#just to clarify bc i don't think you meant to argue that being fine with abuse is like. an autism thing

[cdroloisms]

honestly, when it comes to a c!dream backstory, it's so far in the realm in speculation and headcanon that i hate to set any specific rules. i think it's something that everyone's gonna see pretty differently, and that it's not particularly important outside of the realm of speculation--when it comes to analysis, especially, i try to keep to the events on the server. so take everything here in my original post and in my response with a grain of salt

that being said, these characters join the dream smp more or less fully formed and a backstory is referenced for a few characters, with varying degrees of importance (for example, fundy and wilbur's shared history, philza and wilbur's shared history, tommy and wilbur's shared history, philza and techno's shared history, etc all set before the dream smp begins are very important to all characters mentioned) and while it wasn't ever expanded on, it was actually mentioned that c!dream did have a sort of backstory in mind at one point by the cc. (tbh, tho, it wasnt even what cc!dream said that inspired some of this speculation as much as the comparison cc!sam made to joe goldberg that one time, the villain protagonist of You) it's never something i'd consider as a particularly analytic approach to the lore, but as far as some fun speculation abt certain idiosyncrasies about the character, i'm totally down

anyway. with all that out of the way, i would. absolutely not ascribe what i was talking about to autism, or any other neurodevelopmental disorder. sure, a preoccupation with rules alone is one thing, as well as natural conflict when an interpretation of rules doesn't quite align with unspoken social norms or a level of neuroticism, but i would hardly say that a preoccupation with punishment has. anything to do with autism. the points about rules and neuroticism were made in the context of a conversation more focused on the consequences for breaking a rule than the presence of rule-following behavior in and of itself. navigating life through rules can be characteristic of autistic people, but it's certainly not a trait singular to only one group of people, and c!dream's deal with rules doesn't exist independently of his deal with control and paranoia. etc.

also, to be honest, there's the idea of c!dream-as-enforcer and then there's c!dream-as-meddler. and while the former definitely happens a few times, it's not really until exile where we really see the idea of him being an enforcer take over? which speaks less to it being about rules and rule following in itself (especially bc no stealing and no griefing had long since been all but gotten rid of as far as rules on the server) -- a lot of the conflicts before manberg/pogtopia had c!dream involved mostly because he got dragged in through his stuff or whatever. even in the cases where he didn't, such as when he meddled by being involved in both sides in the pet war or the initial disc war conflict, i don't really think he or anyone was treating him as the end-all be-all authority there. sure, there we can see his control issues flare up and a degree of the rules/punishment worldview i brought up in the original post, but ehhh ifl c!dream acting specifically as an enforcer gets hella overexaggerated. (the points about the iron farm and the villagers and schlatt were kind of messy in 2020 and still kind of messy now, so i'll talk abt them if need be but man sometimes i really wish tommy just got tubbo to read the rules doc before he joined LOLLLL)

just to clarify, the point i was making wasn't the. presence of punishment. obviously negative and positive reinforcement, operant conditioning, exists across the server and is a way of looking at quite literally everything ever. c!sapnap killing like everyone's pets was pretty damn powerful negative reinforcement which worked to keep people from pissing him the hell off with accessible pets around, lol. (cracks up about nichael again ... sorry) -- and obviously people escalated pretty universally across the dream smp, which was part of the point made in the finale. violence begets violence, we've had this conversation a million times. the thing that i was specifically commenting on, though, isn't the existence of violence or punishment, but very specifically the way c!dream talks about punishment in ways that are pretty unique to his character and the limits that exist on positive/negative reinforcement when he uses it.

like, everyone uses positive and negative reinforcement. not everyone has the same limits they set on how they use it, though. certainly not every character did exile to Teach c!Tommy How To Behave, and it was also decided pretty damn universally as being a fucked up thing to do because of the limits people place on themselves as far as the actions they'll take. which was kind of the original point of the post--what is "acceptable" to people is often a product of what they're taught, and when someone has a worldview that manages to come up with exile as an acceptable way of teaching someone to behave, it raises the question of where that comes from. exile also isn't like, the Worst example of punishment that exists on the server, not when we have torture and murder explicitly used as means of getting people to be too scared to fuck with you and force them to do what you want, etc, but i think that the specific framing of exile as being about the idea of teaching c!tommy through punishment is pretty unique to c!dream. c!quackity certainly wasn't going at an angle of teaching c!dream to behave when he tortured c!dream in the prison, and even c!sam--a character who definitely used systems of well. mostly punishment to try and influence c!dream's behavior--never came from a perspective of actually teaching c!dream through these methods. c!dream was categorically evil, etc; the punishment was just a way to try and control the monster.

i mean, this is all speculative. just a throughline that can be seen about how 1) c!dream talks about exile and 2) how c!dream talks about his own imprisonment and ties in some odd and end character traits, is an extension of his "ends justifies the means" mindset, that one time he described himself as a humanitarian, even how he approached daedalus from the perspective of trying to teach c!sam. and sure, it's far from the only explanation and it's easy to say that he's just telling people what they want to hear, but...the idea of revenge is common on the server, sure. but revenge and then "oh no it's fine bc they Learned Their Lesson" ???? hell no lmao no one thinks like that ??? part of the whole point with the cycle of violence is that trying to make it even ensured that it was never even. it's hard to say that c!dream talking about punishment as a means of teaching people to behave is simply something he's saying to convince other people, when said other people don't. seem to approach problems from that point of view. putting c!dream in the prison until he learned how to behave was seen as overly c!dream sympathetic ideology, for god's sake! c!bad is one of the few other characters that really went with the "until you behave" angle that comes to mind, and both c!Sam and c!Quackity respond to him like he's crazy for acting like good behavior from c!Dream would mean shit. i'm not saying that c!dream wasn't thinking that maybe the server would consider the prison as a means of rehabilitating him and that sentiment towards him would calm down once he was "appropriately punished," but frankly that point of view is still very much betraying the issues with how he sees the world moreso than an accurate reflection of how the server sees things. it's just...a fundamentally inaccurate read of how the server would react to himself being locked up, in my opinion, and even if he wasn't consciously going about the prison as a way of punishing himself because He Had Been Bad, in this scenario he is still manufacturing the situation in order to 1) punish himself until 2) he believes that other people would be satisfied by him "learning his lesson" and being good now and 3) constructing this situation in a server that has scarcely ever operated under the idea of 'rehabilitating' a bad person and kind of very much preferred to just get rid of them entirely.

(just as an aside: we do know the reason why the prison was originally built, and not to say word of god is the end-all be-all argument or anything, but even on December 8th when c!Dream was talking about the original prisoner he mentioned someone 1) powerful and 2) hard to kill, which doesn't really align at all with c!Tommy and definitely lines up with what cc!Dream described as being c!Dream's perspective when it came to why the prison was constructed, which i'll throw here. it's true he didn't expect to be in there for that long, and it's true that "raw potatoes" are an acceptable food source (moreso irl than in minecraft, honestly. in minecraft their stats are some of the worst in the whole game.) as in, survivable, for however long he might've expected to stay there. i think it's also true that most people don't think they'll be fine eating nothing but raw potatoes and that it's far from a normal way to think about a situation like the one that he put himself in)

i know that c!Dream's perspective on himself is an understandably fraught topic and that we're all going to have different points of view. however, no matter how conscious c!Dream might be of his own feelings and no matter how he may try to justify himself, staged finale was still an elaborate plan which involved killing himself multiple times and then putting himself completely at the mercy of a server that hated him. he still burned himself in lava over and over again from day one. he still, no matter how many times he may say it's necessary or worth it or just a means of self protection or just a means of making the server what it should be, considers himself an evil person. he still fought back against c!tommy understanding his humanity with statements such as "'Cause I am [the villain] Tommy, I tortured you" and "I haven't changed." he still tells c!Sam that he's just keeping himself in the prison, except for if someone comes around that's truly evil, not like them, and then tells Sam in scrapped lore that Sam isn't like him and Quackity. and he never takes himself out of the prison. At the end of the snake speech, he's the snake that just bites, that has to be dealt with by being put down.

i think that his perspective on himself isn't just any one thing. i agree it's really not that simple, and obviously c!dream's perspective on himself isn't just oh i hate myself so much for being such a bad person and i think i should remove myself from society because i suck. all that being said, c!dream mental illness isn't immune to grappling with the morality of his own actions, and it's just objectively true that this man treats himself like shit. he also obviously does have quite a Thing with himself-as-evil, which wouldn't solely be about how he's perceived or the last finale stream wouldn't have gone the way it did.

anyway. just some thoughts of my own :)

Cdream be like: You can't put yourself in the Prison anymore bc of the woke >:(/lh

That man is a mess like it's facinating how messy his vision of reality is for others and himself

it is fascinating fr, and does remind me of how we'd talk a little bit about how his perspective may betray what kind of environment this guy might've been in pre-dsmp. the stick-up-his-ass about rules and rule-following, the neuroticism about conflict, and the ease with which he jumps to punishment as being the appropriate response to people who cause problems (a perspective that, quite evidently, to a certain extent, does apply to himself, doesn't it?) all seems quite indicative of someone who lived in an environment where punishment being the natural consequence of stepping outside the lines was generally something that went unquestioned. of course, this is speculative, and it's not that a #tragicbackstory is necessary to explain what the fuck is up with c!Dream, and it's hardly about justifying the choice to abuse a teenager into behaving, lmao. but while exile served his goals and exile was a lot of petty, spiteful cruelty for petty, spiteful reasons, i do think there's something to be said about how clearly c!Dream hadn't expected c!Tommy to respond quite so severely to exile and how he thought he would be "fine" with potatoes in the prison and the language he used both about exile and his own early prison stay about shit like "getting better" through punishment. of course, punitive justice as a norm is kind of ingrained in our own society (just look at the rhetoric around deserving in this fandom, lmao, which speaks more than well enough for itself) and of course that reflects onto the dream smp as well, considering how many of the characters talk quite freely about the idea of punishment/deserving/what have you, but few characters are quite as obviously a stickler for rule-following as c!dream and exile and then prison are uhhh definitely on the more extreme end of things. anyway. just some food for thought

[blacklegsanjiii]

This can be either Nico!Sanji or Trafalgar!Sanji but, he would have SO MUCH dark humor being raised with/for them.

Like, Robin would make a dark joke and Sanji would reply with a even darker one. Or someone pisses him off and he just says the most freaky thing with a smile. The Trafalgar!Sanji with ASL as childhoods friends would be even funnier bc NO ONE would understand how he has dark humor until meeting Law.

It can be both too. I like both. I miss Nico!Sanji I just don't know what to do with him.

Trafalgar!Sanji who is separated from his brother and keeps making jokes to these new people about how life is disappointing and so is he, it's fine, his first family didn't love home either. He smiles through it all but he smokes the same type of cigarettes Law used to get him. When he meets ASL he looks at these jungle boys and goes 'I was meant to be bear food, i guess bear food is fine.' Sanji just looks at his trail of rejection and goes 'tracks' and when he joins the crew Zoro one time says he needs to quit being annoying and Sanji, without thinking, responds 'yeah, I kept asking for a lobotomy and never got one, sorry' which makes everyone gawk at him.

When they meet Law the second time they just hear them...threatening each other? Are they just asking each other to kill them? What the fuck are these conversations? Luffy is getting concerned actually. The rate at Sanji and Law making death/suicide jokes is astounding. Especially after Wano.

Like Sanji slips up on a word and decides o take a dip and Law just shambles him back on board while reading his medical shit, he doesn't even get wet. Law asks Sanji if he wants to visit his hometown, either they get shot or get lead poisoning and it sounds like a win-win, which Sanji says. Law gives Sanji his heart and Sanji looks at him, the heart, and the ground and Law tells him to do it but Robin spoils the fun by sprouting hands to take the heart away.

"You can't throw your brother's heart into the ground, it could be seen as act of aggression." Robin smiles at them as she holds the heart.

"It's an act of aggression to be alive." They both say and it's not clarified if it's to the government or each other or Germa but the answer is all three.

Nico!Sanji who has that CPTSD for growing up on the run and being hunted after escaping Germa. All the book learning leads him to knowing all types of poison and venom. Zoro is goading him while Sanji is cooking so Sanji starts talking about the fish as he cuts it up and all the toxins in it and Zoro is staring at him.

Robin and Sanji talking with Law about the most gruesome ways to die. The conversation is long and never ending seemingly. Sanji making jokes that Robin is stuck with him and the only person who actually wants him with the government and Robin arguing that she does want him around, if for nothing more than to cook so she can ensure they do not starve to death on the way to their dreams. Sanji agrees that starvation is an awful way to die and he would prefer a much quicker death than that. Luffy butting in to yell that no one is leaving again as the two laugh and assure him they aren't leaving.

[tiktaalic]

(regarding your addition to the bi Cas post, since u said it was fine to talk to u directly) I get where you're coming from but like. Show me an instance where Cas has shown interest (sexual or romantic) for any MAN other than Dean.

...yeah. I think we have to take into account how little the show cared about Cas and his desires except for when it affected Dean (him loving Dean and being fiercely protective of the Winchesters as a result gives him purpose as a character for most of his run on the show until Jack shows up)

So like. I don't see Cas as not being interested in women so much as the show never let there be anyone else but Dean for him, except for Meg very early on. Cas being freaked out about having sex with the sex worker might have more to do with the fact that he's never done anything sexual before and being pressured by Dean into doing something he's clearly not comfortable with yet. Hannah was a literal Cas mirror and her purpose on the story was to highlight Cas' commitment to Dean at that point, he's obviously not attracted to her but that doesn't make anyone any less bi??? Also. Meg was a huge part of Cas' life and he did talk about her in flowery, romantic ways, he literally kissed her and was protective of her also, but people choose to ignore it bc nah the angel is gay he's SO gay. Bc bi people are what? Lmao. Anyway. Would love to read your input on this.

I mean if we take into account out of show forces where do u stop taking them into account yknow. Do you take into account mark pedowitz’s getting on Twitter post 9.03 to say that neither dean nor cas being attracted to men is in the cards or is being written But Keep Watching To See! Because if we’re working on out of show forces (writers don’t care about cas enough to give him a love interest) the out of show force that comes to mind is that many many many people wrote cas where the punchline was LOL he acts gay. And im sure many many many of those people didn’t think that it made him gay but that it made him a cringe straight guy but that’s not how it comes off lol. And megstiel is so . Sjdjdjdbf. Bc again it’s not well we thought this would be an interesting direction for these two characters who’d grown close blah blah blah it was. We gotta straighten that angel out STAT. S7 megstiel doesn’t read as cas in love w Meg to me it reads as cas getting his mouth filter removed and being more openly affectionate w people he cares about in general. And then once he’s back to normal he’s like :( guys we can’t let my friend Meg die :( we gotta go rescue her :( and then they do and she dies and it’s never mentioned ever again. Which you can argue is just bad writing etc but all of supernatural is bad writing and everyone’s Point at which they stop trying to spin bad supernatural plots into gold is different. It looks like your argument is “well he could have been uncomfortable with women for reasons that ARENT him being gay which doesn’t prove with 100% certainty that he is gay” but saying. Cas is bi him having sex with women + having nuanced fleshed out reasons for having the chemistry of a dead fish with women on screen just isn’t relevant to dean’s journey is not a convincing argument to me at all.

Also btw when I say you can msg me to clarify I didn’t mean with a long screed over anon over the intricacies of which headcanon is Right I meant like. Dm-ing me to say hey the way you phrased x is kind of ambiguous can you clear that up for me?