Okay, can we have a talk.
This ending was… questionable. But very logical. I mean, everything was foreshadowing to that, we should’ve known and I am not surprised.
I have very mixed feelings about it and I don’t really know how to explain all of them, but let’s start with that:
1. I am proud of Tommy for writing this. No matter how some aspects of these are srewed and how some are not good in the message, he still did a great job. I mean, imagine being responsible for ending ALL of this? The server that was so big and gave so much to millions of people, and you are the one to write an ending of the story.
Endings are hard to write. I am sure, everyone who’s every written a story will agree with me. Happy endings are even harder, because if you have a long and complicated story, with so much angst in it, it’s almost always troubling to find a satisfying happy ending. And successfully lead everything to that.
And the fact that Tommy took the responsibility to finish this MASSIVE story is admirable. I know I wouldn’t do that on his place, wouldn’t have the guts. I am proud of him.
2. Being proud of Tommy though doesn’t make me less irritated with the last confrontation he and Dream had. I feel like everybody here already mentioned how the fact that his character said sorry to his abuser is… not great. Awful honestly.
And it annoys me. As an always inniter and c!Tommy enjoyer, I can’t be less angry with that. Because it’s not right. Dream did too much fucked up shot to earn that apology. Even if Tommy hurt him too, it’s not something you can redeem.
3. But I understand. I completely understand why cc!Tommy wrote it that way.
c!Tommy is one of the most compassionate and emotionally smart characters on that server. He was always the one to see good in others no matter what. Even if he didn’t always act that way. I mean, just remember his conversation with c!Foolish: ‘I believe everyone have a little bit of good in them’, ‘I think Wilbur is a good person, but he’s been playing a bad guy for a long time’, ‘It’s not about giving him a second chance, it’s not about giving him a third chance, it’s not about chances! It’s about not giving up on people you care about’.
If there was a character on a server to understand (not forgive, c!Tommy didn’t forgive him or joined him, he understood c!Dream) the monster, it’s Tommy.
It makes so much sense for his character to realize the part of the picture he hasn’t seen before and accept his flaws and mistakes. Apologizing to c!Dream is a bad message. But it makes so much sense that c!Tommy did that. It’s about not giving up on people, eh?
4. Which makes me a little bit happy. Not a lot, but just a smidge. Just knowing that if they survived, c!Tommy would heal. After all, sometimes to heal from something awful like an abuse you need to understand what exactly happened.
And don’t take it as me saying that ‘Tommy should’ve realized that he is in fault for everything that happened’, because fuck no. He isn’t, and he is still a victim in this situation.
I mean it as the understanding and coming to terms with it would give him the closure he needed.
He would’ve healed, if they survived.
5. And of course I am devastated. I understand why people think of this finale as an awful one. I am in shambles. It’s so hard to take in the fact that everything just got erased.
I am a big c!clingy duo enjoyer. I loved a lot of other characters too, but they were the best for me. They were the ones who I would always love, no matter what. Hell, I even watched those streams despite Dream being in them just because I would never not watch an ending of c!clingy duo.
I wont repeat what others said about why this finale is sad and awful and devastated. I will only say the thing that makes it the worst for me.
Tommy and Tubbo didn’t get to meet that end together. They were so close to each other, a few more minutes, and Tubbo would’ve be there. But they didn’t, and I am just. I just. I hope people will write c!clingy duo fix its. I don’t even really need the rewriting of that particular stuff. Just maybe them going to the Moon and being happy and raising Michael together on stories about all the friends they had. Please.
That’s kind of the mix of my feelings.
I also wanted to talk about messages in general.
The Dream SMP story as cc!Wilbur once said is always not characters influencing the plot, but plot influencing the characters. And that’s what was best about it in my opinion. There was no meta gaming, it was a raw reaction of people in the situation, not from the distance.
So sometimes it’s not about writing the tight message. It’s about how that character would act right there and right now.
And all of this ‘i know *blank* better than *cc blank*’ is fun and all, I also post stuff like that, and it helps to say fuck you to canon to feel better. But no, we don’t know those characters better than ccs who play them. At least because it’s not our characters. We know their fanon versions better, sure. We know our versions of those characters better. And that’s cool! That’s how fandom works! But just imagine someone read a story about your own OC and said that they understand them better than you.
Why I am writing is: we can all be pissed off at the I am sorry to c!Dream thing. We should, honestly, it’s a bad message. But the thing is, it’s not about the writing, it’s about the person (in form of c!Tommy) and what this person feel and thinks after living through everything they did. That what was making Dream SMP so beautiful. The story was the driving force, not the characters. And I kind of appreciate that cc!Tommy didn’t metagame it till the end, but just went along with what it would lead his character too.
