Speaking Of C!dream, Man Is So Weird About Exile In A Way That I Think Is Actually Kind Of Delightful

those times.

Art by Philipp A. Urlich

some food art !!

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

something about parallels and self-destruction 

an evening visit to the king, bearing flowers in hand

we dont talk baout ctubbo giving away the cookie outpost without telling cranboo first like we dont talk about how thye dont talk about it you know, why ctubbo is doing all this in the first place, the isolationism, how the missing nuke was meant to be single use because it was meant to kill him, and how ctubbo is still spying still investigating because thats the only way he can feel safe, how hes spending more time doing this than at the unfinished mansion that was meant to be a family home. Can we talk about how he gave it away and cranboo never knew what that meant. can we talka bout it.

c!Dream always told himself he was objective, but he wasn't. He couldn't be. Perfect objectivity doesn't exist; there will always be biases and preconceived ideas about others, and these ideas threw Dream off more than I think he'd like to admit. He was wrong about Sam following their rules (he was wrong about Sam caring). But he was also wrong about Tommy, when he was so sure that Tommy only ever wanted to cause him harm.

Palia by Jeremy Fenske

the dreamverse AU continues! this time, they’re in a bit of a pinch