#c!dream critical

[hopalongfairywren]

the fact that c!Dream could have been such a cool villain if people weren't so hell bent on bending over backwards to give the murdering abusive necromancer sympathetic reasons for why he committed all of his atrocities... and the funny thing is like all of those excuses you fit ACTUAL other villains like the 'c!Dream is possessed by a dreamon that's why he's mean actually' fan theory.... does the egg mean jack shit for you?

[w3ndytheraccoon]

If I see one more post about why C!Dream is not a villain, I will rage-

C!Dream is a complex character with an understandable motive, and his spiralings was very realistic and I can one hundred percent see why. He is a very morally gray, albeit leaning more toward black than white, character. It wouldn’t be fair if I just label him as THE villain, because perspectives exist, and in some member’s perspective, like Purpled for example, he’s definitely not as evil as he is in, say, Tubbo’s perspective.

But that doesn’t change the fact Dream was a horrible person.

Just because he had a understandable motive, that doesn’t mean the shit that happened in Exile is justified. That doesn’t mean Doomsday is justified. That doesn’t mean all the manipulation and all the lying are justified. That doesn’t mean what he and Punz did to Vikkstar and Lazarbeam is justified. That doesn’t mean what happened in prison was justified.

Especially Exile and Vikkstar & Lazarbeam ! Exile is for isolating Tommy so he can’t cause trouble, not for abusing and gaslighting him to near the point of fucking suicide ! And what happened to Vikkstar & Lazarbeam was completely unnecessary ! Dream and Punz did NOT need to kill them over and over and over just to test the Revival Book, that is cruel and several violations of human’s rights.

Conclusion : C!Dream fucking sucks and I wish Punz didn’t brought him back. I’m an enthusiast, not apologist. His motive makes him explainable, not justifiable or excusable, and if I ever somehow manage to rip the fabric of reality and teleport to the DSMP universe, the first thing I will do is find Dream to deck him.

… But he’s still a complex character and one of my favourites.

Anyway, if I miss a point or something, do remind me. I’ll probably edit this and add more character analysis in the morning, when my thoughts are actually coherent and I’m not writing something from pure spite and anger.

Morning edit :

He also hurt Geogre and Sapnap. Sure, he never physically hurt them as far as we’re aware, but do you know how painful it is to watch your friend spirals and became the total opposite of how they were ? How helpless it feels when you realised your friend is too far gone and you can’t help them ? How guilty it is when you think of all the times you could reach out and stop them from turning out like this but you didn’t ? How badly that would take a toll on your mental health ?

But anyway, just because C!Dream is a horrible person, that doesn’t mean what happened in prison is okay. The whole obsidian cell with lava door and raw potato ? Yeah, that’s fine, I can get behind that, since it was his idea for prison to be like that. It’s just karma. What I meant is the torture part. Does he deserve it ? Depends who you ask. I personally think it was justified and deserved, but that still doesn’t make it okay.

[hopalongfairywrens]

“C!dream is morally grey in the grand scheme of things” no the fuck he isn’t lmao. The dude literally tortured two people for not even science. He torments a teenager too the point of suicide. He levels an entire city. He doesn’t feel remorse for any of that and considers it a necessary step in his vague goal for a serverwide cult of personality utopia! You can like morally abhorrent characters it’s okay. He doesn’t become a magically morally grey guy when put next to an omnicidal dictator either, because one doesn’t negate the severity of the other’s crimes and I feel like a bunch of people forget in this case it’s child abuse, stalking, abduction and murder.

[imsosocold]

The Dichotomy of Disliking Characters:  

While c!tommy went through a lot of terrible things he also did a lot fucked up stuff not properly addressed by the narrative ( c!dream is  like double this ugh)  such as his treatment of Jack, the torture he put Fundy through, the  possessiveness of  Tubbo, him threatening to kill a child out of jealously, etc. This lack of  resolution makes it hard to like his character combined with the fandom’s tendency to similarly brush over his flaws and woobify him.                                 Oh, c!Sam? Ew, he’s a cop, fuck him. 

[pxtopia]

Honest thoughts

I am very aware of the impossibility of this occurring but ngl i really wish the ending involved more people :( like remember all the big events like the first fight for independence, the manberg festival, and november 16? They all included so many people and so many different perspectives showcasing the different characters emotions and experiences. It would feel so much more complete if everyone was there for the end of the world. Also c!Tommy apologizing to his abuser is a big yikes from me, c!wilbur would’ve never let this happen

[nootdraws]

DreamSMP lore spoilers and discussion! This will be talking about c!Tommy and c!Dream, specifically their final moments in the prison in the finale stream. This will talk about child abuse, so pls be warned, keep urself safe <3 and it is c!Dream critical.

Ok I’m not very happy w the way that c!Tommy’s lore ended up panning out. (Not getting into that apology bc i wanna see if cc!Tommy is gonna say anything on that first. I personally am thinking that c!Tommy saying “I’m sorry” was intended in a diff way than it came across.)

I think that there were some very good elements in this lore (hopefully if I get some time soon I’ll be making some art based on those good elements) but the one I wanna talk abt rn is c!Tommy’s limbo sequence.

I’m gonna say, I really liked c!Dream being humanised there. I am genuinely really happy he was turned into something other than just a villain in c!Tommy’s eyes, even if the execution was a little clunky. I can’t help but feel let down though by the extreme nothing they do with this character revelation (obviously they didn’t have much time left after that but still! There could’ve been some confrontation!). I think that c!Dream should be humanised, not because he deserves redemption or deserves c!Tommy to empathise with or forgive him, but rather because I think it makes him so much worse.

Because c!Dream should not be mythologised into a Villain With A Capital Vee. He is just a man. He is just a human being. He’s a human being with a lot of cruelty and a magic book. And I think that in this context seeing that c!Dream was once happy and kind and good is important bc it shows that he was not made that way, he was not ‘forced’ to be a villain.

(Yes, there was a war and yes, c!Tommy burned down a house that one time but c!Dream’s response was wildly disproportionate to those actions, and thus I do not think he was forced into abusing c!Tommy in exile bc he clearly and obviously chose to do that of his own volition.)

He very actively and deliberately chose to hurt those around him bc he WANTED to. And he didn’t have a tragic story that pushed him over the edge! He was happy at the beginning of the server and then he became cruel. There is no plot twist backstory that paints him into shades of grey or justifies what he did. He was a man who was happy and lived a good life and made the active decision to be cruel anyway.

And for that, I think the limbo sequence was good. Sadly it wasn’t utilised as such and rather just seems as canon fodder for those who wish to defend c!Dream’s actions as if he did not abuse a child for months on end.

Thank u for coming to my TEDtalk, I have very mixed feelings abt this finale 😇🙏

[atomickittenland]

it's almost like seeing perspective of a crazy narcissist with a love for obscuring fact makes him seem more evil

giggling and rolling around bc for so long there have been people excusing c!dreams behavior as "we're just not seeing his point of view, he might have a good reason for what he does" and now that we do have a glimpse of his pov, he's murdering the elderly bc "no one will notice they're gone"

[sethdomain]

the narrative that c!tommy used c!techno is kind of diabolical tbh, people often forgot that c!tommy is fresh out of exile and doesn't consider the place that he's in.

He's running on pure instinct, fresh from suicide attempt and running from his abuser and the only one he can confide in is c!techno the criminal that destroyed his home country. Despite their history c!techno still took him in, but why? He could of just kick c!tommy from his house and let him run lose in the tundra of snow and let him survive on his own while c!drm sniff over his trails of footstep. But he took him in and protect him from the looming threat of his abuser.

And its sad, its very sad that even if c!Techno took c!Tommy in he used it as an opportunity. An opportunity to use c!Tommy as a pawn in his quest for anarchy. Now, you might be thinking, but c!techno took him in, take care of him and even defended c!tommy ,why are you painting him as this heartless villain that used an abused child for his own gains? Frankly, I try not to and maybe its also in the way i'am awful with articulating my words into something that make sense. I truly do not think c!Techno is heartless and his relationship with c!tommy does have a sincerity in it.

But I think my main point is that, there was a power imbalance between c!tommy and c!techno that people often overlooked. Like I said c!Tommy is fresh out of exile n traumatized n stuff and he's in a weaker position and his only hope in escaping his abuser is c!Techno since he is the only character thats is deadass near logstedshire and also one of the most powerful people in the esempi.

And also I just do not think painting an abuse survivor trying to find help as an act of... That, is a nice message you know 😁 haha- not to get real and get to the implication of stuff- but ahahaha, yk haha. ANYWAY.

I don't think c!techno is a heartless monster, like I said i think his relationship with c!tommy has sincerity within it. I think as time goes on, i think techno grew actual care toward tommy evidence by his interaction with tommy as time goes on growing more closer and affectionate and his strong reaction when tommy left him for tubbo.

But still, c!Techno treats tommy more of a pawn in his quest for anarchy, you also have to remember that he will send off c!tommy to his abuser again without a second though if c!drm used his favor. Of course, if you were in c!tommy place, why would you stay with a guy like that? He goes againts everything you stand for and you don't even know if you're safe with him. Maybe because he saved your life? Do you really owe him that much that you are willing to destroy your home and even fight your own best friend for him? Was it all transitional? Do I worth anything? Do I not matter as a living breathing human being? Am I not worth of safety?

I just wanna talk about my feeling about c!tommy and c!techno relationship in post-exile arc, because i think i find the narrative a bit icky if you are maybe a survivor of abusive relationship. I also wanna talk about the interesting bit of sincerity their relationship actually kind of have, that despite c!techno using c!tommy as pawn he does actually cares in the very end. Which is sad to think about

[stellocchia]

Does anyone remember that time cWilbur tried to weaponize the pit against cQuackity in the custody battle stream and he said something along the lines of "Don't trust someone who would have fought you in the pit" to cTommy?

Because I do.

That was fucked up.

Like, straight-up, not only incredibly manipulative, but also fucked up on a fundamental level. Wilbur is the one who dug up the pit all the way back in Pogtopia. He's the one who came up with the idea of Tommy and Techno fighting in there. He's the one who pushed Tommy and Techno in. He's the one who kept goading them on.

The only person who thought it was appropriate to get Tommy beaten to a pulp because he dared being angry at the guy who executed his best friend on the orders of a dictator is Wilbur. No one else thought of it. No one else orchestrated it. Even Mr. Techno "The only universal language is Violence" Blade was hesitant. Not Wilbur though! Motherfucker cheered throughout!

And then, after the brutality and cruelty of that situation, he had the GALL to try and use his own actions to discredit someone else. Because the way he phrased it cannot be spun around into a self-deprecating "you can't trust me" moment, there was none of that. He was straight-up just being a dickhead.

And then people wonder why Tommy didn't trust him after he came back to life and treated him like a ticking time bomb. Maybe Wilbur shouldn't have gaslit, girlbossed, and gatekept so close to the sun constantly!

[simplepotatofarmer]

the biggest example of lack of media literacy in the dsmp fandom was when people got upset at the whole 'c!dream doesn't understand big words and he can't read a map' thing except those were just. literal canon facts. it was stated explicitly in canon to be true.

what do you even call that? being media illiterate on purpose??

[atomickittenland]

helping someone who has planned to use you for experiments definitely won't come back to bite you in the ass later.

"i needed to help dream escape it was business." that "business" involved helping a man who was literally planning to use you as a labrat in his revival experiments because you're "old and might die soon anyway" escape from prison. 😊💖

[imsosocold]

Can’t believe c!tommyinnit aplogized to c!dream of all people, and not c!jackmanifold or c!fundy

[barzfrommarz]

RIP ladyddanger you were never afraid to say the truth

[nootdraws]

Ok ok so the entirety of no children does not fit c!dream and c!tommy bc ultimately it’s a relationship that’s fucked on both ends and that’s not what c!tommy and c!dream have, it’s very one sided abuse

But

“I hope you die, I hope we both die” fits the prison scene so perfectly imo

Obvi in the og song the line is abt how they’re both bad for eachother and both have extreme hatred for the other and also hatred of themselves bc of the way they feed off of each others negativity to be worse ppl but in the context of c!discduo it’s just this intensely sad moment of a child and his abuser and him wanting that person dead but also wanting himself dead bc he’s suicidal and doesn’t see a future for himself beyond being a soldier and once c!dream is dead he has no reason to keep fighting

[cellberry]

he actually did it

omigod omigod omigod

[cdroloisms]

I think Dream in prison was always going to go poorly because it would require Sam to be as infallible as Pandora's Vault itself, and he's not. He has way too much personal stake in what Dream is doing, and in trying to force himself to be an emotionless machine that abides only the protocol he became a hypocritical wreck that only indulged his vindictive emotions and spiraled out of control trying to keep the situation steady. That's not even addressing how keeping someone in the prison would never be ethical because it's a psychological torture box designed by the psychological torture guy

I mean, I can see the argument that it would've been hard to like. Not make Pandora's Vault unethical, considering the size of the server and the fact that he was the only prisoner etc leading to a situation where yeah, he would've been left alone for long stretches of time no matter what, solitary was kinda inevitable, etc. Like I can see an argument for that. But on principle I feel like the influence that protocol had on the prison arc and on c!Sam specifically tends to be heavily overstated...because a significant portion of the prison arc, honestly, is making the point that the protocol was entirely based on what c!Sam determined.

Like, sure, the prison was always going to suck. c!Dream was never going to come out from it entirely unscathed. But there's a huge fucking difference between what he was prepared for (isolation + shitty food for an unspecified amount of time) and what situation he ended up in (his life at the mercy of two people that showed absolutely no damn qualms about literally torturing him). I think it's very fair to say that yeah, c!Sam was far from an unbiased party, and he was very much emotionally affected to his detriment during the prison arc. But...ultimately? I feel like we really don't see c!Sam struggling to maintain protocol over the course of months only to slowly break down. I don't think we see him "snap" and "lose control." necessarily, in the way that people often act is the case. (The strongest argument, in my opinion, in favor of c!Sam being greatly affected by some stressor that then has him turn to extreme cruelty has little to nothing to do with the prison itself and more to do with his brief stint with the Egg, but with so little attention drawn to that as a cause in the story of the prison itself, I feel like this mostly remains in the realm of speculation.)

Like, if we look at the facts, c!Sam's behavior day one was already weirding people out. Day one and c!Dream is already throwing himself in lava and c!Sam does not seem to give a damn. Of course, both of their behaviors had a myriad of reasons behind them, but it's important to note that there's like literally never been a single moment in the prison arc where c!Sam hasn't been, like, off.

We never see any of c!Ranboo's actual prison visits, but we know these happened very very early in c!Dream's imprisonment and that they were terminated quite early as well, once c!Sam discovered c!Ranboo writing in ender in the prison contracts. However, considering how the inside of the prison was the same between his dream and the real world, it is reasonable to say that c!Sam's behavior in the dream could've also been taken from reality, and "he knows what happens [when he disobeys]" is a hell of a statement to make.

c!Bad's prison visit is when things seem to be seriously off. Even if you consider c!Dream's behavior in this stream as entirely an act, c!Sam is noticeably tense after the prison visit and very demanding about what c!Dream said once c!Bad leaves the cell. c!Dream commenting on food being withheld is consistent with what we know happened in the prison arc later on. c!Sam says that c!Dream has been tossing himself in lava for attention. Several comments are made about "behaving" and "behavior," c!Sam is looking into the installation of an automatic feeder, and visitation is facing restrictions.

Pretty crucially, we see that c!Sam is very comfortable with making changes to the prison. Major changes to the prison, even. Installing an automatic feeder isn't exactly an easy process? And it obviously wasn't outlined in any kind of preexisting protocol. But c!Sam is perfectly willing to change this, just as he's perfectly willing to make all kinds of rules on visitation and limiting visitation because of c!Dream's behavior, etc, (which can reasonably be inferred as not being preexisting rules because that would mean that c!Dream, who allegedly helped with the creation of all of these rules, would be intentionally sabotaging his chances of visitation...when he very evidently wanted people to visit? like sorry but that doesn't make any sense) because he's the Warden and therefore the sole authority of Pandora's Vault and allowed to do literally anything he damn well pleases.

Further, sure, c!Dream might be acting in all the prison visits. Sure, he might be acting In General during this time, etc. But despite disobedience (disobedience with the explicit expressed purpose of trying to get c!Sam to spend more time with him...?) I would hardly characterize almost anything he does during these early days as being anything for c!Sam to be reasonably vindictive over. Even if you consider hopping into the lava (something c!Sam could've solved literally as easily as just raising the netherite barrier), tossing the clock into the lava (also preventable if c!Dream can't access the fucking lava????), and a couple alleged escape attempts (the only one that we know of being him trying to use the lectern to create a nether portal, something hardly easy to do and an attempt that c!Sam very evidently put down quite easily)--like. I can understand him being angry because of what c!Dream had done in the past, and obviously being angry because of c!Dream telling him about exile, but c!Dream early on in the prison arc hardly behaves badly. (Not that bad behavior would justify abuse, but you know.)

By the time of c!Sapnap's prison visit, c!Dream isn't the only one acting weird. c!Sam is strange in ways that are never fully explained and uh heavily imply shady shit??? He's not abiding by protocol when he suddenly interrupts the process of helping a visitor out of the prison by forcing c!Sapnap to respawn in order to check on c!Dream for Some Reason. He's once again very persistent about the question of whether or not c!Dream "said anything" and then reacts strangely when c!Sapnap was able to get him to say a word. He's replaced like a quarter of the obsidian in the cell with crying obsidian, which again, is an instance of c!Sam making BIG changes to the prison without protocol or anything dictating his actions. At most you can maybe make the argument that he's being moved by the spirit of the protocol, that being security should be prioritized over everything (hence potatoes instead of steak, hence no courtyard, hence--in this case--crying obsidian to make the escape attempt ineffective) but it's clearly nothing that they explicitly wrote down.

Also, around this time (I forget the exact date) he explicitly bans c!Ranboo from visiting. Also something we can reasonably assume isn't something that was included in any protocol that c!Dream wrote considering his uh, vested interests in continuing to have an informant.

c!Tommy's visit and that ensuing debacle, of course, is one of the first times we see c!Sam clearly, explicitly acting AGAINST the protocol that was established. The protocol outlines that c!Tommy should have stayed in there for at most a week, and c!Sam explicitly denies him from leaving when the time comes??? Even if you argue that he's doing it "for security", he's doing it in a manner that is going directly against the letter of the law of the protocol that he created with c!Dream. This is a clear demonstration that c!Sam sees himself, and acts as if he is above the law of Pandora's Vault, because, of course, he is the law. He is the Sole Authority. He is the Warden, and he answers to no one but himself. c!Tommy's death obviously ensues in quite the emotional fallout for him, and wanting revenge on c!Dream for this matter motivates his actions later on in the arc...but it's important to consider that mistreatment beyond the scope of what c!Dream expected long preceded this point. c!Sam, immediately after c!Tommy dies, describes himself as thinking that c!Dream's will was too broken to do anything like that. Describes himself as having punished c!Dream in every manner that he could think of. He doesn't go in to feed c!Dream for WEEKS after c!Tommy's death, directly leading to c!Tommy himself being isolated and starved post-revival. He bans visitation. All of these matters hardly seem like matters that c!Dream would have included in the prison protocol that he created when he was planning to be put in that prison, where he specifically had a vested interest in keeping himself (and the book) safe + having, like, FOOD + being able to have visitors in a safe manner + NOT being abused?

And even if we dismiss all of this as c!Sam acting in the best interests of security because c!Dream told him that the security of the prison is more important than anything else (which, even though we know that c!Dream did have this perspective to some degree, still doesn't eliminate c!Sam's responsibility as the one carrying out the existing protocol and making all of these Big Decisions and Big Changes etc to the prison) -- the decision to let c!Quackity into the prison stomps on all of that. That decision completely goes against not only the letter of the damn law that they established together, but the spirit of what the prison was ever meant to be in the first place. He compromises the security of the prisoner and the prison on the DAILY by letting in someone in full gear! With items! And plays a game with chance with c!Dream's life (and the revive book) every damn day. He hardly had enough of a system in place to keep c!Quackity from taking c!Dream's life, and he was certainly unable to stop c!Quackity from landing what would've been a killing blow on c!Techno before he got tp-ed out, like. He completely fucks over EVERYTHING that Pandora's Vault was meant to be, and that was...entirely his decision. Sure, c!Quackity manipulated him, true, but he was not beholden by any protocol or any element of his duty when he made this choice.

This isn't to say that c!Sam wasn't very much emotionally affected and making clouded judgements--he was! Especially if you factor in the stress of other events such as the Egg, etc. But I hesitate to ascribe any element of c!Sam's...c!Samness in the prison arc as him "cracking under the pressure," so to speak. The implications of mistreatment just start too early and are too calculated for me to say that he was simply reacting badly to stressors. I think he was absolutely trying his best to keep the situation "steady," in a sense, but keeping it steady never meant simply being an emotionless guardian to an impenetrable prison who couldn't cope as everything began piling up--keeping things steady, as early as that first month, meant breaking c!Dream into something docile. That was intentional. That was something he was making an active effort to do. Nor do I think that the claim that c!Sam was simply abiding by protocol holds any water, as I outline above: c!Sam has always acted above the protocol established in the prison to the point where even from the first time we see him acting as Warden during that first damn questionaire a specific point is made that he is the ultimate authority on the grounds of the Vault and his word is law. He acted within protocol when convenient to him and trampled over it when convenient to him, and I feel that people can overemphasize the role that protocol played in the decisions he made the same way that he himself did when he was shifting the blame of his own abusive actions onto c!Dream when he had the power, and always had the power, to amend the protocol established in any way he damn well pleased.

Of course, this isn't to say that the protocol was good. It, uh, wasn't--and plenty of people have criticized c!Dream for them even though the prison, as it ended up being used for his plans, was never anything more than a place for him to put himself because of the danger that the rest of the server presented, a base for him to hide in after the prison arc because of its security measures, and a "just-in-case" measure for them to hold their enemies if need be (which he never actually does, even when given golden opportunities to do so: inconsolable differences and the finale come to mind. Even if we're talking about his saw trap in the finale, the plan was to kill one and let the other go free (????????) while also giving them the exact items that could've easily been the keys to their escapes. after c!Tommy and c!Tubbo kill him. but I digress). But c!Sam goes so damn far beyond the protocol established by the "psychological torture guy" that he literally wasn't even beholden to when he was the Warden of the Vault on account of said guy being his prisoner. I don't really see any arguments about c!Sam's behavior having to do with him being too fallible of a man for the job he was given--he does exactly what he wants to do, how he wants to do it, using the job that gives him the power to do so. It's just that "what he wants to do" is not exactly what c!Dream had in mind when he and c!Sam were coming up with the plans for the prison and the protocol that they worked together to create because what he wants to do is, apparently, own a guy and keep him in his hell box. You know?

(i hope this didn't read too aggressively!)