okay so i’m literally in the middle of catching up on jack manifold’s recent stream bUT i am suddenly brainrotting so ✨analysis time✨
jack’s current arc is him realizing that revenge wasn’t the answer. he regrets his anger and he regrets that his life was dedicated was killing an old friend. he wasn’t happy when dream killed tommy, and he doesn’t think he would have been happy if he had been the one to kill him.
he’s still angry at tommy (and he has every reason to be), but the point is that he doesn’t think revenge was the answer. revenge wouldn’t have made him happy, no matter how it had played out.
now. niki. she hasn’t found out about tommy’s death yet, so we’re shifting into ✨combined analysis and theory time✨
i think niki’s reaction will be a foil to jack’s. i think niki will be overjoyed that tommy’s dead, no matter how it happened. it will be wonderful, it will be interesting, it will be great story telling.
let me elaborate on that. jack mourned the fact that the only thing he cared about was tommy, and he mourned the fact that he lost him. jack mourned losing his attachments. emotionally, he’s sort of lost now, but he realizes that. he values attachments and he values the attachment he had, now matter how toxic he realized it had been.
niki, on the other hand? the last thing she expressed attachment to was l’manburg. she may not have been the one to blow it up, but she still destroyed it. she burned down the l’mantree, the last remaining symbol of the original l’manburg, and she did it all without a hint of regret. niki, unlike jack, does not value attachments.
really, the only thing niki still has attachment to is the memory of wilbur, but even that’s not really an attachment in the same way everyone else on the server has attachments. she misses the memory of him, but the fact that he just,, left her makes her angry. that anger is her driving force and the only attachment she has left. no one else cares more about the memory of a person and the feelings they cause than physical people and physical things. there isn’t any other attachment that’s even comparable.
except…
except.
dream doesn’t care about anything but the idea of tommy. he only cares about the attachments tommy brings to the server and the fun tommy brings him. tommy’s nothing more than a puppet to him. this doesn’t line up perfectly with niki’s situation, but the the parallels are undeniably.
dream just wants revenge against those who have wronged him. he isn’t driven by attachment (though he is still attached to that idea of tommy), he’s driven by revenge.
niki just wants revenge against those who have wronged her. she isn’t driven by attachment (though she is still attached to the memory of wilbur), she’s driven by revenge.
so. in the end, niki should be happy that tommy’s dead, no matter that she wasn’t the one to do it.
there's something really worrying going on in this fandom that so many people are still c!dream apologists. it was worrying after exile, it was worrying after doomsday, it was worrying after the disc saga finale.
and it's even more worrying after last night. that their first reaction to someone being beaten to death by their abuser was "well he killed a cat!", try to blame c!dream murdering c!tommy on c!sam, and are consistently in denial of what we're repeatedly shown: c!dream never tried to change
it's worrying how their first reaction was to think about how this affects c!dream. the furthest thing from your mind after witnessing what happened last night should be "oh i wonder how the abuser and murderer is doing?"
it's a scary phenomenon we've seen in many other media (american horror story, star wars, etc), but it's especially scary in the dream smp fandom because the fanbase is so young.
yes, this is roleplay, but the themes they're working with are very real and very painful. the content creators know that and make it very clear who's in the right and who's in the wrong, so why is there so many people who can't accept it?
okay so there’s so many people making fun of people for being distraught over c!tommy’s death, and i’m gonna pop in here to say; fuck you if you’re one of the people who are making fun of people for being upset/crying when he died. they literally can’t help it, it’s the same reaction you’d have if one of your favorite characters died in a tv show or a book— it’s literally scripted. it’s written to make people feel emotions, it’s a roleplay, & you’re just making people feel bad for. what? for reacting the way they intended us to react? mf i bawled when he fucking died, and even though it’s a “bLocK gamE” i’m allowed to fuckin’ get emotional when one of my favorite characters literally dies 👍😁