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Stitchy isn't as nice as he thought

Hey! I just wanted to say sorry for not posting for a hot minute, I had gotten pretty sick and as I have a weakish immune system I couldn't work on any of my bigger projects. I will be repicking up ask little eclipse! I been thinking due to how well I feel its going, I may make a blog specifically for it. For now take some FC angst! He is one of my favorite characters next to Lunar.

However on FC I feel he's been getting much to hate recently, it's like people are forgetting it isn't just an act, FC is an actual child. He needs more guidance and neither Stitchwraith or Foxy can provide that stability so he chooses the 'better' parent based on strength and strength alone. People don't pay attention to these facts of FC being emotionally neglected by Foxy, and physically neglected by Stitchwraith with the exceptions of updates and repairs. But even then the only one emotionally caring for FC is Jake, while the other one exhibits abusive behaviors regularly and snaps at FC consistently. When Foxy was parenting properly he still seemed to be a bit neglectful, he was constantly dropping FC on those around him so it is understandable when people started to tell him no.

In the end my total thoughts are: FC is in an abusive situation, he needs some sort of third party caretaker that can properly guide and care for him, he needs more proper (supervised) bonding time with Foxy, FC could benefit from therapy, he needs to be properly acknowledged as a child and even though Foxy will need help healing he needs to stop seeing FC as some sort of adult that's there to use him and abuse him. Considering the fact FC is a child that is something he cannot comprehend properly, considering the facts he still uses a bottle and pacifier and the fact Francine is smarter then him I believe he is between the ages 2-6, he cannot be held responsible fully to his actions if he cannot even understand his emotions.

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This art was lightly referenced off of the scene back during 2022 October takeover when Lunar had been slapped inside el' chips. Here the other one had finally snapped hard enough due to the fact Foxy didn't want his son at all, slapping FC as hard as he could due to how badly he messed up. He didn't even care about hurting them and Jake didn't have the ability to step in yet, FC was trying to desperately explain why he did what he did but he was struggling to de-escalate the situation. Due to how sharp stitchys hands are they sliced poor FC's face open causing oil to drip and fall. FC was internally begging to be saved by the great foxy! He was scared and his face hurt so bad. He knew better that foxy would of never let this happen to him.. He wanted to snuggle next to his father and watch Bluey again. He knew he was bad but he was hoping and near praying Foxy would still come save him and take him home, he wanted to play gatorgolf, he wanted daycare, he didn't wanna be Stitchys helper anymore.

Yeah fair, the whole led them to the portal is sus. I personally thought it might be Dream predicting his lost but we're not sure rn.

I'm in the minority here in saying that I want them to expand on it to see where they take it but alas. I do think CPunz themself is a great character and it adds an interesting dynamic of bros who we have no clue of their loyalty.

Alas though, I am willing to concede that yes, the reveal itself is sorta wonky lol.

Oh and I wanna share a small hottake, but the Disc Finale being "scripted" in my opinion doesn't take away from Clingyduo winning.

Why?

Cause they STILL pushed CDream in a corner. I interpretted it as a failsafe, Dream was desperate and had to resort to convincing everyone to send him to prison or else die.

Everybody who went against Dream that day still went in their own accord, Dream had no chance, Punz was needed PRECISELY cause he had no chance.

Clingyduo triumphed over him and like a turtle he hid back into his shell which is the prison he asked Awesam to create. It wasn't ideal but to him, this is better off than dead. And he paid the price for it, not realizing what CQuackity is capable of.

TLDR: Clingyduo still took the W, Dream would've lost regardless cause of people turning on him, and the prison was his last desparate attempt to somehow survive

Yeahh I’m leaning towards interpreting it as a fail safe but we only have so much info and idk if we’ll get more. There’s also some stuff that makes it kinda iffy? Like wasn’t Punz the one who led everyone to the portal? And Dream was against going to the prison, he suggested exile first and was trying to dissuade them saying that he knows how the prison works. Like it just raises a lot of questions and confusion. I think it would make more sense if Punz had been visiting the prison (before it got locked down and stuff) and he and Dream rekindled their friendship. Instead of this wonky surprise card they tried to pull

Ok I'm gonna be a contrarian here for a second and point out one thing as a sort of defense for the CCs who are understandably also frustrated...

When were the times they promised lore stuff?

That's right, when people asked them.

And that's fair actually, people are naturally curious about where the lore is and of course they answer, but here's the thing... Sometimes, as artists and writers, we don't realize the gaps in time when we are toiling in the background and we could get excited, waiting to be able to share what we made then being completely unable to... THAT'S why they make promises they couldn't keep.

This happened to me in shit like DND where campaigns die out cause we were never able to get people together, same thing going on with DSMP where they try to get more and more people involved before nothing.

And that's the problem, they are forced to make promises to appease the growing anxiousness of the fanbase that it becomes a cycle of promises then disappointment then promises then disappointment. They feel the need to answer and say something when they aren't even in any position right now to do it. At LEAST Wilbur communicated his scheduling issues enough compared to everybody else.

I'll admit though, maybe it's the CCs' fault at first, maybe they should've never promised anything in the first place, and maybe, just maybe, they should've announced they are going on a hiatus way earlier on, maybe.

But I can't fault them for being excited and legitimately wanting to do stuff before it never pans out.

And I can't help but feel for their position. I kinda relate it to my own works which due to several factors I could not do on time, and how much I try to release something, preview something, but can't cause I wish to not spend all my time releasing half baked products. I've had campaigns die with stuff beyond my control and scheduling issues that left me unable to stop it from dying. Dream SMP is basically like that but in a larger scale.

In the end, I just feel bad for the CCs, not blame them. I understand that it is frustrating, and painful, to see them start joking about it now, but as somebody who could emphatize with their situations to a lesser extent, yeah.

I wish for better communication to us as an audience, but I fear they won't be able to communicate lore lulls like these when they themselves aren't aware it was still gonna happen. Though maybe yeah, they should've expected it.

i just remembered it but when wilbur said "there's always been gaps in lore, it took four months at some point" it irked me a bit because the reason people right now are asking for lore isn't because we demand lore, but because they literally promised us massive lore post-prison break...and then they didn't do said lore

yes, there's hiatuses, but the fandom was promised something they never delivered and now they make these little comments about people (albeit those asking in chat are annoying) asking for what they were promised

I'm so fucking sorry but I feel like you not watching her vods or other supplementary stuff like her involvement in Bear SMP as C!Niki (same person in DSMP) really made you fundamentally misunderstood her character.

C!Niki's arc isn't trying to put her foot down like C!Ranboo or trying to become more confrontational or anything. And while I would love to see that direction for her character, I feel like you missed the reason she joined up with C!Techno and the Syndicate in the first place.

As seen with Bear SMP, C!Niki is a character who's witnessed communities fall apart again and again. It is important to note that this is NOT an arc involving C!Tommy so maybe look away from Inniter POV for a moment as I explain the revelations we had of her in that storyline.

In Bear SMP, it is revealed that before theDream SMP, C!Niki was part of another community known as the Perfect SMP, and when stuff happened in the past that led to it falling apart, she left, abandoning her friend, Bear, there and finding solace in a new person who promised her a safehaven, and a brand new start... C!Wilbur.

Which is inportant because we now know what C!Niki seeks, she needs support and people who encourages her, gives her comfort, which is why she ended up in the Syndicate.

Fast forward to her witnessing the fall of LManberg and seeing yet another country she was promised happiness in shattered and C!Niki grew disillusioned but still sticking to LManberg. But we are already seeing the cracks show when C!Fundy convinced her to build Dry Waters with him. C!Niki is already losing faith in LManberg as the thing C!Wilbur promised her was and is already drifting apart from it.

Which led to her going against C!Tommy.

It is important to note her biases here too. When Bear SMP fell apart, she didn't exactly had anybody to blame, when LManberg first fell she was at least anle to blame C!Wilbur as a way to cope but that became hard to do when he's dead, so her witnessing C!Tommy about to prank George which accidentally cause his house to burn down ended up clouding her judgement further.

And she lashed out, if LManberg is doomed then she will burn it herself, and that's the point she lost hope for a stable community in it that she is now left rattled and alone, unable to cope with it all.

So then the Rocket Duo arc happened and that's still her still lashing out until... Ok I might be wrong ehre because it's been a while but I believe at this point of the continuity she did ended up realizing her faults and walked away from the SMP, returning to Bear SMP in order to reconnect with C!Bear who she heard was going through his own recovery from the trauma of their past, and her wanting to fix what happened then. Promising never to abandon him again...

I won't go into detail on how that exactly ended since there were some behind the scenes issues with BSMP that caused it to be prematurely cancelled so I'm just gonna talk about how it ended and try to fill in the blanks there. Take note that this might not be canon because of said cancellation but I have to try and guess what happened in between for continuity's sake.

But Bear SMP ended how it started, empty, and seemingly something bad happened again that caused Bear to do as he did before and reset his server, or at least hopped into a new world, in his futile efforts of trying to makes things perfect. You may watch that ending in Bearbubb's channel on youtube.

So what happened to C!Niki then? What happened to "I will never abandon you again"?

Well, it fell apart once again and she ended up leaving her homeworld one last time, back to the DSMP where she is once again left lost, purposeless, and once again, realizing she needed people. She is somebody who craved companionship, which she lost with Jack, she lost with LManberg, and for the last time, she lost with Bear.

So what now?

Enter Techno.

For the first time in a while somebody reached out to her and promised her companionship she's been craving, and she jumped to it. I mean why wouldn't she? She fundamentally agreed with Techno that governments are bad after witnessing 3 of them fall apart before her eyes. She is in need of anybody, somebody, to reach out to her the same way Wilbur did. And when Techno came forward and promised her this with no strings attached... she took it.

At this point her longing was filled and she has lost much of her drive to hurt those who wronged her. She still hates C!Dream but her need to maintain her new safehaven in the Syndicate came first now knowing how her other factions went in the past, despite Techno encouraging her further to speak her mind. And as for C!Tommy, I do believe she owes a reconciliation arc with him but I can't blame CC!Wilbur and CC!Tommy for not focusing on the RP anymore, that is neither them nor CC!Niki's fault, which is why I tried to avoid an Inniter's perspective on this and look at her only as a person.

And then her confrontation with C!Jack happened which explained a lot on her mental point at this point in the story

She let Dream out because she justified it is to save Ranboo, she is no longer interested in playing the politics game of the server and is disinterested in what C!Dream is gonna do moving forward, and fundamentally, C!Niki only wants to create a safehaven for herself first and foremost now instead of relying just on Techno for it.

She carries the Syndicate members as her most important companions now, willing to justify it for the sake of Ranboo and Techno. She's still Niki and knowing everything, none of this is out of character for her knowing now what's she went through and what she is holding the most important. You can see that even in her conversation with Jack that she was torn about helping Dream too, but she is just too loyal to her new friends now to go against it.

And that's why I say you shouldn't look things in a Tommy Centric perspective because let's be real here, the closest we are ever probably gonna get with a reconciliation with her and Tommy is if CC!Wilbur involves her in his apology arc. Which we don't know if that's happening soon.

And again, you misunderstood why she helped Techno and even forgot about her TALKING with Jack about why she even did this. Jack isn't even trying to kill Tommy anymore and you would know that if you checked out his and hers last talk! She had convinced him to settle down with her and mentioned that despite Jack leaving (and thus also the main reason she couldn't seek companionship with him is cause he's canonically left the SMP at that point) she forgives and understand him.

What is she doing now?

She made an entire secret city that btw, if folks paid attention because nobody in the fanbase seems to talk about this, SHE MADE EVEN DURING THE LMANBERG TUBBO ERA, specificlaly as a Safehaven for people who wishes to be uninvolved in this conflict and to just find sollace wherever. She was already disillusioned about LManberg so losing it isn't traumatizing to her anymore.cause she burned it down herself.

If LManberg can't be that for her, if Bear SMP or Perfect SMP can't be that for her then she will create her own safe place for her and her closest friends. And while that does not finish her arc with Tommy, it does seem like despite a not completely satisfying conclusion... is a better enough end for her conflicts as it finally gives her a semblance of closure. And sometimes that is enough. She is in a place where she is about to heal, and she is giving Jack this as well despite being hurt with him leaving, because this time, she's willing to forgive.

And all of this WITHOUT INVOLVING TOMMY.

And that's what I'm trying to say here, people dismissing arcs because it doesn't involve Tommy. And what's funny is I'm not even a Niki main, I just took note of everything happening and this is what I got. It makes sense because she's her own character, she doesn't need to fully resolve her arc with Tommy and Wilbur (though I'd appreciate that, but schedule issues) and it is incredibly insulting to see her as only a Techno sidechsracter when C!TECHNO HIMSELF WAS TRYING TO GET HER TO SPEAK HER MIND, constantly asking her if she was ok with the Dream Breakout (which she said she was torn with but she wanted to prioritize Ranboo). And yeah, none of this involves C!Tommy but is clearly communicated for anybody who checks her out and NOT JUST THE FANON TALK ABOUT HER!

So where does she go from here?

I have a couple of ideas. Besides actually talking to C!Wilbur which is still something I wish they'd do, or hell, saying sorry to Tommy because she herself agrees that she is wrong in regards to that... There's always more to do with her underground city. There's also unresolved conflict with Fundy and Puffy. Hell, she could have a character arc where she hesitates following Techno because they were forced to do something fundamentally drastic, and that could be interesting. Why doesn't she have her own arc? Well not everybody wants to pull a Ranboo, and that should be fine.

Bottomline, I just really dislike centering eberything on Tommy, and I desperately needed somebody to point this out without just seeing it in Tommy's story you know? A full understanding of C!Niki without ties to Crimeboys, and this fanbase lacks that. I am not saying Inniters are bad or whatever, but trying to judge another person's writing when you yourself agreed you haven't watched it yourself is... Bad. I'm sorry but it is.

It's the same as folks misunderstanding the Exile arc because they never watched the VODs. I am NOT saying you should watch every single DSMP stream cause that would be insane, I'm just saying, before you judge somebody's writing actually... you know, watch her VODs and get a better picture of it without being biased for your main. Again, I don't even main Niki, she's not even a favorite of mine (I main mostly C!Quackity, and he BARELY has any big interactions with her) and even I managed to get all this.

Please, keep this in mind. I am open to being corrected if I get anything wrong, hell, I'd love to discuss this, but just please read this for any Innit Mains out there who only see her as an angry psychopathic victim blamer.

Can you please write a piece on c!Niki Nihachu? I see a lot of people hating her and I’m new to the dsmp, so I don’t really know what she did wrong

now, I wanna preface this by saying that I'm by no means an expert on niki's character. I've seen some of her streams and read up on her lore and kept up with the meta discussions but I'm by no means a niki main (not to any real fault of her own, time in the day is just limited and I've gotten inniter brainrot).

I will say, it's not hate so much as it is intense frustration at the loss of both focus and potential.

niki and jack joined the server just after the end of the original war for independence, and they meshed into l'manberg proper so fast and hard that a good chunk of the fandom didn't remember that they weren't there for the war in the first place. niki was already introduced under the context of her and wilbur already being friends (with wilbur giving her a personal tour on her first day), but they streamed Much more frequently then as well. sometimes every day depending on the streamer !

niki built the first flag l'manberg ever had large and proud, the same being emulated all the way up to l'manberg's l'manhole now. she befriended everyone, she ran for office with fundy. she Was a l'manbergian.

and then schlatt won the elections, and then wilbur and tommy were ran out of the country, and then fundy burned the flag that She'd built.

her strength wasn't in physical fighting, her strength was in her Will. she looked the manberg cabinet in the face and told them she hoped they starved, earning her a permanent spot on schlatt's shit list from go. she fought the pet wars along-side tommy (with him and for him, not unlike she had with fundy before the elections). during the festival she yelled over schlatt and a screaming crowd to tell techno He Had A Choice, that schlatt couldn't Make him kill tubbo. she picked up the pieces afterwards, promising two boys only barely younger than her that they'd get through it no matter what, as long as they stayed together. she lived through abuse and fear and stuck with what was most important to her. she fought along side the rest of pogtopia to kill schlatt, to win back her home, to win back her community.

and then it was gone. just like that, the person she's trusted took it all away when they were supposed to have already won. techno spawned in monsters and dream rained tnt where the initial explosion hadn't already touched.

niki never really bounced back from the 16th.

nobody did Really, but she never truly found her footing again. the l'manberg cabinet had an illusion of stability for a hot second there (with a plan to try to desperately clutch at what they had afraid that it'd be taken away), but niki didn't have People.

she was building an underground city to house people without a home. it was meant to protect people without boarders and without fear. but it was empty. the design slowly shifted to be less and less hospitable. she slept in a cage.

by the time of the green festival niki was angry and lost, she felt abandoned and directionless and nothing was okay and she Needed something to blame. and dream gave her that something in the form of tommy.

from dream's mouth, it was tommy that destroyed the community house, it was tommy that'd "pushed" dream into building the walls, it was tommy that'd been with technoblade, it was tommy that'd promised to be there for her, it was tommy that'd always been by wilbur's side.

she was angry and she had a scapegoat and someone once defined by her Faith and her Will couldn't Believe anymore. she rejected l'manberg, she rejected her home, she rejected her community.

this was, Soured a bit by the overall problems with doomsday as a lore event. but in isolation this is a very strong character moment.

it's also here that she started up team rocket with jack. the two have Strong parallels to each other, with both of them picking out tommy as a scapegoat for all the problems with the server in part because of people like dream and techno who Positioned him as the center, and in part because they felt abandoned and lonely and tommy was Important to them once.

moreover, they knew that they couldn't touch any of the doomsday trio. tommy was an Obtainable goal specifically because he Was vulnerable.

so in the space in between doomsday and the disc war finale jack and niki were trying to kill tommy. this was largely played as a joke, with the gag being that they'd always fail no matter how specific they were, meanwhile tommy picked up on the fact that they were acting Weird but not that they were trying to kill him.

this bit was very funny, it just unfortunately happened in the aftermath of doomsday when 4/5ths of the fandom were convinced that tommy was the devil incarnate. again, not jack and niki's fault that they decided to play sympathetic villains while the fandom was eating itself with discourse.

the cracks only started to show after the disc war finale.

niki and jack were both there during the disc war finale, and it makes sense that they were there for tubbo and that they were still Angry at tommy. but they were also there to hear dream admit that he'd lied about the community house, they were there to see how dream had been pulling the strings in the first place. the server latching onto the idea that tommy had been guilty in the first place was already absurd enough given the context of the green festival.

still, what pushed it over the edge was niki joining the syndicate.

going after tommy was supposed to be the Alternative to going after techno and dream, because they weren't Strong enough. it was techno and dream that'd taken their homes away, it was (in their minds) tommy that'd laid the foundations.

joining techno as an ally, in this context, is like lighting yourself on fire to spite the match.

which wouldn't have been a Problem inherently if niki's arc was about her realizing that. if she was supposed to realize that she was taking herself too far in the face of short sighted revenge and that she's have to pull back and reconcile if she wanted to be happy.

which is, Almost, her intended arc.

after tommy dies and gets revived she Does decide to settle in, she Does decide that it's time for her to be Happy. but it's with the syndicate. it's with the people directly responsible for the intensely traumatizing events that lead to her death spiral.

it wasn't with tommy or tubbo, who she had strong emotional ties to that lead back to the beginning she was longing for in the first place, and it wasn't even with jack who had ties to the same that she'd promised to join hands with in the present. it was with technoblade and phil, who stood above her home and bombed it. who took a sword and killed someone who used to be her best friend. who shot tubbo dead while she screamed that he had another choice.

and That's where the problems truly set in. not because she's irredeemable or because she can never reconcile, but because her arc is being "resolved" in a way that makes absolutely no god damn sense.

she was friends with tommy, she tried to kill him Multiple Times, she laughed when she learned that he was dead, she helped the syndicate investigate tubbo (who thinks that tommy is dead even if She doesn't believe it), she has never owned up to any of this.

she's not mad at tommy anymore, she's let that go, but she's never Talked to him. she's never owned up to trying to kill him, she's never even properly broken off her deal with Jack, who she Knows is still trying to kill tommy (or rather, that's what she Thinks. that's what jack likes to tell himself too).

so she's just been sitting here, stagnating. not able to address any of the emotional beats of her character because she's trying to find community and a new sense of purpose in the absolute wrong place for it.

was joining up with techno bad? yeah. was helping dream escape from prison even though she knows for a fact that he's a murderer whose orchestrated the downfall of her home and antagonized the people that she loved over a Favor that wasn't even Hers because she didn't want to "betray" techno even worse? Absolutely.

when you're at the point where Ranboo does more to try to put his foot down about a confrontation between two sides then you have a problem. even if ranboo was brushed off the fact is he still tried to Tell techno that he didn't think they should be helping dream.

and we have to ask where her character is supposed to go from here. she's angry at wilbur, she's never apologized to tommy, she hasn't even tried to Connect with anyone outside of the syndicate except for two conversations with jack, ranboo is a Ghost, and the person who once looked a dictator in the face and told them to Starve when she had nothing couldn't look her own ally in the face and say they shouldn't break the serial killer out of jail while she was in full netherite.

her character has Stagnated because she's in the wrong Place and there's no sign of where she'll be able to go from here.

it has to be somewhere obviously, I don't think her character is unsalvageable or anything. but this has been a long stretch of not very satisfying character growth.

Interestingly, I thought about Ladybug's power too! My idea is actually kind of similar to yours, with the whole "pure creation" idea.

For me, I thought it would be a good idea to condense "Lucky Charm", "Purification", and "Miraculous Ladybug" into one ability. Ladybug can create anything she wants, which seems OP at first glance, but in reality, the special power is limited by the user's own mind and its biases. Also thought it would be good that the 5-minute time limit also doubles as the timeframe in which she has full freedom to use her power.

Now let me break down each aspect and how it works:

"Lucky Charm" is essentially creating what you want. However, you need to have a clear, definite image of the thing you want to create (such as Mister Bug's ask for a mirror), Marinette's ideas are usually vague (think like "I need something to solve this") which is why she gets random stuff. It's TECHNICALLY something she needs, but it wasn't defined enough to make something specific.

"Purification" is basically equal to overwriting the akuma. Marinette thinks she's de-evilizing, but what she's actually doing is re-creating the akuma into what she presumed it to be initially (subconsciously), which is a butterfly.

"Miraculous Ladybug" is basically like the purification part. Marinette doesn't reverse the damage, her power responds to the idea she had, which is basically "Bring Paris back to what it used to be before" and re-creates everything back to how it used to look. Kind of like overwriting a previous document.

So basically, Marinette thinks she has 3 separate powers, but in actuality, she's just using 1 power in 3 different ways. Also, she has a limited number of uses for hers.

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Now for Cat Noir... no arguments. I actually think his Cataclysm is fine as is. No need for more than a one-time use. The only thing I would change is the function.

Rather than a one-time use, Adrien has a limited amount of power. Think of it like a reservoir, and when he uses Cataclysm, he essentially just condenses all that power into a single, devastating blow. Maybe at some point, he could learn to portion out the power into smaller, not-as-big but also powerful attacks.

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Sorry if this is a little on the longer side, but I put a lot of thought into the powers, mainly for my own AU. It's a thing I like to do. I will retcon, but if I can find a way to alter certain aspects that wouldn't contradict the original formula, I'll do that.

You’ve talked at length about Tikki and Plagg as characters in their own right as well as avatars for Creation and Desruction over multiple posts, so I’m gonna ask about your full thoughts on their weapons (yo-yo; staff) and powers (Lucky Charm, Miraculous Ladybug, De-evilization, and Magical Charms; Catyclysm).

I don't have strong thoughts on the weapons. I don't think they're really themed around Creation and Destruction, but that doesn't bother me because it makes sense for the weapon to just be a weapon and the magic powers to be what gets tied to the Kwami's Force. I will say that I think that the more powerful the magic power is, the less lethal the weapon should be. It makes sense that Destruction wouldn't have a sword when Destruction can kill you with a touch of their hand. It also make sense that Creation wouldn't give you the ability to easily destroy a life. Minor thematic elements to be sure, but good ones that I wouldn't change even if the show was allowed to have on-screen death.

Quick power rundown since I've talked about most of these before:

Lucky Charm: like the general concept, hate that it's tied to Luck and not just pure Creation. I'd change it so that Marinette has to actually come up with items, but leave the wackiness of what she comes up with as on-the-spot problem solving is just like that sometimes and it's a nice character beat

Miraculous Ladybug: Generally like this power, but I feel it's a little too OP. It doesn't just create things, it destroys them like when it removes messes. I'd personally change the power to pure creation and give Chat Noir a sister power that does the destruction half, making the miraculous reset a dual wielded ability. Maintains Ladybug being the vital "must have" power while making the two miraculous feel more balanced

De-evilization: Like the power, hate that it's Ladybug's. Cleansing is an act of Destruction, a removal of taint. This should be Chat Noir's power. Probably just an aspect of his Cataclysm

Magical Charms: I think these are weird, but Creation should be able to create anything so I guess they're fine? I personally wouldn't introduce a complication like this because it raises a lot of questions, but I think it may have been forced on the writers to sell toys so I won't nitpick too much.

Cataclysm: the one power I have no notes on. I think it's fine as-is. Destruction gets an act of pure destruction. Makes sense to me.

I know there's often complaints about the c!Syndicate and how they didn't really do a whole lot, that their existence almost felt pointless because they didn't do anything. Not even regarding how Techno's condition and then his passing severely affected this storyline, I think these complaints sorta misses the point of what the Syndicate became and why people like this group so much.

Like, yes c!Techno initially created it in the aftermath of Doomsday, a way to ensure no governments were being formed or used to hurt or corrupt others. He gathered others who shared the same beliefs. They had even gone to Snowchester to ensure that nothing suspicious was going on. And before his passing, cc!Technoblade had wanted to work on that plot involving Cyberknife, to give the Syndicate story a bit more meat. Which would've been great, yes.

But then you look, and you have all these moments of them just... they're just bonding; if not as a group, at least in sections: the streams of Technoblade and Phil connecting with Ranboo, Techno and Ranboo becoming mentor and mentee, Technoblade's birthday party. And then you hear how the Syndicate really mattered to these characters: how Niki was beginning to heal around those who made her voice feel heard, Ghostboo saying that Phil and Techno did care for and love Ranboo, Technoblade outright stating he had friends now thanks to the Syndicate.

And then there's the last Syndicate stream, which I think also sums this up well. There's no Syndicate meeting, no talks of taking down any governments. It was Philza and Niki making a cake. It was Philza panicking over hearing voices, and Niki being a physical presence for him when he seemed to be lacking one at the time. It was Kristin finding the members of the Syndicate and taking them someplace safe. The Syndicate made it to the End, alive and not necessarily okay now, but someday.

And it's just... yes, I would've loved to see more concrete stories of the Syndicate combating corrupted governments and tyrants. But just because they didn't serve their initial purpose as much as we anticipated, does not mean that this group coming together was pointless. If anything their story is a solid example of fighting against a constant narrative in the server; the cycle of power and revenge.

Cause I think about Las Nevadas. People who banded together who, for the most part, did not make deep connections or find comradery. Or even if they did, things fell apart (only Foolish really stayed with Quackity by the end of the Las Nevadas lore). All because Quackity lost himself in his quest for, well, power and revenge. Las Nevadas could've been more than Quackity's need for control and power, but it was never able to reach that point.

Then you look at the Syndicate. Where from the start of the Syndicate's creation, Techno made sure everyone in the Syndicate was equal, that no one was in control of another. Where they never sought violence, wanting to only resort to drastic actions if they believed a location was a threat to others. Where they celebrated Technoblade's birthday and took pictures and had cake and were just friends. I just think there's something a bit profound, intentional or otherwise, in how the Syndicate may have tragically been underutilized, but the group wasn't just an anarchist group. It was a group of people hurt by a nation coming together and not actively seeking any goal toward gaining power or control over others. Yes, they wanted to fight against power. But they also wanted to just... be.

Just something I think about when of the few who managed to survive the Dream SMP, the ones who managed to escape with their lives were the ones who formed this anarchist group, a group that people say didn't do much, and... yeah, they're right, but isn't that a good thing?