#but you know. staged finale canon now and im not gonna sit here and pretend that im the smartest person in the room

[cdroloisms]

I find it strange that a lot of people are coming forward and saying that the staged finale was a bad play for one reason or another but it really isn’t and I don’t understand where the hate is coming from.

yeah i've seen some of this the last few days--staged finale has always been somewhat "controversial" in the lorehead scene, so a measure of disagreement/discourse about it makes sense. especially bc it was honestly a very big change to what people thought was the story and required people to go back and reevaluate a lot, which. people are naturally resistant at doing

but while obviously i think that some healthy discussion about these things is good, and i feel like i have seen a level of...misunderstanding? about it?? which has gone into the ways that people disagree

staged finale refers to the decision to stage the finale. that's it. staged finale just asserts that based on preexisting foreshadowing and based on the sheer level of suspension of disbelief in order for genuine finale to be real, it made more sense for the finale to be staged than for it to have been genuine. how the finale was planned, when the finale was planned, and to what ends it was planned are all things that you can disagree on w/ other staged finale believers/supporters while still being a staged finale believer/supporter, ykwim? if you believe that c!punz faked his betrayal to c!dream, then congrats! you believe in staged finale. oftentimes i see people say things like "i don't believe in staged finale, i think that c!dream faked the betrayal and all and always had c!punz on his side but i think that the reason behind why he did it is [X]" and it's like. staging the finale is one (1) event, not a comprehensive explanation for everything c!Dream does. that would be more in line with something like the "strategist dream interpretation," which in itself does have different readings as well.

people have listed all of the inconsistencies in the staged finale before, but just to summarize--the guy literally could've dipped when everyone came to "defeat" him, c!tommy leveraging his own life is basically no leverage at all when the mans has the revive book, skeppy cage is a joke, c!dream revealing all of his plans when they were maybe 10% carried out (the entire damn attachment vault was empty of items besides stuff that was literally faked, his own damn stuff, and stuff that he stole recently from c!tommy such as the Axe of Peace and the discs) is ridiculously stupid, why the hell does he have blackmail against c!punz included in a bunker that c!punz clearly had access to???? the list goes on.

(as someone who took awhile to be fully convinced in staged finale, what really tripped me up was the stream punz did the day before: here's a post breaking it down that definitely helped me to see it in a different light.)

as far as foreshadowing goes, just off the top of my head: the original prisoner is a constant question from the day of the prison's creation, being something that's even highlighted on the day of the staged finale itself. c!Dream saying he has "the biggest house on the server" and how it's full of redstone. the entire conversation he has with c!punz, obviously. his holding back on the favor with c!techno, the connection between the revive book and the prison that he establishes the day they begin prison construction.

from a logical perspective, the plan as c!Dream establishes it doesn't make any damn sense. c!dream had opportunities to escape that he didn't take for illogical reasons (if the only reason why he allowed himself to stay in a fucking possible kill chamber was to keep c!tommy from committing suicide, then? what about the revive book? what about the fact that he literally kills c!tommy just a few months later????) -- a level of plot contrivance is expected in the medium, but for a lot of people this was just. Going way too far. Unless he literally lost his whole mind (which, to be fair, was the persona being played) there's just. really no other way to make sense of what was going on there, if it was all genuine.

the other argument is a narrative one--people claim that the story established by a genuine finale is cleaner than the story of the staged one, and honestly. it's like. like that's...a feature, not a flaw? the reason why the genuine finale worked isn't because it was logically believable. dream is Dream Manhunt. he's famously hard to nail down, famously good at escaping sticky situations, famously a man that can outsmart his way out of crazy disadvantageous situations--like. just in terms of minecraft skill, i'd wager that most people would think that dream would've technically been able to pull off an escape even when facing down the collection of enemies that were there. like he had 2 stacks of pearls.

narratively, though, the staged finale has a story that's quite appealing on the surface. the "story" of the events from the spirit speech onwards is one that revolved around the idea of "attachment." c!Dream rejects attachment in favor of control in the spirit speech when he says he refuses to let his love for his dead pet control him anymore, and he focuses on the ability to use the discs to control c!Tommy. the fact that c!Dream's relationships deteriorate at this time seems to support this point, and c!Tommy's strength in his relationships being what saves him and damns c!Dream ties everything off into a neat bow. c!Tommy wins because he has friends and c!Dream loses because he doesn't, moral of the story established, hip-hip-hooray. And so it goes.

but when we look at this more in specifics...? it does start falling apart a bit, doesn't it?

although c!Dream supposedly begins his rampage over his existing emotional connections with the spirit speech, his reputation had been in shambles long before that point. c!Dream-as-villain is first established as part of the greater story in the lmanburg revolution, and that's a title that he never really sheds (this point being emphasized in inconsolable differences and the book c!Wilbur has c!Dream write.) Dethronement happens within a day of Spirit Speech, iirc, and on that day c!Quackity specifically points out that c!Dream has no one on his side but c!Punz. the moments where he is more specifically isolated go back to events such as november 16th, where his alliance with c!Wilbur involved blowing up L'manburg, his deal for the revive book, which involved his publicly betraying Pogtopia, or his opposing Manberg to the literal Manberg cabinet. etc. all of these events in the Manberg/Pogtopia era had c!Dream's loyalties erode to end up as just c!Wilbur and later c!Schlatt for the book, two dead men. (and i say eroded loyalties as if pogtopia really believed dream was on their side, like, ever? like he was never trusted in their ranks, even by c!Tommy, who was definitely the person he worked the closest with outside of c!Wilbur.)

if we look at Dethronement itself, it doesn't actually fit the pattern of "c!Dream cuts off his attachment to people in order to make himself uncontrollable" -- in fact, what it does fit the pattern of is. Staged finale? Faking an end in a relationship with people that he does consider important to him, making a public appearance of betrayal + anger to mask an existing connection, drawing attention to their being enemies to hide the fact that they're actually friends--that's not c!Dream cutting anyone off. That's just the exact same ploy that he uses to make people think that c!Punz betrays him (only c!Sapnap and c!George ended up deciding that Nah We're Gonna Kill You Now. Fuck You It's Coup Time. so that's how that ended up.)

Otherwise there's...the Badlands, who were perfectly happy to agree to joining the coup on the day of dethronement if it got them more power and land. c!Techno, who c!Dream wasn't an ally of until later on with the favor established and then doomsday, and who was someone c!Dream was quite openly wary of + afraid of due to his combat skill. c!Dream was alone literally before exile even happened, his remaining "attachments" of c!George and c!Sapnap turning against him like the day he goes on a whole spiel about ohhoho from today onwards i DONT GIVE A SHIT ABOUT MY ATTACHMENTS !!! I ONLY CARE ABOUT THE DISCS !!! like congrats you don't even have a chance to cut off any attachment at all dingus they all hate you and want you dead already.

further, with c!punz, he literally says that they're more than just employer/employee in the infamous conversation they have about planning a betrayal. if the whole point of the story is "attachment good," then why is it that what takes down c!dream is...his one remaining attachment? if his fatal flaw is that he didn't trust people enough, why is it that he loses because he trusted someone too much? it's not like c!tommy had any attachment to c!punz--c!punz explicitly "has a reason" to betray c!dream because of money. he helps c!tommy because dream "should have paid [him] more." none of that reflects that spirit of "attachment" that people claim was c!dream's downfall.

(not to mention how the people present in the staged finale to take c!dream down included people who literally hated c!tommy's guts. like. what brought them together wasn't the power of friendship, it was the power of we hate this green bastard.)

this isn't to say that c!Dream didn't have some relationships that go up in flames because he starts acting particularly cackling evil villain (with the green festival being the specific moment where he really goes full in with that persona, going from someone that was framing himself as having a Reasonable Complaint to literally the joker as soon as he gets the disc from c!Tubbo. It's purposefully played as a "mask off" moment that is meant to make him look like a crazy fucking villain in front of a large audience--whether or not you think that was a choice that he made in character or not, the way his personality changes as soon as he receives the disc is jarring.) In particular, his relationships with c!Puffy and c!Sam come to mind--c!Puffy burns the house she made him when she decides that he's too evil (but, uh, c!dream really wasn't even there for that and didn't ever have a particularly close relationship with her) and c!Sam is among those whose opinions of c!Dream become drastically more negative around the period of time that spans green festival->doomsday->staged finale. but it's important to note that c!Dream's relationships on the server aren't...great, at the time of spirit speech. They're uh, really fucking bad, actually. dethronement only makes them even worse, and all of this happens pre-exile. c!Dream had significant reason to be paranoid and afraid for his life long before exile happens, which is Quite Significant, Actually, when you consider that that paranoia is literally what goes into his decisions to carry out the staged finale + put himself in the prison (which isn't the case for genuine finale, where he's more motivated by a desire to control the server without being controlled himself.) staged finale does solidify c!dream-as-villain for a lot of people, but it never would've worked if people didn't already see him as a villain in the first place. c!Dream doesn't make people hate him with the staged finale; he uses hatred that he already knows exists to put himself in what he sees as a safer position.

and look we could go into a whole discussion about manberg/pogtopia c!Dream (which i do think is way overdue to be fair considering that that's where the paranoia + isolation that motivates him post-november 16th comes from in the first place) but this post is long enough already and i still have to figure out a better way to articulate my thoughts on the matter. anyway. carrying on:

people still have different feelings on why he carries out staged finale in the first place, but what we do know for sure is that it was meant to protect punz and protect the revive book. by firmly establishing that c!punz and him were on opposite sides, he keeps the revive book safe and both of their lives safe by extension: as long as no one would kill both of them at the same time, they had a means of reviving the other if need be and obviously had the information on how to raise people from the dead secure. which was important to them. and otherwise...c!Dream is paranoid. c!Dream is very, very paranoid, and this paranoia goes back at the very least to when he learns about the revive book. the prison, for all the dependence that it required of him, was tailor made (and the construction process controlled by dream every damn step of the way) to make sure that whoever was in the main cell would be safe from external threats. the security of the prison and the prisoner was the POINT. i've seen some assertions that staged finale implies that he predicted everything that happened after he was put in prison and...no? i'd say that c!dream's behavior indicates him being thrown off by c!sam as early as bad's prison visit, c!sapnap's prison visit for sure. c!Ranboo being banned from visitation pretty damn obviously fucks him up, tbh. he has c!punz explicitly out there to keep an eye out on the server while he's in the prison, where he was meant to remain for a period of time that was supposed to be much shorter than how long he ends up being there. likely because, you know, he was supposed to have a consistent and reliable source of information with the outside world in the form of c!Ranboo, and c!sam wasn't supposed to fall off the fucking rails as soon as the prison started. people have also talked about how having the staged finale be true means that c!dream doesn't lose, which...i mean. gestures at the prison arc? that whole thing is a loss so catastrophic it literally destroys him. he's never the same after the prison happens. the false betrayal of c!punz is deliberately like ironically described to c!sam, who was the REAL betrayal that fucking. ruins him. he loses SO MUCH over the course of the prison, which was something he literally designed to keep himself safe from external threat. as far as losses go, i definitely find that a lot more compelling and a lot less contrived than watching c!dream go "whoop de doo guess i have to die now" when he's like 3 pearls away from making a clean escape in the disc vault, tbh.

at the end of the day, i think having some conversation about staged finale is fun! and it's always good to reexamine what you believe to make sure that it still holds water. but i've really not seen much staged finale crit that makes the genuine finale feel favorable as an explanation: logically, it makes a lot less sense. narratively, it relies on a story that the audience wants to be true and acts as a "clean" explanation for everything while not actually taking into account a lot of what was ACTUALLY going on for c!dream (cutting off attachments for the sake of control versus watching people turn against you and becoming increasingly paranoid, for example). and believe them or not, the content creators involved have always asserted that staged finale was the plan from the beginning, not any form of retcon. (and we do know that people have been dodgy about stuff like the "original prisoner" literally since the week that c!dream was imprisoned, so take that as you will.) (okay to be fair theyve been dodgy about the original prisoner since the day that the prison began to be constructed, but the QnA from that first week of imprisonment sticks out to me in particular because cc!Sam had the biggest fucking smile on his face and staged finale would've been planned out and then carried out in entirety by the ccs and the c!s by that point.)

this is a longass post but uh hopefully it makes sense, lmao. tried to touch on most of what i've seen recently 😅

[sammiesonyourleft]

city lights - p.p.

pairing: peter parker x black best friend f!reader

summary: your best friend finds you in a strange place mourning your failed relationship

notes: dedicated to everyone who had a bad situationship) (dis my own canon)

word count: 906

"Y/N?"

"Oh hi, Peter," You say pausing your music, sitting up from your position.

"Don’t just ‘hI pEtEr’ me? What’re you doing up here dude? It's so late!"

"I needed to breathe. I hope you don't mind. What're you doing here?"

"This is where I come when I take breaks from night patrol. Is everything alright?"

Taking a deep breath in, "No Pete, they're not."

Y'all sit in uncomfortable silence before he asks "Do ya wanna talk about it?"

"I loved him but it wasn’t worth the heartache ya know. I lost myself trying to be what he wanted. I changed so much, and not to say those changes were bad… I made some pretty healthy ones. they were just for him. I adapted so that he’d be more comfortable… so he’d love me back… I realized that it was hella wrong. I shouldn’t be hiding parts of myself because he’s uncomfortable. I shouldn’t have to hold my tongue because he doesn’t like my response. I've spent many nights crying over the fact that he didn’t want to be with me and that I was trying to force something that was not there in the first place. I just wanted to see if he’d come around, ya know. that wasn’t my first mistake. my first mistake was not leaving when he told me he didn’t want a relationship when I told him I had feelings for him. my second mistake was staying."

He opens his mouth in disbelief, pausing before deciding his next words, "But you couldn’t have known that, y/n."

Shaking your head, "Peter, when a guy knows he loves you, he loves you. And he means it. no ifs, and, or buts about it. He will do anything to make you happy and keep you happy. I would know… I’ve seen it before. My grandfather… has dementia. He still goes out and buys my grandma flowers every week. I knew. I just wanted to see if he felt the same. Turns out he didn’t, and I'm difficult to deal with, and “I do too much”. Serves me right though… I knew this rel— whatever this was — had an expiration date, no matter how long I pretended it didn’t. I wasted my time." Sighing dramatically, you lay back down, covering your eyes as you finally come to terms with your feelings.

Peter rushes to lie down next to you, "No, you didn’t; This was a learning experience for you. Sometimes we go through stuff that we don’t want to. but it teaches us for the next time. so now if some guy comes to you now, you have the chance to set boundaries and make sure you're being intentional with who you're spending your time with. And if he takes off running then he’s not the one. If he stays and gets to know you, the real you, not the one that dirtbag tried to make you into, he could be the one."

"But how do I know that it’s not gonna end up the same way again? I’ve been in so many talking stages. I'm tired of learning what to do and what not to do to keep a guy. that was the longest one. and this one hurt the most. we had so many plans together. and now they’re all gone. because of me."

"Absolutely not. Wrong. Not because of you. Because of him. He couldn’t see past everything that’s inside you. He only saw what he wanted to see. He waited until you were fragile enough for him to break you over and over again. He decided he wanted to flirt with you after you told him you had feelings. He’s the one who stayed after you said I love you. He got into your head and convinced you that you were crazy. when you’re not. He had so many opportunities to say “hey I’m sorry, I know what you want but we don’t want the same things, so I think it’s best if we go our separate ways.”

"But he told me he wasn’t ready. I should have just listened."

No. Absolutely not. I’ve seen the text messages. He told you that after y'all bared your hearts to one another. Did you forget where he said he loved you back? Because I don't! That was a big thing. Y/N, Im so sorry he played with your feelings for months. You deserve so much better than that. I’m happy he’s gone."

"Well now you sound like MJ."

"Yea she kind of gave me the run down of what happened, but I knew I needed to talk to you. I don't regret any of my actions."

"What'd you do? Web him up in an alley?

His eyes get wide, and he pops up really fast, "Well well well, we have school tomorrow, why don't we get going?

"Peter Parker, what did you do?"

"Imayhavewebbedhimupandlefthiminthealleynearhisapartmentbuilding."

"YOU DID WHAt???"

"I had to do something! He hurt my best friend! So I dragged him out his sleep and he's currently handing above the dumpster behind his apartment building."

You scream, "PETE! He's HANGING???"

"Yea... Please don't be mad. I can go take him down if you'd like." He looks genuinely scared when he says this.

You laugh, pulling him in for a hug, "Thanks Pete, you're the best friend anybody could ask for. Now let's go. We have pictures to take with a certain boy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We be word vomiting. Please if you liked it this pic let me know. Any comments or advice will be greatly appreciated!

xo,

dai :)

[john-bitchester]

Bubbles watches Supernatural season 5, episode 22: swan song.

This is a 42 minute episode. It took me 2 hours and a half to get through becase I had so many feelings and thoughts. Enjoy

CARRY ON MY WAYWARD SOOOON, THERE'LL BE PEACE WHEN YOU ARE DOOONEEE. LAY YOUR WEARY HEAD TO REEEST, DON’T YOU CRY NO MOOOOORREEEEE

Ah gabe how I miss you

Not you zacharia I hate you

I never cared about a car as much as I have about a 1967 chevrolet impala

I love that Dean canonically picks out his dads car, because it is the same as his dads car, who chose it because is son recommended it to hem because it reminded the son of his dads car who...

IM SORRY

Sammy sitting on the hood like that does things to me

No no no dean youre being stupid

Wdym youre on board

AAAH DEAN LOOK AT YOU GROWING UP SEEING SAMMY AS A BIG BOY

Its still a stupid plan tho

Not normal about them

Nomnom blood

This gives a whole new meaning to milking

No poor sam look at his face he is stressed

'Angels don't sleep'

Didnt we already establish that he is humaned

WE TALKED ABOUT STAGE 2 SUICIDE IDIATION

'You go to lisa and pray to god shes dumb enough to take you in' HAHAHHAHA spoken like a true sibling

You're so silly sam you know dean would start a second apocalypse for you

SEE YA IN HELL

NO

The way I screamed

'When he gets in, keep fighting, don't give an inch'

'Yes sir'

NO SAM THATS BOBBY DONT YOU DARE YES SIR HIM

I cant tell if it's because this was how dickchester always talked to him so it's reflex, or if it’s Sam's way of saying 'youre like a father to me'

Imma go with both for my sanity

My friend bunbun: that john issues run deep with these boys

Me: The mariana trench would be impressed

'Oh I'm supposed to lie'

'Suuure... they'll be.. fiiiiine'

Cass I love you so, you are so real for this

That cannot be tasty

Or good for the stoomy

Oh my god Sam is high as a kite

Nooo not chuck going over the impala memoriessss

Noooooo

I need you to know that I'm watching this, hand clasped over my mouth, going NoOoOoOoOo

I have a feeling that the memories of the car will make sam able to grasp control again or smt

Also, dean is such a sentimental washcloth, rebuilding the car with the legos and the soldier man

Oh sam that was sexy of you (Zapping the demons by just closing his eyes)

'I live, he lives, we get our parents back'

Heres the thing, from videos and fic I know that at some point sam lives for a year or so without dean

So now im like, uh oh

I feel like this is an act

Its all an act

Ofcourse they knew the devil would know about the horsemen

Theyre his main henchmen, it would be stupid to think that the devil wouldnt know about the rings

Finally, the boy has memorised something (The spell for the cage)

aaaaaaaaahgg

COME ON SAMMY

aaaahshfhm fukb fgbukgxfubkrgxukb

NO NO NO NO NO

SAAAAM BE STRONG

......

Wtf Lucy that is so not funny

Pretend that Sam had won the fight with lucy in his brain

Only to then be like "jk"

Dean you shouldve just kicked him in the hole while his back was at you

Fidget spinner of power hihi

Why would he let dean live

Michael's vessel

NAH THE DEVIL JUST MADE A VERY FUNNY STAR WARS REFERNCE'

I suggest we become drunk' -cass

Oph my god these dumbasses really did think lucy wouldn't know of the rings

NoOoOoOo Bobby mourning his sooon

I am not well

I know what you can do, dean

You can have some gay sex with the angel

Knowing this was meant to be the end end makes it so much worse

I cant do this in my own oh my gosh

Im literally going like 'crying noise, noohoo Bunbuuun'

Them gazing th stars togehter on clear nights🥺🥺🥺🥺

Driving 2 days for a game, and a week for a concert

Heart goes auch

Nooooooo

Not okay about this

Its the Good Omens finale all over again

Chuck has grown on me

WELL THEN I AINT GONNA LET HIM DIE ALONE

Winchester pt3 you fool

I cant say i trust lucy, but hes making some good points

God is giving abusive father for sure

'You made me do this' he tells his kids

Another thougth, actually

Sam and dean where the perfect vessels because of ther lineage, cain and abel, i believe

But also bc they were representative of michael and lucy themselves

But hear me out. What if john and god are also reminiscent of each other

After all, the brothers couldn't be who they became without their father, have it be winchester or the angels

Both brothers (lucy & michael vs winchester) didnt have a mother

Had a father who was demanding

And both pairs of brothers, as established by the shwo, are the same. The loyal warrior who never doubted the father, and the fallen, who did

They could never become these people without the father, ergo, without god and john

We know john was a horrible father

So even ingoring what lucy is proposing here (god made me as I am) and my own opinions on God, the train of logic still assumes that God had to be, is, equally as abusive towards the brothers as z

John was towards the winchester brothers

Please tell me that cassete is 'Carry on wayward son' by kansas

Or no, even better, the one song by asia hahahha

WTF DEAN HAHAHAH THAT WAS NOT THE MUSIC I EXPECTED

SORRY AM I INTERUPTING SOMETHING

You know, whenever I'm annotating the episodes lke I'm doing now, it always takes me an hour to watch an episode instead of the forty minutes that it actually last

but at the speed I am annotating and thinking right now , it will genuinely take me twice as long.

like it will take me an hour and a half at least I think. (Ha! Bubbles. You fool. It nearly took you 2 hours and a half)

Youre next on my list buttercup

CASS WHERE THOSE YOUR FIRST BIG BOY WORDS! (Hey, assbutt!)

Not the molotov cocktail fhrnifhhf

WHAT THE FUCJ

CASTI3L WHAT THE DU JDUCK

Holy fuck

I need a moment

No

Sammy it's okay I'm here

Bunbun I am so unwell about this

Unwell

I KNEW IT

OH MY GOD I FUCKING CALLED IT

Im not crying youcrying

I love that they do this flasback bit with jus wind, and the 'tok' sound every now and then

Makes it a very strong scene

SCREAMING

ENDING ON THE HUG SCREAMING

The fact that the actual hug removes the white noise

Unwell

oh

Oh my god

Sam is going to pull michael with him

I can feel it

Okay I think this is one of the few times the bad cgi actually kinda ruined it for me

No

Hes all alone

He cant be

No one who could possibly begin to understand left

Have I mentioned Im not okay

Cass

The relief in my voice when I whispered this out loud just now is ludicrous

And now, kiss

'Cass are you god?' Oh sweetie

BOBBY

this is making me think of john milton

'And as they walk hand in hand, slowly their way through eden"

Along those lines

Chuck quit yer bitchin

Dean really went, 'okay god, its personal now'

Peace, or freedom?

Holy fuck

Because he made a promise

My stomach is genuinly physically aching

The fact that even deans voice sounds broken

Actually crying rn

What if chuck is god

WHAT THE FUCK CHUCK WHERE DID YOU GO

NAH DONT TELL ME IM FUCKING RIGHT

SAM WTF

Sam? Lucy?

Sam

Oh im sorry it cant stop here wtf

How where they ever plannning on stopping like this that is unholy

1h 30 later:

I know i started spn on my own accord, but I hope you know what you did

I was eating with my parent just now, and during the entired meal (now still) carry on was playing on repeat in my head. Coming from someone who typically lives a soundtrack-free life

Another hour later:

Still recovering

Have been having imaginative co-star interviews with jared padalecki for about 2 hours now. It's a coping mechanisnm

Literally my whole day was spn

I woke up with fic. Ate lunch with an episode. Watched the finale, read more fic

I am unwell