#the brainrot. it's too powerful

[cdroloisms]

I've been in a particular c!Dream mood today, so I thought I might as well take a bit of a crack at the timeline with the hindsight of the Dream SMP being over specifically with respect to c!Dream in terms of his actions from the revive book deal to staged finale.

Here's a post by Airrec and Bluebell that goes into a lot, definitely worth reading in terms of timeline shenanigans. With all that said, here's a few dates:

some time before november 6th - revive book deal

nov 16th - it's november 16th what can i even say

nov 18th/19th - c!Dream frames c!Tommy for stuff with c!Puffy

nov 23rd - vikk and lazar join the server

nov 28th - george's house burned

nov 29th - probation begins, date set for exile negotiations, dream says that he wouldn't push for exile if he got mellohi

dec 2nd - spirit speech

dec 3rd - dethronement

dec 4th - tommy exiled, prison commissioned

dec 6th - egg discovered, mexican lmanburg conflict, prison construction begins

dec 15th - dream gives techno map to woodland mansion and warns him of butcher army

dec 16th - tommy leaves exile, technoblade execution

dec 17th - dream and punz conversation about staged finale

january 5th - green festival

january 6th - doomsday

january 20th - staged finale

for this time period, there's a few things we know for sure, now:

c!dream didn't intend to put himself in prison at first but did plan on doing so by the time he told punz about staged finale. this is also when doomsday was for sure in the cards

c!dream created the prison largely due to his anxiety because of the supernatural that was specifically triggered by the revive book deal

c!dream was publicly known as having "no allies but punz" by the time of dethronement

c!dream takes on the stereotypical villain role in full during green festival, immediately after securing both discs

vikk and lazar experiments had to happen around/after doomsday, as the last time they're seen around the server is january 4th

with all of this in mind, there are a few things that we can pretty confidently conclude:

c!Dream was obviously thinking about the prison before he specifically commissioned c!Sam for it, but in the early days of the prison's conception (and judging by similar wording that we see him use on the day that the prison construction started) it is reasonable to believe that in universe, c!Dream did not yet plan to put himself in the prison when the prison construction began, and therefore staged finale was not yet his end goal

c!Dream's investigation of the supernatural could not have yet occurred at the beginning of his plans re: exile, as even if you consider the idea of vikk and lazar experiments happening earlier than their last known sighting on the server, they literally didn't join the server until november 23rd or so--and c!Dream's starting to frame c!Tommy for things happens November 18/19th, which leads into the exile conflict when c!Tommy does do something by burning down George's house

c!Dream's plan with exile seems to center heavily around the discs, as we had originally concluded. This is evident in his telling NLM that he wouldnt push for exile if he was given Mellohi, the focus on the discs during Spirit Speech, and his obvious change in demeanor once he was given the disc in Green Festival. The focus on separating Tommy and Tubbo (as Tubbo had Tommy's disc) during exile + after obviously went into this--however, as staged finale was, as we've established, not yet planned at this time, c!Dream evidently wanted the disc for other purposes

while it's impossible to say when c!dream switches gears for staged finale completely, it's obvious that this was the route that he had chosen when he brought the plan up to c!punz (when he already quite evidently had thought through several parts of the plan to put himself in the prison: he talks about something he'll do that'll make everyone hate him (doomsday), the need to stage a falling out (the finale), and considerations about the prison being "put to use") on December 17th. his reasons for deciding to commit fully to staged finale are hinted at by this conversation as well by his mentioning the failed execution of c!Technoblade and how that has reinforced the idea that they will now be after him the day before (December 16th) and c!Dream specifically establishing a rapport with c!Technoblade on December 15th by giving him a heads up on the Butcher Army seems to indicate his starting to act with the intention of possibly going through with staged finale in the future

more speculative side of this under the cut (warning. it's long and rambly and definitely less coherent than i usually try to be, which isn't great considering i'm already quite wordy and incoherent):

obviously c!dream was gunning for the disc for the entirety of the exile conflict, but we know that that wasn't specifically about staged finale yet because he hadn't yet planned to put himself in prison. at some point in time between december 5th and december 17th, his plans changed from the prison being intended for nebulous powerful enemy to being intended for himself--hence him being particularly neurotic about security and probably explaining shit like, raw potatoes etc. dream specifically says that exile didn't work in his tweet because tommy got away and went to technoblade, but after tommy leaves he also doesn't seem to prioritize continuing along that original plan--he explicitly says that he doesn't care where tommy is as long as he's away from the SMP, and even when he catches tommy a few times by the main server after that he really doesn't make a priority of taking him away + reexiling him. the most obvious example of this is his confrontation with technoblade at the nether portal, as the prioritization of saving the favor instead of using it for tommy is a very explicit show of him prioritizing the plan in its current iteration over continuing to harangue tommy

thinking about all of this i feel like. immediately after november 16th, c!dream had like. something like, three main goals? 1) Holy Shit What The Fuck + dealing with the supernatural side of the server, 2) dealing with the tommy problem (tm) and trying to restabilize the political situation on the server at that time, and 3) ensuring his safety and the safety of his allies

obviously some of c!dream's priorities after the revive book have to do with the supernatural, and obviously a world reset is something he specifically starts looking into after doing more revive book research. but seeing as revive book research isn't really possible until later on in season 1b, i think it's safe to say that until he was sure about that, the plan regarding the supernatural at first is to lock shit down and figure things out. c!punz obviously is an asset in the "figuring things out" department, and the prison itself is the biggest and most obvious example of c!dream taking proactive action to not be caught off guard. c!schlatt obviously scared the shit out of him and everyone in part just because no one expected alluvthat to go down, and the revive book reveal on top of all of c!schlatt's being. Like That. obviously sent c!dream into a spiral--the prison is a very obvious sort of knee jerk reaction to "there are threats beyond your comprehension that defy all known laws of reality" because he reacts by being like Okay Then We Will Make Something That Can Contain Any Threat (tm). the egg + realizing the literal world is broken when he and punz start doing revive book research obviously exacerbates all of this

the second thing that c!dream prioritizes literally immediately is dealing with c!tommy and the discs. which was definitely ooc for him at the time--he literally never was a guy that outright hunted down c!tommy before this time, and the disc conflicts were repeatedly initiated by c!tommy, not c!dream. his trying to frame the hell out of tommy was a new thing

but it's important to consider that on november 16th, c!Tommy very explicitly makes a point of saying Hey, My Goal Now Is Going To Be Getting Those Discs. he talks to tubbo specifically as well about how at the end of the day, no matter what happens, it'll be them against dream for the discs (and dream has neither disc at this point?)--c!Dream has every reason to believe that the Disc Conflict (tm) is going to start up soon and that c!Tommy is going to be back in Starting Shit Over The Discs Mode that had defined a lot of their conflicts pre-Manberg. and, well, you can't even say that he's wrong here--c!Tommy even makes a point of saying later that he went after c!George's house because he wanted to get to c!Dream.

when you consider stuff like c!tommy talking about his unfinished business and all-encompassing paranoia, right, it really is. like. c!dream is fucking scared as shit at the Eldritch Forces Beyond His Comprehension, he sees the world as out to Get Him especially after nov 16th makes him all but enemy no. 1, and he knows. KNOWS, for sure, that c!tommy is going to go back to pursuing him in the near future. and he's got a server that is very unstable after the fall of manberg and pogtopia, and the literal supernatural as a problem to contend with, and Tommy Fucking Innit is about to come after him again. and he's got no real leverage

the peace treaty between lmanburg + dream smp doesn't exist anymore because manberg was violently overthrown, the reasonable wilbur that allowed for peaceful coexistence on the server is just Gone, tommy is coming after him, the entire world doesn't make sense anymore

so all of this seems to suggest you know that the whole thing that c!Dream says about the discs in spirit speech all seems to be a big part of what he's doing at this point--c!Tommy is a threat that goes out of his way to fuck with c!Dream, he's continuing the disc conflict (a conflict that largely consisted of c!Dream being stolen from and blackmailed pre-Manberg) and the way exile conflict goes down (between c!Tommy telling all of NLM hey guys you know the most important part of all of this are my discs and the whole. Spirit situation.) really seems to affirm all of that. so with c!Tommy specifically talking about how he wants to continue the Disc Conflict, it does seem to suggest that to a certain degree, c!Dream's goal at this point in time might've been to more or less "win" the disc war and end that conflict already. by making himself someone impossible to blackmail (unlike how he was in the past) he establishes that c!Tommy's gambits to get the discs away from him that he's used in the past won't work anymore, which means that when c!Dream gets the discs it'll basically be game over.

he knew that the discs would be a problem again bc tommy literally announced it to everyone, and with dream this high strung he probably thought that this time he was going to make it happen according to his time frame instead of just waiting for tommy to attack him out of nowhere or some shit. as far as c!dream is concerned, c!tommy is one of the biggest threats against him on the server at that point because c!tommy Will Not Let This Conflict Go. and honestly, c!dream has a lot of reason to think of c!Tommy as a character with a hell of a lot of sway, considering uh. people were listening to this kid more or less over wilbur during the war on nov 16th and in pogtopia and all.

like for c!dream, c!tommy is a threat that isn't going to stop until dream makes him stop, and he's a guy that can pretty effectively make a lot of people on the server agree with him. he has very little bargaining power with nlm at the minute, but the situation (as far as he's concerned) is definitely more controllable with nlm than it was for like, manberg. tubbo is someone that can be reasoned with and someone that couldn't afford a war, and he did seem to be prioritizing peace over starting stupid battles--so for dream, the priority would've been getting the guy who DID make his whole deal into "starting stupid battles" to Stop Fucking Doing That, and just. in general, securing the discs was his best route for doing so. by getting the discs, he has solid leverage over c!tommy that he knows that c!tommy will listen to, and by establishing that blackmail wont work on him the way it has in the past, as soon as he gets the discs he does more or less "win"

in continuation of this, when it comes to c!Dream's goals about NLM in particular at this time, i am. looking at what he says about tubbo being a reasonable leader and going hmmmm. because what's pretty clear, right, is that no matter how you cut it, doomsday has to be connected to staged finale and putting dream in the prison. there is no world, no matter how buddybuddy he is with NLM and/or tommy, that destroying NLM through Doomsday wouldn't make everyone want his head on a stake. if c!Dream didn't decide on staged finale until later, it does seem like a logical progression of that statement to say he didn't decide on Doomsday until later as well. Which, once again, fits his actions at this point in time--c!dream specifically points to nlm's successfully hunting down and executing technoblade and subsequent focus on hunting him down as being the reason why they have to go for staged finale full throttle, and the butcher army escalating is the reason why he starts moving towards an allyship with c!Techno, the local guy who hates countries and would be the most obvious ally in destroying one.

(edit: this indicates that c!dream, who doesn't originally seem to be gunning for Doomsday specifically if we consider that he doesn't decide on staged finale until a little later, didn't really tip over onto the side of "this place has to go fr" until more obvious signs of nlm being completely averse to a "resolution" of sorts, the most obvious of that being the butcher army and plans to Go And Kill People including c!dream. and this further aligns with some of his villain speech on green festival, where he specifically talks about tubbo being a bad leader because he let quackity push him around too much, as we know that quackity was the one behind a lot of butcher army)

id say c!dream's plans immediately after november 16th seemed to be more along the lines of reestablishing a status quo with nlm than anything else--establishing himself again as the guy that shouldn't be fucked with (the walls, threatening to close the borders) and working for the discs. in a way he almost seems to be reverse engineering the original independence deal with lmanburg--technical independence for the discs, you guys agree to not mess with me and my shit and i get leverage over the guy that won't stop picking a fight with me--like exile was definitely about trying to get tommy to Stop Fucking Doing That + trying to get the discs first and foremost, because if tommy sees him as a "friend" and dream has the goddamn discs (and is no longer blackmailable) then the chances of the server "going back to normal" probably felt higher, all while dream is i think more or less trying for some level of peaceful coexistence with nlm--trying to establish himself as someone rational and willing to work with them and not against them as long as everyone was staying in their goddamn lanes

but obviously between the situation with c!tommy quickly showing itself as not really being sustainable + nlm's increasing aggression, considering how he obviously knew abt butcher army and later on green festival, he had to abandon the idea that the server could return to a status quo and instead go for the staged finale, with the breaking point obviously being c!Tommy leaving exile and the butcher army making its first definitive move on december 16th

c!dream framing c!tommy -> exile conflict -> saying that he'll not push for exile if he gets the disc all definitely seems to be For The Discs, and the specific engineering of a divide between tommy and tubbo (through exile, obviously) definitely seems to be for the purpose of getting the disc, either through convincing c!tommy to give it to him directly or through pressuring c!tubbo to give it to him as he does in green festival. his increasing lack of giving a shit about where c!tommy is and what he's doing post-dec 16th suggests that he switches gears in his plan, and the main thing that he emphasizes at that point is still the separation between tommy and tubbo (though obviously to a less neurotic degree than he does during exile) (and obviously even in exile the separation he particularly keeps up is once again between c!clingy and not all of the other like, ten people that visit tommy) . the emphasis on the discs isn't yet about staged finale but obviously does get incorporated into it when he comes up with staged finale because mans literally already made a whole plan centering around getting the discs of course he'd still proceed with it even when it becomes clear that peaceful coexistence, with or without them, has become completely impossible

and like all of this is happening at the same time that c!dream is actively freaking the fuck out about the revive book, and later experimentation really doesn't help with any of that at all when he discovers that whole Corruption thing. by the time we get to staged finale, the best way of ensuring some kind of stability seems to be having punz keep an eye out, getting rid of lmanburg for good, locking himself up to be like 👍 okay i cant cause problems anymore, and giving tommyinnit those god damned discs holy fuck

and obviously with no one really willing to peacefully coexist until they thought of him as Defeated (a point obviously established over the course of season 1b) that meant that the best way to ensure that he, his allies, and the revive book were all secured would be to engineer his own defeat and put himself in the safest possible position

buuuuuut yeah i think as far as my thoughts on c!dream and plans in season 1b, there's the plan to get the disc + reestablish a status quo of sorts that he abandons for good by the time of december 17th (though as early as december 15th we can see him starting to switch away from it + he probably came up with the plan for staged finale and doomsday and putting himself in the prison in more specifics earlier than that) and after that we see him full throttle go for staged finale until jan 20

and it's important right that during all of this c!dream is acting notably different from how he acts at literally any other point in the server. we know he has a literal like, psychotic break + paranoid spiral because of the revelations of the revive book and all of that ends up with him making the giant fucking what the fuck that is the prison. he's notably paranoid during a LOT of this two-month period. this is not a man in his right mind and a lot of the plans i think around this time definitely reflect that--staged finale is Batshit, and his plan to get the discs is Batshit as well. he's still strategizing and obviously he still pulls off staged finale successfully, but like. in terms of the actual like decisions he's making. it's like. holy hell dude why are you doing things like THAT.

and the idea of backup plans upon backup plans is also something that we see a lot from c!dream--he is adaptable and will change what he does based on the circumstances around him. we saw it in the revolution and multiple back up plans in terms of this time period makes sense as well--the original plan with exile was to get c!Tommy to see him as his "friend" to achieve his goal (with his goal, as established, seeming to be to get the discs), but when that obviously wasn't really working he instead focuses on pressuring c!Tubbo through establishing himself as less volatile than c!Tommy to end up obtaining Mellohi during the Green Festival. his shifting away from originally trying to establish an agreement with NLM more similar to how the server had been pre-Manberg when doing so was evidently impossible bc of the butcher army focusing wholeheartedly on hunting him down leads to the plan that consists of Doomsday/Staged Finale/Putting himself in the prison, which secures himself + his ally + the revive book and gets rid of the perceived major threat that was evidently not going to agree to coexist peacefully, NLM.

anyway hopefully someone could make some sense out of . all of that. a lot of speculation in terms of his original plan pre-staged finale but i think that it does seem to fit w/ some earlier patterns that have been established--mostly i'm just solid on the points of 1) he was gunning for the disc from the beginning for his goals, whatever his goal at the time was and 2) i don't think doomsday + a total annihilation of lmanburg was really something he was specifically gunning towards until he established staged finale as the plan, because he obviously knew that destroying lmanburg would destroy any possibility of peace between him and the rest of the server and would therefore have to ensure his safety through something like putting himself in the prison--after all, c!dream at the beginning of this whole arc already knows that he's alone and wasn't necessarily trusting in a whole collection of allies to watch his back (like, as if anyone watched his back like, from the revolution onwards. lmao. guy literally has more allies by this point in punz and ranboo than he did before i stg)

[blazeshardcat]

i drew miku as a destiny 2 hunter bc of a fun twitter post :]] she has been to the lighthouse hundreds of times and has every raid title 💙

[tiredsmashbros]

mini tsb lore drop aw yeahhh

that nobody asked for but bc it's been building in my brain for the past month, i need to let it out and tell the world of this silly man UYFGHJKCDS though this is only a small portion of it LOL

first one just a showcase of tsb's relationship with the main four {will do other characters soon trust trust} + mini info on tsb as a character

i also finally watched meta runners and good lord i wished i had watched it sooner.

anyways whose ready for lip bite pt 3? :))) {haven't started, just been planning and writing the script atm fughbjk}

[markantonys]

[cringefail-clown]

if those two had a penis oujia moment in reverse au itd probably go something like this

[reallilystuff]

big kibby = big sleebgy cuddle. loaf cat vs employee who literally cannot sleep on the job who will win (hint: it's loaf cat 🍞)

[fernsensei]

au where gabriel's forced to cooperate with v1 and v2 for whatever reason

[lyraofthestarsss]

Pink haired tango pink haired tango pink haired tango pink haired tango pink haired tango-

Someone please add some lithium and potassium to that creature please I am ON MY KNEES 🙏🛐

[drenched-in-sunlight]

My one Elden Ring headcanon is that the reason that Miquella picked Radahn, and not Godwyn, as the kindest demigod is because Godwyn was allergic to horses, and Miquella didn't know that and just thought he didn't like horses. Radahn met the requirements of not hating albinaurics(assumed from friendly rivalry with Gaius), liking horses, and probably something else basic like not torturing people or something like that.

i know this is kinda meant to be funny but i do take it seriously that Miquella's wish in his childhood is not really sth mature and well-thought out at all 😭 and Radahn instead of being a responsible older brother and putting a stop to that, just run with it (and as i said, not without outside influence, but still) is really why it blows up in everyone's face later.

and tbh? imo Miquella's naive idolization kinda dooms Radahn to continue be a mere copycat of others as well. instead of growing out of it and finding his own thing and becoming his own unique self, he's stuck in a perpetual boyhood of wanting to be like his idols, mirroring Miquella's own curse.

that being said, i also think Miquella isn't completely false in not picking Godwyn as the kindest demigod out there. living under one roof and growing up with him as older brother, Miquella must know more than anyone Godwyn is the true scion of the old Order. Radahn could admire that same old Order, sure, but he is not of it the way Godwyn the Golden is (which is one of many inspiration i have to draw this)

funny thing is i think Miquella can sniff out that beneath all that sweet and nice image Godwyn has, he's a warrior that will stop at nothing to protect the old Order, yet fails to see the exact same thing in his own Father. and it makes sense! why would he see that when Father is always so supportive of his ideas? why would he see anything wrong when Father taught him Tactical Air Strike 101 when he simply wanted to heal his sister? why would he see anything wrong when Father encourage him to hang out more with Radahn, his other son, not Godfrey's son?

see? it's really a picture somewhere there isn't it...

but it's probably the horse thing as well afksjjdkf

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

I saw @qourmet's young madam lan art, and knew what I had to do.

[hoodiedidnotdie]

I over bit, i over bit, i over bit— I BIT MORE THAN I CAN CHEW 😭😭

I've been stuck chipping away at the SAME GODDAMN FANART for S I X weeks and 3 days counting bc my dumbass took on TWO themes ive never even toUCHed and only ever made googly heart eyes at on my Pinterest boards; I've been through the equivalent of all mid-life & life crisises of a cat's nine lives someone get me out of here

[changeofpace]

*insert period drama hand moment here*

Some closeups and a WIP process under the cut! INSTAGRAM | TIKTOK

Rendering phase is basically "draw the rest of the fucking owl" but damn does it make a difference.

[erabu-san]

What ships with Tighnari would you consider?

i won't tell anything because I am scared of being cooked

[gearchronocle]

collection of chronos from today that is rapidly growing. + bonus shiokuro (?)

I don't know guys. I think I can't stop drawing him.

[vaiya]

can't stop thinking about adar and sauron as a twisted thingol and melian parallel...that elf and maia dynamic. i mean it’s all right there...adar said sauron promised him children; sauron, not morgoth. such an interesting writing choice. and from the lore, it seems strongly suggested that melian literally gave up some of her maia ability to change forms in order to give birth to luthien. true creation requires sacrifice; melian did it to have a daughter with thingol, whereas adar himself and his children got sacrificed for sauron's warped promises of new life and ambitions...

[retrobr]

Me: wow my night at the museum hyperfix came back to me!!

Also me: *still proceeds to make lazytown posts exclusively*