#Dream SMP theories

[spoopdeedoop]

these guys also because with the return of the dsmp fixation i figured i had an obligation

[idkwatthehec]

Yall I just realized something.

So you all know about how Eret’s planned ending was the reveal that the Dsmp was actually like a weird sort of time loop thing and that’s why Karl’s Tales were always so similar.

Do you guys remember the underwater city. Where all the main people of the smp had a room. Everyone except one person.

Wilbur didn’t have a room.

Wilbur left the smp before the nuke.

WILBUR LEFT. BEFORE THE CYCLE WAS RENEWED.

THAT MEANS HES NO LONGER A PART OF THE CYCLE.

And that’s why he never ever appeared in a Tales. Not once.

[420technoblazeit]

does anyone remember that theory someone made that the book c!dream made a deal with schlatt for was the script for the lore. and that's why he became so obsessed with narratives and main characters or whatever, he knew that he wasnt the main character of the story and that tommy was

[bc-jpeg]

so uh- I didn't see if this theory already exists in the fandom, or no one really touched on it, but after a long time in both fandoms, one funny pattern is noticeable. I’m so obsessed with watchers lore so much, which is why I started to go beyond only one universe, and this gave the result. so the theory is that dreamxd is a watcher. after digging into the dsmp lore, I found several points that may indicate this. dxd’s nature may differ from the canonical nature of the watchers that we see in evo smp and in the life-seasons in martyn’s lore, but we also already have a watcher!grian, whose watcher's nature also differs in its own way from that very canon, he has his own lore, so this will also work here.

now this will be only my personal version of watcher!dxd lore, there may still be holes in it, but this is only as a possible base:

presumably dreamxd is an ex-manhunt!dream, who could not get out of the world and stuck in the spectator mode of the game, becoming a watcher. in the initial attempts to escape from such a fate and get out (I don't think dream would just accept such a fate), he was crippled either by other watchers or by himself, having lost his "eye". this explains the basic visual interpretation of the dxd, where the place where the eyes should have been is now a familiar cross pattern.

isolating himself from other watchers, dxd created a time loop from the existing world, from which he initially could not get out, closing access to the end dimension for players, preventing both the players themselves from escaping, and the possibility of capturing these players to other watchers for their own time loops. the world with the manhunt seed was restarted, defaulting almost everything to zero, which eventually became the dsmp server. all interactions between players and server events began to give dxd so much energy and power that eventually the essence of the watcher completely absorbed him, dxd himself began to provoke events, interact directly with players, and all for the sake of energy, emotions, deaths that made him only stronger. dsmp became an excellent loop-feeder for him only, in which he completely lost his original humanity, becoming a monster, creating only chaos.

one of the risky but effective dxd’s moves of was giving the revival book and the book of death to players inside the time loop, which in a peculiar way gave them access to part of dxd’s powers. he realized how unpredictable players can be in their decisions and actions, which gave a ton of events possibilities. he wouldn't have to provoke events himself, when players can do everything for him, giving the same amount of energy.

so in the final of the dsmp, after that nuclear explosion, dxd simply restarted the entire time loop, as it was shown. the players don't remember anything that happened, they don't remember each other, the whole world was defaulted to zero, where they started all over again.

it’s also interesting that the concepts of limbo and dreams/illusions exist both in the dsmp lore and in watchers lore in life-seasons. limbo is the space where players end up with the loss of all their canonical lives, and there is no return from there, only at the whim of mystical powers (dsmp — the revival book, as part of the dxd’s powers, life-seasons — the watchers, more specifically watcher!grian).

both concepts somehow intersect with each other:

> in the dsmp, they intersected in the c!george’s lore, he had partial access to limbo through his own dreams, where dxd himself was also often present. someone also had the opportunity to watch server events from limbo.

> in life-seasons, according to cc!martyn, limbo is the space where all players get to after the final death and are there between seasons in a state of sleep, in which they see their own smps/universes.

again, this is just a possible version of how exactly this theory/head-cannon can work, there are a lot of things that I could not explain yet, because there is too much information from different dsmp povs. some things I remember, some not at all, but I left a hint of their possible intersection visually in the diagram. the theory of the smps-multiverse is here simply by default, all the other main points are indicated in this diagram. all of this will be easily editable at any future time, my job is just to throw in the base for this theory :D

[bleue-flora]

Tbh Im just thinking of something that im really curious and doesnt let me asleep. What was cdream planing to do once he was inside the prison? Bc if it was just contain the revival book then...why he had the plan to not stay too long in there? cpunz kinda implies the plan was meeting soon after cdream was imprisionated when they reunited post prison break. So what was his plan? the little we see of cdream in prison before he kills ctommy was him just passing around the cell and getting bored and starting to be starved by csam. Was it a plan to united the server, stay imprisoned a few weeks and then come out acting as if he changed? well that'd make sense, also could explain why he insisted so much in that he changed or leave forever even with people he and everyone knew wouldnt buy that at all like ctommy or csam after ctechno escape. But that stills makes me uneasy bc he didnt try that much. He didnt try to act like he was "reformed"(meaning as what the server expected to him to act if he reformed not in a way saying imprisoment is a was okay or acceptable way to help someone), he tells ctommy he burned the books when ctommy asked him to write novels as a way to say sorry.

Im just thinking what was he planned to do inside the prison? just stay there and rot for an indeterminaded amount of time? idk if the "contain the revival book" as his only motive fits bc then why he seemed to have planned with cpunz to meet soon and also planned that cranboo explodes tnt to trap a visitor with him? And the "trying to act as if he changed" while it makes more sense to me, it also doesnt convince me 100% for what I just said. Maybe a combination of the two? it could be, a person can have multiple reasons to do something. But idk, what do you think was cdream plan once he was inside the prison?

-Cleo

That is The question isn’t it -Why put himself in prison?

And the thing is I can’t really give you a definitive answer because we just don’t know. There are lots of variables and we just don’t have enough data to determine the answer, especially when we don’t even get his pov or get to see 80% of his lore. The best I can give you is my theory on why I personally think he did it, which I have talked about [here], based on the information we do have and assuming he’s not completely crazy, and is following some form of logical plan, however flawed…

For starters, one of the things we do reasonably know based on the amount of times it comes up including the finale is his larger desire and motivation - "Always the goal has just been that it's all one united server, that everybody follows the same rules, there's no countries there's no, you know, any of this it's just one giant like family." [clip], “I want everyone to live and be happy together” forever [clip], (after spending time in Dream’s head we get Tommy saying) “You just want things to be simple.” [clip] and then of course -> “I just don’t want to ever be alone.” [clip]

That’s the base line - Dream does not want to be alone, he craves community and family, a world where everyone is happy and together.

So keeping that in mind, for starters I don’t think he did it to “contain the revival book” and honestly I’m not even sure where that reasoning came from, I don’t think I’ve ever seen it and it really doesn’t even work as you point out, one reason being that Dream’s stay was meant to be temporary.

I also don’t think the reasoning of uniting the server works either because for starters the whole server isn’t even present for his arrest and the ones who are there weren’t necessarily big enemies before that. Besides technically he already did a better job uniting people against him during Doomsday. Now maybe that was a side bonus or goal but I don’t think it’s the main reasoning.

But yes, I do think it was a means to be seen as reformed or less of a threat by the server. I go into some of that reasoning in my other post. I think it was about providing a pathway to him not being enemy number 1 anymore. Because people had been rallying against him even in a time of mostly peace with the biggest example being L’manberg planning to assassinate him in cold blood in the Green Festival. Everyone was against him, even his friends and everyone lived in such fear and hatred of him no one would even hear him out. I mean I think the dethronement conversation is a great example of this (I provide a good bit of transcript in this [post]). Everything he said was seen as unreasonable and malicious and he was left alone with no way to mend these relationships. Everyone wanted him dead, but he didn’t want to die and while he could just leave to protect himself, we know he didn’t want to be alone, so instead his made a plan to a path of him being redeemed in the eyes of the server.

That was the plan right. Everyone defeats their villain, gets their revenge, but instead of him ending up dead like they wanted he is alive in prison and now that he’s stripped of his power, fear is more removed allowing for relationships. No longer is he this unstoppable evil overseer but just a person. Or so was I think his intention. They would keep him in there for a bit, realize not everything is his fault, that he isn’t this big evil tyrant, get their satisfied comeuppance and then people would let him out. Consider Bad’s reaction to visiting Dream [post] - he’s done bad things but he deserves better than to suffer - that is a whole different reaction than the person willing to have him murdered completely - dead forever - by Tommy a few days prior.

Anyways, if that was his goal, then why didn’t he try to act reformed upon his escape? Well… that was his original plan. By the time he escapes he has spent months being starved, isolated, and tortured, his mental stability ain’t exactly top notch at that point and based on those things even happening in the first place, his belief that people would think he’s reformed or allow him back into society has likely been squashed. Clearly, he didn’t think his previous friends would torture, starve, threaten to kill him if he ever leaves, even try to kill him when he’s already locked up. He underestimated their hatred and fear of him, so I doubt he had much faith at all for them to even let him have a chance to be “reformed” or just not wanna kill him at that point, since again most of the people he’s interacted with up until he escaped wanted him dead or promised to kill him.

However, I do think there was still that underlying hope. You can hear that hope bleed out of his voice in his conversation with Sapnap as he goes from trying to reason with Sapnap as an old friend even with the offer to start over, to sounding just as insane and malevolent as he did with Tommy [clip] -> [clip] -> [clip]. He tries so hard to avoid the fight that Sapnap is setting him up for, he tries so hard for them just to not be enemies. But him escaping prison is evidence for Sapnap that Dream is still hostile and even the torture is not a good enough reasoning for that escape to be anything but proof of his violent ways. And you can hear the switch in his voice the moment he realizes the only way people listen to him is if he’s the villain they see him as, if he finds their weakness and exploits it, threatening to destroy something they love (sound familiar doesn’t it?…)

As for his encounter with Tommy, after spending time with him in prison and then Tommy trying to kill him while he was in prison, I don’t think he thought there was any world where they weren’t enemies. Tommy already proved himself to be hostile and he, despite his fear of Dream, even came to get the weapons and confront Dream in the exile area, knowing Dream was going there, proving to still be an active threat. And what does a rattle snake do when a threat appears? They rattle, they rattle make themselves appear big, they make the threat afraid and send the threat away. And that is what I believe Dream is doing with Tommy in that confrontation. He’s making him afraid, so Tommy will be too scared to come after him. I don’t think he ever intended to make good on his threats, because honestly, there are other people on his priority list to get revenge and make suffer. And he’s saying the same things he said in the finale, we know was staged, about how he’s targeting Tommy specifically and Tommy being the main fun to torment on the server.

Now this plan does end up backfiring a bit because the moment Tommy returns home he immediately starts to form a group to go after and kill Dream, fortifying Tubbo’s house to serve as a base and gathering gear… etc. It’s because of that, that I think he leaves the creepy disc in Tommy’s basement, to make him more afraid so he’s too scared to come after him… so to me I’m not sure we can say he didn’t try to act reformed, I don’t think he was given the chance. Even with people like Foolish, who doesn’t even know him, he’s on rocky terms with. It doesn’t seem to matter what he does after prison, he can mind his own business - lock himself away and not bother anyone for months or go through with his threats and they’ll still wait outside his door to kill him and sneak into his house in the middle of the night to slit his throat. Hell even if he had done as Techno had and built a cottage in the middle of nowhere, I bet people still would have come after him. He’s Dream after all…

So Dream is clearly dancing on the edges of insanity and unable to gain any credit of change from people after prison, but as you point out, what about in prison. He sure didn’t seem to go out of his way to act reformed in prison and that was before the torture so does that mean this theory of him trying to be “reformed” in the eyes of the server isn’t his goal? Well no, not necessarily. As I’ve already mentioned, we can see the way he acts with Bad is very pitiful and making himself seem small and unthreatening to be let out, and we see him apologize to Tommy in his first visit and such. This though doesn’t appear to last long, but I think that is because he was experiencing lots of isolation, and not isolation that can be distracted from with like watching a movie or something (because he has nothing) - isolation without really anything to quell it. If you’ve watched videos relating to isolation or know much about it then you’ll know that it tanks mental health real fast. Therefore Dream’s insanity sets in fast. Leading to his desperation for human contact, so then instead of acting all good and getting reformed and paying for his crimes and being remorseful and such, he starts acting out like throwing himself into lava and burning the clocks just so Sam has to come visit him. His misbehavior then I think is a symptom and consequence of the prison conditions not necessarily part of his plan. He also calls it a prank so he probably didn’t think it’d go that much against his plans of seeming better, but clearly Sam doesn’t seem to appreciate his pranks and starts becoming more hostile and such, which shouldn’t suprise us given Sam’s behavior in the prison even early on. In addition, even Sam’s response to Ponk in the tour of the prison and what he says to Bad later about using food as a means to get information, I’d say it’s fair to assume that Sam’s intense demeanor likely started early on, meaning I think Dream’s food was being withheld early on, before the dropper was added. And that’s besides the fact that going from eating steak to a few raw potato’s would be a huge food reduction and cause issues anyways. So even before things get real bad, Dream’s mental stability is dropping real fast and you can see it from each visit he gets. There is genuine mental decline there even if Dream does also seem to use it to his advantage. I mean who knows what Sam did for Dream to stop talking altogether in protest in Sapnap’s visit… bare in mind too, if we look at the timelines Exile only lasted 9 days, countries only last a month or two, things went really fast so it’s not unreasonable for Dream to think his sentence would be short. But then “forever” is being thrown around even by his own friend and that’s when he probably realizes his plan is falling apart.

So by the time, Tommy visits again Dream is not in an optimistic and good mental state. Plus if I remember right, I believe Tommy said he’d visit a lot and even suggested being his like “therapist” but then didn’t come back until a month later on Feb 21st. So maybe Dream wrote the books but in his frustrating of being left alone and Tommy not coming back, ended up burning them.

In other words, I think originally the plan was for people to come visit and talk to him and see that he’s not such a bad guy and that his punishment has been sufficient to then be let out. But things fall apart fast. Isolation and boredom starts to set in, food starts to be limited, and people don’t visit. He just didn’t want to be alone -> and now is left entirely alone.

Then his plan to trap Tommy happens likely way later then it was supposed to because I doubt he expected it to be a month before Tommy returns, and he aims to make some form of amends however minuscule or least have them learn to cohabitate, but that doesn’t go to plan at all, in fact Tommy calls him names and bickers and whines the whole time and 9 days later after Dream expresses his love for the cat, Tommy kills it as well as starts doubting the existence of the Revive Book (the only reason they left him alive in the first place). So after spending weeks in boredom, isolation with low levels of food, and after over the week that was supposed to happen (based on the prison waiver signed) of listening to Tommy bitch and dealing with his punching and calling him names, and even while experiencing the terrible conditions still being adamant that Dream deserves this, Dream beats his head in in a fit of mania. And that I doubt was planned either, and certainly helps ruin his bigger plan.

So what was he planning to do in prison? I think be visited. I think write notes and letters to people and such. I don’t think it was about being reformed or redeemed per say or that Dream believed he needed that (though a fair argument could be made that that was part of it) but about just not being enemies. In an ideal situation he’d become friends again with people, but I think he’d have settled for just being seen as some guy again and not having everyone trying to kill him. Like how Bad didn’t become his friend during prison or after but isn’t necessarily actively seeking him out to kill him. Dream just didn’t want to be alone and I personally think the only way he saw a way to not be was to put himself in prison to be let out by the server when they were ready to not want to just kill him… but as it turns out they never stopped wanting to kill him, they were only held back by the knowledge of a book he had. And instead of going from big bad villain to just some guy, he became nothing more than a book instead. Instead of gaining friends to not be alone, his friends became his enemies and he was left to rot completely alone… and after almost an entire year of suffering, he’s still enemy number 1, he’s still hunted down like a dog, they still want to kill him. Only this time, instead of stabbing him in the back at a festival, they make a deal with god just to kill him and break into his house in the night to kill him. In the end, if his plan was to be let out and let back into society as no longer the enemy, then his plan failed so spectacularly. And whether there was a moment specifically in prison or out where his plan became no longer feasible or whether it was unrealistic from the very start remains unclear. Though you could make an argument for each, I’d say both are probably true… I think it was perhaps the only option at least in Dream’s mind to have his family back and yet I also think it was probably damned to fail from its very conception…

[ccthepandafangirl]

In honour of the recent... speculation, I feel like I should mention that I had a dream/half asleep thought of Grian "releasing" a vlog of Real Life at the start of April.

like. all the life series members are standing in football field next to a playground. there's cardboard cutouts of Cleo and Etho with smartphones taped over their mouths and set on speaker mode. Scar runs people over with his off-road wheelchair. Bdubs is whacking someone with a guitar. Impulse gets betrayed by the monkey bars while on his red life. They all go crazy with nerf guns and foam swords.

Jimmy, against all odds, is the last person standing. He goes "huh, I won?" and it immediately cuts to a black screen with the words "April fools" in white font.

There's a post credits scene of Grian laughing at Jimmy for thinking he'd survived a canon series.

[phoe-ix]

My arm hurts but I made a thing

Edit: wasn’t happy with the water so I redid it. This isn’t the original image. Still not 100% sure on it but it looks at least a little better I think.

Enjoy i guess

Ref image under cut

[bugr0t]

/DSMP /RP

EVERYOJE SHUT UP SHUT UP, FUN THOUGHTS TIME. When c!Schlatt died of a drunken heart attack, he was, of course, drunk. when c!Quackity went to talk with his ghost, said ghost was also drunk. Glatt's memories of being alive seemed a bit blurry. As if he was hungover. c!Wilbur was happy when he died (smiling atleast), a result of having gone insane. ghostbur had only happy memories, and was almost always happy.

c!Tommy was scared when he died. He was trapped with his tormentor for weeks, and thought nobody cared. He never had a ghost. And he came back a shell of himself. Empty.

So theory, the ghosts are mirrors of what people felt when they died and Tommy being a "shell of himself" is a reflection of him never having a ghost while dead. I'm

[thatsquitepoggers]

I fucking hate color theroy. LIKE WDYM THIS IS THE SAME COLOR?!

[catandmellohi]

Since it was never confirmed who Harpocrates was in the dsmp, which Harpocrates theory did you like the best?

[shopmoonymoss]

heres a sneak peak of my designs for my ticket keychains :D [part one]

first theres my Ranboo rebrand design !! this design i used for my test batch, as you can see in the video below, and they turned out great !!

next we have a silly Jschlatt one :D

and a Jack Manifold one !! this one is inspired by one of tubbos newer tweets :3

heres a QSMP one !!

and a last life ticket :P

i even made a hermitcraft one !!

and lastly a Matpat ticket !! guys i promise im not in denial !!

[zecoritheweirdone]

saw the news that @scorpionoesit's fic vagabonds will be making a return in a few days,, and i am!! hyped!!!!! so hyped that i made some more art for it!!!

basically i thought a bit too much about a stuffed bear and then this happened,, sksnskjsk. ended up doing a slight redesign of my own vagabonds!tommy design,, slightly inspired by this art! tho i did keep the ascot and the denim jacket i gave him, if a bit modified for the latter,,, loved loved the idea of michael braiding his hair a bit!!

[dreamsmp-polls]

What kind of hybrid is Tubbo?

[kay-then-i-guess]

I don't know how many dsmp-ers agree with this, but from a storytelling standpoint, c!Dream is just. A bad villian. I think it's a big reason why the ending is so universally hated.

I think in the beginning, it was okay, because we were all expecting more depth to get added to his character later. I saw so many fancomics and theories and analyses that gave such good ideas for a solid character, motive, and overall, a good villian. But we never really got that payoff.

He starts off with a basic "control obsessed" trait. He opposes the L'Manbergians for a mildly valid reason, and then only gives up the fight for control over Tommy (the discs). Then, Schlatt gives him the revive book; he gets even more control crazy. It's a good setup, but it never pays off in the way we want it to. The ending is unsatisfying for many, and nobody really stops to pity Dream, even though that's what they're trying to do. They're trying to pull this "aw, what a tragic character" card, but it's ultimately unsuccessful. Why? Well...

As I said, the setup is good, but things get muddled in the middle. After Dream gets the revive book, there is not a single moment where he's protrayed in any positive light. In fact, after this point, people's view of him gets worse. He slowly becomes more and more unforgivable. The problem with this is that after a certain point, characters cannot have a redemption arc. Or, at the very least, it would be very, very difficult. Dream hits this point. Once he hits that, the ending that people are expecting for him likely ends in death, or worse. The most satisfying ending for the audience is for him to die in a dramatic fashion—kind of like what happened with Schlatt. Schlatt's a good villian with a good ending; it's a satisfying end for a villian while still making it clear that our protagonists' stories are not over. We expected something like that for Dream, and frankly, nothing else would make sense. He had become so evil that the only option was death. There was no pity.

After he escapes from prison, we were ready for this ending. Clearly, it was ramping up for some big finale. And then, he never shows up. I recognize that there were other things going on behind the scenes that led to the lack of content, but it got to such a point that I was beginning to doubt if it ever would get an ending. I started to think that the dsmp would just fade away, all because their lead villian would not show up. All that build up to a dramatic death was, well, dying off. It was taking too long.

And then, when the ending did come along, it only pushes his "evilness" more. He reveals his revive book experiments and his end plan for Tommy and Tubbo. For a moment, the fact that he was gone for so long disappeared. The tensity is back.

And then they pulled the pity card.

It felt like a cop-out. There was no build up to it, no extra scenes with him before this moment where we stop to see his stuggle. No earlier streams where we can see him in an even slightly positive light. It just doesn't happen. So, of course, when they pull the "why can't things just be simple?" we all are yanked from the illusion of the world.

There are a lot of problems with the ending, but the failure to understand Dream's character, role as a villian, and audience expectations for him definitely harm the ending more than others.

I'd love to hear if you guys agree or disagree or just have anything to add! This is just my opinion, so I'd love to hear if anyone thinks differently. I like analyzing <3

[kozzax]

Back during the time between us knowing The Book existed and us knowing it was the Revival Book, I spent. Way too many hours thinking about it? And about what it could be, what it could mean. Something so powerful and dangerous and something that gave Schlatt so much power throughout his reign-- what could it possibly be?

I had two big ideas that I proposed to my friends at the time. One of them was what we got: the written directions for resurrection. I... was never as attached to this idea as I was to my other thought. Resurrection was a big topic on the server at the time and it seemed like other people were researching it too, as my qpp pointed out, but even if that weren't true-- my other idea was always more compelling to me.

Because my other idea? Was that it was the script.

[bleue-flora]

While we are on the topic of Disney Princess Dream (oh… just me?) I thought I might as well share this 3am au (theory? explanation?…) I had last summer relating to Technoblade’s joke about the Dream SMP being all just a dream after all, hence the name.

Basically, in this au a round of minecraft manhunt goes wrong and no one can find Dream. When they eventually do, they find him asleep, cursed like Sleeping Beauty.

The dream he’s having is the DSMP and everyone who comes to save him ends up becoming part of the curse and falling asleep. That’s why new people just randomly show up in the DSMP, they come to end the curse, but fail and end up joining the server instead. George sleeping all the time, is actually him somehow waking up from the curse, going out and bringing new people to try to save Dream and break the curse, which is trying to make everyone who came to save Dream want to kill him.

So, essentially nothing in canon changes, everything stays the same just now with added explanations. And I imagine it ending with Sylvee (the unofficial member of the DSMP) coming to the rescue and kissing Dream in typical Disney Princess fashion, breaking the curse.

The End.