History DreamSMP / Tropes0ToG

* FaceYourFears: {{Invoked|Trope}} twice, {{subverted|Trope}} both times.
** It is first attempted by Quackity in Season 1, who tries to get over his fear of Technoblade by proving he's just a person and is therefore killable. After pointing out that Techno did something at Quackity's behest[[note]]placing a block[[/note]], thus making him less scary, Technoblade begins to chase him down, talking slowly about how early humans hunted by outlasting their prey and using his trident to get ahead. Quackity is once again reduced to a terrified screaming heap as he is cut down.
** Tommy also attempts this in Season 3, with help from Tubbo and Ranboo, while deliberately and directly calling the technique "exposure therapy".[[note]]Do note that Tommy thought it was the fastest way to deal with the fear/trauma, and both Tubbo and Ranboo expressed some reservations for the idea.[[/note]] In preparation for trying to kill Dream in Pandora's Vault, he revisits several places that have caused him trauma (or replicas of the places) to try to overcome it. Considering that exposure therapy only really works under a "safe" environment with a psychologist in tow, it's no wonder that it doesn't help much in the end.
* FakeDefector: Tubbo and Fundy are this after Jschlatt takes over L'Manburg. However, while Tubbo's role was coordinated with Wilbur and Tommy, Fundy's is entirely independent and a shock to even Wilbur and Tommy's side.

** As Dream gives his ultimatum to L'Manburg, he punches George and Sapnap away from the wall, something Tommy notices and calls him out for. The two can also be seen backing up further. Seconds later and it turns out that Dream wasn't trying to hurt them, he was instead trying to get them out of range of the massive explosion of TNT that soon erupts from under L'Manburg's base.
** You can just barely hear the hiss of TNT before L'Manberg is blown up by Wilbur from Quackity's POV.

* FlockOfWolves: Schlatt's cabinet in Manburg turned out to be this. Among the four people in the cabinet (excluding Schlatt), Tubbo was a [[LaResistance Pogtopian]] spy, and Fundy was an even more secretive Pogtopian spy. As for the other two people in the cabinet, George's presence in the cabinet was ''barely even relevant'' to the plot due to his tendency to not show up to the plot, and [[VicePresidentWho Quackity]] was a FriendlyEnemy whose allegiance to Schlatt fluctuated depending on the day[[note]]To clarify, he sometimes tried to rein [[TheCaligula Schlatt's behaviour]] in to help him make more reasonable decisions (since he genuinely wanted to make the country better, but to no avail every time); at other times, [[TheStarscream plotted to]] remove Schlatt from power so that he could become President instead; and occasionally acted as a devoted YesMan; but ultimately, the situation was complicated by [[DomesticAbuse Schlatt's mistreatment]] of him regardless of his allegiance at the time[[/note]] but eventually stood up for himself and left to join Pogtopia anyway. By the Manburg-Pogtopia War, out of Schlatt's four main cabinet members, three of them were fighting on Pogtopia's behalf, and George didn't even show up to the battle.

** [[SouthOfTheBorder Mexican Dream]], naturally, is quite prone to swearing in Spanish. During Tommy's Exile, when M.D. overheard Dream telling Tommy that he didn't like M.D, M.D. started going on a [[ClusterFBomb vulgar]] [[ForeignLanguageTirade tirade]] in Spanish while chasing after Dream.
** Near the end of Schlatt and Quackity's fateful argument over the destruction of the White House, Schlatt can be heard loudly calling Quackity a "''[[BilingualBonus pendejo]]''", to which Quackity responds, "Do not curse me out in-" before Schlatt interrupts him.

** During the Red Banquet, the Eggpire does this to the attendees and forces them to watch each other get executed and fed to the Egg. It only worked with Foolish, and TheCavalry showed up before they could decide on executing a second person.

** Wilbur warns Tommy early into the L'Manburg Civil War that, in a few weeks, he won't be the same man he was. At first, it just seems to be a herald for Wilbur [[LetsGetDangerous giving up his vow of peace to show Jschlatt who really rules L'Manburg]]. However, in hindsight it's so clearly an allusion to Wilbur's SanitySlippage, turning the once-pacifistic leader into someone with the ''image'' of a MadBomber who Tommy must either bring back from the brink of a FaceHeelTurn or wage war against.

** Right after Schlatt dies, Dream mentions how he was lying about a traitor. Wilbur slips up and says "I thought ''I'' was the..." before he quiets himself. He would then blow up L'Manberg.
** Techno's post-FaceHeelTurn speech has him compare Tommy to Theseus, a hero who was scorned and exiled by his people despite saving them from evil, and asks Tommy if it's worth fighting for L'Manburg if they're just going to one day betray him. Not even two weeks later and Tommy is put on trial for griefing George's house by his own people (though he admittedly ''did'' commit the crime) -- and Dream is there, trying to goad L'Manburg ''into exiling him''. {{Subverted|Trope}} however, as Tommy gets a much lighter punishment (two weeks of probation) than what Dream wanted... only for [[DoubleSubversion Tubbo to exile him anyway a few days later as Dream increased his pressure on L'Manburg.]]
** In the conversation with Eret on November 16th, Dream says that Eret is only king because he's got people protecting him, and that without that protection from himself, Punz and Sapnap, his position means nothing and he's essentially powerless. Dream seems to have forgotten that by the time the Final Disc War rolls around, because by this time, he'd purposefully pushed his friends away, thinking his attachments were making him weak, leaving him completely defenseless when Punz rallies half the server together to stop him.
* FourIsDeath: In the ''Las Nevadas'' series, the 4th official episode (released on 27 November 2021) is the first episode to feature a canon death, and Chapter 4 of the finale (released 10 September 2022) is titled "Death" and takes place in the Afterlife.

** Fundy and CPK are both FoxFolk, with the former's Minecraft skin being an anthropomorphic ''Minecraft'' fox while the latter's is more stylized. Fundy has also interacted with the in-game foxes, [[SpeaksFluentAnimal being able to understand them]] and [[ApeShallNeverKillApe refusing to kill them on principle]], and has even had "pet foxes" on occasion--though he amends that Yogurt (an Arctic fox) was his adopted child after Tubbo [[LampshadeHanging points this out]]. It is unknown how CPK interacts with the in-game foxes.

** The drift in historical understanding actually starts in the very generation of the Dream SMP canon, most notably with the Buttons in Pogtopia. Eret has made a valiant effort to try to preserve the history of the server, but wasn't in Pogtopia as of the time of the Rebellion and assumed the buttons were placed by a spiralling Wilbur. By the time Seapeekay is given a tour of the server, Ponk tells him not to press any of the buttons in Pogtopia because one of them could trigger the TNT hidden in the double-ravine.[[note]]Contrary to Ponk's interpretation, the Button to set off the TNT was placed under (L')Manburg, which is a crater in the ground by that point, and is located under the L'Manburg podium/stage and nowhere near Pogtopia.[[/note]] The truth is ''very far'' from all of that--[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbJzquOJBDM&t=568s they were placed by Fundy as a prank.]]

** Potions in Minecraft were treated as if they were drugs by some characters (such as Tommy, Wilbur, and Tubbo). Tommy and Wilbur even intended to create a "drug" empire that sells these potions before the War for L'Manburg. By the time the War for Independence rolled around, though, the "potions as drugs" interpretation was mostly dropped, as the goal of the budding faction shifted from selling "drugs" to providing a safe space from violence and tyranny.
** String is placed on the world in the form of tripwire. and then "inhaled" by breaking it.

** After [[NearVillainVictory everything that has happened]], [[SpannerInTheWorks Quackity]] recruiting [[EnemyMine Techno]] and [[OnlyInItForTheMoney Purpled]] to crash the Banquet and [[BigDamnHeroes take on the Eggpire]] ends up being the LastPlanStanding, a plan ''completely'' independent of the attendees' pre-established gambits, and the Eggpire ends up abandoning the Egg and fleeing, with Antfrost losing a canon life in the scuffle courtesy of MamaBear Puffy.

* GodIsEvil: {{Downplayed|Trope}}:
** [=DreamXD=] is the TopGod (as far as we know) of the Dream SMP universe and [[PoweredByAForsakenChild draws his power from death]], so he actively encourages the [[CrapsackWorld wars and deaths and all-round shitty conditions on the server]] so as to stay powerful. For example, as ''Tales From the SMP'' reveals, he grants time-travelling powers to certain people, but ItSucksToBeTheChosenOne as their memory deteriorates the more their powers activate (they can't control to when and where they travel) until they undergo LossOfIdentity, then XD has them ''[[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness killed]]'' after that point. He does PetTheDog on occasion, making him a ''bit'' of a {{downplayed|Trope}} example, but not by much.
* GogglesDoNothing: In the world of the Dream SMP, about a hundred years from the current events on the server, many people will be wearing goggles. This is seen prominently in the ''Tales'' episodes "The Lost City of Mizu" and "The Pit", where about half of the named characters in the episodes wear goggles, though for reasons not divulged.
* TheGoldenRule: Discussed by Tommy in a conversation with Foolish.

* GracefulLoser: Fundy and Niki took getting 9% of the popular vote in the L'Manberg Elections in their stride and cheered at knowing about 20,000 people voting for them. Just after them, Wilbur also peacefully ceded the podium to Schlatt after announcing that the [=SchWAG2020=] coalition beat out his own party, [=POG2020=], by 1% of the popular vote.

** On 14 September 2021, Techno manages to escape from [[TheAlcatraz Pandora's Vault]] using the Ender Pearl Stasis Chamber in the headquarters of the Syndicate, with some assistance from Philza. It's been indicated that this escape could have taken place much earlier in the plot, but Phil's [[TimeAbyss skewed sense of time]] most likely got in the way.

* GreyAndGrayMorality: Most of the characters on the server are both right and wrong to some degree (though it crosses over with MoralityKitchenSink over how a couple of characters are practically morally black), which is lampshaded in a conversation between Tommy and Foolish.

'''Tommy:''' That really depends who you ask, doesn't it? You know? If you ask Dream, he'd say I'm his little- his little play- his little toy that he plays with, you know? It doesn't... ''({{Beat}})'' Foolish, honestly, I used to consider myself the good guy, the fucking second-in-command, going around and going "Yeah! Let's do this". But recently, these past- these past like six months or so, Foolish, everything got so much harder than it was before. Because before it was us fighting the bad guys, and it was all so clear.\\

'''Tommy:''' It was all so clear. But it's not been clear for so long, alright? It wasn't [[BlackAndWhiteMorality "These are the bad guys, these are the good guys"]]. Now it's "He's doing this, and that makes him a bit worse". It's all so fucking complicated. So, I don't know. It depends who you ask, but...\\

* EvilVersusEvil: Dream states in Season 4 that he sees the server as this as he thinks that just about everyone on the server has done terrible things and openly sees himself as a bad person (not that he thinks there's anything wrong with that), but considering the facts that 1) not all crimes are equal, 2) some people have perfectly or at least relatively sympathetic reasons for doing bad things, and 3) several characters have recognized that their previous actions were bad and were actively [[TheAtoner working towards a redemption arc]], the Dream SMP [[SubvertedTrope actually]] leans closer towards either GreyAndGrayMorality, BlackAndGreyMorality, or MoralityKitchenSink than this trope. Also, considering the one voicing this opinion is ''Dream'', the resident child abuser and serial killer who did so to satisfy his own ControlFreak nature and/or for his own amusement, we should probably take this viewpoint [[UnreliableNarrator with all the salt in the shaker]].

%%Need rework/indentation fix * TheExile: Happened multiple times over the course of the server's history, with the two major ones as of recent history being Tommy being exiled from L'Manburg by Tubbo (followed by the rest of Dream SMP by Dream himself), with Ghostbur joining to keep company, as well as Technoblade and Philza living off in self imposed exile at cottage in snowfall, due to the former wishing to live in peace, and the latter lost with purpose after his son's death.
%%** Pogtopia technically also counts as exile for Wilbur and Tommy, who had their citizenships revoked and been kicked out of L'Manburg after Schlatt became President, as well as all the former L'Manburgians/Manburgians who choose to join them there.

** Wilbur the content creator's [[TieInNovel tie-in short story]] ''The Wilbur Van'' (better known as ''Hitting on 16'') claims to take place in an individual timeline, but is treated as canonical to Wilbur the character and his character arc (and thus full-canon by fans), and explores several details about the Dream SMP universe (e.g. it operates closely to real life and not necessarily Minecraft) and the Las Nevadas faction in particular.

[[folder:F - G]]

[-'''0-G''' ([[FamousLastWords/DreamSMP Famous Last Words]] | [[Foil/DreamSMP Foil]]) | [[DreamSMP/TropesHToQ H-Q]] ([[OneSteveLimit/DreamSMP One Steve Limit]]) | [[DreamSMP/TropesRToZ R-Z]] ([[WhamEpisode/DreamSMP Wham Episode]] | [[WhamLine/DreamSMP Wham Line]])-]]]]]

[[folder:# - A]]

** Quackity planned to revive Schlatt to use him as a political puppet after the latter's funeral, but this was never brought up again ever. This is later [[SubvertedTrope subverted]] during Quackity's March 16, 2021 stream, where he meets Schlatt's ghost in the latter's underground gym and makes a deal to revive him if he loses a bet, which is implied to be what happens next.
** In the days leading up to the Manburg-Pogtopia War, Karl and Sapnap discussed to have their wedding after the war. Once the war was over, the two included Quackity into the relationship and settled to marry once they fixed up L'Manburg. However, the arc was seemingly aborted as the server was thrown into a whirlwind of war and politics for the rest of the season... then Quackity revived the arc by planning to marry them in Las Nevadas, only for it to be immediately destroyed when George [[ThoughtTheyKnewAlready broke the news]] that they had moved to Kinoko Kingdom. Oh, and the "Las Nevadas" finale includes Karl and Quackity going through a SecondActBreakup as a result of said miscommunication as well as their respective problems (the former regarding his deteriorating memory, the latter presumably due to relationship trauma). In other words, the marriage is indefinitely postponed because of miscommunication and mental health issues, and fans of the Fiancés just keep taking Ls.

* AbsurdlyYouthfulFather: PlayedForLaughs. According to the SMP crew, Wilbur is Fundy's biological father [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext by a salmon woman]]. Going by their IRL ages, Wilbur would have barely been ''three'' when Fundy was born. This is somewhat [[SubvertedTrope subverted]] later when out of character, Wilbur explained that his character was (allegedly) in his 30s (now 40s) throughout the roleplay, and the fact that Phil (Wilbur's father) is semi-immortal and could have possibly passed on genes related to longevity to Wilbur [[VagueAge doesn't help either]].

-->'''Tommy:''' Wet Ass-Wet Ass- what?\\

'''Tommy:''' No, no no- It stands for "Worship And Prayer" I've been told!\\

'''Tommy:''' ''(reads the lyrics of Cardi B's WAP)'' Oh! [[ThinkOfTheCensors I can't read that out loud!]]\\

'''Schlatt:''' Tommy, I know that was a lot to take into at once, I'm-\\
'''Tommy:''' This don't mean anything to me anymore- they don't mean anything!\\
'''Schlatt:''' Well, you just found diamonds[[note]]Tommy was mining for diamonds[[/note]] in the end-\\

'''Tommy:''' You've just ruined my day! You know what- my head's just thoroughly shrunk!

* AlienKudzu: [=BadBoyHalo=] finds a red egg-shaped organism inside his statue room that grows red tendrils and vines. Said tendrils/vines are later found growing from several locations, including Hutt's Pizza, Skeppy's Mansion, the Power Tower, and Schlatt's Grave. The organism has shown the capability to [[{{Brainwashed}} affect the minds of some of the players]], having them praise it and turn against anyone that attempts to destroy it.

** Tommy and Tubbo's push to defend L'Manburg is this ''in spades''. Despite managing to rally the rest of the server against the efforts of Dream and Technoblade for the Doomsday War, even managing to gain Sapnap's allegiance due to Tommy retrieving Mars from the ocean, their efforts were in vain due to various reasons. Not only did the alliance manage to circumvent most of the enemy's resistance due to [[MundaneSolution starting 30 minutes early]], but [[TheMole Punz]] had also relayed any intel the defence force had anyway. If that wasn't enough, Fundy, Nihachu and Ranboo all expressed their disdain for L'Manburg's existence driving their friends apart, and ended up ''contributing to the destruction'', with Fundy sabatoging L'Manburg's armaments, Ranboo remaining neutral and Nihachu burning L'Mantree herself once the rest of the land had been blown up beyond repair.

--->'''Tommy:''' I felt like I was- like I was shredded to ''dust.'' [...] It felt like I was put through a shredder, but there was no blood, there was no flesh, it was just ''essence''. Like a ''powder,'' and I was put through it, and then I came out, and I was in a... a long- a long- a ''hall'', a- a- t-tunnel of black and void and- not even black, just colorless!\\
'''Dream:''' I tried to give you- I tried to give you time, I wanted to- I wanted to ask you questions-\\
'''Tommy:''' ''(gasping, sobbing)'' YOU GAVE ME ''SO MUCH'' TIME! I was in there- You left me- How long- Where's Tubbo?! How- I was in there for MONTHS!

* AnotherDimension: The Nether, as is usual for Minecraft. There's also The Inbetween, a white castle floating in a void that exists outside of time, and its counterpart, the Other Side, which allow time travelers like Karl to rest and recuperate.

** This happens during the final Pet War, with Tommy and Sapnap holding a duel eerily reminiscent of the one that occurred during the first Dream SMP Civil War. With a huge crowd anticipating the chance to be featured in an animation of this duel, Tommy and Sapnap don their iron armor... and then Sapnap kills Tommy in a couple of hits. Needless to say, at least a good portion of the players (and the audience) were disappointed.
** {{Subverted|Trope}} and PlayedForDrama with Jschlatt's downfall. He anticlimactically drinks himself to a fatal heart attack after being cornered by Pogtopia, but the sheer HateSink for this man and the tremendous amount of build-up make it a fulfilling yet haunting death for him. That's not getting into the fact that it was foreshadowed from the beginning by Fundy's spy diary, which revealed that Jschlatt had an alcohol addiction that was likely to kill him should it continue.

* ArmorPiercingQuestion: During a conversation between Tommy and Quackity in Las Nevadas, Quackity brings up Wilbur excluding him from L'Manberg in the past to justify Quackity excluding him from Las Nevadas in the present. Tommy disagrees, saying that two wrongs don't make a right, and Quackity asks what Tommy would do if Dream asked to join Tommy's base. Tommy says he wouldn't let him in, because Dream hasn't changed. Quackity then asks him "How has Wilbur changed?" ...and Tommy falls silent.

** [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] during the Disc War finale. [[NearVillainVictory Dream was]] ''[[NearVillainVictory extremely]]'' [[NearVillainVictory close to winning]], having put Tommy and Tubbo in a tight spot. If it weren't for [[BigDamnHeroes Punz and a good chunk of the server arriving in the nick of time]], Tubbo would've been executed and Tommy imprisoned. (This is [[DoubleSubverted undercut]] by the later revelation that the Disc War finale was "staged", however.)

* BallroomBlitz: The Red Banquet eventually turns into one, as the Banquet itself was initially a guise to [[LuredIntoATrap lure several vocally anti-Eggpire server members into a trap]] to kill them and feed their life forces to the Egg... then [[BigDamnHeroes Quackity, Technoblade, his hound army, and Purpled]] show up.

** Several highly climatic and emotional scenes on the SMP have taken place near some fairly vulgar structures, including and not limited to a floating sign that said the word "CRY"[[note]]It was first built by Tommy during the Election Arc to read "[=POG2020=]", but it got vandalized by the party's political opponents to read "[=ASS2020=]", then Eret changes it to "POGTOPIA" to show their support for LaResistance, and finally Quackity gets rid of it on Schlatt's orders and rebuilds it to read "CRY" as a nod to the Manburg motto of telling people to "Cry about it". The floating sign has since been blown up by Tommy on his 17th birthday stream[[/note]], another floating sign that said "YOU 💔 LITTLE PENIS"[[note]]It used to say "I ❤️ ANDREA", but it got griefed several times over the months--first by Sapnap to read "I ❤️ PENIS" with his Fiancés, then by (possibly?) Tommy to read "Big T ❤️'s PENIS", and ''then'' by Quackity to read "BIG T ❤️'s LITTLE PENIS", and more afterward[[/note]], and multiple penis statues.

** During the Red Banquet, Quackity brings in [[EnemyMine Technoblade]] and his hound army and [[OnlyInItForTheMoney Purpled]] to save the attendees from being fed to the Egg.

** Niki and Tommy shout one when Dream defies Sapnap by referring to L'Manburg by its original name.

** The L'Manburg Civil War ends on one as well. Even with Pogtopia managing to reclaim L'Manburg for themselves and killing off Jschlatt, Wilbur had managed to detonate the TNT under Manburg before dying from assisted suicide. Though Tubbo and Tommy vow to rebuild, it's not going to be an easy road, with [[BombThrowingAnarchist Technoblade]] having betrayed them and [[KarmaHoudini Dream]] expected to be returning to his role as BigBad.

** Whether Dream is a WellIntentionedExtremist or [[NotSoWellIntentionedExtremist not]] is heavily disputed in the fandom, but it is known that he has terrorism and global conquest on his record[[note]]Though, to be fair, he did ''legally'' own all of it for a while, albeit in a DivineRightOfKings sort of way[[/note]] and the ultimate goal of reuniting the server into "one big family" ([[TokenEvilTeammate and he has been known to do good]] [[PragmaticVillainy if it benefits him]])... through copious amounts of manipulation and destruction, and in one case in particular, child abuse.
** Though he starts as a genuinely good guy ([[NoodleIncident discounting his attempt at flooding the SMP with "drugs"]]), come the L'Manburg Civil War, Wilbur can be seen as a bit of a ManipulativeBastard, having no qualms about getting [[ChildSoldiers Tommy and Tubbo]] involved in an all-out war that causes both of them physical and mental trauma (in his defense, Dream was the one to declare war and Wilbur had no intention to fight outside of self-defense), manipulating elections for his own benefit, as well as being inspired by Dream's terrorism to try and nuke ''an entire country'' just to ensure [[IfICantHaveYou nobody else can have it]] ([[SubvertedTrope or so he claims]]). There's also the question of how much of his MadBomber tendencies are due to SanitySlippage, as opposed to a genuine turn to extremism -- Quackity's April 12th lore stream implies the two factors go hand in hand with each other, and it's confirmed that [[ShellShockedVeteran Wilbur's]] [[CynicismCatalyst trauma]] has a lot to do with it as well--to be more accurate, he originally intended to use it to go out with a bang, [[DrivenToSuicide in the most literal sense possible]].
** The Badlands faction was created by some of the kindest people on the SMP, [=BadBoyHalo=], Antfrost, and Awesamdude, in response to Schlatt's tyranny and Wilbur's mental spiral. On the surface, they seem innocent enough, however, this belies their true nature as opportunistic aspiring conquerors who seek to instill chaos among the SMP to claim the area around the SMP all for themselves. During the war, they initially fought alongside the Pogtopians but they later stood by Dream and Technoblade in an attempt to keep the conflict going.

%%** Jschlatt is Dream (in Season 1) taken up to eleven. He's a full-on fascist dictator [[WouldHurtAChild who ordered the execution of a minor]], a {{Domestic Abuse}}r, and a JerkWithAHeartOfJerk to the point of managing to piss off everyone who was just listed above with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

* BrickJoke: The Cuck Shed (based on the [[CallBack structure of the same name from SMPLive]]) that Jschlatt built back during his first visit, kills Ninja almost two months later.

** To protest against the changes Schlatt made in L'Manburg, Fundy burned down Nihachu's Manburg flag.

* BuryYourGays: Hilariously {{inverted|Trope}}, as almost all characters who have been in a relationship with someone of the "opposite" (for lack of a better word) gender, or are otherwise straight, have died at some point... with the ''one'' exception being Philza Minecraft, and that might be because he's ''married to Death herself''.[[note]]That's not to say that the [[CastFullOfGay rest of the cast]] has it much better, considering the Dream SMP is a CrapsackWorld, but at least most of them are still ''alive''.[[/note]]
** Exhibit A: Wilbur Soot and... uh, Sally the Salmon. The latter is Fundy's MissingMom, and is most likely dead. Wilbur loses his last canon life at the end of Season 1. He comes back to life in Season 3 and resumes his homoerotic rivalry with Quackity.

* ButterflyOfDoom: [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]]. When Ranboo talks to Sam after Tommy's death, he insists that if he had talked Tommy out of griefing George's house, [[DisasterDominoes things might've turned out differently]] and Tommy not have died. Sam says that might not necessarily be the case, and that Dream might've found another reason to exile him anyways, [[InSpiteOfANail leading to the same result]], and urges Ranboo to not blame himself for Tommy's death. This is not far from the truth; Dream was going around griefing builds with Puffy and [[FrameUp blaming Tommy for it]] weeks before Tommy and Ranboo griefed George's house.

** WebVideo/MinecraftChampionship is implied to be canon to Dream SMP several times. Notably, Seapeekay's character is a DimensionalTraveler, confirming MCC is canon to Dream SMP by traveling between them. This also opens up a rabbit hole of other potential servers that can be welded to Dream SMP.

* CastFullOfRichPeople: "The Masquerade" episode of ''Tales from the SMP'' revolves around several very wealthy individuals being invited to a masquerade party and [[TenLittleMurderVictims the shenanigans that ensued]]. The only characters in the episode who weren't rich was a [[NakedPeopleAreFunny nudist]] named Drew P. Wiener who ended up at the wrong place and the nameless Butler.

** For the Disc War specifically: Having attachments can cause conflicts, but it ''is'' ultimately worth it, and ''not'' having attachment to anything is ''worse''.
%%*** A similar one applies for more arcs on the SMP[[labelnote:*]]The Disc War and the related Tommy VS Dream arc, Quackity's Las Nevadas arc in Season 3, etc.[[/labelnote]]: LoveHurts, but not loving hurts even more, so choosing to love even in a world that scorns love is the right thing to do after all.

* CerebusCallback: There's one to Minecraft Mondays, of all things. Techno instilling utter fear in the competitors as he dominated the event was seen as both a funny moment (in terms of the competitors' [[OhCrap reactions to his sheer skill]]) and an awesome moment as Techno came out of literally nowhere in a field of much-more-popular influencers and established himself as easily the strongest competitor in the event. As one of Quackity's streams reveals, however, he's got PTSD from Minecraft Mondays for this exact reason and was utterly ''[[WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes terrified]]'' of Techno (of course, Techno's non-canonical murder of him during the Manburg Festival Massacre probably didn't help). This also becomes [[ItsPersonal one of his motivations]] for hunting down Techno as the driving force behind the Butcher Army.
* CerebusSyndrome: The L'Manburg and Election Arcs, while they had their serious moments, were mostly lighthearted, with characters goofing off constantly. However, things started to take a darker turn during the Pogtopia arc, what with Wilbur's SanitySlippage, and after the Manburg-Pogtopia War, the series became ''much'' darker and more plot-heavy. Plot points that were PlayedForLaughs in earlier arcs were now played horribly straight, and the next few arcs included a realistic portrayal of {{gaslighting}} and psychological abuse, the attempted suicide of a ''minor'', several characters reaching their DespairEventHorizon and lashing out horribly, Ranboo having several long, intense, and realistic panic attacks on-screen, and so much GreyAndGrayMorality that not even the fans can decide who the true heroes are anymore.
* ChekhovsBoomerang: Jschlatt's book on resurrection. In Season 1, it's used to convince Dream to betray Pogtopia. It comes back at the end of Season 2, where Dream leverages his possession of the book to convince Tommy to spare him. And it returns ''thrice'' more in Season 3, where an argument over the book's existence pushes Dream to do the one thing he said he didn't want to do--[[TheHeroDies murder Tommy]]. And then a few days later, Dream proves its existence by [[BackFromTheDead bringing Tommy back to life]].[[note]]This turns out to be a lie, as it's later revealed in Season 4 that Dream previously tested the revive book on Vikkstar and [=LazarBeam=] by putting them through a ResurrectionDeathLoop before he went to jail, though this still links the revive book with [[BusCrash the two's]] [[ChuckCunninghamSyndrome disappearance from the server]].[[/note]] Eventually, Quackity learns of this and spends the following months trying to torture the contents of the book out of Dream. ''Then'' Dream brings Wilbur back to life, effectively killing Ghostbur, using the book. And months after that, Purpled builds a trap to demand Quackity the contents of the book while performing his revenge plan against him, and murders Slimecicle in response to Quackity stating he didn't have the book and wouldn't give it to him even if he did have it.

** When brainstorming names for their new nation, Wilbur and Tommy come up with "Manburg" before deciding that it sounds too American, adding a French "L" to make it "L'Manburg" to sound more European. When Jschlatt takes over, he changes the name to Manburg, stating that his country "doesn't take L's" (L being the first letter for the words loss, loser, and such).

** A few days before the meeting with Schlatt, Fundy covered all of Pogtopia in buttons as a prank. Aside from being the Minecraft-equivalent of a glitter-bomb, this was completely harmless. However, during the meeting, Schlatt reveals that he found the TNT planted under Manburg, and used it to ''rig Pogtopia with TNT''. Cue a frantic scramble to remove the buttons before one of them sets off the TNT, ''and'' to restrain Wilbur, who ''keeps pressing random buttons'', hoping one of them would set the TNT off.

** '''''[[BigRedButton The button.]]''''' It's linked to a monumental amount of TNT surrounding Manburg that will [[StuffBlowingUp explode]] once it's pressed, which Wilbur set up as part of his SanitySlippage. Wilbur even [[DiscussedTrope discusses]] the trope with Tommy and Quackity as he fights to press it. As soon as everyone forgets about it, Wilbur detonates it.

** The Dream Team (plus Punz) comes into conflict with a faction seeking independence from the main server known as L'Manburg consisting of [=WilburSoot=], [=TommyInnit=], Tubbo, Fundy, and [=TheEret=]. The latter eventually defected to the Dream Team, betraying L'Manburg in exchange for being promoted to a king within the Dream Team lands. The war ends with the Dream Team winning the main conflict, but Dream granting L'Manburg independence anyways in exchange for two music discs owned by Tommy (a major source of conflict between him and Dream).

* CombatPragmatist: Dream, Techno, and Phil give L'Manburg 24 hours to prepare for war. Except they used an ancient technique called lying, and they in truth planned to attack L'Manburg 30 minutes early (which, considering the weapons of mass destruction they have, is a ''significant'' amount of time). By the time L'Manburg is made aware of their foes' deceit, half of L'Manburg is 50 blocks deep and Withers are swarming the area.

* ConfusingMultipleNegatives: Quackity attempts to [[InvokedTrope invoke]] this in "The Official Manburg Hotel Building Permit", trying to trick Schlatt into [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext paying child support]] on top of scamming him out of his presidency. Schlatt, being a savvy businessman, [[GenreSavvy notices this]] and [[LampshadeHanging calls him out on it]], claiming that it was a predatory way of writing a contract.
* ContinuityDrift: Because the story of the Dream SMP is very much written with the philosophy of "make it up as you go along", the continuity is ''extremely'' hard to follow. How old characters are, how much time has elapsed between major events and which events are canon are continuously up for debate and/or [[{{Retcon}} retconned from the lore]], and fans are in agreement to just not worry about it too much.

* CourtroomEpisode: Tommy was put on trial for griefing George's house. While Dream insisted he should be exiled from L'Manburg, in the end he only got two weeks of probation.
* CrapsackWorld: The SMP has evolved to become this, with every other character being put through {{Trauma Conga Line}}s with [[WarIsHell wars]], politics, [[DemonicPossession possessions]], and everything in between happening on the server. BreakTheCutie is a common occurrence, GreyAndGrayMorality is the norm, MightMakesRight is the default setting and those who try to prove otherwise (case in point, L'Manburg) have been [[NukeEm inevitably crushed]] for the most part, [[HarmfulToMinors teenagers]] are [[ChildSoldiers brought into warfare]] in most of the server's conflicts, violence is used to solve problems more often than not, and YankTheDogsChain has applied to characters who have tried to make it into AWorldHalfFull more than once. The server is also ''rife'' with crime, with [[GottaHaveItGonnaStealIt petty theft]] being practically a weekly, if not everyday occurrence, and the list is topped with the Geneva Convention being breached on at least a monthly basis. Oh, and to the numerous members [[TraumaButton with PTSD]] from their experiences on the SMP, ThereAreNoTherapists, or at least any qualified ones, and [[TheShrink the only person who has actively tried to act as a therapist]] has had plenty of trauma of her own.
* CruelAndUnusualDeath: Several of the canon deaths can classify as this. Even though everything takes place in Minecraft, there are [[ImpliedTrope heavy implications]] that the results are similar to what would have happened in real life.[[note]]This is supported by Wilbur's short story ''The Wilbur Van'', which confirms that the Dream SMP acts more like real life than Minecraft in-universe, e.g. the existence of items and animals present in real life but not Minecraft.[[/note]]
* CrystalDragonJesus: Church Prime is a major religion on the server based around Twitch Prime, with the Terms of Service being the holy scripture of the religion, and features many Christian elements like the concept of the Holy Trinity.

** The Anarchists blitzkrieged L'Manburg thirty minutes before when their opponents expected, with Techno bringing an army of [[ZergRush hundreds of wolves]] and Dream having enough TNT to destroy the entire server ten times over. The Anarchists suffer absolutely no losses whatsoever (unless you count a good chunk of Techno's hounds) as L'Manburg was erased off the face of the server.

[[folder:D - E]]

* DarkerAndEdgier: Ongoing war, constant threats of betrayal, the public execution of a minor immediately followed by a mass shooting, terrorism, politics, fascism, anarchy, emotional manipulation, abuse (both physical and psychological), depression, attempted suicide, an ''actual'' [[SuicideByCop assisted suicide]], supernatural horror, torture, and a whole lot of BlackAndGreyMorality thrown into the mix. Compared to the usual comedy commonly associated with these content creators, the plotlines of the server is something you'd expect from a straight-up dystopian film, not a Minecraft roleplay.

** The first half of the L'Manburg Civil War. Though Wilbur and Tommy gain core allies in [[TheDreaded Technoblade]] and [[HeelFaceTurn Dream]], they fail to make any notable progress towards regaining L'Manburg even with Tubbo and Fundy as double agents. They also ''lose'' allies, as George betrays Dream to side with Jschlatt and Sapnap breaks off as a WildCard aiming to defeat everyone else and claim power for himself -- not to mention Technoblade's loyalty is currently in question. Of their two supporters within L'Manburg, Niki is repeatedly silenced by Jschlatt for her rebellious nature while Eret fails to earn their trust due to his earlier betrayal. The first half ends with Jschlatt attempting to curry favor within L'Manburg to nullify the one advantage Pogtopia has over him (his ZeroPercentApprovalRating), which leads to Wilbur undergoing a SanitySlippage that culminates in him deciding to nuke L'Manburg. Dream then sides with Wilbur, revealing that his HeelFaceTurn is motivated only by power, leaving Tommy and Tubbo to contemplate who their allies really are, and if Wilbur can be turned back from his path of darkness before he follows through with his plans to leave a massive crater where L'Manburg once was.
** The end of L'Manburg's meeting with Dream. The obsidian box surrounding L'Manburg only gets taller, the one bargaining chip Tommy had against Dream (Spirit's remains) are revealed to be of no value to Dream, and Tubbo begins to seriously consider exiling Tommy as Dream forces L'Manburg's hand.

* ADayInTheLimelight: The Egg subplot allows for characters who were not intrinsically tied into the main plot regarding Tommy's ongoing war with Dream (or are otherwise big names such as Technoblade and Philza) to be central characters. Case in point, [=BadBoyHalo=] and Antfrost are the central antagonists with the heroes being mostly comprised of Puffy, Sam, Foolish, and the like.

* DecidedByOneVote: {{Downplayed|Trope}}. Combining their votes, [=SWAG2020=] (30%) and [=Schlatt2020=] (16%) won the L'Manburg election, beating out [=POG2020=] (45%) by 1% of the votes, which totaled at around 200,000 legitimate votes in the entire election. Although the election was technically decided by about 2000 votes, it was still extremely close in terms of percentages.

* TheDictatorship: Manburg under the Schlatt administration classifies under the Personalist Dictatorship variety (while having shades of being TheEmpire), due to Schlatt's own tendency to centralize all power onto himself. He mistreats the country's citizens, from taxing Niki for her [[DefiantStoneThrow rebellion against his rule]] (to the point she went broke) to being a BadBoss to his own cabinet). As a result of this, it's not surprising that by the time the Manburg-Pogtopia War rolled around, most of the server wanted Schlatt dead.
* DisasterDominoes:

* DiscOneFinalBoss: Jschlatt ends up as this for the L'Manburg Civil War's final battle. He's taken out about halfway through the war by a heart attack. The rest of the battle deals with three major plot threads:

** During Mexican Dream's visit to Tommy, the former replaced the floor on a newly-built and unfinished house with yellow concrete and terracotta whilst treating it as if the floor was being pissed on.

** The L'Manburg election ends in this. Thanks to some last-minute deals, Jschlatt wins the election and rules with an iron fist, declaring his intent to conquer more land and immediately putting a bounty on Wilbur and Tommy, forcing them to flee. Jschlatt then forces Tubbo into his employ, and while Wilbur and Tommy eventually make him a spy, it's clear that simply being around [[KickTheDog Jschlatt]] is taxing on Tubbo's health.

** The end of Volume 1 sees Tommy spend his final moments ''apologizing'' to Dream for all the abuse the latter put the former through. This is all while Jack had rerouted the nukes meant to land on the prison to target Tommy's house in an attempt to kill him, leading to him and Tubbo getting themselves trapped in the prison and subsequently killed in an attempt to save Tommy as the nukes fall onto it. Besides them, everyone else on the server has either been killed, left the SMP, has their story conclude with them being in a worse position than when they joined, didn't have a conclusion to their story, or some mix of the four, with the only exceptions being Philza, Niki, and Connor, who escaped the server by travelling to the End before the nukes were launched. Even if any of the characters that had not left the region still had one live left, it wouldn't have mattered as [[NukeEm Project Early Dawn]] would've taken it away. In the end, [[RocksFallEveryoneDies very few characters had their story end on a good note]].

** After failing to execute Technoblade and resolving to target Dream instead, Tubbo finally decides to visit Tommy in Logstedshire only to find the place in ruins, no sign of Tommy, and a massive tower. Tubbo is horrified as he pieces everything to together and comes to the conclusion that Tommy [[DrivenToSuicide couldn't handle exile any longer,]] unaware that Tommy backed out at the last second and ran away to Technoblade's house.
** After struggling to remain in contact with the other members of El Rapids, when Quackity hears from George that they had all left to go establish Kinoko Kingdom at Karl's behest, he assumes they had intentionally left him behind since [[PoorCommunicationKills no one had informed him about the move]]... only that Karl was supposed to tell Quackity but failed to do so. This is thanks to his worsening memory loss that only Karl is aware of, due to it being tied to his time travelling capabilities, not to mention his powers being the reason for the move in the first place, as Karl was advised to move his library away from the main SMP by the Inbetween. A chance to clear up the misconceptions arose when Quackity crashed the Red Banquet Sapnap was invited to, only that Sapnap didn't show up for unknown reasons.

** Before the Butcher Army could pull the lever on Technoblade's execution, Punz started throwing snowballs at the L'Manburgians out of nowhere before swooping over to them with his trident, and once there, he started placing TNT to bait them into fighting him. Unbeknownst to the Army, this was all to distract them while [[RightUnderTheirNoses Dream frees Technoblade's horse,]] Carl, giving the warrior a means of escape.
** Techno does this during the Doomsday War. As the Anarchists' best fighter, he draws L'Manburg's attention so that his other compatriots can set up their role in L'Manburg's destruction (Phil by spawning waves of Withers, Dream by setting up a TNT device).

** Throughout Tommy's Exile in Season 2, his mental health took a huge hit and he considered ending himself several times, even engaging in highly [[TooUnhappyToBeHungry self-destructive]] [[SelfHarm behaviours]]. The most notable instance of this occurs at the end of the Exile Arc--after Dream blew up Logstedshire and barred Tommy from going into the Nether or having any visitors, Tommy built a tower hundreds of blocks into the sky, with the clear intention of jumping to his death. He ultimately [[MidSuicideRegret didn't go through with it]] after realizing what [[ManipulativeBastard Dream]] had been doing to him, but came ''very'' close.

* ElectionDayEpisode: The L'Manburg Election arc, sparked by Wilbur leaking his election plans to other members like Quackity and Fundy. It ends with Schlatt becoming president of L'Manburg, renaming the country and kicking Wilbur and Tommy out of it. [[DisasterDominoes Then everything goes downhill from there.]]

** Happens twice during the Manburg-Pogtopia War. Just before the first battle between the L'Manburg forces and the combined Pogtopia and Dream SMP, the time abruptly changes from sunset to sunrise. It happens again after Technoblade summons two withers, this time changing from night to midday.

** After the Doomsday War, the weather changes from sunset to a thunderstorm as the former members of L'Manberg grieve over their their loss.

** A mixture between this and CueTheSun occurs when Wilbur is found BackFromTheDead near the ruins of L'Manburg at dawn, and soon after, he watches the sunrise with Tommy. This becomes {{zigzagged}} because Wilbur is ''ecstatic'' by his revival, but Tommy seems to be conflicted by the situation.

* ArtShift: While most of the Dream SMP takes place on a Minecraft server (excluding content creators' facecam), there have been a couple of media-related shifts throughout the series.
** There have been a few scenes that take place entirely in live-action, including TheStinger of Quackity's 1st and 4th ''Las Nevadas'' streams (the former showing his plan to torture Dream until he gets the revive-book, and the latter being a merchandise advertisement) and the first Stinger of Wilbur's lore finale (of him returning to Utah).
** The second Stinger of Wilbur's lore finale is [[https://twitter.com/scivious_/status/1566175566432292864 an animation by Twitter user scivious_]], depicting [[TogetherInDeath friend the sheep being dropped off to Ghostbur]] via the AfterlifeExpress.
** ''The Wilbur Van'' is presented on Website/ArchiveOfOurOwn as a short story, though this is {{enforced|Trope}} due to the content creators involved having issues in (presumably) scheduling for lore streams.

AnimalMotifs: All characters who are anthropomorphic animals in terms of their species obviously have motifs that compare them to their animal forms, e.g. [[FoxFolk Fundy and CPK]] to [[CunningLikeAFox foxes]], [[CatFolk Antfrost]] to cats, and [[PigMan Techno]] to [[BrainyPig pigs]].

* FlockOfWolves: Schlatt's cabinet in [[FascistButInefficient Manburg]] turned out to be this. Among the four people in the cabinet (excluding Schlatt), Tubbo was a [[LaResistance Pogtopian]] spy, and Fundy was an even more secretive Pogtopian spy. As for the other two people in the cabinet, George's presence in the cabinet was ''barely even relevant'' to the plot due to his tendency to not show up to the plot, and [[VicePresidentWho Quackity]] was a FriendlyEnemy whose allegiance to Schlatt [[TheStarscream fluctuated]] [[YesMan depending]] [[PunchClockVillain on the day]][[note]]To clarify, he sometimes tried to rein [[TheCaligula Schlatt's behaviour]] in to help him make more reasonable decisions (since he genuinely wanted to make the country better, but to no avail every time); at other times, [[TheStarscream plotted to]] remove Schlatt from power so that he could become President instead; and occasionally acted as a devoted YesMan; but ultimately, the situation was complicated by (or can even be ''explained'' by) [[DomesticAbuse Schlatt's mistreatment]] of him regardless of his allegiance at the time[[/note]] but eventually stood up for himself and left to join Pogtopia anyway. By the Manburg-Pogtopia War, out of Schlatt's four main cabinet members, three of them were fighting on Pogtopia's behalf, and George didn't even show up to the battle.

** Other than alliums, Tubbo also likes pink tulips, which represent attachment, good wishes, care, and affection. Ranboo has gifted these flowers to him since knowing they were his favourites, and his ghost counterpart Boo gifted them to him after Tubbo rescued Michael.
** Lilies of the valley symbolize many things, such as the return of happiness in the Victorian language of flowers, and are popular at weddings. Kristin gifted Phil this once, and that flower currently hangs above Phil's door in his house, in an item frame. Oh, and lilies of the valley are highly toxic--fitting for Death and her Angel.
*** In addition, the lily of the valley also supposedly represents mending a broken relationship, and is a flower one can give when they don't know how to apologise to someone they've hurt. While confiding his mental health issues with Phil, Wilbur is asked if there was anyone he had wronged recently; he opens the door (with the lily of the valley framed above), and Tommy is standing right outside the door.

** Just before the announcment of the results of the Presidential Election, Schlatt tells his fellow candidates (other than those in [=POG2020=]) that he won't be having a speech if he gets inaugurated, and will immediately take action. True to form within the next 15 minutes of the VOD, Schlatt's inauguration speech has him exile his greatest political opponents, [=POG2020=], forcing them to RunOrDie.
** Wilbur warns Tommy early into the L'Manburg Civil War that, in a few weeks, he won't be the same man Jschlatt overthrew. At first, it just seems to be a herald for Wilbur [[LetsGetDangerous giving up his vow of peace to show Jschlatt who really rules L'Manburg]]. However, in hindsight it's so clearly an allusion to Wilbur's SanitySlippage, turning the once-pacifistic leader into someone with the ''image'' of a MadBomber who Tommy must either bring back from the brink of a FaceHeelTurn or wage war against.

** Techno's post-FaceHeelTurn speech has him compare Tommy to Theseus, a hero who was scorned and exiled by his people despite saving them from evil, and asks Tommy if it's worth fighting for L'Manburg if they're just going to one day betray him. Not even two weeks later and Tommy is put on trial for griefing George's house by his own people (though he admittedly ''did'' commit the crime) -- and Dream is there, trying to goad L'Manburg ''into exiling him''. It might even be an ''invoked'' example, as Dream was there during Techno's speech. Subverted, however, as Tommy gets a much lighter punishment (two weeks of probation) than what Dream wanted... only for [[DoubleSubversion Tubbo to exile him anyway a few days later as Dream increased his pressure on L'Manburg.]]

* FourthDateMarriage: This is how Karl and Sapnap, and eventually Quackity's relationship end up being like, where they got engaged with a practically nonexistent dating period.[[note]]For context, Quackity got engaged to the two on November 17th, 2020 (in real-life time), i.e. ''[[OnTheRebound the day after his abuse ex kicked the bucket]]''.[[/note]] {{Deconstructed|Trope}} ''harshly'' in Season 3 when the [[PoorCommunicationKills miscommunication]] between the three--most notably concerning Karl's time-travelling powers and resulting memory loss, as well as Quackity's previous relationship trauma--led to a ''severe'' [[SecondActBreakup fallout]].
* FoxFolk: Both Fundy and Seapeekay appear as anthropomorphic foxes.

*** To become a citizen of El Rapids, one must break string and eat a spider eye (dubbed the "Bite Of Truth").
*** During Mexican Dream's visit to Tommy, the former starts placing down string, and Tommy runs away in disgust.

** [=DreamXD=] is the TopGod (as far as we know) of the DSMP universe and [[PoweredByAForsakenChild draws his power from death]], so he actively encourages the [[CrapsackWorld wars and deaths and all-round shitty conditions on the server]] so as to stay powerful. For example, as ''Tales From the SMP'' reveals, he grants time-travelling powers to certain people, but ItSucksToBeTheChosenOne as their memory deteriorates the more their powers activate (they can't control to when and where they travel) until they undergo LossOfIdentity, then XD has them ''[[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness killed]]'' after that point. He does PetTheDog on occasion, making him a ''bit'' of a {{downplayed|Trope}} example, but not by much.
** It's also been stated that there are other {{Physical God}}s on the server, with most of them being ''relatively'' more benevolent as far as our knowledge goes, but they are either minor characters at best (Mumza, Drista, possibly [=MotherInnit=] if we take her word for it[[labelnote:*]]All three of them are either played by server guests or only make cameo appearances[[/labelnote]]), or are nowhere near as powerful as XD and thus are unable to challenge him (Foolish).

'''Tommy:''' That really depends who you ask, doesn't it? You know? If you ask Dream, he'd say I'm his little- his little play- his little toy that he plays with, you know? It doesn't… ''({{Beat}})'' Foolish, honestly, I used to consider myself the good guy, the fucking second-in-command, going around and going "Yeah! Let's do this". But recently, these past- these past like six months or so, Foolish, everything got so much harder than it was before. Because before it was us fighting the bad guys, and it was all so clear.\\

'''Tommy:''' It was all so clear. But it's not been clear for so long, alright? It wasn't [[BlackAndWhiteMorality "These are the bad guys, these are the good guys"]]. Now it's "He's doing this, and that makes him a bit worse". It's all so fucking complicated. So, I don't know. It depends who you ask, but…\\

* FascistButInefficient: This is ultimately how Manburg's political situation can be described as. Schlatt regularly mistreated his subordinates and citizens and had a ZeroPercentApprovalRating not just among his country's citizens, but the entire server as well. [[FlockOfWolves Two out of five]] members of his cabinet were [[TheMole spies]] working against the country, a third [[UngratefulBastard helped him gain power in the first place but]] was abused to the point of becoming TheStarscream, and one [[DemotedToExtra didn't even show up]] most of the time. It's also heavily implied in supplementary material that Schlatt's rule caused a famine which starved much of the country's population.

* ExactEavesDropping: After the Manburg Festival, Tommy sneaks into Manburg to assassinate Schlatt as revenge for having [[HeterosexualLifePartners Tubbo]] executed. However, while preparing to carry out the assassination, Schlatt starts destroying the White House to Quackity's protests, which eventually culminated in Quackity inadvertently completing Tommy's revenge-mission ''for'' him. Following the argument, Tommy tracks Quackity down in the forest behind the White House and confronts him in a conversation that ended with Quackity's official HeelFaceTurn to join Pogtopia.
* TheExile: Happened multiple times over the course of the server's history, with the two major ones as of recent history being Tommy being exiled from L'Manburg by Tubbo (followed by the rest of Dream SMP by Dream himself), with Ghostbur joining to keep company, as well as Technoblade and Philza living off in self imposed exile at cottage in snowfall, due to the former wishing to live in peace, and the latter lost with purpose after his son's death.
** Pogtopia technically also counts as exile for Wilbur and Tommy, who had their citizenships revoked and been kicked out of L'Manburg after Schlatt became President, as well as all the former L'Manburgians/Manburgians who choose to join them there.

* FaceHeelTurn:
** Eret does this during the SMP War, selling out L'Manburg to the Greater Dream SMP in exchange for power.
** Jschlatt is initially presented as Tommy and Wilbur's friend, with the former's anticlimactic kicking from the server further angering Tommy against Dream. When Jschlatt comes ''back'', however, he's all but forgotten his old friends and proceeds to dismantle everything Tommy and Wilbur worked for. Furthermore, his goals of expansion also attract Dream's ire, to the point where the leader begins supporting Tommy and Wilbur in secret.
** [[FallenHero Wilbur]] teeters on the edge of one after a SanitySlippage that leads him to believe that not only is he the villain, but that he must embrace it. It's only "teetering on the edge" because there were signs that he can still be convinced to turn back before he actually starts committing the acts he's threatening to, but is ultimately played straight in the end when he goes through with detonating L'Manburg.

** It is first attempted by Quackity in Season 1, who tries to get over his fear of Technoblade by proving he's just a person and is therefore killable. After pointing out that Techno did something at Quackity's behest (read: placing a block), thus making him less scary, Technoblade begins to chase him down, talking slowly about how early humans hunted by outlasting their prey and using his trident to get ahead. Quackity is once again reduced to a terrified screaming heap as he is cut down.

** The first half of the L'Manburg Civil War. Though Wilbur and Tommy gain core allies in [[TheDreaded Technoblade]] and [[HeelFaceTurn Dream]], they fail to make any notable progress towards regaining L'Manburg even with Tubbo and Fundy as double agents. They also ''lose'' allies, as George betrays Dream to side with Jschlatt and Sapnap breaks off as a WildCard aiming to defeat everyone else and claim power for himself--not to mention Technoblade's loyalty is currently in question. Of their two supporters within L'Manburg, Niki is repeatedly silenced by Jschlatt for her rebellious nature while Eret fails to earn their trust due to his earlier betrayal. The first half ends with Jschlatt attempting to curry favor within L'Manburg to nullify the one advantage Pogtopia has over him (his ZeroPercentApprovalRating), which leads to Wilbur undergoing a SanitySlippage that culminates in him deciding to nuke L'Manburg. Dream then sides with Wilbur, revealing that his HeelFaceTurn is motivated only by power, leaving Tommy and Tubbo to contemplate who their allies really are, and if Wilbur can be turned back from his path of darkness before he follows through with his plans to leave a massive crater where L'Manburg once was.

** Averted with Jschlatt's heart attack and Wilbur's [[SuicideByCop slaying by Philza]], both at the end of the L'Manburg Civil War. The latter came back to life, but only later on in the story.
** Wilbur subverted this trope by adding a death system to the SMP after the Manburg Festival. Each character is given three 'canon' lives, and if the character dies in a major event or according to the script, then that character loses a life. After losing all three lives, that character will be canonically dead and can no longer actively participate in any major plot events.
* DecidedByOneVote: Downplayed. Combining their votes, [=SWAG2020=] (30%) and [=Schlatt2020=] (16%) won the L'Manburg election, beating out [=POG2020=] (45%) by 1% of the votes, which totaled at around 200,000 legitimate votes in the entire election. Although the election was technically decided by about 2000 votes, it was still extremely close in terms of percentages.

** Tommy crosses it once it hits him that he's exiled for good, and that he'll be doomed to spend the rest of his life alone in the wilderness, never seeing his friends again. He starts showing symptoms of depression (hopelessness, violent outbursts, no will to live), and after a full day of Dream and Sapnap [[YankTheDogsChain rubbing it in his face]] that [[YouCantGoHomeAgain he'll never be able to go home again]], he starts actively [[DrivenToSuicide contemplating suicide]], to the point where Dream has to drag him away from the edge of the walkway before he jumps in the lava lake.
--->'''Tommy:''' Guys, how do you know when it's too much?

** Quackity narrowly subverts this at the start of the Doomsday War by pulling himself out of a HeroicBSOD and ultimately returning to fight for L'Manburg against Dream due to being inspired by the contents of Ranboo's memory book[[note]]Dream previously stole it from Ranboo to use it as incriminating evidence against him as a traitor for L'Manburg during the Green Festival, and the book ended up in Quackity's possession around that time[[/note]], but ultimately re-hit it between his [[{{Prequel}} second]] and first "Las Nevadas" stream after being (unintentionally) abandoned by his loved ones, fully cementing himself to have put on some JadeColoredGlasses after a months-long TraumaCongaLine. This is further reinforced by his third stream in the series, judging by how he is seen straight-up spiraling down into [[TragicVillain what is arguably villainy]]. He starts to pull himself out of this again at the end of the ''fifth'' and final Las Nevadas stream, but that alone took another several months to accomplish.
* TheDictatorship: Manburg under the Schlatt administration classifies under the Personalist Dictatorship variety (while having shades of being TheEmpire), due to Schlatt's own tendency to centralize all power onto himself. He mistreats all of the country's citizens, from taxing Niki for her [[DefiantStoneThrow rebellion against his rule]] (to the point she went broke) to being a BadBoss to his own Cabinet (so much so that most of them have PTSD related to Schlatt in some shape or form). As a result of this, it's not surprising that by the time the Manburg-Pogtopia War rolled around, most of the server wanted Schlatt dead.

** In retrospect, on a more personal level, Quackity's ensuing relationship with Schlatt on both a political and personal level, most certainly influenced by George's absence, ends up kick-starting his months-long TraumaCongaLine that caused him to be driven to [[WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds arguably villainy]].

* DomesticAbuse:
** Throughout the Manburg arc, Schlatt heavily mistreated Quackity by deliberately breaking his boundaries by body-shaming him, destroying the White House in spite of his protests, and even hit him with a pickaxe or shot him with a crossbow several times (among ''many'' things). This was initially played semi-seriously at best, but eventually got {{deconstructed|Trope}} and became played dead-seriously in Season 3 once Quackity's trauma starts to [[DespairEventHorizon boil over]].
** In the ''Tales from the SMP'' episode "The Village That Went Mad", in a case of DeliberateValuesDissonance, the mayor Jimmy is known to hit his wife Helga[[labelnote:*]]Possibly funnily enough, also played by Quackity the content creator[[/labelnote]], and she openly wishes him to be dead.

** The L'Manburg election ends in this. Thanks to some last-minute deals, Jschlatt wins the election and goes full fascist dictator, declaring his intent to conquer more land and immediately putting a bounty on Wilbur and Tommy, forcing them to flee. Jschlatt then forces Tubbo into his employ, and while Wilbur and Tommy eventually make him a spy, it's clear that simply being around [[KickTheDog Jschlatt]] is taxing on Tubbo's health.

* TheDreaded:
** Techno joining the server was met with a collective OhCrap from everyone who wasn't aware he'd be joining. Even ''Dream'' knows better than to take his chances with Techno. This is especially true from Quackity's perspective, as the mere sight of Technoblade was enough to [[WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes make him scream]] [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere and run]], though this is {{justified|Trope}} as he had previously [[TraumaButton experienced Techno's brutality firsthand]], and is implied to have grown past it to some degree.
** Dream as well. In a case of WorthyOpponent, even Techno tends to get a little nervous when he gets caught in a potentially hostile situation with Dream (effectively meaning that Dream and Techno both dread ''each other''). It's to the point where it seems like half of the reason they'll team up isn't because of their aligning goals (though that's a bonus), but because neither one wants to end up on the other's bad side.
** The Arctic Anarchists, despite only having ''three'' main fighters (not counting Ranboo), is enough of a threat to unite half of the entire server against them ''just to have a small chance of winning''. They've got the most competent fighters (Techno, Phil, and Dream) on their side, and multiple weapons of mass destruction (namely several Withers and enough TNT to destroy the entire server ten times over).

* DysfunctionJunction: Practically ''everyone'' on the server (other than the odd few new members, or those who are otherwise uninvolved in the lore) is traumatized in one way or another, whether by wars, betrayal, amnesia (in [[LaserGuidedAmnesia one]] [[ForgetfulJones way]] [[BlessedWithSuck or]] [[LossOfIdentity another]]), abuse, toxic relationships, torture, deaths, etc.

* EdibleThemeNaming: Several [=NPCs=] on the server share names with food items, that including Karl's cat [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutabaga Rutabaga]] and fish Lasagna (the latter of which is shared with Sapnap), Punz' bee Kiwi and deceased horse Pumpkin, Niki's foxes Fungi (though pronounced differently) and Mushroom, Puffy's parrots Greenbean and Blueberry (the latter of which is deceased), and [[FurryConfusion Fundy's snow-foxes]] Apples and Yogurt (the former being MIA after Doomsday and the latter now being Fundy's adopted son).
* EldritchLocation: Being the afterlife itself, this is to be expected, but considering that it's a ''[[AndIMustScream torturous]]'' afterlife makes it even worse.

** The night Sapnap reunited with Quackity in Las Nevadas started out clear, but a snowstorm started in the background when Quackity finally confronts him over the "abandonment"; later in Kinoko, the night was initially clear but eventually became rainy, and the SecondActBreakup between Karl and Quackity occurs during [[GrayRainOfDepression a heavy rainstorm]].
*** In the same stream as the above, [[EtTuBrute Purpled's betrayal]] also took place [[GrayRainOfDepression while it was raining]].

* EnemyMine:
** Dream becomes this to Pogtopia. While they were on opposite sides during the war, Dream recognizes that, while L'Manburg led by Wilbur was a largely peaceful nation just wanting to exist, Manburg under Schlatt is a ''serious'' threat. Dream does not actively help, as he does not want to be branded as the villain of the conflict again, but will help out Wilbur and Tommy from the sidelines.
** Techno and Quackity teaming up to [[BigDamnHeroes crash the Red Banquet]] because of their shared hatred for the Egg (each for his own reasoning) also counts as this, with both of them lampshading this fact.

* EvenEvilHasStandards: Dream may have been willing to fight a war to keep L'Manburg under his control, but he at least has enough of an open mind to acknowledge the good Wilbur has done as its leader. When Jschlatt takes over and immediately begins dismantling everything L'Manburg stood for in favor of conquest, Dream writes a letter denouncing Jschlatt and all he's done before announcing his full support for Tommy and Wilbur, providing them gear and supplies. All this has to be done in secret, however, as Dream by law cannot go against Jschlatt.
* EvilVersusEvil: Dream states in Season 4 that he sees the server as this as he thinks that just about everyone on the server has done terrible things and openly sees himself as a bad person (not that he thinks there's anything wrong with that), but considering the facts that 1) not all crimes are equal, 2) some people have perfectly or at least relatively sympathetic reasons for doing bad things, and 3) several characters have recognized that their previous actions were bad and were actively [[TheAtoner working towards a redemption arc]], the Dream SMP [[SubvertedTrope actually]] leans closer towards either GreyAndGrayMorality, BlackAndGreyMorality, or MoralityKitchenSink than this trope. Also, considering the one voicing this opinion is ''Dream'', the resident child-abuser and serial killer who did so to satisfy his own ControlFreak nature and/or for his own amusement, we should probably take this viewpoint [[UnreliableNarrator with all the salt in the shaker]].

* ChekhovsBoomerang: Jschlatt's book on resurrection. In Season 1, it's used to convince Dream to betray Pogtopia. It comes back at the end of Season 2, where Dream leverages his possession of the book to convince Tommy to spare him. And it returns ''thrice'' more in Season 3, where an argument over the book's existence pushes Dream to do the one thing he said he didn't want to do--[[TheHeroDies murder Tommy]]. And then a few days later, Dream proves its existence by [[BackFromTheDead bringing Tommy back to life]].[[note]]This turns out to be a lie, as it's later revealed in Season 4 that Dream previously tested the revive-book on Vikkstar and Lazarbeam by putting them through a ResurrectionDeathLoop before he went to jail, though this still links the revive-book with [[BusCrash the two's]] [[ChuckCunninghamSyndrome disappearance from the server]].[[/note]] Eventually, Quackity learns of this and spends the following months trying to torture the contents of the book out of Dream. ''Then'' Dream brings Wilbur back to life, effectively killing Ghostbur, using the book. And months after that, Purpled builds a trap to demand Quackity the contents of the book while performing his revenge plan against him, and murders Slimecicle in response to Quackity stating he didn't have the book and wouldn't give it to him even if he did have it.

** When Wilbur asks what excuse Tubbo used to leave Schlatt's side, it's revealed that [[BlatantLies he convinced Schlatt]] [[MisterSeahorse he's pregnant]]. It's PlayedForLaughs, with Techno cracking jokes and Wilbur being completely bewildered, and it even gets a repeat when Tubbo tries to convince Schlatt that Tommy -- who was ''not'' supposed to be there -- is his OB-GYN. Then the Festival comes around, and it turns out that Schlatt did not buy Tubbo's excuses ''at all'', and has him executed for treason.

* ChekhovsGunman: Jschlatt joins the server for a while before being anticlimactically kicked by Dream. When he rejoins, he proceeds to take over L'Manburg and force Wilbur and Tommy into hiding, acting as the main villain for the rest of the arc.
* ChekhovsSkill: Sapnap's habit as a ChronicPetKiller. At first it's just an annoyance that sparks several minor conflicts, like the Battle of the Lake and the three Pet Wars. In the Doomsday War, however, he puts said pet-killing to good use, personally taking out over ''sixty'' of Techno's [[SavageWolves wolves]] when the anarchist lets them out on L'Manburg.
* ChildSoldiers: If we are going by the ages of the content creators when the wars in the roleplay occurred, at least.
** Tommy fought in the L'Manburg War for Independence, the Manburg-Pogtopia War, and the Doomsday War at age 16, among the larger conflicts on the SMP.
** Tubbo fought in the three wars mentioned above as well, at age 16 for the first two and Doomsday at 17.
** Purpled fought in the Manburg-Pogtopia War at age 17.

* TheCobblersChildrenHaveNoShoes: Neither of the known "therapists" on the server are particularly well-suited for their jobs, considering that both of them have their own mental health issues to deal with--Captain Puffy TookALevelInCynicism after her son's execution, and [[TraumaCongaLine let's not]] [[DespairEventHorizon even get]] ''[[HeWhoFightsMonsters started]]'' on Quackity and his issues.

* ContrastingSequelAntagonist: Jschlatt is this to Dream. Dream was a WellIntentionedExtremist who only wanted to put down a rebellion against his nation, even granting said rebellion independence when he saw how much they were willing to fight for it, and considered the citizens of L'Manburg [[WorthyOpponent worthy of respect]], as a later letter to Tommy reveals. Moreover, Dream seemed to be a good if sometimes strict and pragmatic leader. Jschlatt, however, is a borderline fascist dictator who wants both independence and conquest. While Dream treated his allies with respect and genuine admiration, Jschlatt treated his as nothing more than tools to further his plans. Jschlatt is such a contrast that [[EvenEvilHasStandards Dream is outright disgusted by him compared to Wilbur]], and writes a letter to Tommy [[EnemyMine pledging full support to their war against Jschlatt]].
* CoolMask:
** Dream is often depicted in fanon to wear a WhiteMaskOfDoom with his signature [[SlasherSmile smiley face]] on it, to the point that Dream eventually confirms that his character does wear a mask.
** Dream's DistaffCounterpart, Girl Dream (or Mamacita), is also depicted to wear a white mask with a smiley face on it, though there's plenty of indication she's [[GoodCounterpart more benevolent than]] her male counterpart.
** Ponk wears a mask with red, yellow and black stripes that covers most of his face.

** Tubbo's second death [[AccidentalMurder (and Schlatt's first)]] at the Manburg Festival involved being shot in the face with fireworks. It is later revealed that the death left Tubbo being CoveredInScars and utterly traumatized.
** Karl's first death was from "hit[ting] the ground too hard" in [[StuffBlowingUp an explosion]]... one that was planned by his own side to frame Eret as a war-mongerer and help El Rapids seize independence, but it's later implied in his SecondActBreakup with Quackity in the penultimate Season 3 stream that it could have been more painful/traumatic that one would have thought initially.
** Jack Manifold's second death involved swimming in lava for two and a half minutes in real time.
** Quackity's first death is a bizarre combination of EyeScream, TheToothHurts and AttackTheMouth after Technoblade puts a pickaxe through his teeth. It is also the cause of the partial blindness in his left eye and the scar he currently has over the eye. What worsens this is that he's canonically had quite a bit of trauma-related AppearanceAngst, to the point he ends up trapping Techno and attempting to kill him in the ''exact'' same way later on.
** Tommy's third death[[note]]before he came BackFromTheDead[[/note]] was a NoHoldsBarredBeatdown by Dream, while stuck in a location which is the embodiment of his [[TraumaButton traumas]] and fears... and then there's the mining fatigue, which dragged the death out even longer.
* CruelMercy: After Dream threatens to kill him if he enters the Nether Portal leading to the main Dream SMP, Tommy, [[DespairEventHorizon completely defeated]], walks to the edge of the walkway and [[DrivenToSuicide stares down into the lava, clearly contemplating whether or not to jump]]. Dream, who sees him doing this, punches him away from the edge.
-->'''Dream:''' It's not your time to die yet, Tommy.\\
'''Tommy:''' ''(quietly)'' ...It's never my time to die.

* DemotedToExtra:
** After being TheDragon to Dream in the L'Manburg War of Independence, George is reduced to just another member of Jschlatt's cabinet during the L'Manburg Civil War and he's rarely even ''online'' during the events of the arc.
** Subverted with Dream. At first, it seems like the BigBad of the L'Manburg War of Independence will be reduced to a mere benefactor who supplies Pogtopia with loot. However, this changes as Dream begins to fight directly alongside Tommy and Technoblade, becoming a vital teammate and some much-needed muscle during the L'Manburg Civil War. And even moreso [[WildCard once his true motives are revealed]], as he becomes someone who can secure the war for either side based solely on who can placate his desires for power more.

*** In retrospect, on a more personal level, Quackity's ensuing relationship with Schlatt on both a political and personal level, most certainly influenced by George's absence, ends up kick-starting his months-long TraumaCongaLine that caused him to be driven to [[WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds arguably villainy]].

** In the ''Tales From the SMP'' episode "The Village That Went Mad", in a case of DeliberateValuesDissonance, the mayor Jimmy is known to hit his wife Helga[[labelnote:*]]Possibly funnily enough, also played by Quackity the content creator[[/labelnote]], and she openly wishes him to be dead.

* ButtMonkey:
** Callahan gets killed quite often when he's online.
** Jack's lack of luck or [[BoisterousWeakling skill to back up his claims of grandiose]] leads to him being extremely easy to pick on and kill. No one really seems to take him seriously either.
*** In the early days of the SMP, due to his house, Ze Haus' close proximity to L'Manburg and its Podium, strange activity often frequents Jack's house whether or not he's around, to his frustration.
---->'''Jack:''' ''(in response to Niki being imprisoned for the first time by [[TheDictatorship the Schlatt administration]])'' Why whenever something's going on, it's always on my balcony?
** For some reason, bad things always seem to happen to Connor when he gets involved in "Big Lore", whether it be getting tortured for information or tricked into debt to Las Nevadas. He also gets imprisoned in Pandora's Vault for [[PhonyVeteran using a stolen military ID he found at the L'Manburg wreckage]].
** Foolish applies as well. Being a former God of Death isn't a deterrent on the SMP considering how often he's harassed by cat maids, pushed into going along with unfair workloads by others, and becoming a trolling victim to ''[[TheVoiceless Callahan]]'' of all people (who, as mentioned above, is a bit of a Butt-Monkey himself).
** It's not uncommon for [[FoxFolk Fundy]] to be treated poorly and jokes to be made at his expense, from his appearance to his personality to him being an orphan (note that the last one only applies throughout Season 2 and in the first part of Season 3 due to his father's death and eventual revival). It was often PlayedForLaughs... until [[DeconstructedTrope Fundy finally explodes from frustration]].
--->'''Fundy:''' ''(bitter laugh)'' This is- They're toying with me! They're toying with me. They're actually- Everyone is toying with me, they [[SuddenlyShouting ARE ALWAYS TOYING WITH ME!!]] EVERYONE IS!! I'M ALWAYS BEING PLAYED WITH! WHY?? Why does it always have to be me? Every single time...

* CarnivoreConfusion:
** Captain Puffy (initially an anthropomorphic sheep) is fine with consuming meat so long as it's not mutton.
** A variation occurs with Fundy. He doesn't eat salmon and seeing dead salmon causes him to freeze, as he fears it could be [[RandomSpeciesOffspring his mother]], Sally. For this reason, he is also deeply uncomfortable with others eating salmon in front of him.

* CastFullOfRichPeople: "The Masquerade" episode of ''Tales From the SMP'' revolves around several very wealthy individuals being invited to a masquerade party and [[TenLittleMurderVictims the shenanigans that ensued]]. The only characters in the episode who weren't rich was a [[NakedPeopleAreFunny nudist]] named Drew P. Wiener who ended up at the wrong place and the nameless Butler.

*** A similar one applies for more arcs on the SMP[[labelnote:*]]The Disc War and the related Tommy VS Dream arc, Quackity's Las Nevadas arc in Season 3, etc.[[/labelnote]]: LoveHurts, but not loving hurts even more, so choosing to love even in a world that scorns love is the right thing to do after all.

%%** The cycle of abuse? The meaning of tyranny? Power?
* CerebusCallback:
** At the beginning of the server's history, Tommy stumbled upon Tubbo, who'd boxed himself in with cobblestone. Tommy jokingly called the box "Tubbox" and started saying things like "Tubbo in a box, what will he do?" The next time the Tubbox got referenced was when Tubbo was trapped in a concrete box at the Festival, about to be executed.
** There's one to Minecraft Mondays, of all things. Techno instilling utter fear in the competitors as he dominated the event was seen as both a funny moment (in terms of the competitors' [[OhCrap reactions to his sheer skill]]) and an awesome moment as Techno came out of literally nowhere in a field of much-more-popular influencers and established himself as easily the strongest competitor in the event. As one of Quackity's streams reveals, however, he's got PTSD from Minecraft Mondays for this exact reason and was utterly ''[[WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes terrified]]'' of Techno (of course, Techno's non-canonical murder of him during the Manburg Festival Massacre probably didn't help). This also becomes [[ItsPersonal one of his motivations]] for hunting down Techno as the driving force behind the Butcher Army.
* CerebusRetcon:
** Wilbur heavily babied his son Fundy. It's PlayedForLaughs in Season 1 of the SMP, but come Season 2 and it's revealed that Wilbur doing so has driven a massive wedge in his and Fundy's relationship.
** Quackity's relationship with Schlatt during the Manburg era, though having shades of toxicity, had many humorous moments throughout it, even after their "breakup", but come Season 3 and it turns out that Quackity still carries a lot of emotional trauma from the toxic aspects of the relationship.

* CharacterOverlap:
** "The Haunted Mansion" of ''Tales From the SMP'' confirms that the Connor and Schlatt from the Dream SMP are the same ones from ''WebVideo/SMPLive''.
** Niki's character is the same across Dream SMP and ''Bear SMP''.

** Not even [[BewareTheNiceOnes Niki]] is immune to dipping into chaos when she feels she deserves it. She stops fighting for L'Manburg just because [[MisplacedRetribution she feels Tommy hasn't learned his lesson]] (which lesson, no one can seem to agree on) and even [[MonumentalDamage burns down the L'Mantree]] while everyone else is busy fighting the withers Technoblade spawned.

%%* ArchEnemy: There are currently two listed pairs of nemeses on the Dream SMP Wiki where they are identified as sworn enemies.
%%** Dream is this to Tommy. Initially, the Disc War started due to an unrelated conflict gone south, but eventually, Dream started to consider Tommy his greatest threat to having control over the server, and repeatedly tries to torment him in various ways, most notably (and not limited to) abusing and gaslighting him while in exile, which was orchestrated by Dream in the first place. This has ultimately culminated into, to put it bluntly, an absolute shitfest of trauma and trouble.
%%** For a more subdued example, Techno and Quackity are this towards [[GreyAndGrayMorality each other]], being each other's antithesis. They each thrive in an environment which would make the other weak[[labelnote:Explanation]]Techno works best in a world where MightMakesRight and believes that violence is the most universal language, but is very socially awkward; whereas Quackity is [[ManipulativeBastard a charismatic talker]] and a businessman through and through, and is a NonActionGuy at heart who preferred to fight with words instead of weapons (but was forced to abandon these beliefs because of the MightMakesRight mentality of the server)[[/labelnote]], and have respectively caused each other tremendous amounts of grief and trauma throughout the series and even before it began (read: Minecraft Mondays). This is why it was such a shocker for them to [[EnemyMine team up against the Eggpire]] during the Red Banquet, a fact that both of them lampshade.

* BigFancyCastle: Eret's castle, also known as the Gay Castle or Pride Palace, is a large stone-brick castle decorated with [[QueerColors rainbow-coloured]] windows, a giant rainbow flag, and a statue of Eret.
* BigFancyHouse: Punz's house features a glass roof and many beehives for beekeeping, while his massive backyard has a tower with floors rented out to various members on the server. The property is so large that it's even bigger than the territory L'Manburg--a whole ''country''--used to occupy.

* ABirthdayNotABreak:
** During Niki's birthday party in early November 2020, everything seems to go relatively well and is fairly light-hearted... but then in the last 15 minutes of the livestream (streamed from Karl's POV), Wilbur suddenly announces he was going to blow Manburg up, forcing Quackity, Niki, and Karl to calm him down and delay his plan before he could ''actually'' blow the country to smithereens. The livestream ends with Quackity facing the ultimatum to carry out Plan Ass [[RaceAgainstTheClock by that Friday]] or Wilbur would actually press the BigRedButton.
** In the Season 4 Eggpire finale, Captain Puffy is LuredIntoATrap at her house for her birthday party and somehow becomes [[BrainwashedAndCrazy corrupted by the Egg]] in the process of being held prisoner. Her going missing results in the massacre of ''seven'' of her fellow server-mates, two of which she personally kills under the influence of the Crimson.

** Jschlatt is Dream (in Season 1) taken up to eleven. He's a full-on fascist dictator [[WouldHurtAChild who ordered the execution of a minor]], a {{Domestic Abuse}}r, and a JerkWithAHeartOfJerk to the point of managing to piss off everyone who was just listed above with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

* BrainwashedAndCrazy: The Crimson can brainwash people into being its devoted and ruthless followers, as well as totally changing their personalities. The biggest victims of this (Bad, Ant, Punz, Ponk, and Hannah) form the Eggpire.
* BreakTheCutie: The Dream SMP, being a CrapsackWorld, has absolutely no shortage of these, to the point that ''if'' there is someone who can arguably be considered TheCutie, they ''will'' be broken down to be an Iron Woobie in a best-case scenario, and a WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds in a worst-case scenario... and occurrences of the best-case scenario seem to be, so far, few and far in between.
** Wilbur initially believed in pacifism and fighting with words as opposed to violence. After [[RebelliousRebel Eret's betrayal]], though, his naivety as the leader of the L'Manburgian revolution [[CynicismCatalyst became shattered]], triggering the beginning of his [[SanitySlippage mental spiral and paranoia]], and him to become an outright DeathSeeker who ended up begging his father to end his life by the end of the [[TheExile Pogtopia arc]]. And even then, after spending what felt like [[AndIMustScream thirteen and a half years]] in the Afterlife (taking the form of a train station platform that he couldn't leave), he was brought BackFromTheDead... and although he evidently does ''not'' want to return to the Afterlife, he still retains his [[BlackAndWhiteInsanity delusional worldview about good and evil]].
** Tubbo also used to be one of the more peaceful members of the server, but between being publicly executed, [[AChildShallLeadThem dragged into a leadership position]] that he was woefully unprepared for, being [[SadisticChoice forced to]] sentence his best friend into exile ([[PlotMandatedFriendshipFailure fracturing their relationship in the process]]), having his country blown to bits three times, and ''more'', it's no surprise that he's a StepfordSmiler who ended up developing [[NuclearOption nuclear missiles]] for protection.
** Tommy is a somewhat less traditional example of this, being a JerkWithAHeartOfGold... who has also been through an extensive TraumaCongaLine consisting of being a {{Child Soldier|s}}, watching his BigBrotherMentor go through SanitySlippage and eventually dying and his best friend being publicly executed and almost sacrificing himself, being abused and gaslighted to the brink of suicidality, having his home destroyed three times, being locked in prison with his abuser for a week only to be [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown brutally beat to death]] and then brought BackFromTheDead from a [[AndIMustScream torturous Afterlife]], among many other things. However, despite the sheer magnitude of his trauma, he still manages to keep [[RousseauWasRight his more idealistic beliefs]] after everything, though becoming more somber and [[WiseBeyondTheirYears worldly through his experiences]].
** Ranboo entered the SMP during the Reconstruction Era as a bright aspiring politician who wanted to make L'Manburg a better place, but now, he's a nervous wreck who lives in constant stress after being tossed dead-center into the conflict between Tommy and Dream, all because he tagged alongside Tommy to grief George's house.
** Quackity started as an aspiring, [[WideEyedIdealist idealistic]] politician who believed that RousseauWasRight and preferred words to weapons (much like his former political rival, Wilbur), but ends up jaded to the point of having many of his beliefs turned around entirely after going through a trainwreck of a TraumaCongaLine over the course of seven months, including and not limited to an abusive relationship, several wars, and severe injuries to the point of disability, as well as the resultant psychological effects.
** During the Red Banquet, Captain Puffy is forced to see her son, Foolish, be ritualistically sacrificed to [[BotanicalAbomination the Crimson]], before giving into her instincts and [[MamaBear brutally murdering Antfrost in revenge]]. After this, she turns away from the path of the [[KnightErrant knight]], and embraces the path of distrust.

* BrokenBird:
** Niki started out on the server as the "First Lady" of L'Manburg and a SweetBaker, but somewhere between having her beloved nation taken over by a tyrant and her subsequent oppression, having one of her closest friends "abandon" her (read: dying from SuicideByCop in front of practically everyone) after detonating the country they had been fighting for, and being talked over and ignored by the New L'Manburgian cabinet, she crossed the DespairEventHorizon around the Doomsday War and was left a [[MisplacedRetribution vengeful]], tired shell of her former self, and ended up burning down the L'Mantree to show her discontentment. It took a long while for her to recover and try to heal and reconnect with others by joining the Syndicate, but even then, much of her former fire had been reduced to embers and ashes, with few resources to help her deal with her grief properly.
** A male {{deconstructed|Trope}} example can be found in Quackity, who starts showing shades of this after crossing the DespairEventHorizon at the end of a long TraumaCongaLine involving copious amounts of relationship trauma and abandonment issues as a result of DomesticAbuse as well as suffering a CruelAndUnusualDeath and a continuous loss of those he cared about, in one way or another. He turns to a mixture of extreme cynicism and a bit of IHatePastMe in the Las Nevadas arc, yet in spite of trying to appear competent and stoic, his more emotional and impulsive nature still shines through, and he tends to have PsychologicalProjection on half the people he encounters... and still carries an obvious soft spot for various characters, like Tommy, Tubbo and Slime, the latter of whom implicitly encourages him to pull away from the broken mindset. Following Slime's first canon death and his own ''second death'', Quackity finally [[CharacterDevelopment starts moving on to a less destructive level of vengeful cynicism]]. Oh, and bonus points for the AnimalMotifs.
* BurningTheFlag: To protest against the changes Schlatt made in L'Manburg, Fundy burned down Nihachu's Manburg flag. Later on, Tommy does the same thing to declare war between Pogtopia and Manburg.
* TheBusCameBack:
** Months after George was DemotedToExtra since his role as TheDragon during the L'Manburg War of Independence, he returned to the story in [[MindScrew a couple of streams on March 30th]] that delved into his parentage and his relationship with [=DreamXD=].
** After the Red Banquet, the Egg went dormant for a long period of time, seemingly leaving the Eggpire arc to go unresolved... then Crimson vines start creeping around again in March 2022, about ten months after the Red Banquet...

** Exhibit C: Jack Manifold. As far as we know, he's straight. And he died. Then he came BackFromTheDead out of sheer vengefulness, but his death still impacted his character quite a bit.
** Exhibit D: [=TommyInnit=]. He's regarded as one of the "token straights" of the cast and claims to love women, and he ends up losing his third canon life in early Season 3. He returned from the dead a few days later, but his death certainly contributed to his ever-lengthening TraumaCongaLine.

* NumberOneDime: Tommy's discs. Practically, they're worthless, but the amount of memories attached to them gives them a lot of sentimental value to Tommy.

* BackFromTheDead: Three major characters have lost all three lives only to return to life. The first is Jack Manifold, who was killed by Techno during the Doomsday War but returned with all three lives after a brief trip to Hell. The second is Tommy, having been murdered by Dream in Pandora's Vault before being brought back as a ploy to prove that Dream really does have the power to resurrect people. The third is Wilbur, who was resurrected by Dream when Tommy attempted to break into the prison and murder Dream.
** It's also later revealed that Vikk and Lazar lost all three of their canon lives through Dream using them as human guinea pigs to test the revive-book, and they ''did'' get brought back to life by Dream using the book... but they're ultimately [[KilledToUpholdTheMasquerade killed off permanently to keep the book a secret]].

* BerserkButton:
** [=BadBoyHalo=] [[ProfanityPolice hates swearing]] and doesn't hesitate to chastise people who curse in front of him. This is often exploited by [[SirSwearsALot the more cuss-happy characters]] like Quackity and Tommy for the [[TheGadfly sole purpose of riling him up]].
** Notably, people who challenge against Dream enrage him a lot. This is especially demonstrated how wrathful he is towards Tommy, who constantly challenges his power and authority.
** The easiest way to get under Fundy's skin is to call him a furry.
** It's for the best not to mock Quackity's appearance. It's also all but outright stated that at least some part of it is [[TraumaButton fueled by his trauma]].
** Making direct eye contact with [[EyesAlwaysAverted Ranboo]] makes him extremely uncomfortable, due to him being half-Enderman. Other than this, he dislikes people forcing him into uncomfortable experiments due to his unusual biology, and insulting Philza or [[PapaWolf threatening his son, Michael]], also get him uncharacteristically angry.
** Sam is willing to blow up the entire server if anyone hurts his dog, Fran. Moreover, by Season 3, anyone messing with Pandora's Vault, [[SeriousBusiness the prison he guards]], can and likely ''will'' receive a grisly fate... just ask [[ColdBloodedTorture Ponk]] and Tommy.
** Technoblade doesn't like any insinuation that he's being dehumanized or treated like a weapon. This is the reason cited that he eventually grew to dislike the nickname "The Blade", but [[PoorCommunicationKills he didn't really tell anyone about this change in preference]] until the Doomsday War when he yelled at Tommy for apparently taking advantage of him and using him "from the start" of their fractured alliance.
** Do ''not'' hurt Tommy's (late) pet cow, Henry. He started a whole war against Sapnap over him accidentally killing Henry and eating his remains.[[note]]Before anyone is mistaken, no, this is ''not'' one of the Pet Wars, or at least isn't officially listed as one.[[/note]]
** Despite usually being a benevolent god, [=DreamXD=] gets easily angered if he believes he's being taken advantage of.
** KSI hates being called old.
* BigBadWannabe: Sapnap is this during the L'Manburg Civil War, having formed a ''third'' faction to take control of L'Manburg for himself. However, an early battle between his allies and Pogtopia shows that, cow murder aside, he's not much more than talk. When an ''actual'' third nation forms (the Badlands), Sapnap is noticeably absent from it, implying his crushing defeat at the hands of Dream, Techno, and Tommy has kept him in line for now.

* AnimalMotifs:
** All characters who are anthropomorphic animals in terms of their species obviously have motifs that compare them to their animal forms, e.g. [[FoxFolk Fundy and CPK]] to [[CunningLikeAFox foxes]], [[CatFolk Antfrost]] to cats, and [[PigMan Techno]] to [[BrainyPig pigs]].
** Tommy enjoys trolling and stealing from his server-mates in his spare time, which has naturally caused him to be associated with [[RascallyRaccoon raccoons]]. These comparisons mainly took off after he fled Logstedshire, when he dug a hole in Technoblade's basement and started hoarding and stealing from there, causing Techno and even Tommy himself to compare him to a raccoon.
** For Tubbo, it's [[VirtuousBees bees]], which Tubbo also happens to absolutely adore. Bees are hardworking, community oriented animals who do important work (pollinating flowers and food plants) but are often overlooked or seen as pests. They have a strict social hierarchy, and are surprisingly intelligent, able to communicate in sophisticated ways. Tubbo is a determined, loyal friend and TheSmartGuy. However, he also tends to kiss up to authority and act as a yes-man, and his contributions are often overlooked. It probably helps that Tubbo himself is a beekeeper.
** In Phil's case, it's crows, because Phil himself is a WingedHumanoid with large, feathered wings (though he lost them in the L'Manburg explosion), and his [[FromBeyondTheFourthWall chat]] manifests as [[CleverCrows a murder of crows]].
** Boomer is often identified with frogs, most notably seen on their hat.
** Connor is commonly associated with hedgehogs due to his onesie.

* ArchEnemy: There are currently two listed pairs of nemeses on the Dream SMP Wiki where they are identified as sworn enemies.
** Dream is this to Tommy. Initially, the Disc War started due to an unrelated conflict gone south, but eventually, Dream started to consider Tommy his greatest threat to having control over the server, and repeatedly tries to torment him in various ways, most notably (and not limited to) abusing and gaslighting him while in exile, which was orchestrated by Dream in the first place. This has ultimately culminated into, to put it bluntly, an absolute shitfest of trauma and trouble.
** For a more subdued example, Techno and Quackity are this towards [[GreyAndGrayMorality each other]], being each other's antithesis. They each thrive in an environment which would make the other weak[[labelnote:Explanation]]Techno works best in a world where MightMakesRight and believes that violence is the most universal language, but is very socially awkward; whereas Quackity is [[ManipulativeBastard a charismatic talker]] and a businessman through and through, and is a NonActionGuy at heart who preferred to fight with words instead of weapons (but was forced to abandon these beliefs because of the MightMakesRight mentality of the server)[[/labelnote]], and have respectively caused each other tremendous amounts of grief and trauma throughout the series and even before it began (read: Minecraft Mondays). This is why it was such a shocker for them to [[EnemyMine team up against the Eggpire]] during the Red Banquet, a fact that both of them lampshade.

* ArcVillain:
** Dream is this for the L'Manburg Arc, being the force that holds Wilbur and Tommy's dreams of independence out of reach. Alternatively, Wilbur is this from Dream's point of view, with Tommy and George acting as Wilbur and Dream's respective [[TheDragon second-in-commands]].
** The Pogtopia Arc has Jschlatt, who made enemies all around the server with his goals of expanding L'Manburg (which he renames Manburg) into Dream SMP territory to the point that Jschlatt alienated just about every ally he may have initially had.
*** However, Jschlatt ends up only being a DiscOneFinalBoss with Jschlatt's downfall and death at the end of the arc. The role of the final villain ultimately splits between Wilbur (whose SanitySlippage led him to destroying Manberg) and Techno (whose anarchistic efforts end up forcing one last EnemyMine between Dream and Pogtopia/L'Manburg).
** The Reconstruction and Exile Arc has Dream threatening L'Manburg into exiling Tommy, isolating and abusing Tommy both physically and psychologically once he was successfully exiled, and sowing the seeds of war across the server.
** The Vengeance Arc has Dream, Techno, and Phil in a BigBadDuumvirate, aiming to wipe L'Manburg off the face of the server.
** The Disunion Arc has Dream ''again'', this time going after Tommy and Tubbo specifically in a final bid for power.
** The Imprisonment Arc has the Egg and the Eggpire as the former slowly spreads across the server and corrupts its inhabitants.

** "It was never meant to be." Said by [[SixthRangerTraitor Eret]] after betraying the L'Manbergian Rebellion in the Final Control Room, [[WellIntentionedExtremist Wilbur]] before blowing up L'Manberg, and [[DespairEventHorizon Niki]] after burning [[MonumentalDamage The]] [[BurningTheFlag L']][[SymbolicallyBrokenObject Man]][[MourningAnObject tree]] during the Doomsday War.

*** In Karl's storyline, we also have "Don't forget who you are" and any variations of it, as a reminder to hold on to his memories in spite of his powers' detrimental effect on them.

* AccentsArentHereditary: The "Sootcraft" family is played by three content creators from different places--Philza's from Newcastle (in Northeastern England), Wilbur lives in Brighton (on the ''south coast'' of England; although his lore finale alleges his character was born and raised in the U.S, the content creator is of the NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent variety), and Fundy is ''Dutch''. As a result of this, all three of them have distinct accents from each other. There is no in-universe explanation for this.
* AcronymConfusion: WAP, most infamously known as "Wet Ass Pussy" because of Music/CardiB's song of the same title, is interpreted to stand for "'''W'''orship '''A'''nd '''P'''rayer" by the founders of Church Prime, most commonly Tommy. When Schlatt talks to Tommy through voice chat regarding what WAP most commonly stands for[[note]]This conversation occurred before Schlatt became President of Manburg[[/note]], [[BrainBleach Tommy is disturbed]].

** After being saved on numerous occasions by Ranboo and Tubbo, Squeeks the Fox winds up dying to a mere creeper explosion when being excavated towards Snowchester.
* AllThereInTheManual: Major events and plot points in the SMP are just roleplaying. The many Theatre/{{Hamilton}} references and parallels were intentional, and most major events were at least partially planned (the ''dialogue'' within them, however, is improvised, leaving the participants with much more room to fill in the blanks). A notable exception is Eret's betrayal, which only the Greater Dream SMP members knew about. To the L'Manberg members, it was completely unscripted and their reactions are genuine.

* AndIMustScream: ** According to [[BackFromTheDead Tommy's]] description of the afterlife, the dead feel like they are "taken apart and being put together", as if they were being stretched, and he suffers very obvious SensoryOverload after being brought back to life.

* AndIMustScream: Tommy's description of what he went through in the Afterlife is ''horrific''.
-->'''Tommy:''' I felt like I was- like I was shredded to ''dust.'' [...] It felt like I was put through a shredder, but there was no blood, there was no flesh, it was just ''essence''. Like a ''powder,'' and I was put through it, and then I came out, and I was in a... a long- a long- a ''hall'', a- a- t-tunnel of black and void and- not even black, just colorless!\\

** Niki confirms Bear SMP is canon to Dream SMP, by saying her character is the same and simply travels between the two.
** WebOriginal/MinecraftChampionship is implied to be canon to Dream SMP several times. Notably, Seapeekay's character is a DimensionalTraveler, confirming MCC is canon to Dream SMP by traveling between them. This also opens up a rabbit hole of other potential servers that can be welded to Dream SMP.

* ForWantOfANail:
** It was revealed in retrospect by Wilbur that had [=POG2020=] won the L'Manburg election instead of [=SchWAG2020=], the plot would have gone [[WhatCouldHaveBeen/DreamSMP in a very different direction]].
** On a smaller scale, had Tommy not decided to go on a personal mission to try to assassinate Schlatt on the day following the Manburg Festival, he would not have witnessed Quackity's final straw in the conflict over the destruction of the White House, and he most certainly wouldn't have gone after Quackity after he killed Schlatt... and Quackity wouldn't have had an official HeelFaceTurn and would have acted on his contemplation to ''return to Manburg'' in spite of it being a growingly toxic environment for him to be in.

* GambitPileup: The Red Banquet ends up being this, with both the Eggpire and the pro-Omelette attendees using a multitude of back-up plans to try to out-gambit the other side, which ends up being [[LampshadeHanging memed to hell and back]] by the fandom.

** The end of Volume 1 sees Tommy spend his final moments ''apologizing'' to Dream for all the abuse the latter put the former through. This is all while Jack had rerouted the nukes meant to land on the prison to target Tommy's house in an attempt to kill him, leading to him and Tubbo getting themselves trapped in the prison and subsequently killed in an attempt to save Tommy as the nukes fall onto it. Besides them, everyone else on the server has either been killed, left the SMP, has their story conclude with them being in a worse position than when they joined, didn't have a conclusion to their story, or some mix of the four, with the only exceptions being Philza and Niki, who escaped the server by travelling to the End before the nukes were launched. Even if any of the characters that had not left the region still had one live left, it wouldn't have mattered as [[NukeEm Project Early Dawn]] would've taken it away. In the end, [[RocksFallEveryoneDies very few characters had their story end on a good note]].

** The end of Volume 1 sees Tommy spends his final moments ''apologizing'' to Dream for all the abuse the latter put the former through. This is all while Jack had rerouted the nukes meant to land on the prison to target Tommy's house in an attempt to kill him, leading to him and Tubbo getting themselves trapped in the prison and subsequently killed in an attempt to save Tommy as the nukes fall onto it. Besides them, everyone else on the server has either been killed, left the SMP, has their story conclude with them being in a worse position than when they joined, don't have a conclusion to their story, or some mix of the four, with the only exceptions being Philza and Niki, who escaped the server by travelling to the End before the nukes were launched. Even if any of the characters that had not left the region still had one live left, it wouldn't have mattered as [[NukeEm Project Early Dawn]] would've taken it away. In the end, [[RocksFallEveryoneDies very few characters had their story end on a good note]].

** The Doomsday War ends in [[TheBadGuyWins Dream, Techno, and Phil's unequivocal victory as L'Manburg is wiped off the face of the server]]. There's not even a caveat or HopeSpot for the heroes--L'Manburg has not only ''lost'', they've lost so badly that there's no chance of recovering even a fraction of their nation. Anarchy reigns supreme over the Dream SMP as Dream, Techno, and Phil bomb what's left of Wilbur's unfinished symphony.
** The end of Season 1 sees Tommy spends his final moments ''apologizing'' to Dream for all the abuse the latter put the former through. This is all while Jack had rerouted the nukes meant to land on the prison to target Tommy's house in an attempt to kill him, leading to him and Tubbo getting themselves trapped in the prison and subsequently killed in an attempt to save Tommy as the nukes fall onto it. Besides them, everyone else on the server has either been killed, left the SMP, has their story conclude with them being in a worse position than when they joined, don't have a conclusion to their story, or some mix of the four, with the only exceptions being Philza and Niki, who escaped the server by travelling to the End before the nukes were launched. Even if any of the characters that had not left the region still had one live left, it wouldn't have mattered as [[NukeEm Project Early Dawn]] would've taken it away. In the end, very few characters had their story end on a good note.

** The end of Season 1 sees Tommy spends his final moments ''apologizing'' to Dream for all the abuse the latter put the former through. This is all while Jack had rerouted the nukes meant to land on the prison to target Tommy's house in an attempt to kill him, leading to him and Tubbo getting themselves trapped in the prison and subsequently killed in an attempt to save Tommy as the nukes fall onto it. Besides them, everyone else on the server has either been killed, left the [=SMP=], has their story conclude with them being in a worse position than when they joined, don't have a conclusion to their story, or some mix of the four, with the only exceptions being Philza and Nikki, who escaped the server by travelling to the End before the nukes were launched. Even if any of the characters that had not left the region still had one live left, it wouldn't have mattered as [[NukeEm Project Early Dawn]] would've taken it away. In the end, very few characters had their story end on a good note.

** The end of Season 1 sees Tommy spends his final moments ''apologizing'' to Dream for all the abuse the latter put the former through. This is all while Jack had rerouted the nukes meant to land on the prison to target Tommy's house in an attempt to kill him, leading to him and Tubbo getting themselves trapped in the prison and subsequently killed in an attempt to save Tommy as the nukes fall onto it. Besides them, everyone else on the server has either been killed, left the [=SMP=], has their story conclude with them being in a worse position than when they joined, not even having a conclusion to their story, or some mix of the four, with the only exceptions being Philza and Nikki, who escaped the server by travelling to the End. Even if any of the characters that had not left the region still had any one live left, it wouldn't have mattered as [[NukeEm Project Early Dawn]] would've taken it away. In the end, very few characters have their story end on a good note.