Town Under The Tree By Huangyu

Vertical Tree by Bożenka Jelonek

those times.

the fact c!tommy said he felt like a fucking pet in exile of all things always breaks my heart. like, he also described himself as a toy and a puppet but for some reason that one just always fucks me up the most. i guess bc it really shows that his insistence that c!dream hates him is a desperate survival mechanism? like, you don’t hate a pet. it’s obviously an incredibly fucked up demeaning and dehumanising way to treat a person, but it’s not a way you treat someone you hate. because, like, obviously c!dream doesn’t hate c!tommy. he's got very complicated thoughts on him, but he doesn’t hate him, even if he hates and resents parts of him.

and like, deep down, c!tommy knows that? he gets c!dream a whole lot more than he lets on, and he knows that c!dream on some level sees him as a friend, even if that’s in an incredibly unhealthy and abusive way. but he has to convince himself that c!dream hates him. because if c!dream doesn’t hate him, then what’s the point of even struggling against his conditioning and trying to heal? c!tommy is desperate for friendship and validation, and he feels abandoned by everyone else. if he lets himself ever believe that c!dream will ever provide him that stability and affection he desperately longs for, he'd fall back into his exile mindset so quickly, because he doesn’t care if he’s tortured or hurt- he openly acknowledges that exile was torturous to him even when he’s still struggling with seeing c!dream as a benevolent friend in bedrock bros- because he thinks he deserves it. he just doesn’t want to be alone.

You're not coming back from shit! Thrashing around in that high-conductivity state of yours, bumping into things and acting like a clown. Who are you kidding?

bedrock bros; YOU NEVER HAD A BROTHER. YOU HAD A PROTECTOR THAT NEVER GAVE YOU THE STARS. BUT HE LOVES YOU, MAYBE THAT WILL BE ENOUGH. (you still die anyways)

technoblade / @andhyssops /@borealiszero / warsan shire / @m4rms / anne carson /  rabbi joseph telushkin / @picckl / ernest hemingway / unknown / @vixkoidy / @aro-throughyourchest / i.b. vyache / @axiliern / jinhao xie /

/dsmp /rp I’ve been rewatching a lot of lore streams lately, and there’s a few things I’ve noticed about Dream’s reaction to being called evil, a villain, the bad guy, a monster, a psychopath, etc.

I’ve compiled all relevant clips in the video below, but I’ve also linked to each individual stream for additional context.

Firstly, there’s Dream’s own view on evil. He tells Sam that people who do bad things for no reason, or who just do them because they like them, are the people who are actually evil. Having no reason is what’s truly evil. Dream repeats this during the snake monologue as well. The snake that just bites without reason is pure evil.

Dream doesn’t see himself as evil because he believes he has good reasons for everything he does. During Tommy’s second prison visit, Dream says that he did bad things but that he did them for good reasons. He later admits to Sam that he doesn’t think he’s a good guy, but that he isn’t evil because he had his reasons.

And not only that, but one of Dream’s strongest convictions is that morality is a matter of perspective. Everyone is a good person in their own story, even when other people don’t see them that way. He brought this up during the staged disc finale, where he says that evil is in the eye of the beholder. He says it again when Tommy gets trapped with him in prison, then when Sam finds him after Techno’s escape, after Sam gets locked in prison, and lastly while speaking to Foolish. This is something that Dream deeply believes in.

What frustrates Dream is that nobody else has this view on morality. Nobody wonders whether Dream has any reasons for what he did and nobody sees their own part in conflicts. They just label Dream as evil and that’s it. This is most clear in the snake monologue:

“Oh, Dream exiled you, Dream blew up your country, Dream built a prison… And… we were just walking down a path. He’s evil.”

Sam says that he believes Dream just does bad things because he enjoys them, which Dream adamantly denies. Right before killing Tommy in prison, Dream gets angry about how Tommy is “annoying and disrespectful” only to then complain to Dream and accuse him of being a liar and of being manipulative.

Even before Doomsday, Dream is already getting irritated that many people portray him as the villain without seeing their own part. After George’s dethronement, George, Sapnap, and Quackity try to do a hostile takeover to reinstate George as king. In the discussion following this, Dream points out how George acts like Dream is a bad guy in that situation. When Tommy gets exiled, Dream thinks that Ghostbur is saying that Dream is the bad guy even though Tommy threatened Dream with burning Spirit’s remains. He also calls out Mexican L’Manberg for trying to paint him as the bad guy and a tyrant after they griefed Eret’s castle and set off TNT. 

Dream sincerely dislikes it when others call him evil or a psychopath. Tommy says this to him many, many times. Sometimes, Dream doesn’t react at all. After the Manberg vs Pogtopia war, Tommy calls Dream, “the villain”. Dream does and says nothing, while Punz goes and attacks Tommy. During Doomsday, Tommy says that Dream is a monster; Dream just replies with “okay.”

Other times, Dream does defend himself. In the staged disc finale, before going down the attachment vault, Tommy calls Dream a psychopath. Dream then says he “wouldn’t say that.” Inside the vault, Tommy says that Dream is a psycho again, prompting Dream to say that he is not a psycho and that everything he does is deliberate. Tubbo also calls Dream and Punz psychos when he and Tommy are taken to the prison, and Dream replies that it’s Tubbo and Tommy who are psychos for breaking in and murdering him in his own house.

Tommy calls Dream evil after he gets locked in prison with him. Dream then asks how he is any more evil than Tommy is. While explaining the staged disc finale, Dream is particularly angry that Tommy made the server turn against him by telling everyone that he was an “evil maniac” who was ruining everyone’s lives. He derisively says that he and Punz can’t test a selfless death limbo because they are “evil”, they are “so bad”, they’re “murderers”, and “blah, blah, blah, who cares.”

But despite all of Dream’s contempt for being labeled evil and a villain, he does seem to have internalized this idea somewhat. He jokes with Techno after the Green Festival that it’s “an evil villain thing” to give their enemies time to prepare. When Sam is locked in prison, Dream calls himself “the evil that was released from Pandora’s Box” and questions whether Sam even considers him a person. In the snake monologue, he compares himself to the “pure evil” snake that bites without reason until it gets put down.

And when Tommy finally realizes that Dream is not a villain, Dream immediately says that he is. The main instigator of the server’s hatred recognizes Dream’s humanity at long last, but Dream can’t seem to let go of the villain label just yet.

WHEN THEY COSPLAY AS THEIR CHARACTERS >>>>>>>>

"lose everything to gain everything"? or was that something else

(This is gonna be a long analysis)

I love angbang soooooo much. So much that I looked into all the religious subtext that their relationship is full of. Someone help me...................I mean it’s hard to separate the cannon from it’s religious connotations.........I needed to know all I could about angbang so here goes:

Okay I think Sauron and Melkor’s relationship was supposed to be an illustration of Idolatry.

The way Tolkien talks about their relationship seems to back this up.

On one hand he says: “but there was seen an effect of Melkor on Sauron: he spoke of Melkor in Melkor’s own terms: as a god, or even as god. This may have been a residue of a state which was in a sense a shadow of good: the ability once in Sauron to at least admire or admit the superiority of a being other than himself.”

And:

“While Morgoth still stood, Sauron did not seek his own supremacy, but worked and schemed for another, desiring the triumph of Melkor, whom in the begining he had adored.”

Now to put plainly it seems Sauron worshipped Melkor. He thought of him as god, and at least in the beginning adored him. He did not desire his own triumph, but the triumph of Melkor. He worked and schemed for him, for someone he admired and adored, for someone he seemed to revere.

It should be noted that the word “adore” is used to describe the way the valar and elves feel towards Eru. This makes it seem that Marion worships Melkor in the way the valar/elves worship Eru. That this feeling is good and “holy”

(I believe the word admire is also used in the same way)

But of course we are talking about dark lords, and Tolkien has admitted his stories are religious works. Naturally Sauron’s feelings for Melkor cannot from a religious lens be viewed as on the same level with worship and admiration of Eru.

This is displayed when Tolkien expresses only Eru can give TRUE love and independence. He also states that no sub-creator can give love in that same way, and that it is a wish for loving obedience. Then it is stated that can only turn into robotic servitude, which is inherently evil.

Now this is most likely a jab at Sauron, but it is NOT invalidating the strength of his original worship and devotion. It seems to be implying that as Tolkien said: “This may have been a residue of a state which was in a sense a shadow of good: the ability once in Sauron to at least admire or admit the superiority of a being other than himself.”

And that: “(he worked)desiring the triumph of Melkor, whom in the begining he had adored.”

(Again the words adored and admired again. Those in themselves were considered holy and devout feelings, things pure and selfless. Given to an idol they in the eyes of Eru become corrupt.)

Now it seems Mairon’s admiration and worship of Melkor was in essence the same in feeling as those who worshiped Eru, (they both feel admiration and reverence) but is inherently unholy and sinful. Something to be abhorred in its denial of god.

Or it could be that Sauron’s clear admiration for Melkor was a shadow of the gift Eru had given him, one that turned into sin as time went on. It was a shadow goodness and selflessness, but became corrupt.

Either way there are clear parallels between Sauron’s worship of Morgoth and Idolatry. Apparently just because you worship someone it doesn’t mean it’s holy. Sauron gave himself up, became imbued with evil and corruption, but his worship towards Melkor ran deep and kept him loyal for a long time. He denied Eru, but as Tolkien said in his words: “(Sauron)wasn’t a true atheist” as he instead looked to Melkor. But in worshipping Melkor he denied Eru.

Now Tolkien does seem to imply Sauron’s original feelings for Melkor were valid and pure, that is until they turned into denial of the true god and his love. Then of course Sauron’s feelings must have diminished into a shell of all true and holy love. Something with only semblance of such a “holy” thing as love for god.

SIGH.....Tolkien how come I had to raised by theologians to understand this reference. I never liked theology but of course my parents taught me to read Middle-English.

So what we can garner from this is it seems Sauron’s original love/devotion to Melkor was true and valid, but then became corrupted and twisted when it turned into denial of Eru. It became a shell of true love, something that caused him to remain in loyal and constant service to Morgoth through the millennia.

OR we can just focus on how it was all written from an unreliable narrator and thus we can do what we want!

Plus why does Sauron’s love of Melkor have to be inherently unholy! Why is love in itself not a pure and selfless action?

Tolkien made clear Sauron schemed for Melkor, desired the triumph of Melkor during all the time he served him. Even if his love was only holy in the beginning he still remained constantly selflessly devoted to Melkor, even when it contradicted his own goal. It would have been obvious to Sauron Melkor wished to destroy, while Sauron himself wished to innovate and control. You cannot innovate out of nothingness. But he still worked for Melkor, desired Melkor’s success and was implementing Melkor’s plans. What about that besides who it’s given to in unholy in any way?

Now there is the argument that a big part of his service to Morgoth was based of if his desire for power. Now as much as it might seem that was true from how he is described being drawn to Melkor’s strength, the fact that Tolkien said he did not seek his own supremacy, but desired the success of Melkor, and worked and schemed FOR someone other than himself, I do not think it could ever be reduced to simply that.

He seemed close to selfless in his actions as he was scheming and giving himself up for someone else.

I disagree with Tolkien. I believe reverence in itself is good and true. I believe to adore, to be selfless is good and true, though of course it is no excuse for committing evil. I just mean to me Sauron retained something good, even amidst the cocoon of his evil. So I guess I choose to interpret this in a different way, I choose to see his devotion not as inherent sin but as a fragment of good within him, which is almost what Tolkien meant honestly

But like it’s still love. He is working and scheming and striving for the success of someone other than himself. Tolkien said he desired Melkor’s success, and that his feelings for Melkor were the shadow of good. He is selfless in the fact he is truly desiring the goal of someone else above himself, and he is acting on it.

💥💥💥