Latest Posts by wislawa1 - Page 4
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
im rewatching the dsmp from the beginning bc i just had saw the more later vod lore streams and i find something interesting about cdream. In the start he's a person who always look for beign undertod, when ctommy is being a troublemaker he's always trying to explain ctommy the rules, killing him also but always saying why and what ctommy has to do stop causing troubles. In conflicts he's a mediator and in later arcs we saw him trying to make people see what he sees and listen to him. I think one of the things cdream wanted the most wasn't being liked but being undertod. He wanted to people to actually see why he's doing things and listen to him. I think that's why he was willing to talk to ctommy in the end. I like to think as cdream as a mediator who no one listened his yells and took cards in the matter and ended up being part of the wars
mmhm mmhm--as he himself grapples with in the snake speech, right. it's not really about just the idea of oh, he's evil, people see him as evil, but the fact that he's not afforded the humanity that people seem willing to give a snake--that he got sidelined as pure evil, his motivations replaced, his voice cut out of the story. the whole snake speech is about this idea that no one ever asked why, which does tie in neatly with how quickly things come crumbling down when someone actually does.
/dsmp /rp
Rewatching VODs again and it's sad to see how at the start of his imprisonment, Dream was trying so hard to downplay the prison's conditions and stay optimistic about them.
During Tommy's first visit, he says to Tommy, "It's not too bad, right? I can write and I can read and they bring me food." He talks about the new game he can play with his clock.
When Bad visits, Dream admits that Sam sometimes gives him less food when he burns his clock, but that he's not starving because he "[has] potatoes." He says that Sam is "treating [him] amazing" and that he's fine when Bad asks him if he's okay.
Tommy visits him again a month after the first visit, and by then Dream's attitude has changed entirely. Tommy says he's been suffering from success, and Dream replies, "Me too. Except for without the success part, just suffering." Then when Quackity visits him the first time and asks how he's been, Dream only says, "I've been."
Later after Techno gets locked up with Dream, he no longer attempts to downplay anything. Techno jokingly complains about Dream not being positive, and Dream can only think of saying, "Since you've been in here, I haven't been tortured. So I'll give you that much, that's been better." He tells Techno how there's absolutely nothing to do in the cell and how he's been eating nothing but "raw, disgusting potatoes" for the past months.
Dream did his best to convince himself and others that everything would be fine, that he could deal with the prison's conditions. He tells Sam that he thought the prisoner (himself) "would be fine with potatoes, would be fine with not seeing the courtyard." That he didn't realize how bad it would be. But the longer his imprisonment lasted, the harder it became to deal with it. Dream tries one last time to ask Sam for better food and to see the courtyard and then is forced to give up, trapped behind glass and with no hope of ever getting out.
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 has 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 quiet 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:
actually, i should just say this in its own post--if you're ever looking for a translation of anything ancient greek, ian johnston has a ton of translations that are both genuinely good and completely free to read. a lot of the time free translations are really old or just not that good but this man has translated, like, everything from homer to sophocles to kafka to nietzche and he's done it extremely well. i didn't think he had an antigone but i just looked and not only does he have one but it's genuinely very good. so i highly recommend his website as a resource!
foolish: you’re just a softie i think that’s it
dreamxd: oooooh no stop it stop it cmon nope stoooooop
/dsmp /rp
Thinking again about how Dream's trust in other people got irrevocably torn down throughout the prison arc. How even after all the blackmailing and all the murder attempts, Dream had expected people to be fair and play by the rules. To keep their word, just like he always did.
But then Sam almost immediately deviated from the prison protocol. He isolated and starved Dream, he let a torturer in and trapped Dream's one chance of escape in the cell with him. Sapnap threatened to kill him if he ever got out. And it got to the point where Dream believed that Techno, one of his only allies, would not even come back for him.
When he was finally free, Dream decided that the only option left was to kill everyone who was against him and Punz. Otherwise, he thought the others would "force" them to revive whoever they killed. It wouldn't surprise me if he imagined that this "forcing to revive" would likely entail torture. He had already seen how far some people were willing to go for the power of revival, after all.
No longer would Dream give people the benefit of the doubt. No longer would he trust them to treat him fairly, to see him as a person. Either they sided with him, or they died.
I really liked Eret’s reading of Ozymandias today so here’s a quick edit of it overtop of Sad-ist’s Ozymandias animation!
Watch the original animation here
Guys, I figured out- the whole hero vs. villain thing with c!Technoblade, and how it relates to Bedrock Bros (an unoffical essay)
So, the whole reason I made this blog was because of this realization I came to a few months back and need the fandom to know. This is all from the mythology class I took, focusing on Classical mythology. Also, I’m not up to date on lore.
So, the big debate in the fandom (I don’t know how strong it still is, but I know that people were talking about this at some point) is if c!Technoblade is a hero or villain. And that got me thinking. There are strong arguements for both, but I really couldn’t come to a decison. Then, I was in my Mythology class, studying the Iliad and Greek warrior culture, and things were starting to sound really familiar. We all know that Techno is a major nerd when it comes it Greek mythology, and the pieces started coming together.
So, a the qualifications to be a Greek hero are things like loyalty, strength, courage keeping promises, contempt towards inferiors, and the like. There is absolutly no need for them to be good people or moral individuals. In fact, they usually aren’t in the slightest. But they still are heroes in the eyes of the Greeks, despite not mathching up with our western ideals of what makes up a hero.
There are also three pillars to Greek warrior culture. I’ll include all of the relevant class notes at the bottom for added clarity, but in summary, it’s basically 1: being the best- physically and in the way they can give persuasive speeches. This is displayed by a great speech or a murderous rampage. 2: Honor through gains and spoils and 3: glory and fame that continues thoughout time, through skill or eloquence. Starting to sound familiar?
Techno has his English major speeches and kills crowds of people (ex. the festival after he kills Tubbo). I could go on a whole thing about the Axe of Peace and Carl the horse as a manifestation of geras (the ultimate prize a warrior can have), which is a big part of the second pillar. He’s big on his clout and image, and while this is just something that he seems to have absorbed into his overall image, you can see the lean in during lore.
This can explain some events that seem to contradict the heroic model that we expect. All of the times he says he was betrayed and destroys L’manburg seems like a villainous thing to do- but Greek heroes stick to their principles, no matter how illogical or unreasonable the results of their actions are. Succumbing to peer pressure? They would sacrifice anything to keep up their image as a powerful warrior.
Nothing shows this better than things like the favor to Dream. A Greek hero always keeps their promises and stays loyal. And a lot of this seems contradictory, or frustrating. And it is. But it’s a different culture from a different time. (Trust me, I love the Iliad, but reading it can be so painful at times). Put yourself into a Greek heroes shoes, and a lot of these villainous actions can be justified by their code and culture.
A great way to compare our Western hero culture with the Greek hero culture is by comparing the actions of c!Tommy with c!Technoblade. Tommy could be seen as a representation of a Western heroics. He wants to do the right thing, stay loyal to his friends and country, and get justice. He’s generally forgiving (we do have to keep in mind that this is Tommy, and he is a teenage boy). We can generally look at his actions and agree with them, in some way.
After exile, his interests align with Technoblade’s for a bit, though it falls apart. He goes back to Tubbo, which Techno sees as a betrayal by his Greek culture POV, while Tommy sees this as a logical progession. Also, Tommy sees the destruction of L’manburg as a betrayal, while Techno sees it as a logical progression. Their respective veiws of the world are too different for them to be able to work together. Bedrock bros, in this regard, were never meant to be.
Comparing the two of them is a great model for Western v. Greek hero culture. Now, this is just a theory. But if you look at the actions that don’t seem to align with logic and compare it to the warrior culture I’ve discussed, it hits too many points, in my opinion, for it to be coincidental. Personally, I think that these similarities are on purpouse, and that Technoblade is planning out the canonical actions of his character based on these base ideas.
I don’t know if anyone else has made this connection, but here you go. Also, it would be really embaressing if someone actually said this, and I wrote a whole essay on something that’s already been confirmed and is common knowledge. I’ve barely scratched the surface, I can’t cover everything from a full college class in a Tumblr post, but I’ll add the class notes that relate. If you made it to down here, have a golden star. Thanks!
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.
… No, What Tommy Did Factually Was COMPLETELY Insignificant Compared To Dream
Tommy:
Caused chaos when he joined the server, but non maliciously. He wasn’t the only one to do so, however, and was often joined by other characters. He also wasn’t the first- Ponk’s tree had gotten attacked at one point before he even joined.
Killed Dream… along with Sapnap, which resulted in Tommy getting punished and Sapnap not even getting a slap on the wrist. Dream doesn’t even mention that Tommy didn’t do this alone, placing all the blame on Tommy when he wasn’t all to blame.
Engaged in the disc war.
Sold drugs with Wilbur- namely, these drugs were potions (so, not anything addictive or harmful), however he DID try and scam people with them, which is probably the greater crime here.
Helped found L’Manberg, out of a genuine belief in its peaceful nature and words over weapons and because he trusted Wilbur. Regardless of your thoughts on L’Manberg, at worst Tommy was naive here, not malicious. That doesn’t mean that Dream’s feelings over this are invalid, obviously, but it does mean absolutely no serious harm was intended.
Continued to engage in conflicts with Dream after L’Manberg was founded, though again this was clearly non-malicious- he and Dream genuinely were friends, and hung out together, and Tommy seemed to think they were in good fun.
Stole Spirit’s leather during one of these conflicts.
Accidentally burnt down George’s house trying to grief it with Ranboo. While he was technically VP, he had tried to turn down the role to avoid this exact situation.
Tried to use Spirit’s leather in an attempt to get Dream to leave him alone.
Tried to keep items in hidden chests in Exile- keep in mind, the fact there was a rule against this wasn’t communicated to Tommy until after he broke it, and most of what was in there was shit like pictures of Tubbo.
Left Exile- however, Tommy wasn’t even breaking the rules here, he wasn’t barred from Techno’s house.
Tried to fight back against Doomsday, though this amounted to nothing.
Killed him in the Disc Finale - something Dream had staged, so it’s unclear if this was even a slight or something Dream wanted.
Upon visiting him in prison, killing Pussboi (the prison cat- yes, that’s technically her name, Tommy calls her that and while Dream says he named her he never explicitly says what he did name her. It’s funny call her that more).
Doubting the Revive Book worked.
Indirectly being the one of the causes of his torture- however, this was because Dream murdered him, and Tommy was horrified visibly when Dream told him at Logstedshire, meaning this would be something ridiculously unfair to assign blame onto Tommy for.
Broke into his house with Wilbur, though Tommy didn’t realise that Dream lived there until much later and wanted to leave as soon as Dream showed up.
Trying and failing to kill Dream.
Trying and failing to kill Dream again. Well, technically he succeeded for like ten minutes, but still.
Committing murder suicide with Dream- this was out of a genuine belief it was the only way to save his friends.
Dream:
Stole Tommy’s discs as a punishment for Tommy stealing his stuff.
Engaged in the disc war, escalating much faster than Tommy did in a lot of ways, including downright stalking.
Built tunnels under Tommy’s base, something he was uncomfortable and surprised with.
Attacked L’Manberg, which regardless of whether it was right or not was incredibly distressing to Tommy.
Blew up Tommy’s house specifically.
Killed Tommy in the Final Control Room- this is canonically the event that gave Tommy PTSD. This was a war crime.
Killed Tommy again in a duel- one Tommy lost fair and square, and one suggested by Tommy. This, unlike the previous death, wasn’t a war crime as well.
Continued to engage in conflict with Tommy after L’Manberg was founded. Again, the two of them remained friends during this time, so this also was presumably not intended as anything specifically harmful.
Gave Wilbur TNT on his self destructive path, though it’s likely this didn’t end up affecting too much.
Betraying Pogtopia for the revive book, when Tommy trusted him and thought of him as a friend.
Framed Tommy for griefings he didn’t do in the weeks leading up to Exile, and while the exact reasoning is obviously unclear in hindsight it seems likely that it was to get Tommy exiled no matter what- he had plans for it explicitly after all.
Built walls around L’Manberg and threatened Tommy and Tubbo. He also said he didn’t care about anything but control over Tommy (and then by proxy the server), and regardless of whether Dream was telling the truth that doesn’t change the mental impact it might have.
While Tubbo obviously was the one who got Tommy exiled, Dream deliberately pushed him into it and later would tell Tommy that he was the one who did that.
What he did do was himself exile Tommy from the Greater Dream SMP, leaving him stuck only in the wilderness.
Blew up Tommy’s summer house and made him watch.
Forced Tommy to give up and destroy his items.
Hit Tommy with weaponry until he cooperated. This nearly killed him on several occasions, and Tommy explicitly called it very painful.
Would constantly insist that Tommy’s feelings that he expressed weren’t real, and he was just exaggerating (for instance, insisting that he was just messing around when he said he hated him).
Insulted and berated Tommy on several occasions, to the point of distress.
Insisted he and Tommy were friends, despite Tommy being uncomfortable with it, and conditioning Tommy into believing it through love-bombing and isolation.
Deliberately lying about how his friends didn’t care about him to keep him isolated and dependant, and making him feel like any visitors were just there to gawp at him.
Hit Tommy with his fists whenever he displeased him, to the point Tommy stopped reacting to it at all (Tommy in later streams would confirm this was almost certainly intended to be physical abuse, and not just general Minecraft body language).
Kept the rules Tommy had to follow inconsistent and didn’t ever fully explain them to Tommy, leading to him getting punished for things he didn’t even realise he wasn’t meant to do (or was).
Forced Tommy to hear his friends having fun in the Greater Dream SMP seeing the Christmas tree while he was forbidden from even looking under pain of death.
Showed no concern to Tommy self harming or barely eating, and only seemed to be upset by him attempting suicide because it’d interrupt his conditioning.
Gave Tommy meaningless gifts often in an attempt to lovebomb him, something that has lead to Tommy interpreting gifts as a sign of aggression later on.
Forced Tommy to destroy his own stuff on occasion, under threat of further physical abuse.
Conditioned Tommy into seeing a lack of abusive behaviours as something deserving of thanks.
Let Tommy throw a party, then deliberately sabotaged the invites so Tommy would think he was alone, and spent the evening alternating between lovebombing him and telling him no one cared about him (except, implicitly, himself).
Killed Mexican Dream in front of Tommy for seemingly no reason other than him interrupting his manipulation and abuse.
Tried to gaslight Tommy into believing Mexican Dream died of an overdose, and tried to convince Drista that Tommy murdered him.
Conditioned Tommy into seeing certain parts of the abuse as bonding rituals he should be thankful for.
Did all of the above in an attempt to force Tommy to help him in some way- in hindsight, it seems likely that this involved the experiments with the revive book some way.
When finding Tommy had hidden chests, threatening to leave him alone despite him being Tommy’s only human source of contact at this point and banning him from the Nether, something he had no authority over.
Refused to let Tommy apologise and try and fix things in favour of punishing him.
Destroyed everything Tommy had built, leaving him with little food and nowhere to sleep, and making him watch.
Killing Mushroom Henry, the only other living being Tommy had with him, and making him watch.
Forcing Tommy to give up everything- including innocent items such as his pictures of Tubbo- and blowing them up, making him watch.
Repeatedly hunting down and watching Tommy after he left to Techno’s, despite the fact Tommy wasn’t breaking the rules of exile nor was Dream actually in charge of enforcing them.
Mocking Tommy at the community house and using him as a scapegoat.
Blowing up Tommy’s home, which he’d explicitly tell Tommy was because it entertained him (again, regardless of whether this was true it has the same effect on Tommy’s psyche).
The whole Disc Finale, regardless of being staged, was intentionally intensely traumatic and distressing for Tommy. He was threatened with a return to the same abuse he was under before, and forced to say goodbye to his friend in Tubbo’s mock execution.
Had Tommy trapped in the prison with him, something that caused him intense distress, and declared it was going to be like exile- essentially, threatening to abuse him again.
Murdering him for a third time because he questioned the Revive Book, despite Tommy begging for him to stop, in his own words to prove a point.
Leaving Tommy in Limbo- something he knows from personal experience is distressing- for the equivalent of two months. (This, effectively, means that Dream used it as another punishment method in his abuse!)
Needled Tommy on information he already knew, seemingly just to distress him further, and asked Tommy to basically become his personal experiment- regardless of whether this was a genuine attempt to get Tommy to join the revival experiments and become essentially a God with him or not, it still greatly distressed Tommy.
Revived Wilbur, something he knew deeply distressed and would be torture for Tommy regardless of whether the intentions were to do so or it was just a byproduct.
Almost immediately after breaking out of prison, going to physically and psychologically torment a terrified Tommy.
Threatening Tommy with not only repeated killing and revival- something Tommy feared more than anything- but also with making him immortal SOLELY to torture for eternity, leading to Tommy to feel like (and I directly quote) his toy, puppet, and plaything.
Psychologically torturing Tommy by putting a disc of his torment under his house and trapping him there, along with leaving threatening signs.
Destroying his discs- they were fake, but Dream didn’t know that. This was, however, to prevent Wilbur from committing suicide again.
“Sparing” Clingyduo only because they desperately begged only to force them into a twisted experiment where one of them had to sacrifice themselves. While this only resulted in the destruction of the discs, Dream couldn’t know that.
Threatened to kill everyone on the server- it’s unclear if this was true or not, since this contradicts what he says later on (which I’ll get to), but this broke Tommy completely and left him suicidal again.
Laughed at Tommy talking about his attempted suicide.
Continued to torture Tommy even during the final stream- killing and reviving him, and then downright dismissing his agony immediately after.
Continued to blame Tommy for everything up until his very last moments, and never actually apologising once.
Potentially completely lied about his motive and plans to change. Making the server immortal like he suggested in this stream contradicts what he said in the previous one, where that would destroy the End and the server itself so he needed to kill everyone to balance it out, so in one stream or the other he had to be lying.
(The only things listed here is what effected each other, but I think it’d be unfair to bring in anything else. What Tommy and Dream did to, like, Jack Manifold or someone doesn’t effect the other’s feelings on them)
Dream’s list also has a lot of ““probably’s”” just because on most cases we haven’t gotten a direct explanation of why they did it like in Tommy’s case, or they’re in an unreliable circumstance, which unfortunately makes his exact motives unclear. We know broad strokes, but not every reasoning like we do with Tommy in a lot of cases. This isn’t something I can fix without even more wild speculation, sorry!
As you can see, while Tommy isn’t perfect, what Dream did to him is the equivalent of hitting someone who slaps you in the face with a hammer, and then insisting it was their fault and continuing to hit them with said hammer while they try to apologise. Dream is an unreliable narrator himself, and needs a scapegoat to explain how him driving away all his friends couldn’t possibly be his fault (I might make something expanding on this later).
The tragedy isn’t that Tommy and Dream were equally bad for each other. The tragedy is that Dream is so lost at this point he can’t see the difference. His attempts at making the server closer lead to him losing sight of what was okay, leading to him seeing torture as equivalent to being a troublemaker, and this means his plans were ultimately futile because who would want to be friends with someone like that?
The closure Tommy got wasn’t that he was bad too, or that Dream was misunderstood. Hell, it wasn’t even that Dream wasn’t a villain, not exactly. It’s that he was a pathetic man instead of a God. One with immature and childish goals who blamed others for his own faults. Dream was a human, a fucked up one, and not some sort of unstoppable force that would haunt him forever.
And, most importantly, it was proof that he didn’t deserve what happened to him. Because, y’know, doing all this in the name of not wanting to be alone is completely insane and unjustifiable. Hell, it’s proof that makes his exile and the repeated threats of immortality worse, because if that was the exact intention behind them, it fully means that Dream didn’t even do this out of hatred, despite his claims to the contrary, and how could any pain caused be justified then?
Tommy and Dream are not equal in terms of suffering. Not even close. But they’re human, and time and again Tommy has tried to appeal to the part of him that doesn’t deny it. He can acknowledge where he fucked up and try to fix it… and that’s the difference between him and Dream. That’s why his list is so much smaller. And that’s why it was always too late.
Welcome to a new episode of Sapphire Rambles, today's topic being:
Just as c!Tommy is a simbol of Care, c!Fundy is a simbol of Love.
Let me explain.
(There are going to be 3 principal points to this rant, and each of them is gonna end with a Tl;dr in purple, so it's easier to follow)
If you're a regular in the Fundy tag (or in the Ranboo tag since this argument gets often brought up in relation to C!Ranboo), you might have already seen some rants talking about how C!Fundy is an incredibly loving person, willing to chase after the people he care about if he sees the tiniest hint that mending their relationship is possible, even if they hurted him in the past.
Yeah you are going to see the same argument again here in the first part, but I promise this gets interesting
This became more clear after the Break, when he decided to try and mend his relationship with Philza and Ranboo even if they weren't at all on good terms at the moment, but he thought it was worth it so he tried and will keep on trying anyways, but we have examples of Fundy's really loving and forgiving nature back to the Revolutionary era
Everyone knows about Eret's betrayal I'm sure, but one thing people seem to skim over is how it effected Fundy, because there's the really high possibility that he was the one who was hurted the most by it.
For everyone who has some spotty memory (me too sometimes fam), Eret was the closest person to Fundy at the time, the two being really close friends, so the betrayal must have had a terrible effect on his emotional health, but you know how it went?
It went that Fundy was the first person to reach out to Eret and start to forgive his actions. Fundy always valued his friendships above the side he was in. So even tho he was a L'manburg abitant, he still thought of Eret as a dear friend to him and did his best to not make them feel alone or isolated
There are really few examples of people Fundy actually has an issue with, but even here Hate is a strong and mostly wrong word to apply, for example:
- Wilbur: as we are shown in the interactions with Ghostbur, Fundy didn't hate Wilbut for how he neglected and patronized him, it made him upset (as we saw when Ghostbur called him "his little champion" and he ran away) but he never hated Wilbur for that. The only thing he didn't forgive him was deciding to die, leaving him. And his issue with Ghostbur is not aknowledging or taking responsability. But he doesn't hate Ghostbur, he can talk to him in a civil manner even if the Ghost pretty much upsets him. And about Wilbur? Fundy loved Wilbur, the thing that hurted him was he taking the decision to definitivly leave him.
- Technoblade: even before Doomsday, the correct word of Fundy's feelings towards Techno has never been Hate, but Fear. A lot of people seemed to miss this point about the Butcher Army as a whole, but they weren't move by hate, even if they tried to make it look like they were. They were terrified. On their way to Techno's house, it was more clear than ever that they were TERRIBLY afraid of Techno. The Butcher army was never a movement of hate, but a bad reaction to a traumatic event that scarred them with fear. Also, after the Break? Fundy understands why Techno wanted L'manburg gone, so he doesn't hate him for that.
- Jschlatt: if you followed Fundy's pov, it won't be a surprise me saying that Fundy doesn't hate Jschlatt, but it may be news to other people, since one of the last interaction between the two was... anything but positive. I still shiver at the caravan scene. But even after all he's done, Fundy can't bring himself to completly hate Jschlatt, even if he did a lot of horrible things and was a horrible person, he still doesn't hate him. Fundy took with him Jschlatt's sword, keeping it as a relic and a memory of the man.
There is no one in the server, probably not even Dream Himself, that Fundy full-on hates. No matter how much they hurted him and everyone else, he just. Doesn't hate them. He's able to see the humanity in everyone, even if he wishes he could just hate people that wronged him. He was always forgiving and loving, these two aspects of him becoming even more prominent after his Break.
Tl;dr: Fundy is a character incredibly full of love and almost always willing to forgive and mend relationships with people he cares about at the moment he sees the possibility.
Now that I got the part most talked about out of the way, I'm taking the second tangent. Let's talk about Self-love.
It's not news the fact that there are really few characters, if not actually none of them, who love themselves. Might it be for trauma or for guilt, none of the characters actually love themself and act out of self-love.
Sometimes there are characters that act for themselves, but that is different from acting out of self-love.
Acting for themselves means doing something to achieve an objective that you want, for example: Eret's betrayal.
Eret betrayed L'Manburg becayse he was promised the role of King of the SMP by Dream, she acted out of her wish for power and control. That's an example of acting for yourself.
Acting out of self-love means doing something with the only cardinal reason being that it's good for you, taking care of yourself doing something that makes you feel better and healthier. That is acting out of self-love.
And, if you look at the server, you can easily see that no one has ever done that, expect for one single time.
The closest wrong thing you might be thinking off right now is when Tommy escaped from exile, but that was not an act driven by self-love. Sure, Tommy saved himself and went towards a healthier mindset, but what drove him towards that direction was not a desire to be better and good for himself, but rage towards Dream and a desire to be back to his family and friends.
You know what the only act that could possibly be out os self-love is?
Fundy going away for a years and a half, taking a break from everyone
Think about it for a second. Why did he do that? Let's start putting away the wrong possibilities:
- Doing it for someone: Fundy at the moment was heavily spiraling towards paranoia, wanting to be a villain to make everyone hate him. If that was his mindset at the time, why would he even want to get a break for anyone?
- Having a second cause: what second cause could there be for a choice like getting away from an unhealthy situation to heal? The only second reason a choice like this could have is healing to help someone else heal when you're feeling better, but refer to the last point
- ... that's virtually it
The only reason that could have caused Fundy to decide to take a break from the whole situation because it was unhealthy and heal was because he wanted to heal. For himself. He genuinly wanted himself to feel better for the only reason being, simply, feeling better.
Fundy is the only character for now to have ever taken an important choice for making himself feel better and letting himself heal.
Tl;dr: Fundy taking the year and a half break was the only decision on the entire SMP taken only out of self-love and genuine desire to feel better for the sole reason of feeling better.
Fundy is a representation of love, in any shape or form. He is unapologetically full of love and care, both for himself and for the people around him.
Anyway, the third part is a theory, if younwill kindly follow me:
The above analysis is the exact reason why the Egg causes Fundy an extreme repulsion.
Since both Fundy and Tubbo said that the Egg seems connected to Dreamons, I'm going to roll with that idea in mind.
As we all know, one of the only known weaknesses of a Dreamon is Love and this Dreamon seems to be acting and controlling people out of wishes and desires.
Fundy should be a perfect candidate for the Egg to manipulate, isn't he? One of Fundy's most known characteristic is his research for love, affection and appreciation from people, and we know the egg has no problem using love to manipulate someone, because he is manipulating Bbh using his (platonic?) love for Skeppy against him.
So why the egg would cause a repulsing reaction to Fundy?
Tommy seems immune because he doesn't wish for anything right now, he has everything that he wants
Tubbo also has a repulsive reaction, but is not a hateful reaction but one driven by fear and sadness, the Egg purposefully trying to scare him away, probably to make him unable to fight against him
But why Fundy's reaction would be full-on hate?
I think the egg was trying to do with Fundy the same thing he's doing with Tubbo, scaring him so badly to drive them to the point where they cannot fight back out of complete fear, but it's not working.
It's not working because the Egg fears Fundy, fears how full of pure, unfiltered and unapologetic love his heart is, fears how he's the living representation of the fact that love, of any kind, is the strongest emotion out there. Fundy already was able to defeat a Dreamon because of his own love, and now that he's more emotionally stable and has decided to follow his heart more, mending relationship with people he loves even if they hurt him?
Fundy is an incredibly dangerous threat to the Egg.
So fear is not enough to keep the fox away, he cannot let him anywhere near his plans.
He fears that if he tried the fear treatment on Fundy, Fundy would be able to break out of the web of terror as soon as someone he loved was caught in the crossfire
So he tried pushing him away in a different way, using hate instead of fear, because since Fundy is such a love-driven person all around, the best way to keep him away is to use hate, just like Tubbo is often driven by hope and optimism, so the best way to keep him far fron where he could be a danger is to use sadness and fear.
Tl;dr: The Egg is making Fundy hate him because that's the only emotion that could actually keep Fundy away from him, because he, being a Dreamon, fears how full of love Fundy is.
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.
We don't talk enough about the reasons why people deemed c!Dream such a threat: his terrifying combination of intelligence and skill. It's undeniable that he was one of the best at pvp on the server, even from the very beginning—pair that with his almost obsessive resource-gathering, and you create something deadly. He knows what he's doing. Remember, these people live in a world where physical power is arguably more important than political (or at least to a greater extent than in the real world), where a single person with the ability and the materials can lay entire nations to waste. Justified or not, you can understand why L'Manberg was so scared of him.
I hate to be that person but.. if all fics are cannon in Passerine... did the green god plan this? Butterfly reign, the DSMP, Tommyinnit's clinic for supervillains among other things. Think about it. When BR!Theseus asks Dream how to be a good crowned prince, doesn't his awnser seem off to you??? You can't tell me it doesn't.
“You find everything that they are attached to,” he says. “And take it away from them.”
Some Greco-Roman dsmp au stuff again
Tommy: “Techno, is this the right way down to the Underworld?”
Techno: “So listen here, Theseus, did I ever tell you of the time I wrangled the drakon of the Hesperides?”
Wilbur (the butterfly): “Have you ever eaten sand? My father let me play on the beaches of Crete, once.”
And then there’s Eret with the “If it is for the prosperity of my kingdom, any sacrifice is worth the end result.”
Crime Boys on Theseus’ Ship
@wolfythewitch (Brother animatic) // Richard Siken // knp!!! (Saint Bernard Animatic) // The Soccer Journals by Everybody’s Worried About Owen // my rp with @racklime // Theseus by The Oh Hellos // Late-August (lapse animatic) // Alice Notley // @holly-warbs // Alexis Pauline Gumbs
c!Tommy is not the primary reason that either c!Sam or c!Quackity decide to abuse or torture c!Dream. Tommy is a justification that they both use, to different extents and at different times.
The operative impetus that kicks off the torture is NOT Tommy's death: it is Tommy's REVIVAL.