It's All In The Eyes

i feel like ,,, like we talk a lot about how fear-motivated c!dream's actions are, yeah, because you know c!dream is consistently paranoid as fuck and So Much of why he's like that is because he's too scared to think straight and doing batshit insane shit as a result, but at the same time i think that his ... awareness? of this? can be vastly overestimated. c!dream doesn't like being afraid. c!dream is historically Really Fucking Bad at admitting or acknowledging when he's actually terrified of a situation, because that means he's lost control of it. if he's Worried about a situation he's still ahead of it, if he's Cautious or making preparations or getting things in line to make sure that those closest to him don't get in the line of fire he's still retained a degree of control, but all of that isn't quite the same as admitting he's doing anything because he's scared out of his mind, because scared out of his mind isn't exactly a state that c!dream likes to be in.

and this is why c!dream is so adamant on transactional relationships with anyone that he perceives as having a modicum of real power, because being useful to powerful people makes him less of a target because they need something from him. this is why he is so desperate to convince himself that he's on top when it comes to sam, when it comes to quackity, when it comes to wilbur, and he's saying all of this hidden inside his own hell after hiding there for months having barely confronted c!quackity before getting the hell out of dodge. this is why he scrambles to make sure to show that he's not indebted to technoblade and why he puts himself in foolish's service within minutes of meeting him and why a fucking feeling of power against an unarmed man he could've locked in a box with him with a press of a button was enough to get him to shut up and obey no matter how damn unsubstantiated that feeling ended up being because he couldn't bear to lose it, even just within his own head

and so you know, when c!dream calls c!tommy the one thing out of his control as a motivation for exile during the same time he had to fight off multiple coups explicitly with the desire to do away with him so that theyd be able to "rule the server," like. look. c!dream is just so fucking far from a reliable narrator. i'm sure he could give me an itemized list of how c!tommy has ruined his life, i'm sure he can say all these things about how c!tommy causes chaos and causes problems and doesn't listen to anyone, i'm sure he can go on and on and on about how it'd be a different story if c!tommy just listened to him for once. but let's be real, here--as much as he's convinced himself that he's trying to get control of the one thing out of his control, what's closer to reality is that c!tommy was the one thing he did feel like he could control (hello, the discs) when literally everything else wasn't

Art by Maciej Sidorowicz

We as a society (fandom) do not talk enough about wilbur's first introduction to dream because it's actually hilarious, and we do not talk about the Minecraft dream cult enough

For context, this is from, like, April of 2020 (a solid few months before the whole pizza hut date fiasco). You can watch the video here, and the time stamp for this particular realm is around 19:25

If you don't know, essentially, wilbur did a video where he stole from his subscriber's Minecraft realms, and one of said realms ended up being a """cult""" (in heavy quotations bc it wasn't actually... it's Minecraft) for dream. wilbur goes in, he's on edge, and he has no idea what's going on—he just wants to steal and move on to the next realm.

Anyway, watch the video if you want. What's really funny is that wilbur had no idea who dream was at the time, so it was just some eerie Minecraft realm to him.

A few months later, tommy & tubbo join the dsmp, and wilbur via tommy asks dream on a pizza hut date, and you know the rest. I wonder if wilbur ever connected the dots between dream and the realm.

If you think about it, the idea of wilbur interacting with a creepy cult then meeting the figure of said cult, only to have his first reaction be to ask said person out on a date, is kinda funny.

Some bonus screenshots from the video:

the last one

objects in art: swords/daggers

I always remember Dream’s confrontation with Tommy after the prison break being so interesting because he comes with a much more eerie vibe, if that makes sense. But then I realized he was mimicking a lot of what Quackity had said to him.

yeahhhh honestly like. i made a comparison post when that happned too maybe i can find it lmao. but it really is just about everything he said it was crazy

/dsmp /rp

Rewatching VODs again and it's sad to see how at the start of his imprisonment, Dream was trying so hard to downplay the prison's conditions and stay optimistic about them.

During Tommy's first visit, he says to Tommy, "It's not too bad, right? I can write and I can read and they bring me food." He talks about the new game he can play with his clock.

When Bad visits, Dream admits that Sam sometimes gives him less food when he burns his clock, but that he's not starving because he "[has] potatoes." He says that Sam is "treating [him] amazing" and that he's fine when Bad asks him if he's okay.

Tommy visits him again a month after the first visit, and by then Dream's attitude has changed entirely. Tommy says he's been suffering from success, and Dream replies, "Me too. Except for without the success part, just suffering." Then when Quackity visits him the first time and asks how he's been, Dream only says, "I've been."

Later after Techno gets locked up with Dream, he no longer attempts to downplay anything. Techno jokingly complains about Dream not being positive, and Dream can only think of saying, "Since you've been in here, I haven't been tortured. So I'll give you that much, that's been better." He tells Techno how there's absolutely nothing to do in the cell and how he's been eating nothing but "raw, disgusting potatoes" for the past months.  

Dream did his best to convince himself and others that everything would be fine, that he could deal with the prison's conditions. He tells Sam that he thought the prisoner (himself) "would be fine with potatoes, would be fine with not seeing the courtyard." That he didn't realize how bad it would be. But the longer his imprisonment lasted, the harder it became to deal with it. Dream tries one last time to ask Sam for better food and to see the courtyard and then is forced to give up, trapped behind glass and with no hope of ever getting out.

c!Dream always told himself he was objective, but he wasn't. He couldn't be. Perfect objectivity doesn't exist; there will always be biases and preconceived ideas about others, and these ideas threw Dream off more than I think he'd like to admit. He was wrong about Sam following their rules (he was wrong about Sam caring). But he was also wrong about Tommy, when he was so sure that Tommy only ever wanted to cause him harm.

Some s2 thoughts. Fun treasure hunt :D

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