#exile caught everyone off guard at the time because of how overtly /cruel/ c!dream was being

[cdroloisms]

I seee tysm for explaining, you and sum. I'm surprised protege au wasn't end game because I saw often saw that take lmao and with the extent of exile I thought that was the plan, and vague phrasing of "help with dreams goals" I've seen someone mention before that c!dream had empathy for him during the playing around with tridents, and seemed taken a back by c!tommys suicide arc. And I'm still lost as to who had the discs around exile arc, just c!tubbo right? how would c!tommy give the discs to c!dream if he didn't have them I can't remember the lore lol

well, they were still tommy's discs, so c!Dream wasn't entirely unreasonable in assuming that c!Tommy could get the disc from Tubbo if need be and then give it to whoever it's not like c!Tubbo was holding the thing hostage. Either way, keeping c!Clingy away from each other was c!Dream's best shot, as seen through how he finally manages to get the disc by pressuring c!Tubbo which only worked because of the conflict that existed between c!Clingy largely from c!Dream forcing them apart and then playing both sides to make the other half seem unreliable and untrustworthy. The disc that c!Tubbo had was Mellohi, and the other one was with Skeppy and was Cat--we never get an explicit explanation for how c!Dream manages to obtain it iirc.

it's important to remember that as far as c!discduo goes, they did have a preexisting relationship--c!Dream and c!Tommy weren't born enemies from the start (tm). a degree of friendliness and trust lingers long into exile both because of cc bleedover (cause like, frankly, half of exile is just dicking around bc neither cc was that interested in an hour of whump roleplay a day 😭) and because these characters are far from strangers from each other. even considering the overt manipulation involved in exile, including c!dream's poor attempts at trying to seem friendly, i don't think it's strictly incorrect to say that 1) c!dream had some level of empathy towards c!tommy and 2) c!dream was caught off guard by how deeply affected c!tommy ended up being bc of exile, including his suicide attempt. obviously that doesn't absolve him for ... any of it lmfao but c!dream is a character with a canonically skewed as shit perception of pain and abuse and how it affects people--when this stuff applies to himself, it's hardly a stretch to consider that the same fallacies apply to others.