Outfit Of Avallac'h For Chapter 18. 💎

Inspired by this

I saw protege c!Tommy mentioned and that reminded me that I do actually enjoy the concept of protege c!Tommy but only when it was not c!Dream's intention. Like, c!Dream was trying to manipulate c!Tommy and spook him and stuff, but that was all he wanted. But then one day for whatever reason c!Tommy wholeheartedly decides "fuck it, I'm done with L'Manberg, come on Dream I'm 100% on your side I want to burn the entire place to the ground"

and then like. c!Dream didn't mean for c!Tommy to like, actually be super on board with this. He was actually kinda hoping to use Tommy to get himself thrown in prison. Fuck.

So now Dream's just got this teenager who has the subtly of a brick tagging along to his Super Evil Plans (yes they're 100% evil do NOT ask questions). He has to explain to c!Punz that they can't making out during their evil planning sessions until he can find a way to ditch Tommy. He's in hell. This wasn't the intended outcome. He needs to get a babysitter or something just to get some alone time with his hot mad scientist boyfriend. Save him.

one of the three arts for dsmp zine which I participated last year

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huh... these guys seem to get along

(manhunt!sap meets c!sap; pt. 1; pt. 2)

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.

creatures in art: mermaids & sirens

// dsmp rp

I might be crazy for this, but I don't actually think that any of Dream's relationships were beyond repair, if he chose to try to fix them.

I think that a big part of how Dream processes so many losses is by leaning into that cold, logical side of himself, rather than lingering on emotions. He can rationalize his pain in a way that makes it seem normal to him, and therefore not something worth getting upset about—and, weirdly enough, he's more likely to do this with the people who have hurt him the most (e.g. Quackity), not less. (The only real pitfall is that this justification is usually used when he's talking about people, rather than to them.)

But if his friends have reasons for turning on him, then they're no different from Dream himself, right? And Dream sure as hell knows he's done plenty wrong. He doesn't seem opposed to admitting to his past, nor to apologizing for things he's genuinely sorry for (even if that, admittedly, isn't much). With that in mind, I don't think it's unreasonable that he would try to find common ground, to reach out to those he used to care about and try to understand and to reconcile.

Weirdly, I think a main obstacle here would be Punz; as long as they are together, the Plan™ is all that matters. I think another obstacle would be Dream's sheer terror of showing that kind of vulnerability around someone he no longer trusts—but that's not an uncrossable line, as Tommy demonstrates in the finale. It might just take the other person to give him that push, to let him know that he's safe here. If Dream was seeking out this kind of reconciliation himself, however, I think he would be willing to open up sooner.

The one exception is Sam. Because Dream tried to reconcile with Sam, for a long time, back when Sam was stuck in prison. And Sam refused.

La Belle Dame sans Merci by Paul Julien Meylan

why do you think Dream told Sam 'all about exile'? obviously, this didn't lead to pleasant consequences for him

it's interesting, right? especially because--while exile wasn't exactly the most unknown thing at that time--it's far from the highlight of c!dream's Villain Actions in the majority of the dsmp population's collective consciousness, at this point. it's been about a month since c!tommy ran away from exile, and since then c!Dream has done Doomsday and then the staged finale. for someone like c!sam, it makes a lot more sense for c!dream to judge him as caring more about how Fran would've been taken as leverage in the disc vault, or how their old home together the community house was blown up by dream. while i have no doubts that c!sam would've interrogated c!dream about exile anyway, c!dream didn't have to tell him "all about it" in a way that had c!sam completely horrified within that first week. and frankly, no matter what cruelty c!sam might've already been up to, c!dream wasn't going to crack to the point of confessing anything he didn't want to confess over the course of like, five days in the very beginning of the prison arc.

so why does he? i'm sure he'd give you a whole host of rational reasons. c!tommy can't keep his mouth shut, obviously, so he assumed that c!tommy would spill the beans sooner or later. provoking c!sam from the getgo gives him a good idea of what to expect from the rest of his stay here, which will help him navigate the situation in an optimal way. mentioning c!tommy affects c!sam obviously, emotionally, which keeps him too off-balance to think about any logical inconsistencies in things like the staged finale and ever suspecting that c!dream wanted to be in the prison in the first place. if he's forthcoming about this Terrible Crime, then c!sam will be too focused on interrogating him about tommy to ask questions about the revive book, or vikkstar and lazar, or punz. and so on.

they're good enough reasons. valid reasons, sure. c!dream is very good at coming up with lists of rational reasons behind his actions, objective courses of actions that leave him firmly in control. c!dream also--in the process of the plan to put himself in the prison--dies at least five times, as far as we know of, and likely many more (if we are to believe that he did experiments on his own limbo pre-prison, which i think we Should, considering the circumstances, then he needed to lose his initial three lives to even test the revive book on him, not to mention however it was that he got another three lives in order to lose two in the staged finale) and starts swimming in the lava not even 24 hours into his imprisonment. just because a reason makes the most sense or is the most rational doesn't make it the real reason why c!dream does much of anything, which is something he never quite gets around to admitting to himself.