#can we take a moment and just appreciate cc!dreams voice acting?

[nekioe]

what is your favorite c!dream moment in canon? - loyal

Picking one is hard... and if u were to ask again in a week or a month, it would probably be a different one.. but currently, I've been thinking a lot about rivals in prison

But right now, I think my favorite c!Dream moment is during that stream where Techno first visits Dream in Pandora.. That moment when Techno has stepped onto the bridge and Dream screams "NO NO TECHNO, IT'S A TRAP!!!" And later when Sam has closed the lava curtain with Techno in the cell and Dream realizes he's trapped here with him. The panic in his voice as he first mumbles and later screams: "no no no no you were my only way out of here- YOU WERE MY ONLY WAY OUT OF HERE"

like

The emotion in his voice? The disbelief, the panic, the fear? This moment really feels like the first moment Dream truly loses all hope of ever getting out again. Techno will ofc help him get it back (<3), but in this moment? It really sounds like Dream thinks he's lost everything.

Man :(

[anarchy-and-piglins]

Also I haven’t seen any posts about this yet, so can we just take a minute here to appreciate cc!Techno’s acting? Because, yeah, the fact that he leans more into silliness and fourth-wall breaking isn’t everybody’s cup of tea. He doesn’t like his lore to be too angst-heavy and that’s absolutely fair!

But when Techno decides to do angst? He goes hard.

I especially liked the way c!Techno’s panic and worry over Ranboo just... gradually grew? That was portrayed so well. From his gut-reaction of concern at seeing him being brought into the prison by Sam, then Techno dealing with that concern the way he always does - pragmatism. Ranboo’s in jail, no problem man we’ll just break him out too! We were going there anyway, 2 for 1 deal!

There’s his constant insistence that they get Ranboo once inside, getting a little more frantic as things start going wrong. And then they get out of the water and things go ABSOLUTELY wrong and God, I’m still not over cc!Techno’s voice acting in this scene? You can hear c!Techno’s panic, you can hear him losing his calm as the situation spirals out of control. When Sam takes an absolutely ineffectual hostage for keeping Dream in check - Techno is so clearly panicking it hurts my heart. He just wants Ranboo to be safe. How he tries to convince Sam to leave Ranboo alone, the desperate “I care!” and then that heart-wrenching scream when Ranboo is killed.

Not to mention how angry he sounds both in the moment itself and later when talking to Phil on how he’ll have to destroy Sam now. How sad he sounds talking to Tubbo. I don’t know man, for a guy some people seem insistent on claiming is ‘monotone’ there sure was a lot of emotion in that stream...

[simplepotatofarmer]

ok but in the vein of cc!techno’s acting skills, can i Appreciate that moment after Ranboo is killed, we hear Techno scream, and then he makes the choice to just for a few seconds deafen his Discord, like his character is so overcome with rage and grief and distress that Dream’s pleas to flee, everyone’s confusion, Sam’s excuses and accusations, are *literally* falling on deaf ears, and the chat/the voices screaming for blood is all there is

YES

everything about that moment was so great.

he's genuinely one of the best rpers on that server because he CAN do emotional! he can and it fits perfectly with his character.

c!techno is someone who feels so much and so deeply but doesn't always express it in ways that people read correctly. you can hear him get more and more panicky, more and more stressed. you can see the way he doesn't fight as well as he normally does. the movements are a bit sloppy, he's not approaching the situation in an optimal way.

it's just so perfect and perfectly in character and perfectly heartbreaking because he tried so hard to get everyone out and failed. and every single action that cc!techno takes drives that point home in a way that's sad but also not pure angst, not devolving into dramatics. just c!techno's grief and guilt and quiet rage and dedication to those that he cares about.

[dreamsclock]

Can we just take a moment to appreciate cc!tommy’s and cc!dream’s acting? Especially tommy: cc!dream was very good with the soft and triggering voice and then with the more aggressive one to convince c!tommy that yes, he will stay in the prison with him, just accept it. But cc!tommy on the other hand, oh man! I LOVED how voice-acted! The way he joked at the beginning to hide his distress and then when he realized that something was not right and he began to panic... SO GOOD!!!

!!!!!!! ANON THANK YOU FOR GIVING ME THE OPPORTUNITY TO RAMBLE ABOUT CC TOMMY AND DREAM !!!!!!

so oh my god, the acting in this latest stream was [chef’s kiss] [multiple chef’s kisses] SO GOOD. considering how much of this is voice acting,,, god, both of them did so well conveying emotions through their voices holy SHIT, and don’t even get me started on tommy’s acting on camera. you could see the build up of nerves that started in alarm and trying to make jokes, only to grow more and more distressed, and then culminated in terror and anger. it was BEAUTIFULLY acted, and i’m genuinely so in awe of the whole thing ,, people always seem to forget how good tommy is at acting until a stream like this where he DELIVERS above and beyond what’s expected. just.... goddamn.

and !! dream’s minecraft skin acting too ?? i speak about this all the time but it’s so impressive how he conveys so much through how motionless/fidgety he makes his character, or how he moves or the way he turns ,, it’s so impressive, and tommy did it today too !! the scene where he stared into the lava after calling for phil with dream behind him?? my god, i was in tears.

we are NOT ready for this week,, the acting is going to be incredible and the angst is going to be agonising oh NO

[dreamteamspace]

We hit 400 so here’s a- ✨ DREAM APPRECIATION ESSAY ✨

(by Yours Truly. Much thanks to the one, innocent anon who just wanted to ask a small talk question but hit my serotonin-providing hyperfixation.)

1. Self-esteem

I love the way he’s confident in his abilities when it’s become such a “trend” to either be completely and utterly self-depricating about your own skills out of fear of being labelled an asshole or overconfident nowadays.

At the same time you can still tell he doesn’t want to pull anyone down ever, and will always be really careful with that and take every oppertunity to lift up the people around him. Dream has a very emotional voice that gives him away a lot, so you can really tell he genuinely admires the people around him and he’s never afraid to say that they could totally easily beat him in something if he doesn’t have practice with it.

He tends to be a bit too hard on himself, so his friends always encourage him in his abilities, and that’s just. So nice. He celebrates his victories! He gets so so excited and happy when he wins in the manhunts, and I think celebrating your hard-earned victories isn’t something that should be villanized.

He won, and we should KNOW by now that doesn’t mean he thinks he’s somehow better than everyone. He has a pretty good eye on his abilities, and that allows him to really use them to the max.

2. Morality

He isn’t afraid to change the game! His adhd picks out a Cool New Thing and he just goes, You know what? Why not! His adhd goes “do this thing repeatedly another 3847 times” and he’s like, yeah sure!

Nobody expected him to release a song, but he just went for it! He’s been speedrunning so much, but he isn’t afraid to stream it every day 5 days in a row for hours while his friends bicker in the background.

Dream genuinely does the things he finds fun, but at the same time puts in so much effort to make them good and entertaining to watch and never forgets about his viewers.

He’s kidfriendly because he wants to be! Fame-wise, at this point he could definitly swear more if he wanted to (and he does when in other people’s content who don’t care about swearing), but despite that he doesn’t swear on his main because he wants his content to be accessable for everyone.

Sure, on one hand it could be for clout/money, but consider: Dream doesn’t stream the DSMP because he doesn’t want to take attention away from other people. He participates in the videos of his friends. He lets compilation channels and the like do whatever they want and even monetize his content. He lets his friends stream Road Trip on twitch as much as they want for free.

Dream doesn’t not swear just for his fanbase, but he does it because he has so so much respect for people. No matter how high he goes, he’s always consciously focused on respecting and admiring the people around him.

He has genuine respect for creators so much smaller than him, and he has respect for people in his fanbase that are younger than him. He isn’t afraid to go against the norm and STAND for that, either (see the video where he defends his stans).

And he defends his friends so much too! So much so it could almost be a little bit of a flaw sometimes, but I feel like he truly wants to learn from his mistakes. He apologizes for things even when nobody asked him to, and that just shows that he does it out of genuine guilt and fear of hurting someone.

He’s always seemed like someone who is genuinely willing to change to be a better version of himself, who isn’t afraid to challenge what he thinks and what other people think and what the norm thinks in order to improve everything for everyone.

Dream also doesn’t let any of the fame get to his head! As I said before - he’s confident in the things he’s good at, but in a way that doesn’t pull other people down, and he still remains firmly admirable of other people.

And even when OTHER people let fame get to their head (it was a while ago, but there was a video he made about five block jumps, where he added in a clip of a video of another guy doing it complete with credit and link etc. The guy was 100% alright with it at first, but when his video started getting more views because Dream’s video blew up, he started accusing Dream of “stealing” his content (when dozens of other videos of the 5 block jump already existed, and Dream could’ve just put in a clip of himself doing the jump)),,, but he insisted in his reponse that fame gets to people’s heads sometimes, nobody should blame anybody, he genuinely was never upset at him and just said that this just... happens sometimes.

He’s a very forgiving person all around, in part due to being willing to challenge his own norms and give people the benefit of the doubt JUST in case he’s wrong. He lets people enjoy things so long as they aren’t hurting anybody, like allowing people to ship him w people who are also alright with shipping, but at the same time taking a hard stance on, say, how shipping minors is absolutely wrong and should not be done ever (and he’s right).

3. Fandom

He appreciates said fanart and fanworks as well! He thinks dnf fanart is cool and he even appreciates the fanfic part of his fandom, something many ccs wish to ignore or forget it exists altogether (and it IS ofc in their right to do so or be uncomfortable with such content!), but Dream sees the work put into it and how people find connections and friendships through the fandom and appreciates it all the same.

He loves his fandom. So much. But not in the overdone, fake-feeling way I’ve seen other ccs be,,,, he’s just. Quiet and shy and genuine about it but not afraid to defend it.

He’s said before - and I QUOTE - “If you send hate to people or have sent hate to people, in the form of hateful comments or DMs, you aren’t welcome in my fandom. You’re no fan of mine”, which is the HOTTEST take he’s ever uttered and I love that. He really just went and said that. And he’s right. I like that despite how he’s usually more held back and waits things out before taking a stance, he chose this topic to really take a hard stance on and not budge and stick to it.

Pmbata has also said that he believes his fans have his back no matter what!! And that he really loves them a lot!!! And I am!! Emotional!!!!

4. ND/Adhd

He has adhd which is something I relate to personally (I have it as well sdlkfj). He gets excited sometimes!! I love how he shows being fidgety in mc, always pacing and parcouring around,, the way that in manhunts you can SEE when he’s thinking or bouncing back and forth between two options,,, or the way he gets close to people in mc to laugh with them.... He shows so much with his movements by them being quick and daring and calculated (and it’s especially hilarious to watch other people react to it in the video “mc but three people control one player”, where he’s the one moving and Sapnap and George will gasp or go “Dream!!” in surprise when Dream was THIS close to falling off a ledge, but he just laughs sdlkfjsdf).

When he’s not moving around he stands perfectly, perfectly still (which, idk if thats what all adhd ppl have, but I know I have something similar? Like when I’m nervous I’ll sometimes just. Freeze in place. No movement at all). He’s just relatable sdkjf.

There was one Manhunt extra scenes where he,,,,, stims by clapping,,,,,, the lil excited clap in the background,,, I’m gonna cry. I’m so soft for excited Dream that one is such a comfort clip for me!

He also tends to stim by getting under trap doors and then jumping back out of them, or jumping up a block and then walking back down over and over (especially noticable in The Village Went Mad tftsmp episode, where they were all discussing who the murderer could be and he was the only one moving, hopping up the log and then running back down again).

Also it is. Really Soft when he starts rambling and overexplaining something. What’s even better is that George, who is usually present at such moments, will laugh a little at his antics, and Dream will automatically laugh with him.

5. Rp/Uplifting other ccs

Dream wasn’t all THAT into the rp at first, but his server has been so strongly supporting and giving attention to smaller creators that he’s since completely rolled along with it. Being a villain in the RP is a difficult role because you will, inevitable, as much as it is just roleplay and all scripted, always get some amount of dislike from people for it.

Despite that, he’s basicly the main big villain on his own server where he let a bunch of theater kids beat him up in character and imprison him on his OWN SERVER. He wasn’t as into the rp at first, but has obviously been practicing and joins every Tales of the SMP when he can, despite getting zero clout for it.

What Dream also tends to do is find small content creators, see their talent and lift them high. His entire discord server is dedicated to give smaller ccs a place to grow, and when he first found Tubbo, Tommy, Ranboo, etc., they were much much smaller than they are now. He truly wanted to help them make it big.

He’s also added Foolish Shark and Hannah onto the SMP, both much smaller ccs (not tiny, but you get what I mean), allowing them to grow. He doesn’t stream on his OWN SERVER. He let himself get imprisoned to let the good guys win on his OWN. SERVER. He’s willing to play the villain and everything.

An interesting thing though! A lot of people used to/still do clown on Dream a bit for his sometimes uncertain acting,,, but when he’s around people he knows well (Sapnap and George, Tubbo and Tommy) we’ve seen him go ALL OUT. I have the theory Dream might be genuinely afraid to accidentally be mean to someone in character and have them misinterpret it sldkfjsdf,,, so he’s rly careful when he goes into the rp, and sometimes even when he’s in it he goes quiet, especially with other people around.

But also the fact that he needs time to feel comfortable around ppl is,, a mood,,, and adorable,,, sdlfkjsdf-

Apparently he’s also shared his youtube algorithm secrets with Tommy?? Which he had only shared with Sapnap and George before?? Dream took one look at that chaotic kid and immedietly adopted him as his little brother. He literally got up super early to rp the prison visit. Idk about ya’ll but I would die for someone first and get up horribly early for them second-

6. Friends!!

Dream?? Considers so so many people his friends?? And despite having so many friends, he also has his few closest friends (George and Sapnap) whom he would absolutely die for in a heartbeat. He WILL defend them with everything he has and loves them so so much.

He listens to them and really, truly wants them to succeed. He respects them so much and will go OFF about how good they actually are and how talented they are and how important they are to him.

I can’t even COVER everything about how much he is SOULMATES with Gorg. They live in each others heads rent-free. He mentions him all the time. They get!! So happy when they’re around each other!!! Their voices get so soft,,

And I can’t even BEGIN to explain the energy of Sapnap and Dream just moving together permanently. Imagine moving together with your best friend. Like, permanently. Into one house. They’re best friends Your Honor,,,,

Also,, remember the Techno and Dream rivalry? And Dream has recently said that he’s hesitant to make a serious manhunt against Techno because he doesn’t want there to be any feud between them or have them be compared to each other. He said that while he absolutely wanted nothing more than to beat Techno at first, now that he knows him better he just wants to be friends with him. He wants to be FRIENDS. With his, essentially, mc RIVAL. Friendly rival, but still. He doesn’t even wanna fight Techno or have ppl compare them cause he,,, wants to be friends with him,,,,

7. Vulnerability

What I feel like really sets Dream apart from some other ccs for me is that he’s willing to be vulnerable. He will tell George he loves him. He defends his friends. He sounds so, so genuine when he tells his fandom that he loves them.

What’s just really rare to see, especially in male ccs, is that vulnerability. It’s becoming more acceptable as time goes on, but it’s certainly not easy, and a lot of people become and stay long-term fans BECAUSE they can see how genuine he is.

I know Dream looks up to Mr. Beast a lot, for example, but honestly? I think he’s a little better than Mr. Beast. Because he feels more genuine, more bound to what he believes is right. I’m sure Mr. Beast isn’t a bad content creator! But ultimately they have different target audiences and I’m very glad Dream is the way he is.

Less of that insecure masculinity and more willing to be vulnerable, to care about things, to get emotional and to encourage and uplift the people around him.

8. Pure Brainrot

Green boi has nice deep calm soothing voice. Little shy laugh. Wheeze laugh. Gorg live in his head rent-free. He lov friends. He lov block game. He good at block game,,, a little shy but confident,,, big heart,,,, soft voice,,,,, rambles sometimes....

He also Gender. He’s so gender. I don’t know how else to describe it. I want That. Whatever That is. My gender is Dreamwastaken

[mariaiscrafting]

i appreciate your courage for pointing the problem with dnf shippers psychoanalyzed moments. i’m nearly suffocated by the weigh of it lately. i love dnf cute moments and i guess i am apart of this mess as well. but i got so uncomfortable seeing everyone apparently playing armchair psychologists, analyzing what it means for someone to act or say certain thing in certain mannerism. i was quite mentally crushed by this so sorry if this seems like venting.

It’s okay to vent, I’m always open to venting. I don’t think I’m showing much courage, considering that I don’t actually tag specific people, though I will admit that I don’t really reply to people directly unless they attack me first because I don’t know who’s a minor and who’s not, and I don’t want anyone who sees my replies/any of my followers to go and send mass hatred.

It’s okay, we all have to take a minute and consider whether or not we’re contributing to the mess. These discussions are useful because they help viewers of dnf cute moments compilations and the like - myself included - stop and consider the implications of our actions and words. 

Armchair psychology seems to be rampant throughout the MCYT fandom, and it actually really saddens and frustrates me? It is one thing to headcanon or psychoanalyze Dream SMP characters. These are fictional characters, and this is not harmful unless you’re perpetuating false representations of what it means to be ND, or something similar. But we tend to forget that the CCs themselves are real people of whom we only know slivers of their lives. What they present on-stream and in videos, and even on social media, are only representative of whatever persona they choose to show to their audiences. Everyone is different in front of a camera, and even if that persona is still representative of who they truly are, it is still only one fraction of that person’s character. Watching streams or videos does not make us qualified to analyze these people’s characters. 

Personally, I kinda dislike Dream. I’m one of the few in the MCYT fandom who genuinely thinks he cheated based on everything I read in the reports on either end, and what I learned about statistics during the cheating scandal. And yet, I don’t hold this against him. I don’t see Dream as a 100% bad person or a complete asshole, I don’t go around ranting about how bad a person he is like antis do. This is because I’m aware of the fact that what I see of Dream is not truly representative of the person behind the screen. All I know are slivers of information, all I know are slivers of his personality. So while I am allowed to dislike him as much as I like, or assume that he’s an asshole as much as I like, they are just that - assumptions. The exact same goes for shippers and stans. You will only ever have assumptions of the CCs themselves. You can point out that you relate to some of their characteristics, behaviors, tendencies, etc., but at the end of the day, you cannot diagnose them or claim that any part of your own fantasies or assumptions are reality if the CCs themselves have not confirmed them. 

A useful parallel for me to draw is between the discussion of Dream and Techno’s ADHD and the shipping discourse. On one hand, the people I see talking about Dream and Techno having ADHD are other people with ADHD and other ND people. These people, as far as I have seen, relate to them, and discuss why they think either of them did certain things in relation to their having ADHD. They show empathy for their situations because they understand what it’s like to have ADHD/be ND, and they’re not making false assumptions or making unprofessional diagnoses. But it is another thing entirely when shippers read into body language and vocal patterns because they want to create theories to fulfill their shipping fantasies. This is not exhibiting empathy; this is being invasive and dehumanizing. 

There isn’t a strict line when it comes to analyzing mannerisms. All of this is subjective, and I’m just some random person on mcytblr who has their own, personal beliefs about what things are too much. Like, is my post about how Ranboo is a lot like Techno because he sings in a similar way and has the same intonnation of voice when he exclaims crossing a line? I don’t think so; some people might. Let’s just keep having this discussion, and maybe we’ll all come out better humans at the end of the road ~~

[olwolo]

Maybe you're right, maybe I'm just looking for excuse to punch c!wilbur, guess no one will ever know. Jokes aside, yeah I feel like cc!wilbur was for sure poking fun at that but also speaking as c!wilbur bc the bastard energy (affectionate) is just extra strong on that first live, he was having too much fun with it. And still I miss wilbur lore so much and has been what? two weeks? The struggle is real. But SAME!! Dsmp is such a open to interpretation storytelling for each character but they give so much material to just like... make everything coherent and tie up together. I've been rewatching few streams as well, mainly niki's and philza just to catch more details and stuff since I wasn't here since the very beginning (despite already watching most of those streams lol) it's just so nice. I'll forever think about the 1 sec of sunrise duo interaction during doomsday :( and how that day was like reeeally important for the syndicate in general. I feel like everything started to tie up together right there, which is one of the reasons why I feel techno wasn't 100% sure to invite ranboo at first like he was with niki. He didn't saw what ranboo did, but he did saw niki burn the l'mantree! Just, really nice tied together! That's one of the reasons I still love that it's scripted now. I feel like ppl really talk a lot about how much more genuine was before, but the way everything fits now is just really pleasing. I'm no animator so I can't talk that well about the voice acting and stuff, but I really like how everything is going man. Such sucker for all the storylines honestly lmao

Olwolo writing mumza lore confirmed ?? Lmao I love how you choose flowers as well!! We've been knew that's ur thing since ur new c!wilbur designs but I absolutely love ur approach for the death! I have so many feelings and headcanons about the end of each character (on the dsmp in general) and mumza being the goodness of death makes me feel 10x better about all that, absolutely love whipped philza for including that! I can only wonder if c!wilbur ever got to met her while he was dead, maybe not since tommy mentioned he was in the in between. This is probably too deep for the lore but man do I love the content they give us to work with headcanons lmao I'll never forget how techno was like "me and phil made the execution machine, headcanon that as u wish" I love it. Philza lore is just so nice to me we really need more of it. I saw someone taking about how mumza took two of his cannon lifes for him to have 1 immortal life and I kinda dig that idea. Just have to think more about it ig lol but olwolo tumblr user I hope that u know, and I can't stress this enough, that you're free to share any headcanons you might have been obsessing at the moment. Everybody loves olwolo headcanons, pretty sure its scientifically proven (by myself) 🧨

fair. and yeah i too am waiting for c!wilbur lore but i managed to wait like six months so i can do with few weeks sjkdl i definitely talked about it already but i enjoy the use of livestreams for storytelling so much!! it gives such a nice way to get attached to characters and like get in their heads? you can easily understand their motivations and their perspective of the story and it works in favor of villains like c!dream and c!schlatt too because there's only so much you can piece together from an outside perspective and just! it's all so neat!!

and now looking back at doomsday with the context of syndicate existing is so nice because i can appreciate the little moments between the four even more!! i love going back to some vods and seeing how moments gain new context. like dream talking about attachments during the railway skirmish or wilbur wondering if phil would be proud of him during the festival. it somehow all ties up so well. tbh i like the more scripted approach but i miss the semi-lore streams we got during s1 and early s2 which is why i really enjoy the las nevadas streams rn. they give off manburg and new l'manburg era vibes and i'm loving it.

just the way how i guess open? the medium of dsmp storytelling is really makes my creativeness run wild because there is kinda no limit to how you can imagine the characters or the landscapes so i just end up with ideas for worldbuilding when i come up with headcanons sdjk and i love the idea of c!wilbur meeting mumza after his death but i also really like the theory that the afterlife got fucked up because of the existence of revival book resulting in limbo (which now that i think about it could tie nicely with her appearance in the story). and i can't wait to get some more c!philza lore too! personally i like the idea of his longevity being tied to him having wings idk i like to show how old he is by the wingspan i draw him with- the older he gets the bigger they grow and i apply that to c!wilbur as well hence the tiny wings i draw him with. just the idea of c!wilbur also being able to live for hundreds of years but dying so early on has been plaguing my brain ever since cc!phil confirmed his character to be Old. another thing that i can't stop thinking about lately is the good ol' possession theory. i liked it during new l'manburg and i still like it now dhsjk so. c!quackity with small horns under his beanie (already started my propaganda with the sketches from few days ago sdjkslk;j)

[pinnithin-writes]

Good Jokes

Chapter 11

The past several minutes were piecemeal to Tommy. He could infer what had happened based on the clues around him, but when he tried to recall the actual event occurring, details slipped away, like he was remembering a dream.

The facts were these: he was sitting on the floor. That was good - the floor was solid and he always found lowering his center of gravity stabilized him. Gordon was beside him. This was also good. He was trembling slightly and he looked severely rattled, but had incurred no further injury. Dr. Coomer was there, too, sitting cross-legged in front of them.

And there was another Dr. Coomer laying a few feet away. And another one beyond that. And another. And another. The air was thick with the scent of blood and the room just as much so with the bodies of clones. They were riddled with holes.

Tommy could connect the dots. He was the only one present who was armed.

What stuck in his memory quite well, however, was the look Gordon gave him after it happened. Frightened and dazed and a little awestruck, pupils blown wide and mouth parted in shock. Tommy wasn’t sure what it meant; whether he had scared Gordon with that act of unbridled violence or if the man was just grateful to still be alive or something else entirely. It was a weighty look. Settled heavily in Tommy’s chest.

Dr. Coomer - the living one, the original - was smiling mildly at them, as if Tommy hadn’t buried two slugs of lead in his chest only moments ago. Tommy stared distractedly at the crimson soaking into his shirt while Gordon pried information out of the scientist. What was his near death experience tally up to now? Double digits, at least. Gordon’s voice was remarkably steady for what he had just gone through, but when Tommy slid his gaze toward him, he noticed how shaky his hands were, how stark the whites of his eyes stood out. He was still very much afraid.

He wordlessly shifted so that his knee was pressing into Gordon’s leg. Just enough to give him an anchor. His hands were otherwise occupied with his rifle, which he had laid across his knees in a latent threat. Having to murder Dr. Coomer dozens of times had taken a swing at Tommy’s resolve, but he’d do it all over again if it meant keeping Gordon alive. He could carry this burden for him, at least.

Tommy swallowed the lump in his throat and looked away. Now wasn’t the time to lose his composure.

Dr. Coomer, to his credit, seemed relatively unbothered as he answered Gordon’s questions. “Well, Benrey and Bubby have been… whispering for some time about how to handle a problem.” he paused delicately. “I believe the problem is you, Dr. Freeman.”

Gordon was doubtful. “A pro – why am – is it my trackers? The GPS trackers?”

“I think they’re just spiteful,” Coomer guessed.

Tommy snorted. Sounds about right.

“What have I done to th - t-?” Gordon stammered, outraged. “They’re fuc - they’re assholes, man. I don’t - I have like-” he paused, collecting his thoughts. “We’ve all killed people,” he iterated.

“Yes, but we all have our passports,” Coomer pointed out.

“Passport?” Tommy repeated.

Benrey was really fixated on that, huh? He idled over that thought for a moment, wondering if it was all an elaborate stunt to fuck with Gordon or if there was more to it than that.

Dr. Coomer responded congenially. “Passport!”

Beside him, Tommy felt the shaking in Gordon’s leg grow more pronounced. “If I – if it’s-“ he took in a steadying breath, then spat out the rest of his words in frustration. “If this is over a goddamn passport, I will strangle that bald fuck with my own one hand.”

The old scientist’s eyes lit up. “Can I help?”

“Yeah, you could d – you could do the other hand,” Gordon allowed, giving him an appreciative look. “That’d be fun for you, I bet.”

“Exciting!”

Gordon laughed hoarsely. “Yeah, well, at least you can give me a chuckle. Did you know – where’d they go, where are they?”

“Well, I lost them,” Coomer admitted. “I was spending the past few minutes trying to hunt you down and find out where you were. We got separated, you see.” He cast a somewhat bemused look at the bodies littering the floor at the bottom of the stairwell. “I see you encountered my clones.”

“The nightmare,” Gordon echoed hollowly. “I encountered the nightmare.”

Dr. Coomer furrowed his brow in a serious look. “Now, Gordon, it’s only safe to warn you. I felt everything they felt.”

Tommy couldn’t suppress a flinch. He didn’t remember how many bullets he’d fired in the past few minutes, but judging by the carnage it had been quite a lot. Having been shot before, he was intimately aware of how much it hurt to have a bullet rip through one’s body. Trying to reconcile that kind of pain all at once in rapid succession made Tommy unable to meet the scientist’s gaze.

Gordon’s laugh was all nerves. “He was the one that did that,” he clarified, and he gave Tommy’s shoulder a squeeze in an attempt at reassurance. “Just so you know. Tommy killed all of those.”

Coomer was still smiling. “Oh, I’m quite aware,” he remarked, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “Fine shooting, Tommy!”

Tommy grimaced and didn’t respond. It wasn’t forgiveness, but he’d take it. Gordon rapidly changed the subject.

“Okay. So… do you have any idea what we can do about this?” he asked, gesturing to the stump where his hand used to reside.

Dr. Coomer scratched his jaw contemplatively. “Well, clearly climbing inside of your arm and wearing you like a puppet didn’t work, so perhaps I could help you find… something to help.”

The distant sound of water dripping was all that could be heard for a moment while Gordon paused.  “That was the scariest sentence I’ve ever heard,” he finally muttered. “Okay, let’s – s – so let’s go. Yeah.”

Coomer nodded. “Hello, Gordon.”

“Is there – augh, man – Maybe we can h–” he broke off, suddenly remembering. “The Cybernetics Department! Where is that?”

“Oh, I believe it’s next to the Lambda Department,” the old boxer answered.

Gordon’s broad shoulders slumped with relief. “Oh, so it’s on the way,” he sighed gratefully. “Oh my god.”

Tommy finally spoke a full sentence for the first time since they’d sat down. “I know where that is,” he commented. “They – I wandered in there once because they have a lot of cylinders that look like soda cans, but I was told they’re batteries.”

He felt Gordon shake slightly as he let out a soft guffaw. “Did you drink them?” the other man asked expectantly, brows raised, eyes twinkling, cheeks dimpled with humor.

Tommy smiled fondly at him. He could replace the sun with Gordon’s dazzling grin.

“I tried.”

---

Navigating Black Mesa’s maze of conveyor belts was a headache, but they managed. It took a lot of spatial interference on Tommy’s part to keep Gordon from plummeting to his death every few minutes. His sense of balance was completely shot. At least the mood had somewhat been lightened by Dr. Coomer’s grim joke about the ‘Skull Grinding Facility.’ The old boxer was in much better spirits now that his clones had been eliminated, and while Tommy didn’t necessarily trust him, he at least wasn’t posing an active threat.

He was past the point of finding Black Mesa’s batshit insane experiments humorous anymore. He just wanted to go home.

They inevitably encountered more aliens. Crates full of them. Were they being held here purposefully? He didn’t give himself much time to think about it as he mowed down the creatures, rifle in hand. Coomer flanked him, wreaking havoc with his fists, while Gordon - unarmed, unhanded - very wisely took cover.

“Sucks being helpless, man,” he sighed once the room was still.

Tough. He could be helpful by taking advantage of that med kit beyond the sliding door. Tommy kept an eye out for any encroaching monsters while Gordon fiddled with the cabinet. He heard him let out a crestfallen exhale.

“It had like, two… fucking seconds of juice left.”

Tommy passed him a snicker. “Two blood?”

“Two blood,” Gordon confirmed, an elastic smile leaping onto his face. “Two CCs.”

“Maybe if we bump the machine, there will be some more hidden in there,” Coomer suggested, quite reasonably, before emitting a startlingly loud shout and hooking a punch at the med kit.

Gordon leapt away from the dent in the metal, but he was laughing.

“Usually that works,” Dr. Coomer intoned, while Tommy’s shoulders shook with amusement.

As they headed down the hall, Gordon’s laughter could still be heard in between footsteps. “Honestly, guys?” he began, a smile in his voice. “Really, I think I - I love you two.”

Tommy’s mouth was halfway open to form a response when he remembered what a collective affirmation was. He bit down on his words. God, how hopeless could he get?

He was saved from having to dwell on that when they encountered Bubby’s cloning tube. Tommy felt a surge of loathing when he saw the prototype encased inside, trapped, pathetic, and oh so guilty. Sure, he couldn’t kill the guy permanently, but he could undoubtedly make his death agonizing.

Something in Gordon’s voice, however, stayed Tommy’s trigger finger. The way he growled, “hey, motherfucker,” low in his throat made his scalp tingle. Bubby looked to Tommy pleadingly, palms pressed against the glass, but he just returned his stare coolly before leaving Gordon to handle it. He deserved his revenge.

“Gordon, I just want you to know-” Bubby began, but Gordon cut him off.

“Do I look any different to you?” he asked, displaying his injury.

The scientist cringed away like it was a brand. “I never told them to do that,” he claimed. “They uh, they fooled me!”

Tommy scoffed. He didn’t want to hear Bubby’s sob story. Siding with Benrey was like cuddling with a cobra, and it was Bubby’s own fault he’d been bitten. Shouldering his rifle, he began poking around the room, tuning out the conversation while Coomer remained at Gordon’s side.

In summary, Bubby pleaded ignorance, managing to assure Gordon that he had been coerced by the entity into betraying him. Tommy was less convinced, but if Gordon wanted him to come along, he’d let him. Dr. Coomer vented some of his frustrations by whaling on the glass for a while, and his disposition was much more agreeable than it had been when they entered. Gordon gave him the go ahead and the boxer hit the release button.

As Bubby, wholly relieved, stepped out of the shattered remains of his tube, Tommy made a point to send him a threatening glare. If it were up to him, he wouldn’t be coming along with them at all. But he still tossed the prototype a weapon and half a chance. Slip up and you’re dead, his stare told him. Bubby snatched the gun out of the air and gave Tommy a tight-lipped smile. He got the message.

Their progress through the facility was much quicker with an additional team member. They cleared the way ahead for Gordon, who stumbled along after them, leaking out blood. Tommy’s satisfaction with their pace was soured somewhat by the appearance of a skeleton that flickered in and out of his line of sight. So the entity was loose again. Took the lazy way out of spatial entrapment by offing himself, it seemed.

Gordon, visibly shaken by the entity’s presence, suddenly found himself unsteady on his feet. Tommy urged him onward with a reassuring hand at his back, throwing a spiteful look over his shoulder at the skeleton as they went.

---

A few more hellish sectors brought them to a series of industrial lasers. Tommy stepped thoughtfully from room to room, quickly realizing that this puzzle was essentially just designed to blast through the facility wall. Would be nice if they could just use a door, he thought with some disdain. What an expensive, impractical stunt.

Gordon was woozy and nauseous - a state that probably wasn’t helped when Dr. Coomer had nearly rendered him unconscious with laughter by calling him “Dr. Pussy” a few minutes earlier. While he sagged against a doorway, barely managing not to barf, Tommy elbowed him in an attempt to distract.

“‘Nother triangle, Mr. Freeman,” he said, indicating the sizable prism being used to refract the laser’s beam.

Gordon gave him a foggy look, uncomprehending. “I don’t think those have to do anything with any of this.”

“I believe they do,” Bubby contended, striding confidently past them into the control room. “I have deduced that lasers can blow a hole in this wall for us to escape.”

Coomer chimed in as he jogged after him. “Gordon, it’s very important that we don’t obstruct the laser shield, as the sign says up here.”

“I’m going to obstruct it,” Bubby said.

They followed the scientists into the control room. Tommy matched his pace with Gordon’s in case blood loss caused him to lose his footing again. God, he was tired. But Gordon was halfway to death and steadily slipping closer, so there wasn’t exactly a wide margin for rest.

“The power from the triangles will guide us through this,” he quipped, and he was rewarded with a thin, breathy laugh.

“So, hey,” Gordon called to the group. He halted, stationary, in the middle of the room while the rest of them puzzled over the laser. “I lack the mental fortitude to refute anything you say to me. Who wants to be the de facto leader?”

Bubby pounced on the opportunity from where he stood at the console. “Cool. I call dibs.”

“Hey, hey.” Gordon backpedaled immediately. “Wait, wait. No,” he cast a complicated look in Tommy’s direction. “It’s Tommy,” he said, and his voice held the weight of truth in it. “It’s only Tommy. I only trust Tommy.”

Tommy reeled, pressing a hand unconsciously to his chest and feeling his heart beating out a rapid rhythm beneath. He had to grab the coattails of time and yank. Pause everything around him for just a few seconds so he could study that exposed, vulnerable expression on Gordon’s face. It was the same look he had given him after he’d lain waste to Dr. Coomer’s doubles earlier that day - open, fragile, a little wonderstruck. Eyes so deep Tommy thought he might fall into them.

It’s only Tommy. I only trust Tommy.

What a badge of honor. What an indescribable burden. He allowed himself a few moments to stand there, unknotting the emotion in his chest, before finally releasing his hold on time. The Science Team moved on without noticing the interruption. And Gordon’s words pounded in Tommy’s pulse for the rest of the day.

Chapter 10 <-----> Chapter 12

[tinymixtapes]

Music Review: Sega Bodega - SS (2017)

Sega Bodega SS (2017) [NUXXE; 2017] Rating: 3.5/5 The practice of reimagining film scores poses a slippery hermeneutic problem for artists and critics alike. Adding modern scores to silent films can feel like an insertion of the subject into the object, while rescoring films that already have original scores can feel like a removal of something essential from the object. The former is often portrayed as an inherently narcissistic venture in which the original film acts as nothing more than a fertile canvas for the ego of the artist (or the affectations of several competing artists, as with the many rescores of Carl Dreyer’s La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc). And the latter approach was brought to public attention when Zane Lowe curated an alternative score for Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive back in 2014. After a great deal of quibbling about “the director’s intentions” ensued to a choir of furiously jerking knees, the gatekeepers of our culture ultimately deemed the film too sacred for the grubby money fingers of Eric Prydz and Bring Me the Horizon. The latest mixtape from UK producer Sega Bodega, SS (2017), endeavors to reimagine film scores with a more honest approach, one that carefully balances a true respect for the object with a constructive assertion of the subject. The concept is fairly simple: each track condenses the vibe of a specific film into a new score for its commercial trailer. As such, the record manifests as both an exercise in structural limitation and an expression of artistic identity. While tightly chained to the visual demands of the trailers in question (in terms of timing, context, pacing, and mood), Sega Bodega remains free to explore new sounds and technologies according to his own creative whims. And most importantly, he manages this in ways that do not disrupt the aesthetic established in his previous work. Since moving from Glasgow to London, it’s clear that Sega Bodega has adapted to the filth and smog of the capital and its increasingly gritty club scene. Earlier releases were much in the vein of his Glaswegian contemporaries at Warp Records: tunes of the “quintessential banger” variety that politely say nah to form and genre through grinning teeth (see: 2013’s “Konerak” and 2014’s “Stay Nervous”). But more recently with tracks like “CC” and “Bacardi” he has started boiling those peppy highs down to their narcotic essence. Your tolerance has peaked, and those sticky hooks have lost their sexy pure-white allure. Like, it’s a real problem now. You’re huffing bass lines so addictive that you spend weeks excavating their remnants from your nostrils, with euphoric builds so acidic that they flip your stomach and plunge you into an immediate comedown. These disorienting scenes of hedonistic decline continue throughout SS in ways that both translate and elevate the films being rescored. “Requiem” captures the feelings and trappings of addiction in carnivalesque melodies that melt and churn and *bleugh* their way through a fucked-up, coke-fueled, balloon-huffing haze. Even at this kinda drowsy, kinda waltzy, kinda lazy tempo, there is no hint of rest. Instead, the track stings and aches and burns as it tries to break out of this unbearable agitation, only to sink deeper and deeper into it with every, single, desperate, lurch — it conjures the bodily action of standard dance music without the same old liberating teleology. Shygirl drawls through her trademark voice-inside-your-head monotone with enough nonchalance to make us do very bad things, to ourselves, to others, and then before you know it, you’re bursting through limbo, back into your sweaty PJs. SS (2017) by Sega Bodega The track speaks for a deeper understanding of its source material, an understanding often manifest in the meticulous choice of sounds throughout SS. Of course, electronic music producers have sampled archetypes from classic cinema to the point of making a cliché out of a cliché, but Sega Bodega gives them a little more than a quick kiss on the cheek. He handles these archetypes with studious care, generously scattering them over the mixtape like deft comments in the margins of an exhausted book. “Dogtooth” is a plucky movement of nylon that stirs up familiar sentiments, as each instrument piles up one by one: slightly tense, slightly playful, and utterly conventional. “Pi” skims the filmic language of tension in an echo chamber sparsely decorated with blunt drones and rusty strings, almost as if a tune is trying to assemble itself from disparate elements as they slowly and infinitely drift away from each other. The pianos and marimbas on “Tree of Life” play ball with some mysterious arpeggios on a comfy bed of orchestral flourishes, fit for previews at a mid-afternoon screening of Casablanca. Obviously nostalgia has a lot to it, and this can be heard pretty clearly on certain tracks. “Begotten” is a gorgeous cut of retro-synth magic that yawns so wide that it tears open new galaxies in the process; you can just about feel those legato strokes of heat every time a star collapses in the distance. As the track pulsates in time with the flickering cellulite misery of its corresponding trailer, you’ve got these proper lush chords, omg those chords, casting a dim light over the twisted bodies, devastating yet somehow optimistic. A similar sense of nostalgia has undeniably made up a crucial part of Sega Bodega’s aesthetic on previous releases, one that yearns for unfelt feelings among the night tubes and housing estates of London circa 2007. However, nostalgia misleads our collective memory toward a fiction: an endearing snapshot of the past distorted through time and reframed in the misty dreams of a disenchanted society. That we are inclined to think about the objects of our nostalgia as “things as they truly were in the past and should now be in the present” only sets us up for further disillusionment. In order to open up this liminal space between subject and object (where truth and imagination lock hands in an eternal dalliance), we must deceive ourselves. By embracing the active role of the present in our conception of the past, it’s clear that Sega Bodega has no misconceptions about the deceptive nature of our nostalgia. Rather than simply fossilizing these films in a checklist of clichés and tropes, he treats them as living works shaped by the ongoing engagement of both artists and critics. That is, he endearingly suspends their essence in a wistful memory before dragging that essence into modern software and piping it out through subwoofer cones. “Aliens” takes an unrelenting onslaught of horror film tropes — chilling droplets of atonal pizzicato rain down on animalistic growls and howls, screaming strings drill a tinnitus buzz into your eardrums — and sets it against a thorny dancehall rhythm so raw that it would probably make Drake plunge a microphone into his forehead. Sega Bodega has always had the knack for making the kind of straight-up murderous dance music that corrupts our innocent and supple youth, but when he does his worst on an actual horror film, it really makes those blood splatters pop! outta the screen. Likewise, “Stalker” accurately channels its corresponding film in the sense that it’s pretty desolate. But then the paranoid tones of sirens and bells succumb to a Jersey club kick pattern, which pounds out for like 40 seconds before remembering that maybe a post-apocalyptic Soviet film is not the best setting for a house party. Okay, okay, the track “X” definitely shouldn’t work. It shouldn’t work. Industrial drum loops launch a nuclear assault on every single frequency that your brain can register, crunching and scraping and grinding with enough force to satisfy your repressed aggression for about nine years. At the same time, precious angels beam down dramatic Zimmeresque string harmonies as they ride atop blooming mushroom clouds. It really shouldn’t work. But after a while ,you begin to tune out the differences between these two timbral surfaces and appreciate their similarities: how they twist and turn like barbed wire around a majestic sequoia, unraveling with the familiar pacing and coloring of a movie trailer while remaining completely alien to us. Still, it shouldn’t work at all. And yet there you are, having a little moment, rashing up with goosebumps as the fragile abyss between past and present collapses more with every scratch and bruise. In these more discordant (and somewhat absurd) tracks, the internal logic of nostalgia is laid bare. Sega Bodega reorients these films using sounds and structures that are both anachronistic and archetypal to the source in question — a sense of space and time that is romantic yet wildly distorted. The tracks on SS (2017) don’t attempt to critically examine the original films being rescored, nor to hold their original contexts up against present-day ironies, nor to sabotage them entirely for a quick applause and a decent blurb in fucking Time Out. While many artists have done as such with varying degrees of success, this record comes across as something way more authentic: a sincere paean to cinema and its rich musical vocabulary. http://j.mp/2z6wRfv