#although I have no intent to really get back into the dsmp ever again

[aestheticallynotdeerlightful]

Idk what it is with me a sheriff characters but they’re very fun to draw

[calamitydaze]

i fucking love mitski!! which of her songs do u have on the playlist?

HI [cat jumping up and down gif] i’ll put it below a cut cause i already know it’s gonna be long thank u so much for asking omg

ok for some background i am actually not a huge mitski listener… i’ve been trying to be!! i’ve listened to her first two albums in full but haven’t got around to the others yet so these are gonna be mostly popular songs, just bc they’re the ones i hear about through other people. but i pretty thoughtfully curate my character playlists SO if they’re on here they have a reason to be, i don’t just throw popular songs on for the hell of it. ok and these are gonna be in chronological story order

1. me and my husband: STARTING OFF BAD i know this one is overused as hell but i actually have it at the very beginning of the manberg chapter to represent cq’s relationship with schlatt when things already were Not Good but he was still starry-eyed and in love enough to pretend otherwise

2. liquid smooth: at the end of the manberg chapter (though it’s relevant for all of it), in my head around the time he gets with karlnap. representing the way he pins his self worth on his appearance and whether other people find him beautiful

3. abbey: this is the most recent addition so the placement might change but right now i have it just before he builds las nevadas…. to me it speaks to his need to make something of himself but with a more desperate edge than it would have earlier in the story. and the first verse… well you know me i love a good hunger metaphor

4. brand new city: LAS NEVADASSS although he didn’t build it with the intention of what it came to be, ln was always meant to represent his last stand. this is really where he starts breaking down in the playlist and like i said in the other ask you can apply this song equally well to ctubbo, but her gasp at the end will Always be cq to me

5. stay soft: i think i have the least to say about this one but it very much furthers his themes of beauty/insecurity/sexuality and also learning to chip away the soft parts of his heart as they will only ever weaken him

6. i don’t smoke: this is at an odd place in the playlist, timeline-wise it’s set in las nevadas but i think of it as the reflection chapter where he looks back on past relationships around the karlnapity breakup. but yeah this is cpumpkinduo no doubt. just don’t leave me alone wondering where you are i am stronger than you give me credit for

7. remember my name: man i don’t even have to say anything just watch this animatic

8. nobody: he’s very lonely and wants too much (which is really just to feel loved and like he belongs and is in control of his own life) and also nobody wants him. :( SAD! well there’s other ducks

9. love me more: this is in the last section of the playlist which is like… kinda when he becomes self-aware of his own humanity again and that he’s failed in what (and who) he wanted to build. it’s hard to give him a conclusion since he didn’t really have one in the dsmp? like yes he had a finale but imo it felt like his story wasn’t supposed to end there. but i did my best

[anxiouslyextroverted]

I am currently in the progress of rewatching every single Tommy lore stream and I mean the full vods to get the whole experience. I have a huge document where I am just writing down every bad thing and good thing cTommy did and every bad thing and good thing cDream did as well as putting in motives and intentions, and perspective. So basically its a check list. Currently, as off the past era goes with the first ever disc fight, cTommy and cDream have both done plenty of bad things but cDream still is showing an unnesscasary amount of hostility and control. However, I will give him the benefit of the doubt because apparently cTommy caused a lot of chaos on other streams as well which I will need to go back and look at as well.

I know nobody asked but I am really hooked on the DSMP again and I am still obsessed with the finale that they went with, I really love the finale but I want to go bac through all the lore to see if it really does make sense. Though I do believe it does make sense and was in character, I wanna check anyway yk? And I wanna see if cDream really had a right to believe that cTommy ruined his server. I wanna try to understand cDreams perspective when I rewatch all the lore. I will also check out other character pesrpectives later down the line like for instance watching Tubbos exile vods to see what cDream was saying to the L'manbergians about cTommy. Anyway, I will have a big document up once I'm done and it'll just list out everything in dot points. Oh and I'm including streams that don't count as lore as well because destruction on the server is still destruction, griefing is still griefing. The only two streams I won't count as having any lore in it is the subathon one and the stream where Tommy goes on Dreams gameshow (Although after that there was a bit of lore lol) So yeah... thats my plan

[dreamteamspace]

They really went there huh

/rp (good lord I rly hyperfixated on this essay huh)

torture tw, abuse tw, manipulation tw, gaslighting tw

So the Dream SMP built a character, once maybe morally gray, who slipped straight into villany with little to no desire to change, and willing to cause a LOT of pain to get his way. Despite this, he doesn’t question what he does enough to stop, justifying his actions with a good intent that doesn’t come close to justifying what he’s done.

C!Dream is unremorseful of what he’s done, he’s quite literally manipulated and gaslit (like actually, not in the way everyone keeps throwing the word around) c!Tommy, almost drove him to take his last life- like, jesus christ. That’s not even to mention blowing up L’Manburg three times, encouraging c!Wilbur, wanting the discs JUST to have power over c!Tommy, etc.

SO, he gets thrown in a box for it so he doesn’t hurt anybody anymore, making his own hubris his downfall (narrative consequence my beloved). This leads us to a good finale - the bad guy, the person who’s caused objectively the most pain and destruction, is now unable to do so anymore, taken down by the person whom he tried to weaken. It is also revealed he was planning on blackmailing and threatening pretty much everyone, but now everyone gets their stuff back.

Good, right?

Especially for the finale, yeah! The message of the finale is good, c!Tommy manages to escape his abuser with nothing more but his clothes on his back and fights his way back to c!Tubbo and his home.

He doesn’t let his trauma (which is still very present!) let him become a terrible person (arguably the way that c!Dream DID let his frustrations make him a terrible person, c!Tommy, despite bearing quite a heavy weight, recognizes when he begins to turn that way and actively works against it).

It shows that while alone, c!Tubbo and c!Tommy were outfought by Dream, but because c!Tommy went the length to ask for help (which he didn’t even really seem to be relying on actually showing up), he wins! It truly is a good message.

C!Tommy escapes his abuser and manipulator, refuses and fights his trauma to not become someone he doesn’t want to be, and defeats his abuser by asking for help and receiving it, even more than he thought he’d get. He refuses to play c!Dream’s “game”, refuses till the very last moment to let c!Tubbo die, to surrender and say goodbye to him.

So, great! Good finale! C!Dream The Villain is boxed like a fish in a prison of, quite literally, his own making. It sent a good message to people. C!Tommy wasn’t expected to forgive him and did, in fact, axe him down twice, causing c!Dream to finally fall from his high horse.

Most media would stop at this point, say the villain is now defeated and never show them again, or have them come back another one or two seasons later, escaped and seemingly unharmed and worse than ever.

Alternatively, there’s a throwaway line, (or, in good media, a genuine, reasonable backstory, complete with remorse and bad role models and complicated situations), that allows the villain to be redeemed.

In GOOD redemption arcs (See: Zuko from avatar tbh), the villain was already never quite as heartless, or stressed their good intent, or felt remorse for what they felt they “had to do”. Then, ideally, the villain takes a looooong time adjusting their habits, regretting their actions and changing until they’re considered redeemed.

Not on the Dream SMP, though.

They don’t stop at c!Dream’s defeat.

He doesn’t dissapear off-screen and is never spoken of again. His life continues on, everyone’s does, just like it would in reality. He doesn’t magically want to become a better person, far from it. So no redemption. But he doesn’t dissapear, either.

They go on to, slowly, stress how awful the conditions in Pandora’s Vault are. c!Bad says c!Dream should be imprisoned, but at least at slightly better conditions. We’re in very VERY morally gray territorry here. Nobody says c!Dream is a good person, of course not, but even c!Bad - who knows Dream was planning on keeping c!Skeppy in a cage to control him with - goes, “yeah, he should stay boxed, but does he really need to like... suffer suffer?”

Still, c!Dream seems to be kindof inconsistent in his behavior. Is he faking his pain? Is he not? His actions don’t fully make sense for either take. He acts differently to each person, but at the same time some things he does don’t make sense if he were just fishing for pity.

Then c!Sam admits to trying (and thinking he succeeded) to “break Dream’s will”, to quite literally starving him for weeks.

Okay, so now we’re a step further. C!Dream is now suffering even more, although already boxed and unable to hurt anyone. Pandora’s Vault is one thing, but now c!Sam just seems to be out for revenge and nothing more. Instead of spending his time with c!Tommy, he spends his time pickaxing(?) c!Dream.

C!Sam isn’t an angel, and we should all know that by now. He does what he thinks is right, but he’s deeper than that, all characters on the DSMP are.

He cares deeply for the Badlands, and would always choose them above anybody else. He’s a capitalist. He built the prison because it would benefit the Badlands resource-wise, despite knowing Dream would probably use it on his enemies, and it was no secret that ALL members of L’Manburg, especially c!Tommy, are his enemies. C!Sam, undoubtedly, knew that. He still built it.

Arguably, he didn’t know about c!Dream’s attachment obsession at the time, but the point still stands.

People have already latched onto the untold story happening between c!Dream and c!Sam, and frankly, we barely know enough about it. Does c!Sam torture him regularly? Do they talk? Does c!Dream try to verbally fight back? CAN he fight back? We don’t know! We’ve gotten proof for both, between c!Sam saying that c!Dream is terrifying even in prison and c!Dream going silent to go on strike. We don’t have enough of an idea how bad or how good it truly is.

So the people who prefer to humanize c!Dream and explore morality imagine c!Sam to downright torture him, people that prefer to see c!Dream as nothing but evil due to his actions imagine prison on the DSMP to not be equivalent to real life prison, and thus nowhere near as torturous as people are making it out to be.

Now all that is thrown out the window as c!Quackity quite literally tortures him.

So now the internet is faced with a question that, judging by some of the impulsive reactions *cough cough* celebrating torture *cough*, it didn’t turn out to be ready for.

Tell me.

How far do we go?

C!Dream hurt a LOT of people. He did a lot of things that caused irreparable damage. Now what? Do we torture him forever? Why? Because he deserves it? How do we determine that without comparing one kind of pain to another?

It’s custom and kindof generally respectful not to compare people’s pain too accurately, because different things vary greatly in severity depending on the person that experiences them.

At what point do we say he’s suffered enough without comparing exile to the prison?

And if we DO compare, does that even make the question easier to answer?

And if he’s never suffered enough ever, killing them would be a mercy...

At what point has a person done enough damage that they “deserve” to die? What if someone only did half of the things c!Dream did. But if c!Dream gets infinite punishment, and half of infinity is still infinity, do they ALSO deserve endless suffering?

Do you think every person that did something you can’t emphasize with deserves to suffer for eternity and die?

I’m not saying we SHOULD emphasize with c!Dream. He did things we cannot justify, that NOTHING can justify. He did things that were, by their nature, unjustified.

I’m also not saying anybody should forgive him. I think it’s a GOOD thing that c!Tommy doesn’t want nor is narratively pushed to forgive c!Dream.

But c!Dream doesn’t need c!Tommy’s forgiveness to be... a person.

There’s a saying that I’m sure you know, that goes “I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.”, because there’s things you wouldn’t want any human being to experience. Not because you like them, not cause you think they’re right, but because they’re human.

And perhaps this is my personal opinion, but I don’t think c!Dream being a bad person justifies dehumanizing him, because then we get into an area where someone needs to meet criteria just to be human.

-

I met someone once, whom, because of outside circumstances I knew I probably wouldn’t meet again. We’d been getting along just fine for people who just met, and were both getting into an interesting discussion about morality. They kept insisting upon something I kept refuting, so they said they needed to get something off their chest.

They proceeded to tell me that they had, years ago, while a teen, manipulated someone in a relationship, pushed boundaries and tried to convince them to do things they didn’t really want to do to get what they wanted.

They cried, while telling me, too terrified to tell anybody they know, terrified nobody would ever speak to them again, insanely regretful of their actions. They didn’t know whether to go back and apologize or just stay as far away as humanly possible, didn’t know which one the right thing to do is.

It had been years, by then, and I talked them through it. I said that what they did was bad, and there’s no going around that. But I also said what I saw, which is someone who would never do something like that ever again. I saw a human being. Someone who regrets a mistake they did and now, after enough time has passed, would do anything to make it undone.

Someone who is too terrified to be close to anybody in fear that they would do it again. I don’t remember if they already went to therapy or not, but it was definitly on the table, or in the near future.

They asked me how I could possibly even keep talking to them after they told me all that. They implied they felt like some kind of monster despite literally chocking back tears, firmly convinced they don’t deserve to be close to anybody in their life ever again.

I never swerved from the fact that what they did was wrong, and harmful. But I also told them they’re human. The universe isn’t keeping score. They want to be a better person now, and they were never going to learn how if they never let themselves be close to anybody.

I told them to seek therapy, and to slowly, carefully, try. Assured them that the fact that they regret it so strongly will at least help them in not falling back into the same pattern, and if they do, they can learn to recognize that.

They thanked me after the conversation, genuinely, especially for the fact that I didn’t sugarcoat what happened, because I know otherwise it would’ve felt like I was lying, like I was just sparing their feelings. I wasn’t. I was thinking about how to make sure they get to live without hurting anybody.

As per the circumstances, we didn’t speak again after that, which we knew basicly from the very start.

-

I still think about that conversation a lot.

Do you think they should’ve been locked up for life after it happened, instead?

Do you think this real human being, that I spoke to, that took years to realize their mistake - and never would have realized it if they hadn’t had the time to, if they’d been killed right afterwards - deserves to suffer forever?

Let me tell you something, from someone who’s been in more than one abusive situation: People that hurt you are human.

That doesn’t mean you have to forgive them. That doesn’t mean you have to like them. That doesn’t mean you have to make an effort to understand them. That doesn’t mean you need to go anywhere near them ever again.

You can hate them. You can be angry at them. You can (and should) go as far away from them as possible, and/or defend yourself.

But that doesn’t mean you have to dehumanize them.

You’re allowed to hate and dislike people that are human, because you’re human, especially if they hurt you. That’s how life is.

And to go back to my original point - c!Quackity torturing c!Dream is not something that should be celebrated.

There’s a difference between necessary measures (locking c!Dream up so he doesn’t hurt anyone), and torturing people for fun.

It’s not right. It’s never going to be right, and do not justify literal torture on human beings, and do not make someone lower-than-human to justify torturing them.

Taking revenge on someone for what they did tenfold is romanticized, I know, but I promise you it’s not actually as cool as it sounds.

[ruby-whistler]

I feel like if we really want to take a closer look at the topic of c!Dream’s obsession with c!Tommy, we have to look into both his reasons for it, and the tactics he employs to achieve his goals concerning it.

[ /dsmp /roleplay I did not tag this that way but this entire analysis is hugely c!Dream critical and focuses on the various facets of his manipulation, so if you’re not in the mood to read that, you have been warned not to. ]

Interestingly enough, before the SMP was actual heavy roleplay, back during the original disc war, the reason c!Dream listed for keeping the discs was to use them as bargaining chips, because he knew c!Tommy wanted them back, as they were hard items to get at the time, and knew he could use them for that purpose.

He had just gotten mugged and repeatedly killed by c!Tommy, who had also participated in a conflict beforehand, and only gave a half-hearted apology in the end. He had also seen him cause problems on the server before that. The discs were meant to be something he would threaten to destroy if c!Tommy started acting out of line, because he didn’t trust him to keep his word and wanted a guarantee. That was the reason he insisted on keeping the discs after getting his armor back, which is why he originally stole them.

And I feel like c!Dream’s train of thought, while skewed and twisted with irrational mindsets, is rather straightforward in essence. Conflict is what he actively stands against and what stops him from having a united server, hence in his mind, he needs to destroy things that bring conflict, and control what he can’t or doesn’t want to destroy. He thinks c!Tommy brings conflict, so he feels like he needs to find ways to control him.

Sure, we all know about the systematic abuse and isolation he employed to make c!Tommy believe he was his friend, but one of his major tactics since the beginning has also been intimidation, or a particular type of manipulation that leads to people fearing him or thinking that he has more power than he actually does. In his mind, if people are scared of him, they’re much more likely to listen to him. And the most fascinating thing is that it works.

During the initial exile conflict, despite him being just a single person with no official political power, he assures victory by aggressively, and very intelligently, threatening his way through the negotiations. c!Tubbo is scared of him, and that is not a coincidence. It’s purposeful.

Seeing as he planned to give L’Manberg technical independence either way - he said that there was no real way for him to stop them from pursuing that anyways, so that wasn’t the intention - even the war seems like a very likely ploy to make the revolutionaries fear him enough so that they wouldn’t start conflict after seceding. c!Wilbur is careful not to start anything with the Greater Dream SMP after this, because c!Dream has shown that he can and will ruin them if they do. c!Tubbo also knows exactly the lengths c!Dream will go to if he promises war thanks to this, and that if he says he’ll build a wall and keep them from leaving it with force, he’s going to do it. When c!Tubbo is faced with an ultimatum, seeing as his goal is to keep New L’Manberg safe and peaceful, he knows he has no option but to give in.

Another variation of this tactic is making himself seem more dangerous and unpredictable than he actually is and obscuring his motivation. If people don’t know what he wants, they are less able to devise effective tactics to stop him from getting it. The element of surprise is something that he utilizes constantly throughout warfare, and psychological battling is no different. For instance, during Doomsday he begins talking about how the server will “be at peace now” thanks to L’Manberg being gone, before c!Tommy barges in, and begins implying he did this all because he hates him.

DREAM Tommy… Look. In all destruction *looks at the falling TNT* there is a new beginning.

TOMMY You- you did this…! To all of us! Not just to me, but to everyone here…!

DREAM Beautiful. You know… the unfinished symphony, right?

…

TOMMY Why…?

DREAM The server will be at peace now.

TOMMY Why, Dream…?

DREAM Because I didn’t-

TOMMY Couldn’t you just- couldn’t you just burn the discs…? Couldn’t you just do it to me? Why did you have to…?

DREAM This is much more fun.

[ credits to @dsmptranscripts on twitter ]

Although c!Dream’s motivation for destroying L’Manberg was actually that, much like with c!Tommy, he thought that it bred conflict and division, he picks up on this and switches to saying how he did indeed do this all to hurt c!Tommy because he finds it fun.

He talks very inconsistently plenty of times, but it’s rather easy to spot a pattern of him being honest about his motives with his allies but straight up lying to his enemies. This makes sense, and it is usually employed as a deliberate tactic.

Intimidation is something he also uses to manipulate people during his time in prison. Ever since he got locked up, it became a mental fight. If people fully realized that he was powerless to stop them from hurting or killing him, his life only hanging by a thin strand on the concept of the revive book, he would’ve lost the control he needed to assure his survival.

The difference is that before then, c!Dream had actual physical power, however the manipulation gets harder to pull off when he has none, even with people he finds naive enough to fall for it. He still risks it because he’s desperate, and has nothing but his own life to lose, which is something he believes to be protected by his possession of the revival book. He had never been big on self-preservation besides staying alive to reach his goals.

He first tries this on c!Sam, who, rather unpredictably, begins to get morally corrupted by the power he has over c!Dream, on top of other factors. c!Dream talks to c!Sam about exile and about c!Tommy because logically, if he’s afraid of him, he’s less likely to try to hurt or kill him. This backfires because this new, unexpected version of c!Sam begins to fiercely hate c!Dream instead, hurting him further.

The same thing happens with c!Tommy - when he realizes that he can’t influence him through repeated visits anymore, he attempts to scare him into obedience again. He establishes himself as someone dangerous who has the power to escape and hurt c!Tommy as well as his friends, which he hopes will subconsciously sway him to not do things that he would disagree with. We can see him pretending to be the one in control throughout the stream after c!Tommy first got revived.

He also tells him that he can bring back the person who he’s afraid of the most and get him on his side, which is precisely the bit that ends up backfiring, but it doesn’t really matter, and trying was still the best thing he could’ve logically done.

If he hadn’t, at some point people would realize he actually has no power at all, and pay back the fear he’d instilled in them previously. This happens with c!Quackity, who began to take advantage of c!Dream’s lack of control as soon as he realized how easy it was to strip away the last bit of power he has, which is also keeping him alive.

Getting back on track, c!Dream essentially tries to control c!Tommy first by manipulating him into believing he is his friend, then believing he is a threat to him when that fails. We can see this from the way the Finale is prepared to be somewhat of a final showdown between the two, and also by him actually revealing the tactics he used to employ during exile, for example talking about taking away the invites to the party and not actually being his friend. This also proves he knew exactly what he was doing during that time, and he could easily switch between tactics because the end goal of controlling c!Tommy was more important to him than what c!Tommy thought of him.

And that’s it.

It’s all just a ploy to control him because he finds him one of the hardest people to stop from causing conflict.

Controlling him is as important to c!Dream as destroying L’Manberg and dethroning c!George and collecting people’s attachments, because what is important to him is achieving his goals through whatever means necessary, not the means themselves.

As for people, while he has no desire to actually kill them - or feels he cannot, because they could still be useful to his plans in the future - he treats them as either tools or obstacles he needs to deal with, especially if they ever get in the way of his plans, and he isn’t particularly attached to them. He does this to himself as well, and doesn’t seem to care about his own well-being or reputation as long as he achieves what he wants. While he’s focused on the ends to his means, that is the only thing that is important to him.

You could argue this does stem from thinking of the people he wants the server to be united for as important, since cc!Dream said his goals are for “everyone to get along”, but that doesn’t change the fact that the ways in which he works towards that goal doesn’t treat others’ or his own feelings as consequential at all. In the case of people who stand against him, their entire well-being is put to the side until what needs to be done in his mind gets done.

c!Dream isn’t “scared” of c!Tommy per se, nor does he seem to be obsessed with the guy himself, but he finds him something necessary to get out of the way to accomplish his goals, and he does so, ruthlessly as ever.

And even though the goal of eradicating conflict and uniting the server is something that he is so focused on that it could definitely be called an obsession, c!Tommy really isn’t that important within the equation at all.

This wasn’t a post to excuse or downplay any of his actions, nor do I agree with the “logical” thoughts I mentioned. There is a reason why I used phrases like “he finds” “in his eyes” “he thinks” “in his mind” “he feels like” a whole lot throughout this essay.

The character has an extremely flawed worldview that I in no way agree with (and although that should probably be pretty obvious, you really don’t know with this fandom). All this post is for is to analyse certain traits that are assigned to him, and figure out through logical reasoning whether they’re a mischaracterization or not.

And as far as the evidence goes; c!Dream isn't obsessed with c!Tommy, he is obsessed with his goal, and he sees Tommy as a big obstacle to achieving it, which makes him focus on him. These feelings he puts on display are an illusion to distract people from his real goal so they don't know how to get in his way - because, just like cc!Dream said, he “likes to withhold information; withhold plans; and withhold feelings” from everyone else.