#c!dreamisms
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been thinking about post-prison c!dream again and i feel like ... characterizations of him after pandora smtimes can lean vindictive. and it's not like there's no proof for this being the case, lol, this man has quite a few angry speeches post-prison about getting his Revenge! and such, and obviously has Feelings about the whole being left to rot and be tortured thing. that being said, i think it's worth pointing out how what a character thinks they believe and what their actions show can have some...pretty apparent discrepancies, and i think that c!dream's stated desires to take his revenge as well as a "us against them, you're either with me or against me" viewpoint of the server as a whole don't necessarily match up with his behavior post-prison
for one, i think it's worth pointing out how often c!dream's anger in these cases is obviously emotional to the point of incoherence--it's often been stated that his speech in the logstedshire chase scene screams of projection in the midst of a panic attack, which, i mean? yeah? he's making assumptions about what c!tommy thinks and basically repeating what c!quackity said in that cell almost word for word and making the kill-and-revive-you-over-and-over-and-over threat that he definitely wasn't going to go through with (though, is kind of interesting retrospectively considering we know that he literally did that to himself). then there's his rant to c!sam in daedalus one which literally includes his threatening c!sam with c!quackity, a claim so absurd that c!sam himself points it out as making no sense. and then there's his speech with c!quackity where he says he's going to torture...las nevadas? as in, the country? dream that's. dream it's a country. it can't feel pain. dream.
in this, a clear pattern is established where a lot of these angry threats are...bluffs. hot air. even if c!dream is genuine when he makes these threats, they're really not plausible (like, uh, please tell me how youre gonna convince quackity to torture sam for you king.) and it's not like c!dream doesn't have a pattern of being A Whole Lotta Bark when you have him in a position where he feels cornered, either. but with this, there's a precedent that's established where c!dream's threats, particularly threats where he's literally just listing shit out like that, should be taken with a grain of salt. less evidence of true plans and more an attempt to bare his teeth at you until you back the fuck away.
of course, this in itself isn't enough to claim that all of his claims of more vindictive actions should be dismissed. that being said, across the board, when you look at c!dream's actual actions post-prison...well, the amount of actual revenge this guy gets is. very small. very small. in fact, contrary to what one might think due to his paranoia and the huge breach of trust that had happened as a result of the prison, c!dream actually seems quite willing to establish connections with other people--friendly interactions, even alliances to a certain degree. looking at the following list of interactions w/ people post-prison:
He immediately gives the axe of peace to c!Techno in Snowchester after they part ways at the Arctic Commune--though the lack of favors between them indicates that there's no real explicit reason to call on each other in the immediate future, he does show very clearly that their parting hasn't made himself unwilling to cooperate with c!Techno at all.
Punz is self-evident--he speaks with his ally and reaffirms that the plan is still on track (a plan made before the negative effects that prison had on his. uh .everything)
The aforementioned conflict with c!Tommy, where he makes a lot of threats in ways that seem like a pretty damn deliberate mirror of c!Quackity and makes no effort to follow through on, particularly in tems of the killing-and-reviving shit and keeping tommy in exile and whatever else he was saying there
The interaction with Sapnap, where he is clearly gauging c!Sapnap's reaction and flees shortly after things appear to grow in hostility, once again making overtures at a threat that he will never follow up on (even considering he could very easily follow Sapnap to find Kinoko and could as such attack it quite simply even with just, a couple flint & steels tbh)
An interaction with Eryn where he makes no effort to be hostile at any point, hiding behind his shield and then exchanging items when Eryn offers them. The entire time, c!Dream's actions are defensive and purposefully nonthreatening and at no point does he attempt to engage a fight--even when not asked for payment, he gives a valuable item in exchange. Clearly more an attempt to be friendly than any outright hostility, though he is also obviously wary.
Daedalus also quite self-explanatory--again, it should be emphasized that letting Sam go in any capacity with any lives is explicitly an act of mercy. Left alone, Sam would have died in the prison for good; he set his spawn in the prison, a fact Dream would've known when he escorted him out. He makes a lot of threats, including some that are quite incoherent, and at the end he kills Sam once and then escorts him out of the prison grounds alive. Interestingly enough, conversations in Daedalus also seem pretty explicitly from a perspective of trying to get c!Sam to understand him in some respects--like, c!Dream isn't seeking division here. Even in consideration of the fact that he needed to get the keycards, c!Dream's continued emphasis on trying to get c!Sam to see him is...interesting, in view of how much of what went wrong being explicitly because of c!Sam's betrayal.
He warns Bad and Skeppy away from the prison shortly after beginning to reside there on a permanent basis. He gives them quite a sum of gifts (iirc, a block of netherite and a totem of undying) despite firing arrows at them; even though he has a reason to be aggressive towards c!Bad as one of the prison guards (something both c!Bad and c!Skeppy point out) he makes no effort to kill them and outright gives them valuable items while warning them to stay away from the prison
scrapped lore, whenever it was meant to happen, was an obvious "revenge" attempt against quackity...which goes, badly. a clue into the State that he was in in terms of his revenge quests. also, whatever interaction he has with c!wilbur later, obviously c!Wilbur doesn't end up worse for wear physically from it.
In inconsolable differences, c!Dream is more preoccupied with keeping a "feeling" of power over c!Wilbur over taking outright control over the room and therefore complies with c!Wilbur's orders. He does attack, but despite having more than the necessary means to kill both c!Wilbur and c!Tommy while he's there, does not do so. Neither does he manage to keep them trapped in the prison, something that he absolutely could've done if he so chose. Instead, he values a (imaginary) symbol of his continued alliance with c!Wilbur over any kind of hostile action, imprisonment, or killing of either person (and explicitly values c!Wilbur's life over just about everything, there.)
In his interaction with c!Foolish, he's outright trying to get c!Foolish to consider him beyond what other people have said about him. He's trying to establish some form of an alliance and offers...well, quite a lot in order to have one (in order to have a five minute warning of c!Quackity's location. like, he's putting himself in c!Foolish's service quite explicitly here, offering to become his hitman or bodyguard). He's obviously wary, but also obviously trying to be friendly and largely interacts with c!Foolish by trying to establish a rapport, not by trying to threaten him into something or attack him in any way. Even with c!Sam, the amount of outright threatening behavior from c!Dream isn't all that large--mostly, he's being petty? You could make an argument about c!Dream's vague threat to c!Sam's island, but clearly Sam loses no lives from Dream in any interaction they might have after they leave the summer home.
I consider the whole interaction with c!Aimsey canon bc literally everyone was playing as their characters there--c!Dream outright goes out of his way to try and protect a total stranger here with no obvious personal benefit. He literally inserts himself into the conflict to try and prevent c!Aimsey's death, which is kinda wild for someone to do as someone who allegedly wants people to die on the server. He attacks (and even kills c!George) c!snf here, but it's all in a scene where they get distracted from their whole "blowing shit up" moment because they want to chase c!Dream, and c!Dream specifically uses very little melee combat here--a lot of ranged stuff, which is far from his specific specialty. Further, there's a scene in this fight where c!Dream is acting entirely defensively, backed up against a wall with his shield in front of him as c!snf attack, and at the end he just runs away--all behavior that doesn't seem to be about killing anyone or profiting from anyone's deaths in any way.
LN5, threats similarly nonsensical, and he dips as soon as things start going south. For all of his seeming confidence, he's not the one that continues the chase in an attempt to kill c!Quackity, and the fight evidently freaks him out considering how he ends up not realizing he's being stalked by c!Tommy and then hides in the prison for a solid while (while still being stalked by c!Tommy)
Despite apparently wanting them to decide who to die in the saw trap (which had a premise that is frankly, quite hard to believe), c!clingy are given the exact items that could've facilitated their escape. He certainly could've killed both or one at any point in time, even if he wanted a message to be spread to the server (something easily done with one guy)--instead, he monologues at them, then conveniently leaves so that they can get away (and they could've with the literal items he gave them if tommy didn't burn their food.) When c!Tommy returns the following day, c!Dream makes it clear he expected both of them to have gotten out
Despite being clearly unable to stand c!Tommy, blaming him for most if not all of his problems on the server, and outright saying to c!Tommy that c!Tommy would never agree to help him (after they had a shouting match literally one day ago), gives quite the sales pitch to get c!Tommy on the same page as them.
I'm probably missing stuff, but you get my point--even when presented golden opportunities to kill off a player post-prison, c!Dream doesn't take it. He outright spares c!Sam when he could've easily died from the Revengers' tactic. When meeting with strangers, he prioritizes establishing a friendly rapport with them through things like gifts over, in his distrust, treating them badly so that they're scared of him and therefore don't fuck with him yadayada. His behavior, instead of exuding an aura of anger and vengeance and vying for destruction, tends to send a message of trying to be outright unthreatening, please-don't-attack-me. He's not going everywhere holding his big fuck off axe, he's seeing a new person and ducking behind his shield.
Oftentimes, I feel like this quote is pulled or paraphrased from No Way Home to show how c!Dream has become distrusting of people, vindictive, post-prison
And if that means we have to kill everybody— and ev— everybody that doesn't wanna go along with what me and Punz have to say? Everyone that doesn't want to figure it out? Then, fine! You can be simple-minded and you can die simple-minded. But! If you wanna actually know what's going on in this world, and you wanna fix it, and make it the best that we can be, and live forever? Then they can join us.
And while I'm not saying we should dismiss the whole quote as just being disingenous bluffing, I think when taken into the context of post-prison c!Dream's actions (or, well, c!Dream's actions as a whole) as well as his actions in the finale itself (such as his appealing to c!Tommy in the next stream), rather than putting the emphasis on the idea of "everyone who disagrees with me should die," c!Dream seems far more preoccupied with the idea of trying to find people who are willing to work with him to "fix" everything. People who will help him make it so that they can "live forever"--a desire he expresses in the fourth finale stream as well.
like, it's not to say that c!dream isn't vengeful. he is. i mean, i'd say moreso than vengeful, he's angry--just like how a lot of his overtures at friendliness are so deeply rooted in fear. the prison made him angry and the prison made him scared, and the anger has to be repurposed into revenge because revenge is power that he certainly didn't have when he was on his knees begging for mercy. but far from being closed off and unwilling to work with other people post-prison due to his experiences in Pandora (which. would make sense. i mean. like, he was left in there, and tortured, and betrayed. anger and revenge and a general distrust towards everyone and a desire to destroy a world that condemned him would be very easy to understand in this scenario), i'd say c!dream's interactions with people post-prison scream of a general lack of a desire to actually go through with killing people. hell, he even revives c!tommy--c!tommy! who just killed him! who c!dream outright blames for like, basically ruining his life! when revivals are literally apparently destabilizing the universe!--shortly after killing him. generally, he meets people who are dealing with him aggressively with a desire to flee moreso than with murderous intent (in genuine finale 2, for example, this guy was sure more focused on running the fuck away than he was on killing either of c!clingy), and even moreso deals with other people on the server by acting defensively and even in a manner that seems deliberately designed to get them to be more willing to work with him, or at least deal with him in a friendly way. despite his paranoia and how deeply pandora cut as a betrayal and his obvious wariness towards all people as a result (there's hardly a single interaction on the list above, after all, that doesn't have c!dream's obvious fear of people leaking all over the damn carpet), he seems to be much more focused on the idea of finding possible allies than he is on the idea of killing everyone possible.
which, i mean, makes sense. as he himself states:
#c!dreamisms#dreblr#c!dream#long post#my guy ...#c!dream. C!DREAM.#sorryi have so many damn opinions
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this song is soooo c!dream it is insane
like it is just him. i need you all to see my vision here i need everyone to hear my point. hear me out guys hear me out.
i am going to ramble so aggressively under the cut but hear me out here stay with me. this may not be coherent and that was because it was written in a haze. no idea what i wrote just hear me out
'The looking glass, so shiny and new
How quickly the glamour fades'
its like the SMP. a shiny and new existance, something new he crafted for his friends and yet the glamour fades, it all falls apart and it dissolves and it crumbles in his hands.
'You made a deal, and now it seems you have to offer up
But will it ever be enough? (Raise it up, raise it up)
It's not enough (Raise it up, raise it up)'
do i even need to explain. the revival book. the deal for it, the crushing realization that reality is not what he thought, that infinity is possible and eternity is a truth, and this is not enough for him. he needs eternity. he needs forever, it will never be enough. he offers up his sanity, his grasp on reality, in exchange for a promise of eternity. hear me out-
'Here I am, a rabbit-hearted girl
Frozen in the headlights
It seems I've made the final sacrifice'
the rabbit dream agenda. this is just the rabbit dream agenda but also he is frozen in the headlights of the role he has to take on. he has to be the villain, he has to make the final sacrifice and give himself up to the box he's being placed in; because there is no other option. a trapped rabbit cannot flee. a trapped rabbit can only fawn and freeze and fight (reminds you of the prison, doesn't it?).
'This is a gift, it comes with a price
Who is the lamb and who is the knife?
Midas is king and he holds me so tight
And turns me to gold in the sunlight'
oh GOD there is so much i can say. there is so much this post is going to be years long there is so much. the revival book is a gift. it is the gift, and it comes with a price. the lamb and the knife, discduo, vaultduo, however you want to see it; who is the lamb and who is the knife will change and rotate. tommy is the lamb in exile, dream the knife. dream is the lamb in the vault, sam the knife. dream is the lamb in the finale, tommy the knife. the roles will change, the gift always comes with a price. companionship is a gift that comes with a cost. hear me out stay with me here
'I must become a lion-hearted girl
Ready for a fight
Before I make the final sacrifice'
guys its the fucking disc finale its the. its just the disc finale that's the disc finale thats th. he has to shed his heart, he has to make the final sacrifice, he has to be ready for a fight because he needs to protect, he needs to defend and he needs to stand for his ally. he needs to mold himself from a rabbit to a lion, prey disguised as predator, a rabbit in lions clothing. the final sacrifice is just a price he has to pay. the gift of companionship will always come with a cost, and dream is more than ready to walk into it.
'And in the spring I shed my skin
And it blows away with the changing wind
The waters turn from blue to red
As towards the sky I offer it'
OOHHHH god so much.s o much i can say theres so much there is so much. he sheds his attatchments like a snake shedding its skin, letting them dissipate with the changing winds- and he sheds himself, too. he steps out of his skin and changes the winds, walks a new path not of choice but of necessity, because this is all he can do. what else can he do, when faced with the reality of his situation, of his existance, flawed and cursed with mortality that he can cure? what else can he do, when faced with the reality of his server, his friends, lost to conflict, lost to disagreements, and he can fix it. he can fix it, they just have to trust him, they just have to hate him. he has to be a viper, a snake in the grass, he has to be a lion because he cannot be a rabbit. he cannot be prey, not anymore. c!dream is prey acting as a predator. he is a rabbit cornered and biting in retalliaton read as violence. he is a snake hissing and biting, desperate to be left alone and to be heard. he masquerades as a lion, a dragon, a beast of unknown proportion; but he is an animal that burrows and clings, grapples with the past and craves companionship and distance at the same time. the waters run from blue to red as he offers revival, as he offers himself.
this is a gift. it comes with a price.
okay im done this was probably so incoherent but i am in a c!dream and neurodivergence fuelled haze right now and i need you guys to hear my insanity /hj
no i will not be elaborating or explaining any of this
#grayy rambles#dreblr#cdream#no guys hear me out hear me out i know i sound insane but you've gotta hear me out here#i think in music i need to associate osngs with every character ever and this. this one is dream.#my dreamisms are getting a little too insane!! /hj#dsmp analysis. technically. kind of#long post#dsmp analysis but of music and the corellation to a characte rthat the song is not even about im just that insane about him#this was written in a haze ngl#i think i just like. went insane for a moment and then blinked and this was on my screen. the things c!dream does to my brain holy shit#Spotify
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Every time I see Techno / Philza / Syndicate mains in my notes I'm like MY PEOPLEEE MY OGS YOU HAVE NOT ABANDONED ME AS THE C!DREAMISMS TOOK OVER HELLO HI
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oh yeeah for context tommy in chat this morning before lore went on that mini rant about c!dream apologists before welll... the tweet he liked will make sense when you see the lore
i get it but also HE BAITED THEM W ANTI C!DREAMISM I FKDKDKDKD
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Ask game: 24 22 and 19
19. What are come of your favorite pieces of c!Dream animations/songs/other types of video/audio content?
The Old Days animatic by Knp lives rent free in my brain. Watching that animatic changed the trajectory of my life I'm so serious it's so aklsjdhsgajksdshass the way it so perfectly represents c!dream's longing to return to a simpler past? when he could laugh and have fun with c!george and c!sapnap???? the way you can see when c!dream stops smiling in the animatic?? aughhhh c!dream team my c!dream team you are a wound that never stops aching.
22. If you had all the time, resources, and skills to create your ideal piece of c!Dream fan content, what would it be?
I've talked about it before, but genuinely You and I Drink the Poison From the Same Vine (my theoretical c!dreambur semi-canon compliant fic that I talked abt in the post linked). I think about it all the time. I would love to just... have the commitment needed to write this long fic that examines canon through the lens of one non-canon element being added.
Also, it'd be really really fun to write interactions between c!punz and c!wilbur (where c!punz doesn't understand why c!dream keeps c!wilbur around and does what he wants and c!wilbur holds his connection to c!dream over c!punz's head like a taunt).
Uh, other than that, I have a slide show about c!dream that I never finished. I started making it with the goal of presenting it to my non-c!dream sympathetic irls haha
24. When/how did you become a c!Dream apologist?
Okay, this is going to get long and I may get into way more detail than I need to, so buckle in because this was quite the journey for me.
So, I didn't get into the fandom until around august-september of 2021. However, I had multiple irls who were really into the dsmp in late 2020-early 2021. And, uh, they're very very non-sympathetic to c!dream. (also believers in the l'manburg mythos, but we are not getting into that...) anyway, I heard a lot about the dsmp from an outside perspective during my time of not being in the fandom. And this included hearing about the exile arc (with one hilarious instance where my friends did not specify it was rp so for a moment I thought cc!dream was just a really really bad dude 💀) and hearing about how horrible c!dream was how evil he was etc etc.
In typical "I am not invested in this fandom at all but my dear friend is" fashion, I just agreed with them. All of my info came from hearing them talk abt something they were interested in, so why would I disagree?
Anyway, flash forward, like, half a year, and I begin watching the manhunts. I got really into them and ended up reading some non-dsmp fics. And then everything spiralled and I got sucked into the fandom. I remember reading some c!dream redemption fics, and I was really enjoying it, but I still didn't consider myself an apologist. Afterall, my entire first impression of him was how horrible he was through my friends.
Anyway, I don't have an exact timeline, but it wasn't until I actually followed someone from dreblr that I started fully embracing my c!dreamisms and my c!dream apologism. I kept my c!dream apologisms hush hush in front of my friends for so long. I still do to an extent. I'm scared, okay? And I don't wanna get into arguments with them, so it's best to just, like, not bring it up I guess.
#c!dreamie has always been my favorite character though#it definitely started with some cc bias bc I got into the fandom via manhunts#but it has evolved from that#stella answers#sioster#dreblr#ask game
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if there are any hot takes no one’s seeing them bc everyone has each other blocked already probably 😭
can we start a dreblr competition to see who can come up with the most batshit c!dream headcanon or take please like there has been a serious absence of c!dreamisms on the dash recently
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not to ask another question, i'm new and thought loyal was always part of dreblr? is that not true (i would ask them but i'm shy and they have anon off)
as far as I remember Loyal started as someone who mostly cared about c!techno and the c!dreamisms caught them later :') Loyal beloved feel free to correct me if that's not true o/
but like c!dream to c!techno and c!techno to c!dream enjoyer pipeline was real and true and proven time and time again
and Loyal is someone most of us would stab a mfer for so whether or not they started as dreblr doesn't matter <3
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Did uou like dio. Be honest. c!dreamisms
he is literlaly my favorite character pelase pelae fuckignbshdut thebfuckc ucp
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IOI at Time Slip Concert [PREVIEW]
C: Dreamism I.O.I - DO NOT EDIT/CROP PHOTO - [1]
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this is formatted like a webweave only it's not really one bc i srsly couldn't make a webweave like for my life but at the same time i didn't know how else to condense the brainrot into a consumable form. anyway. something something things that changed and things that didn't, vassal drives me crazy bonkers insane and i think about c!dream in season 1a forever and ever and ever, holy fuck.
(transcripts courtesy of @/dsmptranscripts on twitter, and artwork all done by SAD-ist)
(i tried colorcoding but idk how much it helps at all. green emphasizes how he sees L'manburg in relation to the Dream SMP, blue emphasizes his motivations re: L'manburg and how he sees its residents into and out of Pogtopia, and yellow specifically highlights him and Wilbur, specifically how he treats him and his words with authority.)
#does this make sense. i dont really think any of this makes sense. BUT OH WELL#dont take any of this as serious analysis im literally just blorboing off the rails#rotates pogtopia!dream . baaaaaaby my baby#your my baby say it to meeee#c!dreamisms
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I find it strange that a lot of people are coming forward and saying that the staged finale was a bad play for one reason or another but it really isn’t and I don’t understand where the hate is coming from.
yeah i've seen some of this the last few days--staged finale has always been somewhat "controversial" in the lorehead scene, so a measure of disagreement/discourse about it makes sense. especially bc it was honestly a very big change to what people thought was the story and required people to go back and reevaluate a lot, which. people are naturally resistant at doing
but while obviously i think that some healthy discussion about these things is good, and i feel like i have seen a level of...misunderstanding? about it?? which has gone into the ways that people disagree
staged finale refers to the decision to stage the finale. that's it. staged finale just asserts that based on preexisting foreshadowing and based on the sheer level of suspension of disbelief in order for genuine finale to be real, it made more sense for the finale to be staged than for it to have been genuine. how the finale was planned, when the finale was planned, and to what ends it was planned are all things that you can disagree on w/ other staged finale believers/supporters while still being a staged finale believer/supporter, ykwim? if you believe that c!punz faked his betrayal to c!dream, then congrats! you believe in staged finale. oftentimes i see people say things like "i don't believe in staged finale, i think that c!dream faked the betrayal and all and always had c!punz on his side but i think that the reason behind why he did it is [X]" and it's like. staging the finale is one (1) event, not a comprehensive explanation for everything c!Dream does. that would be more in line with something like the "strategist dream interpretation," which in itself does have different readings as well.
people have listed all of the inconsistencies in the staged finale before, but just to summarize--the guy literally could've dipped when everyone came to "defeat" him, c!tommy leveraging his own life is basically no leverage at all when the mans has the revive book, skeppy cage is a joke, c!dream revealing all of his plans when they were maybe 10% carried out (the entire damn attachment vault was empty of items besides stuff that was literally faked, his own damn stuff, and stuff that he stole recently from c!tommy such as the Axe of Peace and the discs) is ridiculously stupid, why the hell does he have blackmail against c!punz included in a bunker that c!punz clearly had access to???? the list goes on.
(as someone who took awhile to be fully convinced in staged finale, what really tripped me up was the stream punz did the day before: here's a post breaking it down that definitely helped me to see it in a different light.)
as far as foreshadowing goes, just off the top of my head: the original prisoner is a constant question from the day of the prison's creation, being something that's even highlighted on the day of the staged finale itself. c!Dream saying he has "the biggest house on the server" and how it's full of redstone. the entire conversation he has with c!punz, obviously. his holding back on the favor with c!techno, the connection between the revive book and the prison that he establishes the day they begin prison construction.
from a logical perspective, the plan as c!Dream establishes it doesn't make any damn sense. c!dream had opportunities to escape that he didn't take for illogical reasons (if the only reason why he allowed himself to stay in a fucking possible kill chamber was to keep c!tommy from committing suicide, then? what about the revive book? what about the fact that he literally kills c!tommy just a few months later????) -- a level of plot contrivance is expected in the medium, but for a lot of people this was just. Going way too far. Unless he literally lost his whole mind (which, to be fair, was the persona being played) there's just. really no other way to make sense of what was going on there, if it was all genuine.
the other argument is a narrative one--people claim that the story established by a genuine finale is cleaner than the story of the staged one, and honestly. it's like. like that's...a feature, not a flaw? the reason why the genuine finale worked isn't because it was logically believable. dream is Dream Manhunt. he's famously hard to nail down, famously good at escaping sticky situations, famously a man that can outsmart his way out of crazy disadvantageous situations--like. just in terms of minecraft skill, i'd wager that most people would think that dream would've technically been able to pull off an escape even when facing down the collection of enemies that were there. like he had 2 stacks of pearls.
narratively, though, the staged finale has a story that's quite appealing on the surface. the "story" of the events from the spirit speech onwards is one that revolved around the idea of "attachment." c!Dream rejects attachment in favor of control in the spirit speech when he says he refuses to let his love for his dead pet control him anymore, and he focuses on the ability to use the discs to control c!Tommy. the fact that c!Dream's relationships deteriorate at this time seems to support this point, and c!Tommy's strength in his relationships being what saves him and damns c!Dream ties everything off into a neat bow. c!Tommy wins because he has friends and c!Dream loses because he doesn't, moral of the story established, hip-hip-hooray. And so it goes.
but when we look at this more in specifics...? it does start falling apart a bit, doesn't it?
although c!Dream supposedly begins his rampage over his existing emotional connections with the spirit speech, his reputation had been in shambles long before that point. c!Dream-as-villain is first established as part of the greater story in the lmanburg revolution, and that's a title that he never really sheds (this point being emphasized in inconsolable differences and the book c!Wilbur has c!Dream write.) Dethronement happens within a day of Spirit Speech, iirc, and on that day c!Quackity specifically points out that c!Dream has no one on his side but c!Punz. the moments where he is more specifically isolated go back to events such as november 16th, where his alliance with c!Wilbur involved blowing up L'manburg, his deal for the revive book, which involved his publicly betraying Pogtopia, or his opposing Manberg to the literal Manberg cabinet. etc. all of these events in the Manberg/Pogtopia era had c!Dream's loyalties erode to end up as just c!Wilbur and later c!Schlatt for the book, two dead men. (and i say eroded loyalties as if pogtopia really believed dream was on their side, like, ever? like he was never trusted in their ranks, even by c!Tommy, who was definitely the person he worked the closest with outside of c!Wilbur.)
if we look at Dethronement itself, it doesn't actually fit the pattern of "c!Dream cuts off his attachment to people in order to make himself uncontrollable" -- in fact, what it does fit the pattern of is. Staged finale? Faking an end in a relationship with people that he does consider important to him, making a public appearance of betrayal + anger to mask an existing connection, drawing attention to their being enemies to hide the fact that they're actually friends--that's not c!Dream cutting anyone off. That's just the exact same ploy that he uses to make people think that c!Punz betrays him (only c!Sapnap and c!George ended up deciding that Nah We're Gonna Kill You Now. Fuck You It's Coup Time. so that's how that ended up.)
Otherwise there's...the Badlands, who were perfectly happy to agree to joining the coup on the day of dethronement if it got them more power and land. c!Techno, who c!Dream wasn't an ally of until later on with the favor established and then doomsday, and who was someone c!Dream was quite openly wary of + afraid of due to his combat skill. c!Dream was alone literally before exile even happened, his remaining "attachments" of c!George and c!Sapnap turning against him like the day he goes on a whole spiel about ohhoho from today onwards i DONT GIVE A SHIT ABOUT MY ATTACHMENTS !!! I ONLY CARE ABOUT THE DISCS !!! like congrats you don't even have a chance to cut off any attachment at all dingus they all hate you and want you dead already.
further, with c!punz, he literally says that they're more than just employer/employee in the infamous conversation they have about planning a betrayal. if the whole point of the story is "attachment good," then why is it that what takes down c!dream is...his one remaining attachment? if his fatal flaw is that he didn't trust people enough, why is it that he loses because he trusted someone too much? it's not like c!tommy had any attachment to c!punz--c!punz explicitly "has a reason" to betray c!dream because of money. he helps c!tommy because dream "should have paid [him] more." none of that reflects that spirit of "attachment" that people claim was c!dream's downfall.
(not to mention how the people present in the staged finale to take c!dream down included people who literally hated c!tommy's guts. like. what brought them together wasn't the power of friendship, it was the power of we hate this green bastard.)
this isn't to say that c!Dream didn't have some relationships that go up in flames because he starts acting particularly cackling evil villain (with the green festival being the specific moment where he really goes full in with that persona, going from someone that was framing himself as having a Reasonable Complaint to literally the joker as soon as he gets the disc from c!Tubbo. It's purposefully played as a "mask off" moment that is meant to make him look like a crazy fucking villain in front of a large audience--whether or not you think that was a choice that he made in character or not, the way his personality changes as soon as he receives the disc is jarring.) In particular, his relationships with c!Puffy and c!Sam come to mind--c!Puffy burns the house she made him when she decides that he's too evil (but, uh, c!dream really wasn't even there for that and didn't ever have a particularly close relationship with her) and c!Sam is among those whose opinions of c!Dream become drastically more negative around the period of time that spans green festival->doomsday->staged finale. but it's important to note that c!Dream's relationships on the server aren't...great, at the time of spirit speech. They're uh, really fucking bad, actually. dethronement only makes them even worse, and all of this happens pre-exile. c!Dream had significant reason to be paranoid and afraid for his life long before exile happens, which is Quite Significant, Actually, when you consider that that paranoia is literally what goes into his decisions to carry out the staged finale + put himself in the prison (which isn't the case for genuine finale, where he's more motivated by a desire to control the server without being controlled himself.) staged finale does solidify c!dream-as-villain for a lot of people, but it never would've worked if people didn't already see him as a villain in the first place. c!Dream doesn't make people hate him with the staged finale; he uses hatred that he already knows exists to put himself in what he sees as a safer position.
and look we could go into a whole discussion about manberg/pogtopia c!Dream (which i do think is way overdue to be fair considering that that's where the paranoia + isolation that motivates him post-november 16th comes from in the first place) but this post is long enough already and i still have to figure out a better way to articulate my thoughts on the matter. anyway. carrying on:
people still have different feelings on why he carries out staged finale in the first place, but what we do know for sure is that it was meant to protect punz and protect the revive book. by firmly establishing that c!punz and him were on opposite sides, he keeps the revive book safe and both of their lives safe by extension: as long as no one would kill both of them at the same time, they had a means of reviving the other if need be and obviously had the information on how to raise people from the dead secure. which was important to them. and otherwise...c!Dream is paranoid. c!Dream is very, very paranoid, and this paranoia goes back at the very least to when he learns about the revive book. the prison, for all the dependence that it required of him, was tailor made (and the construction process controlled by dream every damn step of the way) to make sure that whoever was in the main cell would be safe from external threats. the security of the prison and the prisoner was the POINT. i've seen some assertions that staged finale implies that he predicted everything that happened after he was put in prison and...no? i'd say that c!dream's behavior indicates him being thrown off by c!sam as early as bad's prison visit, c!sapnap's prison visit for sure. c!Ranboo being banned from visitation pretty damn obviously fucks him up, tbh. he has c!punz explicitly out there to keep an eye out on the server while he's in the prison, where he was meant to remain for a period of time that was supposed to be much shorter than how long he ends up being there. likely because, you know, he was supposed to have a consistent and reliable source of information with the outside world in the form of c!Ranboo, and c!sam wasn't supposed to fall off the fucking rails as soon as the prison started. people have also talked about how having the staged finale be true means that c!dream doesn't lose, which...i mean. gestures at the prison arc? that whole thing is a loss so catastrophic it literally destroys him. he's never the same after the prison happens. the false betrayal of c!punz is deliberately like ironically described to c!sam, who was the REAL betrayal that fucking. ruins him. he loses SO MUCH over the course of the prison, which was something he literally designed to keep himself safe from external threat. as far as losses go, i definitely find that a lot more compelling and a lot less contrived than watching c!dream go "whoop de doo guess i have to die now" when he's like 3 pearls away from making a clean escape in the disc vault, tbh.
at the end of the day, i think having some conversation about staged finale is fun! and it's always good to reexamine what you believe to make sure that it still holds water. but i've really not seen much staged finale crit that makes the genuine finale feel favorable as an explanation: logically, it makes a lot less sense. narratively, it relies on a story that the audience wants to be true and acts as a "clean" explanation for everything while not actually taking into account a lot of what was ACTUALLY going on for c!dream (cutting off attachments for the sake of control versus watching people turn against you and becoming increasingly paranoid, for example). and believe them or not, the content creators involved have always asserted that staged finale was the plan from the beginning, not any form of retcon. (and we do know that people have been dodgy about stuff like the "original prisoner" literally since the week that c!dream was imprisoned, so take that as you will.) (okay to be fair theyve been dodgy about the original prisoner since the day that the prison began to be constructed, but the QnA from that first week of imprisonment sticks out to me in particular because cc!Sam had the biggest fucking smile on his face and staged finale would've been planned out and then carried out in entirety by the ccs and the c!s by that point.)
this is a longass post but uh hopefully it makes sense, lmao. tried to touch on most of what i've seen recently 😅
#my asks !!#long post#c!dreamisms#also like. im making this post from the perspective of someone who always saw staged finale as really cool#but really wasn't 100% convinced until like ehhh halfway through the prison arc roughly?#like im not claiming any credit as a believer from the beginning it took me awhile#so like. i get it.#i think for me a lot of it was also just a lack of faith in the ccs' planning and writing and feeling that narrative contrivance#could be explained through the ccs being less experienced writers + the sheer level of what they were carrying out#but you know. staged finale canon now and im not gonna sit here and pretend that im the smartest person in the room#when these guys definitely overachieved in terms of what i was expecting them to pull off#by making a plot twist that was THIS BIG and conning the whole damn fandom and server in one#like nah they deserve their W actually lmao
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I've been in a particular c!Dream mood today, so I thought I might as well take a bit of a crack at the timeline with the hindsight of the Dream SMP being over specifically with respect to c!Dream in terms of his actions from the revive book deal to staged finale.
Here's a post by Airrec and Bluebell that goes into a lot, definitely worth reading in terms of timeline shenanigans. With all that said, here's a few dates:
some time before november 6th - revive book deal
nov 16th - it's november 16th what can i even say
nov 18th/19th - c!Dream frames c!Tommy for stuff with c!Puffy
nov 23rd - vikk and lazar join the server
nov 28th - george's house burned
nov 29th - probation begins, date set for exile negotiations, dream says that he wouldn't push for exile if he got mellohi
dec 2nd - spirit speech
dec 3rd - dethronement
dec 4th - tommy exiled, prison commissioned
dec 6th - egg discovered, mexican lmanburg conflict, prison construction begins
dec 15th - dream gives techno map to woodland mansion and warns him of butcher army
dec 16th - tommy leaves exile, technoblade execution
dec 17th - dream and punz conversation about staged finale
january 5th - green festival
january 6th - doomsday
january 20th - staged finale
for this time period, there's a few things we know for sure, now:
c!dream didn't intend to put himself in prison at first but did plan on doing so by the time he told punz about staged finale. this is also when doomsday was for sure in the cards
c!dream created the prison largely due to his anxiety because of the supernatural that was specifically triggered by the revive book deal
c!dream was publicly known as having "no allies but punz" by the time of dethronement
c!dream takes on the stereotypical villain role in full during green festival, immediately after securing both discs
vikk and lazar experiments had to happen around/after doomsday, as the last time they're seen around the server is january 4th
with all of this in mind, there are a few things that we can pretty confidently conclude:
c!Dream was obviously thinking about the prison before he specifically commissioned c!Sam for it, but in the early days of the prison's conception (and judging by similar wording that we see him use on the day that the prison construction started) it is reasonable to believe that in universe, c!Dream did not yet plan to put himself in the prison when the prison construction began, and therefore staged finale was not yet his end goal
c!Dream's investigation of the supernatural could not have yet occurred at the beginning of his plans re: exile, as even if you consider the idea of vikk and lazar experiments happening earlier than their last known sighting on the server, they literally didn't join the server until november 23rd or so--and c!Dream's starting to frame c!Tommy for things happens November 18/19th, which leads into the exile conflict when c!Tommy does do something by burning down George's house
c!Dream's plan with exile seems to center heavily around the discs, as we had originally concluded. This is evident in his telling NLM that he wouldnt push for exile if he was given Mellohi, the focus on the discs during Spirit Speech, and his obvious change in demeanor once he was given the disc in Green Festival. The focus on separating Tommy and Tubbo (as Tubbo had Tommy's disc) during exile + after obviously went into this--however, as staged finale was, as we've established, not yet planned at this time, c!Dream evidently wanted the disc for other purposes
while it's impossible to say when c!dream switches gears for staged finale completely, it's obvious that this was the route that he had chosen when he brought the plan up to c!punz (when he already quite evidently had thought through several parts of the plan to put himself in the prison: he talks about something he'll do that'll make everyone hate him (doomsday), the need to stage a falling out (the finale), and considerations about the prison being "put to use") on December 17th. his reasons for deciding to commit fully to staged finale are hinted at by this conversation as well by his mentioning the failed execution of c!Technoblade and how that has reinforced the idea that they will now be after him the day before (December 16th) and c!Dream specifically establishing a rapport with c!Technoblade on December 15th by giving him a heads up on the Butcher Army seems to indicate his starting to act with the intention of possibly going through with staged finale in the future
more speculative side of this under the cut (warning. it's long and rambly and definitely less coherent than i usually try to be, which isn't great considering i'm already quite wordy and incoherent):
obviously c!dream was gunning for the disc for the entirety of the exile conflict, but we know that that wasn't specifically about staged finale yet because he hadn't yet planned to put himself in prison. at some point in time between december 5th and december 17th, his plans changed from the prison being intended for nebulous powerful enemy to being intended for himself--hence him being particularly neurotic about security and probably explaining shit like, raw potatoes etc. dream specifically says that exile didn't work in his tweet because tommy got away and went to technoblade, but after tommy leaves he also doesn't seem to prioritize continuing along that original plan--he explicitly says that he doesn't care where tommy is as long as he's away from the SMP, and even when he catches tommy a few times by the main server after that he really doesn't make a priority of taking him away + reexiling him. the most obvious example of this is his confrontation with technoblade at the nether portal, as the prioritization of saving the favor instead of using it for tommy is a very explicit show of him prioritizing the plan in its current iteration over continuing to harangue tommy
thinking about all of this i feel like. immediately after november 16th, c!dream had like. something like, three main goals? 1) Holy Shit What The Fuck + dealing with the supernatural side of the server, 2) dealing with the tommy problem (tm) and trying to restabilize the political situation on the server at that time, and 3) ensuring his safety and the safety of his allies
obviously some of c!dream's priorities after the revive book have to do with the supernatural, and obviously a world reset is something he specifically starts looking into after doing more revive book research. but seeing as revive book research isn't really possible until later on in season 1b, i think it's safe to say that until he was sure about that, the plan regarding the supernatural at first is to lock shit down and figure things out. c!punz obviously is an asset in the "figuring things out" department, and the prison itself is the biggest and most obvious example of c!dream taking proactive action to not be caught off guard. c!schlatt obviously scared the shit out of him and everyone in part just because no one expected alluvthat to go down, and the revive book reveal on top of all of c!schlatt's being. Like That. obviously sent c!dream into a spiral--the prison is a very obvious sort of knee jerk reaction to "there are threats beyond your comprehension that defy all known laws of reality" because he reacts by being like Okay Then We Will Make Something That Can Contain Any Threat (tm). the egg + realizing the literal world is broken when he and punz start doing revive book research obviously exacerbates all of this
the second thing that c!dream prioritizes literally immediately is dealing with c!tommy and the discs. which was definitely ooc for him at the time--he literally never was a guy that outright hunted down c!tommy before this time, and the disc conflicts were repeatedly initiated by c!tommy, not c!dream. his trying to frame the hell out of tommy was a new thing
but it's important to consider that on november 16th, c!Tommy very explicitly makes a point of saying Hey, My Goal Now Is Going To Be Getting Those Discs. he talks to tubbo specifically as well about how at the end of the day, no matter what happens, it'll be them against dream for the discs (and dream has neither disc at this point?)--c!Dream has every reason to believe that the Disc Conflict (tm) is going to start up soon and that c!Tommy is going to be back in Starting Shit Over The Discs Mode that had defined a lot of their conflicts pre-Manberg. and, well, you can't even say that he's wrong here--c!Tommy even makes a point of saying later that he went after c!George's house because he wanted to get to c!Dream.
when you consider stuff like c!tommy talking about his unfinished business and all-encompassing paranoia, right, it really is. like. c!dream is fucking scared as shit at the Eldritch Forces Beyond His Comprehension, he sees the world as out to Get Him especially after nov 16th makes him all but enemy no. 1, and he knows. KNOWS, for sure, that c!tommy is going to go back to pursuing him in the near future. and he's got a server that is very unstable after the fall of manberg and pogtopia, and the literal supernatural as a problem to contend with, and Tommy Fucking Innit is about to come after him again. and he's got no real leverage
the peace treaty between lmanburg + dream smp doesn't exist anymore because manberg was violently overthrown, the reasonable wilbur that allowed for peaceful coexistence on the server is just Gone, tommy is coming after him, the entire world doesn't make sense anymore
so all of this seems to suggest you know that the whole thing that c!Dream says about the discs in spirit speech all seems to be a big part of what he's doing at this point--c!Tommy is a threat that goes out of his way to fuck with c!Dream, he's continuing the disc conflict (a conflict that largely consisted of c!Dream being stolen from and blackmailed pre-Manberg) and the way exile conflict goes down (between c!Tommy telling all of NLM hey guys you know the most important part of all of this are my discs and the whole. Spirit situation.) really seems to affirm all of that. so with c!Tommy specifically talking about how he wants to continue the Disc Conflict, it does seem to suggest that to a certain degree, c!Dream's goal at this point in time might've been to more or less "win" the disc war and end that conflict already. by making himself someone impossible to blackmail (unlike how he was in the past) he establishes that c!Tommy's gambits to get the discs away from him that he's used in the past won't work anymore, which means that when c!Dream gets the discs it'll basically be game over.
he knew that the discs would be a problem again bc tommy literally announced it to everyone, and with dream this high strung he probably thought that this time he was going to make it happen according to his time frame instead of just waiting for tommy to attack him out of nowhere or some shit. as far as c!dream is concerned, c!tommy is one of the biggest threats against him on the server at that point because c!tommy Will Not Let This Conflict Go. and honestly, c!dream has a lot of reason to think of c!Tommy as a character with a hell of a lot of sway, considering uh. people were listening to this kid more or less over wilbur during the war on nov 16th and in pogtopia and all.
like for c!dream, c!tommy is a threat that isn't going to stop until dream makes him stop, and he's a guy that can pretty effectively make a lot of people on the server agree with him. he has very little bargaining power with nlm at the minute, but the situation (as far as he's concerned) is definitely more controllable with nlm than it was for like, manberg. tubbo is someone that can be reasoned with and someone that couldn't afford a war, and he did seem to be prioritizing peace over starting stupid battles--so for dream, the priority would've been getting the guy who DID make his whole deal into "starting stupid battles" to Stop Fucking Doing That, and just. in general, securing the discs was his best route for doing so. by getting the discs, he has solid leverage over c!tommy that he knows that c!tommy will listen to, and by establishing that blackmail wont work on him the way it has in the past, as soon as he gets the discs he does more or less "win"
in continuation of this, when it comes to c!Dream's goals about NLM in particular at this time, i am. looking at what he says about tubbo being a reasonable leader and going hmmmm. because what's pretty clear, right, is that no matter how you cut it, doomsday has to be connected to staged finale and putting dream in the prison. there is no world, no matter how buddybuddy he is with NLM and/or tommy, that destroying NLM through Doomsday wouldn't make everyone want his head on a stake. if c!Dream didn't decide on staged finale until later, it does seem like a logical progression of that statement to say he didn't decide on Doomsday until later as well. Which, once again, fits his actions at this point in time--c!dream specifically points to nlm's successfully hunting down and executing technoblade and subsequent focus on hunting him down as being the reason why they have to go for staged finale full throttle, and the butcher army escalating is the reason why he starts moving towards an allyship with c!Techno, the local guy who hates countries and would be the most obvious ally in destroying one.
(edit: this indicates that c!dream, who doesn't originally seem to be gunning for Doomsday specifically if we consider that he doesn't decide on staged finale until a little later, didn't really tip over onto the side of "this place has to go fr" until more obvious signs of nlm being completely averse to a "resolution" of sorts, the most obvious of that being the butcher army and plans to Go And Kill People including c!dream. and this further aligns with some of his villain speech on green festival, where he specifically talks about tubbo being a bad leader because he let quackity push him around too much, as we know that quackity was the one behind a lot of butcher army)
id say c!dream's plans immediately after november 16th seemed to be more along the lines of reestablishing a status quo with nlm than anything else--establishing himself again as the guy that shouldn't be fucked with (the walls, threatening to close the borders) and working for the discs. in a way he almost seems to be reverse engineering the original independence deal with lmanburg--technical independence for the discs, you guys agree to not mess with me and my shit and i get leverage over the guy that won't stop picking a fight with me--like exile was definitely about trying to get tommy to Stop Fucking Doing That + trying to get the discs first and foremost, because if tommy sees him as a "friend" and dream has the goddamn discs (and is no longer blackmailable) then the chances of the server "going back to normal" probably felt higher, all while dream is i think more or less trying for some level of peaceful coexistence with nlm--trying to establish himself as someone rational and willing to work with them and not against them as long as everyone was staying in their goddamn lanes
but obviously between the situation with c!tommy quickly showing itself as not really being sustainable + nlm's increasing aggression, considering how he obviously knew abt butcher army and later on green festival, he had to abandon the idea that the server could return to a status quo and instead go for the staged finale, with the breaking point obviously being c!Tommy leaving exile and the butcher army making its first definitive move on december 16th
c!dream framing c!tommy -> exile conflict -> saying that he'll not push for exile if he gets the disc all definitely seems to be For The Discs, and the specific engineering of a divide between tommy and tubbo (through exile, obviously) definitely seems to be for the purpose of getting the disc, either through convincing c!tommy to give it to him directly or through pressuring c!tubbo to give it to him as he does in green festival. his increasing lack of giving a shit about where c!tommy is and what he's doing post-dec 16th suggests that he switches gears in his plan, and the main thing that he emphasizes at that point is still the separation between tommy and tubbo (though obviously to a less neurotic degree than he does during exile) (and obviously even in exile the separation he particularly keeps up is once again between c!clingy and not all of the other like, ten people that visit tommy) . the emphasis on the discs isn't yet about staged finale but obviously does get incorporated into it when he comes up with staged finale because mans literally already made a whole plan centering around getting the discs of course he'd still proceed with it even when it becomes clear that peaceful coexistence, with or without them, has become completely impossible
and like all of this is happening at the same time that c!dream is actively freaking the fuck out about the revive book, and later experimentation really doesn't help with any of that at all when he discovers that whole Corruption thing. by the time we get to staged finale, the best way of ensuring some kind of stability seems to be having punz keep an eye out, getting rid of lmanburg for good, locking himself up to be like 👍 okay i cant cause problems anymore, and giving tommyinnit those god damned discs holy fuck
and obviously with no one really willing to peacefully coexist until they thought of him as Defeated (a point obviously established over the course of season 1b) that meant that the best way to ensure that he, his allies, and the revive book were all secured would be to engineer his own defeat and put himself in the safest possible position
buuuuuut yeah i think as far as my thoughts on c!dream and plans in season 1b, there's the plan to get the disc + reestablish a status quo of sorts that he abandons for good by the time of december 17th (though as early as december 15th we can see him starting to switch away from it + he probably came up with the plan for staged finale and doomsday and putting himself in the prison in more specifics earlier than that) and after that we see him full throttle go for staged finale until jan 20
and it's important right that during all of this c!dream is acting notably different from how he acts at literally any other point in the server. we know he has a literal like, psychotic break + paranoid spiral because of the revelations of the revive book and all of that ends up with him making the giant fucking what the fuck that is the prison. he's notably paranoid during a LOT of this two-month period. this is not a man in his right mind and a lot of the plans i think around this time definitely reflect that--staged finale is Batshit, and his plan to get the discs is Batshit as well. he's still strategizing and obviously he still pulls off staged finale successfully, but like. in terms of the actual like decisions he's making. it's like. holy hell dude why are you doing things like THAT.
and the idea of backup plans upon backup plans is also something that we see a lot from c!dream--he is adaptable and will change what he does based on the circumstances around him. we saw it in the revolution and multiple back up plans in terms of this time period makes sense as well--the original plan with exile was to get c!Tommy to see him as his "friend" to achieve his goal (with his goal, as established, seeming to be to get the discs), but when that obviously wasn't really working he instead focuses on pressuring c!Tubbo through establishing himself as less volatile than c!Tommy to end up obtaining Mellohi during the Green Festival. his shifting away from originally trying to establish an agreement with NLM more similar to how the server had been pre-Manberg when doing so was evidently impossible bc of the butcher army focusing wholeheartedly on hunting him down leads to the plan that consists of Doomsday/Staged Finale/Putting himself in the prison, which secures himself + his ally + the revive book and gets rid of the perceived major threat that was evidently not going to agree to coexist peacefully, NLM.
anyway hopefully someone could make some sense out of . all of that. a lot of speculation in terms of his original plan pre-staged finale but i think that it does seem to fit w/ some earlier patterns that have been established--mostly i'm just solid on the points of 1) he was gunning for the disc from the beginning for his goals, whatever his goal at the time was and 2) i don't think doomsday + a total annihilation of lmanburg was really something he was specifically gunning towards until he established staged finale as the plan, because he obviously knew that destroying lmanburg would destroy any possibility of peace between him and the rest of the server and would therefore have to ensure his safety through something like putting himself in the prison--after all, c!dream at the beginning of this whole arc already knows that he's alone and wasn't necessarily trusting in a whole collection of allies to watch his back (like, as if anyone watched his back like, from the revolution onwards. lmao. guy literally has more allies by this point in punz and ranboo than he did before i stg)
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honestly, there's probably a lot you can say abt c!dream in terms of losing even when he wins. because, tbh, this is...consistent.
c!dream is very intelligent and very good at PVP and these are well-established traits from the beginning of the server. he is skilled at thinking strategically and therefore is often able to navigate unfavorable situations to him in order to successfully achieve some goal of his. in terms of achieving goals, c!Dream isn't half bad in the slightest! but how do these goals actually work out for him?
in the revolution, c!dream successfully leads his side to victory while minimizing damage to his own people (and, sometimes, minimizing damage across the board: see him telling his men to hold fire to allow lmanburgians to retrieve their items.) the most amount of risk to anyone on his side is during the duel, where he ended up on half a heart to determine the end result of the war. and it's quite undeniable that c!dream wins the war--he gets to set the terms of the peace, gives them "technical" independence as he planned to from the start but says that he and the rest of the Dream SMP will view them as constituents of the greater server and gets both discs after c!tommy offers them willingly. by all means, on paper, a glowing success.
only time passes and as others treat l'manburg as independent, he is forced to do the same. "suck it green boy" becomes one of the most common catchphrases of the server when the independence that was granted them in the book that this statement was written was. literally given to them out of c!dream's mercy? and not out of their victory? he loses both discs AND significant leverage against himself due to various conflicts that involved people stealing from him and/or blackmailing him when he literally wasn't doing anything. l'manburg's ranks have swelled and the story established by it and its independence has long since drowned out any other perspective on the war.
then, in manberg/pogtopia, c!dream enters into the conflict from the perspective of wanting c!schlatt out of power. later on, remaining loyal to c!wilbur, he helps him to successfully pull off the plot to blow up L'manburg and also manages to obtain the revive book through a brief alliance with c!Schlatt. once again, his goals were successfully pulled off in no small part due to his strategizing.
and yet, in the long run, what does c!dream really gain? the revive book is something he evidently didn't know about until the trade with c!Schlatt, and the knowledge of it fucking destroys him. with both c!Schlatt and c!Wilbur dead, he immediately ends up as enemy number one, something c!Wilbur himself states later on. c!Dream, who had never really had any particularly stable alliances pre-manberg anyway, comes out the other side of November 16th even more alone than he had been before, publicly distrusted (not that he was ever really trusted, even by Pogtopia before he officially starts working against them because of the revive book, something that the content creator himself has stated was created purely to explain why c!Dream would switch sides.) the destruction of L'manburg is merely temporary. the plan to blow up L'manburg was c!wilbur's in creation, and considering how open c!Dream is about disliking c!Schlatt, I really hesitate to think that he was going out of his way to ally with guy unless he himself intentionally revealed the revive book to this end (like. c!schlatt is a smart guy, bro.)
c!dream is "secretive" about just about nothing at this time, besides I guess his actually helping Pogtopia (if you can call this guy telling the fucking Manberg cabinet that it's L'manburg, not Manberg, being secretive el em ay oh)--he's open about helping c!Wilbur with the TNT (and c!Wilbur you know, makes a point of doing it in front of an audience both times he asks c!Dream for TNT as well) in Vassal and then on November 6th, and that exact stream is also where he literally walks in the middle of Pogtopia to say hey guys. I'm Betraying You Now. like ???
everything he gains at this time culminates to 1) he helps c!Wilbur successfully pull off a plan that c!Wilbur himself came up with and wanted to pull off and does, to some degree, pressure c!Dream into agreeing with him about--even if c!Dream was going to give him the TNT no matter what, he does display a measure of resistance during Vassal Speech (whether or not you believe this resistance was genuine) and c!Wilbur responds to that by kinda threatening him. So. and 2) he gets the revive book by acting in service to a guy that was clearly established as someone he disliked and feared, and that book is also something that we KNOW scared the shit out of him and like ended up prompting a paranoid spiral that ends with him creating a whole goddamn prison to put himself inside. soooooooo. you know. and all of this is happening at the same time that his losses end up turning into "by the time november 16th rolls around and is over and done with most people either want him dead or are very very close to wanting him dead, cheers!"
then obviously, there's everything from november 16th to the staged disc finale. again, we see c!Dream pulling strategic plays left and right and achieving the goals he has--at this point, often through, uh, less than savory means. through political bullshit with NLM and well, exile, he manages to get the disc during green festival; through helping c!Techno against the butcher army, he manages to obtain a favor; through stuff involving the enderwalk and some kinda deal that im p sure has remained unspecified, he manages to get Cat from c!Skeppy; through experiments with c!Punz, he gets information on the revive book; through green festival, obtaining both discs (and therefore no longer needing to act in terms of political interests with NLM), and establishing common ground with c!Techno, he's able to destroy L'manburg through Doomsday; through having the discs + everyone hating his guts because of Green Festival, Doomsday, and to be fair everyone literally just hating his guts from the outset, he is able to ensure the security of c!Punz, the revive book, and himself by locking himself in prison. A lot of different moving parts, a lot of different goals, a lot of running around the server to get what he needs to get done done at the right times in the right ways, and he manages to con the server and put himself exactly where he wanted to be.
and yet?? and yet??? sure, he pulls off what he wants to pull off, sure he achieves his goals, but in terms of actually winning? he's paranoid and the paranoia just keeps getting worse. the threats to his life and the amount of enemies that want him dead just keep growing in numbers. he finally gets lmanburg blown up for good but you know there's going to be like 4 more factions on this server by the time he gets imprisoned. his friends ditch him and then try to kill him when he clumsily tries to communicate that he's trying to protect them because of the paranoia he has about everyone hating his guts, he explicitly identifies the reasons for people's hatred as having a lot to do with manberg/pogtopia arc where he ends up helping two dead men that aren't around for people to hate anymore, he pulls off staged finale and puts himself in a prison that ends up shattering himself.
like he achieves his goals--even if we're talking about the prison, even if we're talking about the time where things most thoroughly go awry for him because of c!sam's betrayal, you can't say that he didn't achieve what he intended. c!sam kept him alive, and would do anything to keep him alive--he might've been wrong about a lot, but he wasn't wrong about that. and yet. AND YET.
c!dream achieves his goals but where does he end up? miserable and afraid of literally damn near everything and losing his whole mind in the exact prison that he constructed to keep himself safe when in a paranoid spiral about a hostile world that suddenly made so much less sense than he was used to--alone.
like. wdym doesn't lose all he does is lose literally everything he ever had like 😭😭😭😭😭
#c!dreamisms#it's alllll fear all the way down#i have Strong Feelings about manberg/pogtopia too#but that'll have to go into a different post#i feel like. regardless of what you feel like c!dream's /goals/ were in manberg/pogtopia tho#it's kinda undeniable that he loses more than he gains?#i mean unless you're going from the perspective of 'well he kinda lost all of that anyway from the beginning by just being dream'#because to be fair how much of the hatred is even in direct consequence of what he does#even with the inclusion of the revive book it's like. all that did was make him more paranoid#when the ENTIRETY of manberg/pogtopia and how it ended up working out#really did nothing but make him . more of The Enemy and give him more reason to fear for his life#and meanwhile like what did he even gain from blowing up lmanburg fr it remained blown up for like a week#not even#but yeah like. even when he does what he wants. even when he wins? he's not really winning is he
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c!Dream and early aid for Pogtopia
(i promised this post so long ago rip)
There is a lot to say about c!Dream and the Pogtopia/Manberg era, especially because so many events in this period of time define the future of his character in very long-lasting ways. Much discussion has been focused particularly on the Vassal discussion and c!Dream's loyalties after--today, though, I want to focus on c!Dream's priorities before that discussion and what they might reveal about his goals.
First, I want to quickly link my post I made on c!Dream during the L'manburg Revolution, which establishes a few of the key c!Dreamisms that influence my read of him particularly pre-November 16th. Second, I want to point to a clip in the drodcast that emphasizes that the reason why c!Dream switched sides to Manberg was for the story's sake and in-universe therefore only happened because of the revive book deal, further indicating that the character had no prior intentions to turn against Pogtopia.
All that being said, there are a couple main points I want to make about (how I interpret) c!Dream in early Pogtopia.
c!Dream was already pretty obviously acting alone/isolated at the beginning of this arc
c!Dream was always genuine in his support for Pogtopia
There is more reason to believe in c!Dream's assertion that he wanted "L'manburg to be something" than the opposite
Starting wth point one, I think it's important to acknowledge how c!Dream emphasizes the idea of secrecy repeatedly during the beginnng of the Manberg/Pogtopia arc. He talks about how he has to provide support "from the shadows" in the Tyrant book, and he expresses similar sentiments when he gives supplies to c!Techno around this time as well. At the very least, when he was supplying aid at this point in time, he was pretty damn obviously acting alone--we see this as the arc progresses as well, when c!Dream helps c!Tommy in the Battle of the Lake and when he meets with Pogtopia during Vassal, for example.
Of course, acting alone doesn't necessarily mean isolation, although taking on a big + potentially dangerous task alone can lead to feelings of isolation regardless of that fact, but if we take a look at c!Dream at this time...sure he has friends, and people he's friendly with. But in terms of actual allies, he's kinda been on his own? c!George was decidedly part of Manberg due to the coalition at the start of the arc, and as far back as the Elections we see him claiming that he was "under Dream's rule" to explain that the decisions weren't his own in the Revolution.
Even though c!George obviously does not have high opinions of Wilbur and Tommy and their whole deal re: independence, we also see that no one really protests when c!Dream is called the "leader of tyranny."
And outside of this one debate, when we look at the actual events of the server...c!Dream enters into a few conflicts after the Revolution, all of which were not initiated by him. In these conflicts, he repeatedly has his items used as blackmail against him w/ the discs being the cited justification in a lot of cases (discs that were, once again, legally traded to him). And as far as these conflicts go, in terms of actual allies? There's really no one consistent at all? c!Sapnap outright teams with c!Tommy to get Dream's stuff until he turns on c!Tommy when he realizes opposing Dream isn't a good idea for him. c!Dream gets pulled into c!Sapnap's mess with the Pet Wars and therefore helps him hide their pets when the fight escalates--but at no point does c!Sapnap really outright support c!Dream in a conflict that involves him. c!Skeppy is also out here mostly in it for his own gain and was the one to steal Spirit's leather (from his. grave 😭) in the first place, like. Consistently, when c!Dream is involved in an actual conflict, he acts alone--before the Manberg/Pogtopia arc even begins. Mix in the fact that L'manburg was largely seen as an independent entity despite its technically being a part of the Dream SMP (and therefore Dream having to act accordingly) and the way that like the fandom, the L'manburg Revolution's aftermath brought in a lot of new members that further solidified the narrative in-universe (just like how a lot of new fans joined after the L'manburg Revolution, especially bc of the SAD-ist animation, which all served to solidify the l'manburg = heroes connection in the fandom as well) and the idea of c!Dream as the "bad guy" of the Revolution went relatively unchallenged (along with c!Eret, who obviously never shook the title of traitor.)
c!Dream was lacking in consistent allies and largely dealt with conflicts involving himself alone pre-Manberg/Pogtopia (gestures at how it's me and you against Dream was reiterated repeatedly), and when Manberg/Pogtopia began he had even more reason to act by himself. He was acting against the peace treaty by helping Wilbur and Tommy in Pogtopia, and a lot of the people he knew were friendly with or outright were a part of Manberg (George was a literal part of the government at the beginning, Karl was looking for wherever he could get an advantage, Sapnap is. Sapnap and shit was happening like the Battle of the Lake which literally involved kidnapping Niki, as well as other things)--c!Dream, at this point, is already used to working alone and had many reasons to continue doing so.
Onto point two: c!Dream was genuine in his support of Pogtopia throughout the arc until the point of the revive book deal. I want to point to the clip again from the drodcast, specifically how Dream says that before the conception of the revive book, c!Dream "literally switched for no reason we had no reason for me to switch [outside of the revive book]." This, plus the fact that what canonically does end up driving the decision to "switch sides" by publicly supporting c!Schlatt on November 16th is the literal revive book, all points to how c!Dream wasn't exactly going to side with c!Schlatt easily. It literally takes the whole ass revive book, the item that shatters his view of reality with its implications and was one of the central reasons why he had a paranoid spiral that involved him cooking up the prison for him to consider being on Schlatt's side.
Oftentimes, the arguments around c!Dream in this era and how he was manipulating the situation for his own gain boil down to two main moments where an assertion is made that c!Dream was playing both sides to make them destroy each other, those being Vassal and his speech to c!Eret on November 16th.
The first excerpt, Vassal, happened in early October, and the latter comes from the famous conversation c!Dream has with c!Eret on November 16th. And from these two excerpts, it can seem reasonable to believe that c!Dream's intentions were in the realm of helping both sides destroy each other, especially considering his saying that his plan is "there is no Manberg, there's no L'manburg, there's no Pogtopia, there's just Dream SMP an there's Dream SMP everywhere." But--regardless of whether or not you believe this statement, regardless of whether or not he wanted L'manburg gone from the beginning of this arc, it's undeniable that his actions do not support the claim that he was always planning to help Manberg to sabotage both sides.
The only reason why c!Dream helps c!Schlatt, and by extension Manberg, was the revive book. And this is made quite explicit both in and out of character. This man was calling Manberg L'manburg to Manberg's goddamn cabinet, for god's sake. As soon as the deal with the Election results go down, c!Dream aligns himself with Pogtopia. He supplies Manberg no aid until after the revive book deal and literally warns Pogtopia when he switches sides???? Even the claim that he wanted the two entities to destroy each other doesn't reflect the reality of him knowing that destruction would come at c!Wilbur's hands from the TNT, not from the fight between Manberg/Pogtopia in itself.
Even if you proceed with the reading that c!Dream wanted L'manburg dead and gone and wanted that from the beginning, he quite clearly was helping Pogtopia against Manberg in order to facilitate his goals and was not helping c!Schlatt until the revive book forced his hand.
The third point is the one most up for debate/based on interpretation, but I believe that, based on the information we have, it is more reasonable to believe that at the beginning of Manberg/Pogtopia c!Dream had no plans for the total destruction of L'manburg and didn't necessarily see that as one of his end goals for the server than to say that the opposite is true.
For one, going back to the revolution, c!Dream--even then--didn't have total annihilation of L'manburg as his end goal. He goes into that war knowing that he would give them "technical independence"--allowing them to exist as an entity, hell, allowing them to have 'independence' in some form (although obviously he finds the whole "we are our own server now actually" situation ridiculous). If there was ever any time to pursue the total destruction of L'manburg as an entity, it would've been then, before L'manburg was ever firmly established.
If we take c!Dream purely at his word (a dubious thing to do for sure, obviously, mans is a liar--but at the same time, c!Dream at that time was also a man that was known to generally keep his end of the deal) then c!Dream's motives at the beginning of Pogtopia are quite clear: the Tyrant book establishes the reasons why he opposes c!Schlatt, that he was able to maintain peace with L'manburg but did not feel that the same could be true as long as c!Schlatt was leader, and that "Schlatt is no Wilbur."
Later on, in Vassal, he reiterates these points, openly mocking c!Schlatt in connection with democracy and once again stating that he doesn't see Pogtopia as the bad guys + stating that c!Schlatt, unlike c!Wilbur, is unfit as a ruler because of his ambition.
Later on, when outright questioned about why he supports L'manburg now when he was the one that famously opposed them in the Revolution, he says this:
and obviously, right, he could be lying. I'm not discounting that. But it's rather notable, I think, that when it comes to c!Dream agreeing to give c!Wilibur TNT, that's in response to "I want to rig the city"--a city that, at that minute, was in enemy hands and a force that they were planning on fighting. c!Dream had pledged his allegiance to Pogtopia and specifically set a precedent of himself as an ally that would provide military aid and items (see: the gear he gives c!Techno and c!Tommy, Battle of the Lake, hell, he gives c!Tommy TNT literal minutes before Vassal while all but guarding him when c!Tommy is trying to antagonize Manberg in order to bring them back and keep them from discovering Pogtopia)--his support in this area does not, in my opinion, show clear support for the actual ideological reasons behind why c!Wilbur concludes he has to blow up L'manburg (and in Vassal, we actually see him push against those reasons several times, as shown below.)
And again, whether or not you think his disagreement is genuine or if you believe he was just fishing for information/how serious c!Wilbur actually was, I'd say that his words and action in this scene do, repeatedly, indicate a level of hesitance. He is not jumping the gun as soon as the opportunity presents itself for him to get rid of L'manburg once and for all--he's being cautious. Assessing. So much so that c!Wilbur picks up on it and outright threatens him, which is also the point in the conversation where c!Dream stops arguing back against any of the points that he makes:
And the point I'm making here isn't that c!Dream didn't want L'manburg to be destroyed when he agreed to give c!Wilbur the TNT. I think there does exist proof for this point, including whatever the hell Dream knew that Plan B had to happen...I'm so proud was supposed to mean, but that's not the point I'm specifically trying to make here. Rather, I think that until L'manburg's destruction is specifically brought up by c!Wilbur, there is little proof that shows c!Dream as specifically pursuing it/planning to get rid of it for the sake of a factionless server.
Sure, you can say that c!Dream's ideal server would've been a server without L'manburg on it. You could also say that c!Dream's ideal server at the time was a server where c!Tommy shut up abt the damn discs alread and a server where c!Sapnap stopped rampaging through the pet population on the server--there's a difference between "the ideal" and what he was specifically working towards. And the fact of the matter is, after the Revolution, c!Dream really doesn't have any conflicts with L'manburg itself. c!Tommy? Certainly--largely initiated by c!Tommy for the discs that he literally traded c!Dream during the revolutionary war. But c!Dream is hardly entering into faction conflict--he even says, in Tyrant, that they had peace between their two nations, and that it was C!SCHLATT'S election that disrupted that peace.
And c!Dream's particular dislike of factions is also something that I think has a tendency to get...overexaggerated? Especially because it's one of the foundational tenets of the L'manburg mythos--c!Dream is a control freak that opposed the idea of people getting together to make a "country" without him, etc etc. This is even something that is addressed in the Mexican L'manburg debates:
c!Dream doesn't like factions, true. He'd prefer a united server without them, true. But c!Dream being pushed into taking action against any particular faction really didn't start from him just, hating factions in the first place? There always was some kind of inciting incident. By the time of post-Nov 16th, he quite evidently recognizes that factions are going to continue to be a Thing--he never has any outright conflict with the Badlands, for example, because they don't really engage in conflict with him--and later he practically ignores El Rapids even after the whole debacle that was Mexican L'manburg. When c!Dream says "look you guys were fine because you were just existing" in the Tyrant book and in Vassal, that fits the pattern of how he deals with faction conflict on this server? (See, also, how he generally doesn't go after factions post-prison, despite making some implicit threats: the only faction that he goes after is LN, and even if you consider the fact that he probably had bigger fish to fry with the whole, world reset thing, once again factions don't really matter to him until he's registering them as an explicit threat.)
The Revolution was meant to prove a point, the point being don't fuck with me--a point that c!Wilbur clearly understood and abided by. And after the Revolution, c!Dream really never shows any inclinations of wanting conflict with L'manburg or wanting it gone the way that we see that as more consistent trait later on by the time we get to things like the revive book deal, and Nov. 16th, and especially in his dealings with NLM leading up to Doomsday the unfinished symphony, right?
And, you know, all of this makes sense. c!Dream knows that L'manburg isn't just about L'manburg itself, considering the damn story of L'manburg was established by c!Wilbur in like, what, a day? c!Dream and the Americans (tm) were established as the Enemy even though half of them literally weren't involved at all in the drug van conflict (and members of L'manburg had. Literally fought with c!Sapnap in said conflict??) and L'manburg grew out of that story in almost no time at all. c!Dream has zero reason to believe that the destruction of L'manburg in entirety is even possible--he literally didn't think it was possible in the Revolution! c!Dream's priorities for the server isn't a factionless server, it's a peaceful server--not to mention how he literally saw L'manburg as part of the Dream SMP anyway? As long as L'manburg the entity wasn't starting shit (which they weren't, not until Schlatt got elected and everything went to hell) c!Dream really doesn't have a motive to try and Start A Conflict against them (which is antithetical to the whole peaceful coexistence schtick that he was trying to get at) and really doesn't have much of a reason to think that any of that would even work either, considering how he was quite confident that the L'manburgians would never give up when L'manburg was like. A week old.
Of course, with Vassal and with c!Wilbur going "let me destroy it all" it's obviously perfectly possible that c!Dream was thinking hey, the guy that all of L'manburg respects and sees as leader wants L'manburg gone, this could possibly lead to L'manburg being fully dissolved and the server going back to being factionless and united and for that to motivate his later actions in the arc and his support of c!Wilbur. But Vassal still has to happen first. There really isn't any reason to believe that c!Dream was gunning for L'manburg's destruction at the start of the arc, and c!Dream really had every reason to believe that that wouldn't even be possible (and I mean, NLM had rebuilt itself literally like. In the span of a week? So.) Based on what we see, the most that can really be said imo about c!Dream here is that he's being opportunistic, and even then he expresses a level of hesitance throughout Vassal.
Considering how c!Dream supported Pogtopia from the beginning and only ends that alliance because of the revive book deal and considering how he acted in the time period between the Revolution and Manberg/Pogtopia, I think it's fair to state that c!Dream's statements of his end goal being to return to the "peace" that had existed pre-Manberg through the coexistence of L'manburg and DreamSMP, one side believing themselves independent and the other side believing that they're all part of the same server, was. His original end goal when Manberg/Pogtopia began. He had every reason to support Pogtopia over Manberg (and by extension, Wilbur over Schlatt) when you consider how Wilbur generally was willing to play nice with c!Dream post-revolution, a sentiment rather clearly not shared by c!Schlatt and his expansionist ideals. Even if c!Dream would've preferred a server without L'manburg, his actions as far back as the Revolution indicate to me that the likelihood of his actually creating any plans in that direction is rather small and that his sentiments of returning the server back to how it was in its pre-Manberg state are close to the truth. c!Dream isn't stupid enough to think that destroying L'manburg outright would've suddenly resulted in server peace--destabilizing shit by making everyone mad at him at that point in time really seems antithetical to his goals? It seems more likely to me that c!Dream, in alignment with his goals, at this point would prioritize a peaceful server over a factionless one, especially at a time pre-Manberg nonsense when the whole "L'manburg is an independent nation that Matters A Lot To Everyone" is just so deeply entrenched.
And obviously quite a few important changes happen to his character around this time, especially due to 1) Vassal and 2) the Revive Book Deal. I think that these two in particular have a lot to do with the character that we see in November 16th (when c!Dream is already acting quite a lot more like how he will continue to act over the next two months up until staged finale, and when he's already a little bit more, uh. Unhinged than we've seen him, looks at his laughter when c!Wilbur detonates the TNT.) And obviously a lot of the important development that happens at this time (such as his spending time with c!Wilbur in Pogtopia + the. Everything with c!Schlatt, the book deal, shakes everyone about the book deal again) happens off-screen, so we have to speculate a bit. But at the end of the day, when c!Dream is considered in the context of who he was before Manberg/Pogtopia began as well as who he ends up being at the end of the arc, it definitely feels to me that these early moments shouldn't be as wholly dismissed as an act/front/lies what have you as they commonly are.
#oh GOD this ended up so long. ummm . rip#long post#c!dreamisms#c!dream#dreblr#i promised this post literal months ago rippp#also disclaimer lmao a lot of this is abt interpretation and a lot of how people see pogtopia is commonly disputed#this is just how i see the events 👍#i try to give my reasoning for why as thoroughly as i can but yeahghhgh ...
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like doing a deep dive into the supernatural side of things based on the finale streams isn't my forte, but i really wouldn't be surprised if part of what makes c!dream + c!punz particularly Like That during the finale is the idea of them finding out about the cyclical nature of the server and ... reacting badly.
like, they specifically mention the end (which was replaced, apparently, by the XD clock world) and how it's been "corrupted," c!dream specifically mentions how "god" will end the world if they don't kill people
(but also mentions how death is part of the reason why the world needs to be reset)
punz and dream speak multiple times about how they HAVE to figure things out right how important it is to understand revivals and death and life and Understand This World and how knowledge is more important than anything but at the same time
what dream's mentioning of his goals (besides a very nebulous "research") doesn't seem to have much to do with an actionable plan to do anything at all -- he talks about focusing about quackity and sam and wilbur (which. i mean. we all know that kinda didn't go the greatest for him)
and specifically right we know that XD resets the world, that the world keeps ending and restarting cycles etc etc, and the revive book + time travel + egg + death book + limbo all of that seems to be connected to XD, maybe the other server supernatural stuff as well, though it's a bit nebulous as to what specifically was like caused by him. but it's also interesting to me, right, how c!dream seems to waffle a bit on things that "matter"--death and revival being the two most glaring examples. on one hand, dream is saying that revivals are where they fucked up by introducing instability (that they now have to fix through killing people):
but at the exact same time, dream and punz BOTH conduct revivals during these final streams, with the revival with tommy seeming particularly superfluous:
and along that same line of reasoning, dream both talks about death as being like the key to all of this, right, the idea that they have to kill everyone to reset the balance that death is more important that any of them imagined etc, that they have to kill in order to solve things, that Death Is The Answer--
but at the same time, in the next stream, dream makes a specific point about death...not mattering at all
and speaking of not mattering...that comes up. A Lot. c!dream specifically makes a lot of mentions about things being inevitable, or not mattering, throughout these streams:
like. there's a certain ... nihilism? to c!dream here? that's kinda impossible to ignore. and obviously, in their research into XD, it's very possible that the idea of the server as a loop or cycle would've come up, the idea that this world will end and then start into a new one etc etc. that no matter what they do, eventually XD is going to pull the plug and reset everything.
and with that in mind, the attitudes of c!punz and c!dream might be related to the idea of doing research, looking for knowledge in order to perhaps stop that process and preserve this world--while the nihilism, the revivals despite revivals apparently causing the problem, the lack of an actionable plan having to do with the inability to stop XD.
#hmm wish this was more coherent. also im too busy to be doing this fuckkkckck#c!dreamisms#ty sumwan for the transcripts !!#long post
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dr3's attempted serious of c!dream duo rankings based on lore importance (note: probably wrong, definitely argue)
c!Dream and c!Tommy: This is kinda undeniable. Like, in terms of their story, in terms of the Dream SMP, they are absolutely the heart and soul of the server. The c!Dream and c!Tommy show was such a thing that it has been like intentionally referenced and parodied within the story itself a million times. The story literally hinged on the idea of their opposing each other, c!Tommy-as-hero and c!Dream-as-villain, to the point where their whole you know finale and the closure for both characters involved realizing that they actually wanted the same thing and intentionally stepping out of the roles given them. Nothing really compares, sorry c!Discduo for the poll (but the heart wants what it wants XD)
c!Dream and c!Wilbur: I cannot believe they ended up ranking so low like I'm actually appalled. SLASH JAY but like . guys. Guys Please. c!Dream and c!Tommy's whole schtick forms the beating heart of this server because the story c!Wilbur wrote about them was its backbone. Like it's incredibly difficult to actually overstate how much c!Wilbur actually influences how c!Dream ends up--the paranoid spiral he ends up on is a direct influence of the increasing isolation he lived up until November 16th--this is why c!Quackity is so confident when he states c!Dream has no one left during dethronement and this is why c!Wilbur knows that c!Dream has no one in inconsolable differences. c!Dream doesn't exist in a vacuum and the whole, L'manburg narrative tyrant-villain-monster idea that originates from Wilbur ends up culminating in the identity that c!Dream ends up assuming to accomplish what he wants like hoooly shit he quotes "unfinished symphony" in Doomsday and he expects c!Wilbur to save him from the prison to the point of calling on him as his savior before basically Anyone and he lists c!Wilbur's name with c!Sam and c!Quackity post-prison like. Shit's fucked. Anyway.
c!Dream and c!Sam: Look I warned you guys I was going to be a little selfish. A Tad. Though, you know, it's kinda hard to compare in terms of like, you know, the fact that they literally spent a fuckin year together with almost no one else--sure there were visitors, sure Quackity happened, but like so much about them is very much isolated to. Them. (Also the ccs very clearly got a little carried away w/ these two and this reflects onto their like, Everything XD). With c!Sam and c!Dream it's less about well, straightforward comparisons and more about the Multitudes--c!Sam as the Plan, and c!Sam as part of the time and part of the server that c!Dream idealizes, and c!Sam as the cage for the monster the punishment for the evil the one that holds the villain away. And obviously while c!Dream doesn't um redefine his whole identity to base it on c!Sam the way that c!Sam does with c!Dream, the power of the trauma bond established over a year of Nothing Else does makes c!Dream noticeably more comfortable, almost, with c!Sam compared to like quite literally everyone else post-prison. Which is. Y'know.
c!Dteam (emphasis on c!Dnf): Admittedly, I'm not the biggest c!dnfer around by a long shot, so I don't really have as much to say here--but you know, considering c!Dteam very literally symbolize what c!Dream desires like. They're an extremely important part of who he is, what he wants, and why he does what he does. There's a reason why dethronement (and the cutting ties with c!Sapnap and c!George) is such a defining moment in terms of showing when he's fully burned bridges with the rest of the server, when he totally stands alone, etc. Obviously c!George is the originator of the "big happy family" line and well his mutual interests line up with c!Dream's quite a bit more than c!Sapnap's do, but as far as c!Dream is concerned both relationships are very much important to him and symbolic of happier times (and he's quite convinced that well. Both of them kinda want him dead, for reasonable reasons. So.)
c!Techno and c!Dream: This is where numbers get finicky, admittedly. As much as I love c!Rivals, and I love them a lot, I struggle a bit to put them on a definitive ranking. Because...well, on one hand, c!Techno is absolutely very high on c!Dream's priority list like as a character. I have said before and I'll say again that some of the most like outstanding displays of loyalty on the server come from c!Dream coming in c!Techno's defense at GREAT risk of personal harm--this guy literally stares down and denies both of his fucking torturers for c!Techno, like holy shit. c!Dream really fucking likes the guy like. So damn much. At the same time though, we're talking more...narrative importance versus importance to the character from a character's perspective--which is part of why c!Dteam is as high as they are, imo--while they're extremely important in terms of c!Dream's motivations and how he defines the whole "happy family" ideal around the idea of them living peacefully as a family, as far as actually looking at character interactions...especially post-dethronement they mostly just. Exist as figures that c!Dream yearns for but is also really fucking scared of. There's not as much consistent character interaction and frankly when we're talking about a character that's actively suppressing what he actually wants, they're not exactly high on his mental priority list either. All this being said, c!Techno definitely gets points by being one of the main vehicles by which we see c!Dream's like, humanity--being one of the few characters not to treat him as just a monster to be defeated and having similar ideals and therefore being an obvious comparison to make. Which is obviously important when we're talking about c!Dream, who was keeping himself rather in the dark.
c!Dream and c!Punz: Another real struggle to rank--I'd understand putting them up higher, but what really holds me back is well. c!Dream and c!Punz is the same as c!Dream and the Plan. And don't get me wrong, the Plan is extremely important to c!Dream as a character and like defines a lot of his actions especially post-revive book onwards, but what complicates this is like...well c!Punz as a character in terms of c!Dream? Like, he's just. He's just the Plan. That is his purpose, that's who he is supposed to be, and of course the Plan is important and of course c!Punz's like motivations here end up playing a big part in the tangled mess of what c!Dream ends up doing when we're talking what he starts ranting about in the third finale stream, but like. Well it's really not about c!Punz, innit, it's about what they're working together towards. c!Punz is secondary to the plan in a way that you really can't say the same for when you're talking about, say, c!Wilbur + the L'manburg narrative, or c!Sam and the prison. I can see an argument for them being higher just because like, if we're talking major c!Dream arcs, it's reasonable to have c!Dream and c!Tommy as being like a presence as the "main characters" in Wilbur's story starting the revolutionary war and ending at the genuine finale with c!Dream's main character development being split between the previously-named season finales--c!Wilbur being the main influence leading up to November 16th as c!Dream takes on the villain mantle, The Plan (and therefore c!Punz) driving him until Staged Finale, and the c!Sam and the Prison being the main force until the prison break...but well. There's just not enough of c!Punz and c!Dream actually acting together as a duo in terms of give and take in this dynamic to really make me put them higher--what's really important about c!Punz and c!Dream is just. The Plan and the Plan alone. Anyway, I'm decently flexible about this, but eeeeeeeh.
#c!dreamisms#look the punz thing is complicated because on one hand i think that the ranking should be higher because. The Plan is so important#but on the other hand it feels like it should be less for that exact same reason#like c!punz is just kinda there to Be The Plan. which is important to c!dream sure but like.#like it just feels so much less like it's abt a character duo and more about well dream and the plan and punz is the walking plot device#that symbolizes that#ultimately tho some of my c!dteam thoughts kinda skew in that direction as well...where it's less abt the characters and more abt what#they mean. but well even then the conflict that arises between c!dteam means that it's pretty different#from c!punz just being there to symbolize driving c!dream forward#idk 🤷#honestly techno is pretty easily argued lower as well like as much as i love c!rivals (and i love c!rivals a lot)#narrative importance re. c!dream specifically is a lot more finicky#anyway honestly i have strong feelings on the first two and everything else is harder . c!awesamdream is number three In My Heart
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