And Then The Colors Of The World Went Away With Your Emotions

Five of Cups by Ivan Onokhin

-Ophelia-

Ummmmmm…. What?!?!! Omg!… I was rewatching Bad’s visit to Dream in the prison and what do I find but a conversation about living conditions and torture with Quackity! Wtf?!!

It’s too long of a clips, so here’s the time stamp 33:34-36:06.

And I did my best to transcribe it (but dang it’s hard when they talk over each other):

B: “I’ll talk to Quack—oh Quackity he’s studying to be a lawyer! We can get Quackity’s opinion.”

Q: ”Hi Bad.”

B: “Hi. Umm question for you. So you—you know Deam right?”

Q: ”Yeah…”

B: ”Yeah you know how he’s like in jail right now.”

Q: “Mm—hmm”

B: “Do you think it’d be too much to ask to go around and like try to improve like his living conditions in the prison? Like what do you think?”

Q: “Improve his living conditions?…”

B: “Yeah like I went and visited—have you visited him in the prison yet?”

Q: “Yeah yeah. no I—I haven’t—I have no reason to visit him right now… Oh, let me get this straight: improve his living conditions as in maybe like add a wall around him uhh probably bully him for awhile you know—”

B: “Na—noo!”

Q: “You know kind of like how he did with L’manberg?”

B: “Nooo!—that’s the opposite.”

Q: “Because that’s exactly what he did with L’manberg. You know what? You know what? You’re right—”

B: ”Oh my gosh…”

Q: “I could improve his living conditions—”

B: “Quackity—no!”

Q: “By boxing him in a goddamn box!”

B: “Language! Woah woah—woah.”

Q: “Yea I—I probably could do that.”

B: “Language. language. language.”

Q: “Sorry…”

B: “That’s all right.”

Q: “Maybe I could improve his living conditions like that. Maybe I could do that—”

B: “No no no-No no no.”

Q: “Maybe you’re right.”

B: “Listen, you gotta go visit him. Okay? You know what? I’m not even gonna say it I’m just saying you gotta go and visit him on one of your streams. Okay? Because—”

Q: “Oh I am. No no no believe me—believe me I’m going to.”

B: “At some point go visit him cuz—”

Q: “Oh I’m going to.”

B: “And you’ll see exactly what I’m saying then we can like discuss it. Okay?”

Q: “What—what is this? Did he—did he manipulate you? What—what did he tell you?—”

B: “No!”

Q: “Why are you acting all of the sudden so nice to him?”

B: “Look obviously Dream deserves to stay there cuz he did a lot of bad things, right?”

Q: “Mm—hmm.”

B: “But—doesn’t mean we should like—keep him in there and just have him like tortured all the time like even—”

Q: “No no, not right—not right—”

B: “No, that is right!”

Q: “No, I think that’s exactly what he deserves.”

B: ”Oh come on—”

Q: ”No no I think that’s exactly what he deserves.”

B: “Even Dream has rights as a prisoner. Right? You’re a lawyer.”

Q: “I’m sorry I’m sorry but I don’t recall Dream having any mercy on us when—”

B: “Well, yeah he didn’t but—”

Q: “He put that wall around us—”

B: “Okay..”

Q: “And he pulled all those things to Tubbo and—”

B: “Okay…”

Q: “W—why do you want to release him?”

B: “No one’s talking about releasing him!”

Q: “Okay.”

B: “I’m talking about giving him like a potted plant! Just don’t torture him while he’s locked up—he’s been locked up enough…You feel me?”

Q: “No, Bad—”

B: “Like he’s been—he’s suffering.”

yeah like cdream is someone who is not very good talking and has problems with communication, he never was someone that made other characthers want to follow him and stuff and sometimes was a dick but the thing it's how people just used him being reserved to talk over him and stripping him out of his autonomy and humanity and treating him like less than a animal

like ... to be fair to people, dream was dogshit at communicating for like, a lot of the server. he really didn't let anyone on that things bothered him until pressed, and then when pressed framed things in practical objective ways that made him come off more authoritative than bothered by the way he was treated. really, honestly, it's not even until like, around the exile conflict where he's communicating at all abt his feelings and by then he's also lying half the time and purposefully crafting a dishonest mask of himself to project towards people to make them think that he's a crazy murderous person that has to be locked away? and also was losing his whole mind.

even if we look at stuff like, lmanburg, isn't it telling that the only people he's talking about being bothered by lmanburg to is ... like, skeppy. or being upset abt his houses being bulldozed and griefed to sapnap and george. he's not really made it a habit of communicating to other people, especially the people that are doing the things that are bothering him, that he's you know. got an issue with it? and when he does do that communication it's like, stuff like "give me back the things you stole immediately. or i kill your pets" ASKFJLAS like

like, and even then, right, c!dream still had quite a lot of friendly interactions with people on the server? i wouldn't say he was all around hated early on--but he was seen as someone kind of unpredictable, kind of Weird As Hell, kind of morally eeeeh with lmanburg's influence on his reputation. He was the big bad in lmanburg but mostly he was just, a guy that was around and could sometimes give you lots of shit and could sometimes be kind of a dick. like it's just--there's a lot w/ c!dream where people did stuff that freaked him out not really meaning to, because there's a sort of trophy-like nature attributed to THEEE dream, and then c!dream didn't exactly communicate either and would sometimes play into people's assumptions there, but overall the balance of it all was sustainable and people generally were able to interact peacably (or at least, solve their disputes so they wouldn't be permanent issues) until manberg/pogtopia up to november 16th really had everything get really serious for everyone in a short period of time. between the revive book's effects on c!dream's, everything, and the way that manberg/pogtopia is really the nail in the coffin for his reputation (and you know, a natural consequence of his guy not telling anyone shit except for apparently like the people he absolutely shouldn't have been telling shit? and also literally DIED???) and just everyone being a mess after the whole debacle, things just...snowballed out of control in a way that they couldn't really re-settle back to being normal the way they had before

Harpy by Maria Panfilova

Hi! I'm a bit confused by DreamXD's origin...so if you don't mind me asking, is DreamXD not he same as Dreamon? And was that not created for a demon/possessed arc involving Tubbo and Fundy? I know about the George/DreamXD lore stream but I don't really see how DreamXD's origin relates to George?

Oh, anon, oh lovely anon, hello, you have no idea how much serotonin this ask gives me-oh how I love xdnf. Just for an update on DreamXD, I would highly recommend watching these three streams because they're the ones that let us understand DreamXD's character the most, but if you want a more quick analysis, continue reading. 

Long story short my theory is that, and with peace and love it's been months so I might forget some things, think of DreamXD and the Dreamon as the angel and devil on c!Dream’s shoulders but he also has some of their power - remember that c!Dream can bring back people from the dead from a book he got somewhere - because maybe c!Dream sold his soul to the “devil” then when c!Fundy and c!Tubbo did the Dreamon ritual on c!Dream the theory is that pulled the Dreamon out of c!Dream and that angered the Dreamon that was pretty chill but now is manipulating other characters (including c!Dream? perhaps?) but also the Dreamon and DreamXD are separate characters in the same body that push each other around for dominance and DreamXD and c!Dream can’t remember when the Dreamon takes over their bodies. If that doesn’t make sense to you, sorry, we haven’t gotten much background and that’s mainly just my mind a-theorizing. 

But most of all what you must understand is DreamXD, the God of the server, the protector, with a Dreamon side for the flavor 🤙 is a simp for c!George (as all the "Dreamverse" characters are hmm-). 

DreamXD’s lore is intertwined with c!George because George was the first on the server and DreamXD fell in love with these little mushroom guy that was kind to animals and poured water over trees that were on fire and was sweet to all the people on his server and DreamXD loved George because George is love. And DreamXD saw George and his best friend c!Dream have fun and exploring the world together and he saw George become king and Dream as his loyal knight and he saw c!Dream going down the wrong path and winding up in prison and he saw how this hurt George and saw how he missed Dream so much and so DreamXD made himself into the best visual replica that he could of George’s friend Dream and he comes to George in a dream and he sees the light in George’s eyes and the smile on his face again. But then George realizes DreamXD’s powers creative mode and George wants this power, he wants Dream back he wants strength but as you saw in the video above, that comes with a price and the price is being DreamXD’s friend forever. It’s an easy price for George, because it’s Dream DreamXD.  

But are the Dreamon and DreamXD the same person? The thing is I think yes. I think DreamXD is a god with a temper. He’s layered. I think the Dreamon side - shows himself to everyone, because as we saw in the DreamXD stream DreamXD kept running up to people and say he was going to eat their souls, etc. so George had to teach him how to be “human” - and the DreamXD side only speaks to George - because he has a “welcoming presence”, because he was the first on the server, because DreamXD loves George because George is love. Notice how when George says DreamXD is scaring him, the Dreamon disappears and DreamXD shows up because he doesn’t want to scare George, George is love and all DreamXD wants is his acceptance, his love, his “friendship” and in return DreamXD offers him a friend, a protector, someone who’s there for him the way Dream always was. 

I would almost say that c!Tommy became obsessed with c!Dream after staged finale because of his desire for closure. He wanted, desperately, an explanation for his pain. c!Dream, unfortunately, was not at a place emotionally to be able to give c!Tommy a real answer. You can tell that c!Tommy doesn’t fully buy the “I’m a monster, I’m a villain, everything I do comes from a place of evil” mask (ha) he puts on and it shows in when c!Tommy assigns him “homework” on the first day in the form of the Why book. c!Tommy never truly gave up on c!Dream, in my honest opinion, despite the pain he endured and the fear he held c!Tommy wanted to hear c!Dream out. The tragedy is that it just took c!Dream too long to actually confront himself and come to terms with what he really wanted.

mmhm

i wouldn't say c!tommy's ummm obsession post-staged finale purely comes from that point in time or for that reason exclusively, but i think that the why of it all very much follows c!tommy doggedly every step of the way even when he's trying not to think about it. like, that was his friend, and all of a sudden he became someone unrecognizable, and tommy never gets a half decent reason why. c!tommy is...always kind of fixated on c!dream? like, from the beginning really, hence the "it's just you and me against dream" that echoes throughout the story long before exile is even a thing--it's just he started off a lot more sure about all of the pieces in this equation (himself) (tubbo) (the discs) (dream) and then is left at the end of it all staring at all of the pieces that have somehow become something completely different over the course of a few years. why can't it just be simple again. i miss when it was simple.

but yeah, for sure, c!tommy is one of the few people on this server that does go hey, what the fuck, doesn't that hurt? why are you doing this, that's insane, what? give me a reason. give me an actual reason. and c!tommy is also the place where c!dream stumbles, over and over again, to give a reason worth listening to--of course c!tommy thinks c!dream is obsessed with him, it's the only damn thing c!dream will tell him.

there's plenty on the c!tommy side that is also just, coping with everything by pushing it onto c!dream, which is kind of a mutual deal of theirs. hence the screaming past each other during that one stream in the finale and like, the nonsense that was you can't just tell other people they cant go into your land !!!! like that wasn't what lmanburg did. and c!tommy doesn't even want to kill c!dream when he's imprisoned until c!wilbur scares the shit out of him in limbo and he decides that there's no option--and that mission to Kill Dream follows them into the finale. but yeah, mixed into alluvthat is for sure a desire to know why things with dream went to hell

How wars are like chess; how this game predicted the events leading up to "doomsday."

(please go look at this post by @maagee first)

Tubbo: "I'm not thinking that many moves ahead."

Dream was the first to take a piece.

Dream built the obsidian walls around L'manberg after Tommy griefed George's house, the first direct action taken against a faction since the war.

They traded knights (each taking the other's piece).

Tubbo and Dream agreed to a compromise at the subsequent meeting. Tommy would not be exiled and the walls would not be taken down, but they also wouldn't grow and Tommy would be punished.

Tubbo blundered (moved to where Dream could take).

Tubbo didn't hold Tommy back enough. Tommy provoked Dream, causing the compromise to be broken and the walls to be built higher. Dream presented the ultimatum that Tommy needed to be exiled else L'manberg would be encased.

Dream: "I'm pushing your queen back and you have no choice but to do it."

Tubbo made a "tactical retreat."

For the good of the country, Tubbo decided to agree to Dream's demands. He declared Tommy exiled so that the walls could come down and L'manberg could be free again.

Dream let Tubbo fix a mistake (he left his queen unprotected).

Dream played nice with Tubbo after the exile. He praised Tubbo's presidency and abided by the L'manberg laws for the first time ever, taking off his armor within its borders. It looked like an actual gesture of respect towards Tubbo and the country.

Fundy said that Tubbo was better-placed, having misread the board.

The Butcher Army decided to hold a festival as a cover for execution. Dream would have his armor off and they would take that opportunity to kill him. Fundy specifically helped put everything together as decorator and they all were very (mistakenly) confident in its success.

Fundy: "Dream severely has the advantage."

Tubbo moved to threaten Dream's queen and put himself in danger.

The festival was a massive, immediate failure and by extention, so was the plan. Instead of doing as they'd predicted, Dream led them to the destroyed community house and demanded that if Tubbo truly had no ties to Tommy, he would give up the disc. Tubbo complied.

Dream won.

Extras:

Dream played white.

White always moves first and thus begins the game with an inherent advantage. Dream has always had the upper hand.

Tubbo was repeatedly surprised by Dream's moves.

The walls being built didn't make sense to him because Tommy had gone behind his back in destroying George's house. Dream's agreeable-ness after the exile came as a shock and made Tubbo believe they were closer to friends than enemies. Dream started doomsday itself 20 minutes early when no one was actively at the ready.

Ranboo watched the game from Tubbo's side and didn't know what was going on.

'Tubbo's side' - Ranboo was in the cabinet, he was the minutes man at the meetings. On doomsday, he decided to choose a side only to not let Tubbo down; his loyalty to L'manberg was just loyalty to Tubbo.

'Watching' - He didn't actually really participate in doomsday, simply observed the destruction. He also was greatly unaware of the days prior - he forgot both Niki yelling at him and (we learned later) destroying the community house.

Fundy stood by Ranboo, then alone.

Ranboo gave a speech on not picking sides and Fundy decided that he agreed, attempting to ally himself with others away from both L'manberg and Dream. Ranboo was not interested, and Fundy single-handedly destroyed all of L'manberg's gathered supplies.

Philza left the game halfway through.

Phil was put under house arrest for not helping the Butcher Army reach Technoblade, even though he was a citizen of L'manberg. He ended up disowning Fundy and escaping, joining up with Techno after Techno's execution with no more ties to the country.

Auberon Muircetach and the Unicorn

The inspiration comes from "The Lady of the Lake". 1.‘I’ve heard,’ she did not give up. ‘that elves and unicorns love one another.’ 2.The unicorn guiding them was a bluish grey colour. 3.They made it theirs when they conquered it. When they opened the Ard Gaeth. With our help, because we had been used and abused and now they are trying to use and abuse you.

Art by Patrycja Wójcik