Maybe he fixates on the blood stain that won't come out, that he doesn't really want to come out. Maybe he still buries his nose in it and smells cigarettes and doesn't want the smell to fade, even though he hated it when c!Wilbur was alive. Maybe he misses complaining to Wilbur about the smell and the health of his lungs and making exaggerated coughs around whenever he was smoking. Maybe the cuffs still smell of gunpowder. Maybe the coat still smells of wet stone, or maybe it's just a memory so strong he can nearly taste it, even after he tried to wash out the reeking smells of body odor and stress and unwashed hair from it.

Updated post here (<- embedded link).

[pearlflavoured]

okay guys this is for everyone doing next gen dsmp fics. They are Not going to be good parents. They are going to be neglectful bordering on abusive.

You're telling me that Tommy, who was treated and punished as an adult since the age of 11, who had to grow and steal all his own food and was never allowed to be a kid is going to be the loving father who puts three meals a day on the table for his child from age 1-18? You're telling me tommy worked through all his isolation trauma and his neglect issues with a therapist after puffy failed him so badly???

No. Tommy promises to be better than all his parental figures and to raise his child without traumatising them, but he's internalised too much of his upbringing. The 8 year old can go hunting for dinner tonight, he's got a job in town. No, it's the 11 year old's turn to cook. No, the 5 year old doesn't need three meals a day, he's small enough that it won't make a difference. No you can't drink all that milk, you need to water it down so it lasts. What do you mean you don't want bread for every meal for a week straight? What do you mean my kid needs snow boots for the winter? They're just going to grow out of them just wait till theyre older. No the 2yo isn't hungry, when they're hungry they just climb into the cupboards and start eating carrots.

Whatever children your dsmp characters are having are going to have a mixed relationship with their parents, especially when theyre older. It's a situation where they know their parents had a messed up childhood and tried to do so much better than the way they were raised but it still messed you up and how do you reconcile that.

[wonda-cat]

Hello, I'm relatively new to the DSMP. It and its history has fascinated and sucked me in (how on earth that happened idk I'm so late). The story, the media, even the messiness of it all has activated the demons inside me and I must devour analyses of all sorts. I absolutely love reading all that you have on your blog, going through others old blog posts on tumblr, hearing all the different opinions on everything etc. Could you perhaps recommend some good places/ways to look for more of such?

Welcome! Hope you enjoy the remnants of the old world. I still do from time to time lol I'm sure you've already found their posts, but I'd highly recommend old analysis and metas written by @/quicksandblock, @/zeta-in-de-walls, @/kateis-cakeis, @/lasnevadaslaborunion, as well as old video essays made by @/lucemferto around the messy narrative decay of the series. They're my personal favorites. There's even more I can think of off the top of my head that I enjoy, but another great resource is this blog: The DSMP Analysis Archive.

Pretty much every kind of analysis post and meta you can think of, sourced from a wide variety of opinions, with all of the original posters' urls attached. Most of them still have their old posts up if you'd like to dive through their works through their own personal blog archives.

Cheers!

[chjroptera]

was rewatching karlnapity streams w my friends and realized that karl staked their marriage on the completion of new lmanburg. they propose to do it at a big event because it would gain a lot of attention/viewers if the two coincided. but they unknowingly doom their marriage here because lmanburg is forever incomplete, and anything related to it was always destroyed or completely warped. despite having el rapids, they still choose to wait till new lmanburg was completed, and cQ trying to propose to them in las nevadas was def his grand gesture for their promise. after all, las nevadas is just a more profit-based new lmanburg

yes obviously the reason ckarlnapity fell apart was because of the difference in storylines/cc interest, they are still somehow victims of the lmanburg curse lol

[glass-and-pebbles]

the extent of how canon quackity's skephalo homewrecking in 2021 was is questionable at best but TO ME.......

in the aftermath of manberg and leading up to the genesis of las nevadas, c!quackity wedges himself between c!skephalo at every opportunity because he resents how much they remind him of how him and c!schlatt used to be.

and if he can't be happily dysfunctionally married to a rich intimidating devil man, nobody can!

(i think this is very in line with c!q's character, between his pettiness and jealousy and underlying desire for love that clashes with his desire for power......)

[stemms]

The wildest thing about c!Dream’s “…and you.” is that this freak of a man must’ve interpreted this borderline Fucked Up™ and possessive phrase as a tragic and sweet “You’ve hurt me, but I still think about you” moment in the what-could’ve-happened sense.

What makes it even worse is that this idea may’ve stemmed from the way c!Tommy was always willing to forgive everyone around him, no matter how badly they hurt him, starting with c!Wilbur, and ending with c!Dream. So, following this logic, c!Tommy’s kind nature inspired that unhealthy thought pattern, and indirectly heightened the man’s obsession with him.

c!Dream was always known for twisting every little positive thing in c!Tommy’s life into something horrific, after all…

And every time he succeeded, the blond’s distress could be compared to the tastiest meal he’d ever had.

He could never get enough of it, and only keep on craving more…

More, more, and more…

If it wasn’t for Doomsday, c!Tommy and c!Dream could’ve become friends after exile, despite it being one of the most stressful events in the teen’s life.

His heart was simply too big for this server, and the Admin wished to devour it.

But unfortunately for c!Dream, he overestimated and took c!Tommy’s kindness for granted, losing the access to it forever after pushing him too far.

Still, it was true that they both couldn’t stop thinking about each other, despite hurting each other; almost as if they were tied by fate, and meant to always stay together.

If c!Tommy truly hated c!Dream’s guts, why would he keep on remembering him and the fun time they had together?

Sometimes, these thoughts would cause the teen to cry for hours, making him too perplexed to understand whether he’d like to be far away from his friend captor, or enveloped in his soothing bruising hug.

After all, if it’s not proof that he belongs to c!Dream, then what is? :) :) :)

[omegamoo]

c!niki’s anarchy arc makes me feel a little bit insane because. the roots of anarchy are in the masses, specifically when they turn to their sources of stability- religion, and more relevant here, the government - and find nothing but oppression. and when that’s all they see, when the government isn’t doing anything for them, the logical conclusion is to tear it down. there’s nothing worth saving in that government, and why should you trust that any other government will be any good - so take it all apart!!

there’s a whole historical tangent here about absolutism in russia and serfdom and whatever but as it pertains to c!niki:

she is the soul of lmanberg. she sews the flag, she stays there, she lives and loves there. she fights for lmanberg and she fights against schlatt and she commits tax evasion and on and on and on - see previous posts about cniki and rebellion… yeah. At any rate she’s a fighter

but lmanberg stops being a source of light & starts just being a source of hurt. schlatt is bearable - a terrible leader, but lmanberg can be reclaimed. and then wilbur blows it up, because neither schlatt nor wilbur are good leaders, and that’s when it becomes too much. when neither of the people in power are good, when none of these administrations are doing anything to benefit niki (a baker, a warrior, a citizen not in the government, a rebel, a pogtopian). and certainly a kid (tubbo administration) isn’t any better either (although at that point it’s a deep-seated distrust), so that says something about the whole system, the whole government, and everyone niki knows.

if c!wilbur, a person niki loved, is bad, and the government of lmanberg is bad, there is nothing in it for someone like niki. so of course she turns to anarchism. there is nothing a government can do to bring back the wil she knew, to bring back the love found in black-and-yellow walls. everywhere niki goes she is undercredited. she has no reason to trust that lmanberg, the place she loved, will ever get better, and thus: take that shit down