#post prison dream

[rainystressed247]

Avert your eyes.

[pepemoon]

“So what was it like?”

“Void. It was... dark. It was all dark.”

[llitchilitchi]

me and @oduvany binged Redwall together a little while ago so I decided to doodle a DSMP/Redwall crossover feat. mice c!DTeam, fieldmouse c!Tommy and dormouse C!Punz

[pronounrespector]

@sixteenth-day-event prompt: slipping sanity

[creaturedrawings]

all this on a little phone with a cracked screen

[dr3amofagame]

I think Dream in prison was always going to go poorly because it would require Sam to be as infallible as Pandora's Vault itself, and he's not. He has way too much personal stake in what Dream is doing, and in trying to force himself to be an emotionless machine that abides only the protocol he became a hypocritical wreck that only indulged his vindictive emotions and spiraled out of control trying to keep the situation steady. That's not even addressing how keeping someone in the prison would never be ethical because it's a psychological torture box designed by the psychological torture guy

I mean, I can see the argument that it would've been hard to like. Not make Pandora's Vault unethical, considering the size of the server and the fact that he was the only prisoner etc leading to a situation where yeah, he would've been left alone for long stretches of time no matter what, solitary was kinda inevitable, etc. Like I can see an argument for that. But on principle I feel like the influence that protocol had on the prison arc and on c!Sam specifically tends to be heavily overstated...because a significant portion of the prison arc, honestly, is making the point that the protocol was entirely based on what c!Sam determined.

Like, sure, the prison was always going to suck. c!Dream was never going to come out from it entirely unscathed. But there's a huge fucking difference between what he was prepared for (isolation + shitty food for an unspecified amount of time) and what situation he ended up in (his life at the mercy of two people that showed absolutely no damn qualms about literally torturing him). I think it's very fair to say that yeah, c!Sam was far from an unbiased party, and he was very much emotionally affected to his detriment during the prison arc. But...ultimately? I feel like we really don't see c!Sam struggling to maintain protocol over the course of months only to slowly break down. I don't think we see him "snap" and "lose control." necessarily, in the way that people often act is the case. (The strongest argument, in my opinion, in favor of c!Sam being greatly affected by some stressor that then has him turn to extreme cruelty has little to nothing to do with the prison itself and more to do with his brief stint with the Egg, but with so little attention drawn to that as a cause in the story of the prison itself, I feel like this mostly remains in the realm of speculation.)

Like, if we look at the facts, c!Sam's behavior day one was already weirding people out. Day one and c!Dream is already throwing himself in lava and c!Sam does not seem to give a damn. Of course, both of their behaviors had a myriad of reasons behind them, but it's important to note that there's like literally never been a single moment in the prison arc where c!Sam hasn't been, like, off.

We never see any of c!Ranboo's actual prison visits, but we know these happened very very early in c!Dream's imprisonment and that they were terminated quite early as well, once c!Sam discovered c!Ranboo writing in ender in the prison contracts. However, considering how the inside of the prison was the same between his dream and the real world, it is reasonable to say that c!Sam's behavior in the dream could've also been taken from reality, and "he knows what happens [when he disobeys]" is a hell of a statement to make.

c!Bad's prison visit is when things seem to be seriously off. Even if you consider c!Dream's behavior in this stream as entirely an act, c!Sam is noticeably tense after the prison visit and very demanding about what c!Dream said once c!Bad leaves the cell. c!Dream commenting on food being withheld is consistent with what we know happened in the prison arc later on. c!Sam says that c!Dream has been tossing himself in lava for attention. Several comments are made about "behaving" and "behavior," c!Sam is looking into the installation of an automatic feeder, and visitation is facing restrictions.

Pretty crucially, we see that c!Sam is very comfortable with making changes to the prison. Major changes to the prison, even. Installing an automatic feeder isn't exactly an easy process? And it obviously wasn't outlined in any kind of preexisting protocol. But c!Sam is perfectly willing to change this, just as he's perfectly willing to make all kinds of rules on visitation and limiting visitation because of c!Dream's behavior, etc, (which can reasonably be inferred as not being preexisting rules because that would mean that c!Dream, who allegedly helped with the creation of all of these rules, would be intentionally sabotaging his chances of visitation...when he very evidently wanted people to visit? like sorry but that doesn't make any sense) because he's the Warden and therefore the sole authority of Pandora's Vault and allowed to do literally anything he damn well pleases.

Further, sure, c!Dream might be acting in all the prison visits. Sure, he might be acting In General during this time, etc. But despite disobedience (disobedience with the explicit expressed purpose of trying to get c!Sam to spend more time with him...?) I would hardly characterize almost anything he does during these early days as being anything for c!Sam to be reasonably vindictive over. Even if you consider hopping into the lava (something c!Sam could've solved literally as easily as just raising the netherite barrier), tossing the clock into the lava (also preventable if c!Dream can't access the fucking lava????), and a couple alleged escape attempts (the only one that we know of being him trying to use the lectern to create a nether portal, something hardly easy to do and an attempt that c!Sam very evidently put down quite easily)--like. I can understand him being angry because of what c!Dream had done in the past, and obviously being angry because of c!Dream telling him about exile, but c!Dream early on in the prison arc hardly behaves badly. (Not that bad behavior would justify abuse, but you know.)

By the time of c!Sapnap's prison visit, c!Dream isn't the only one acting weird. c!Sam is strange in ways that are never fully explained and uh heavily imply shady shit??? He's not abiding by protocol when he suddenly interrupts the process of helping a visitor out of the prison by forcing c!Sapnap to respawn in order to check on c!Dream for Some Reason. He's once again very persistent about the question of whether or not c!Dream "said anything" and then reacts strangely when c!Sapnap was able to get him to say a word. He's replaced like a quarter of the obsidian in the cell with crying obsidian, which again, is an instance of c!Sam making BIG changes to the prison without protocol or anything dictating his actions. At most you can maybe make the argument that he's being moved by the spirit of the protocol, that being security should be prioritized over everything (hence potatoes instead of steak, hence no courtyard, hence--in this case--crying obsidian to make the escape attempt ineffective) but it's clearly nothing that they explicitly wrote down.

Also, around this time (I forget the exact date) he explicitly bans c!Ranboo from visiting. Also something we can reasonably assume isn't something that was included in any protocol that c!Dream wrote considering his uh, vested interests in continuing to have an informant.

c!Tommy's visit and that ensuing debacle, of course, is one of the first times we see c!Sam clearly, explicitly acting AGAINST the protocol that was established. The protocol outlines that c!Tommy should have stayed in there for at most a week, and c!Sam explicitly denies him from leaving when the time comes??? Even if you argue that he's doing it "for security", he's doing it in a manner that is going directly against the letter of the law of the protocol that he created with c!Dream. This is a clear demonstration that c!Sam sees himself, and acts as if he is above the law of Pandora's Vault, because, of course, he is the law. He is the Sole Authority. He is the Warden, and he answers to no one but himself. c!Tommy's death obviously ensues in quite the emotional fallout for him, and wanting revenge on c!Dream for this matter motivates his actions later on in the arc...but it's important to consider that mistreatment beyond the scope of what c!Dream expected long preceded this point. c!Sam, immediately after c!Tommy dies, describes himself as thinking that c!Dream's will was too broken to do anything like that. Describes himself as having punished c!Dream in every manner that he could think of. He doesn't go in to feed c!Dream for WEEKS after c!Tommy's death, directly leading to c!Tommy himself being isolated and starved post-revival. He bans visitation. All of these matters hardly seem like matters that c!Dream would have included in the prison protocol that he created when he was planning to be put in that prison, where he specifically had a vested interest in keeping himself (and the book) safe + having, like, FOOD + being able to have visitors in a safe manner + NOT being abused?

And even if we dismiss all of this as c!Sam acting in the best interests of security because c!Dream told him that the security of the prison is more important than anything else (which, even though we know that c!Dream did have this perspective to some degree, still doesn't eliminate c!Sam's responsibility as the one carrying out the existing protocol and making all of these Big Decisions and Big Changes etc to the prison) -- the decision to let c!Quackity into the prison stomps on all of that. That decision completely goes against not only the letter of the damn law that they established together, but the spirit of what the prison was ever meant to be in the first place. He compromises the security of the prisoner and the prison on the DAILY by letting in someone in full gear! With items! And plays a game with chance with c!Dream's life (and the revive book) every damn day. He hardly had enough of a system in place to keep c!Quackity from taking c!Dream's life, and he was certainly unable to stop c!Quackity from landing what would've been a killing blow on c!Techno before he got tp-ed out, like. He completely fucks over EVERYTHING that Pandora's Vault was meant to be, and that was...entirely his decision. Sure, c!Quackity manipulated him, true, but he was not beholden by any protocol or any element of his duty when he made this choice.

This isn't to say that c!Sam wasn't very much emotionally affected and making clouded judgements--he was! Especially if you factor in the stress of other events such as the Egg, etc. But I hesitate to ascribe any element of c!Sam's...c!Samness in the prison arc as him "cracking under the pressure," so to speak. The implications of mistreatment just start too early and are too calculated for me to say that he was simply reacting badly to stressors. I think he was absolutely trying his best to keep the situation "steady," in a sense, but keeping it steady never meant simply being an emotionless guardian to an impenetrable prison who couldn't cope as everything began piling up--keeping things steady, as early as that first month, meant breaking c!Dream into something docile. That was intentional. That was something he was making an active effort to do. Nor do I think that the claim that c!Sam was simply abiding by protocol holds any water, as I outline above: c!Sam has always acted above the protocol established in the prison to the point where even from the first time we see him acting as Warden during that first damn questionaire a specific point is made that he is the ultimate authority on the grounds of the Vault and his word is law. He acted within protocol when convenient to him and trampled over it when convenient to him, and I feel that people can overemphasize the role that protocol played in the decisions he made the same way that he himself did when he was shifting the blame of his own abusive actions onto c!Dream when he had the power, and always had the power, to amend the protocol established in any way he damn well pleased.

Of course, this isn't to say that the protocol was good. It, uh, wasn't--and plenty of people have criticized c!Dream for them even though the prison, as it ended up being used for his plans, was never anything more than a place for him to put himself because of the danger that the rest of the server presented, a base for him to hide in after the prison arc because of its security measures, and a "just-in-case" measure for them to hold their enemies if need be (which he never actually does, even when given golden opportunities to do so: inconsolable differences and the finale come to mind. Even if we're talking about his saw trap in the finale, the plan was to kill one and let the other go free (????????) while also giving them the exact items that could've easily been the keys to their escapes. after c!Tommy and c!Tubbo kill him. but I digress). But c!Sam goes so damn far beyond the protocol established by the "psychological torture guy" that he literally wasn't even beholden to when he was the Warden of the Vault on account of said guy being his prisoner. I don't really see any arguments about c!Sam's behavior having to do with him being too fallible of a man for the job he was given--he does exactly what he wants to do, how he wants to do it, using the job that gives him the power to do so. It's just that "what he wants to do" is not exactly what c!Dream had in mind when he and c!Sam were coming up with the plans for the prison and the protocol that they worked together to create because what he wants to do is, apparently, own a guy and keep him in his hell box. You know?

(i hope this didn't read too aggressively!)

[thereisnoaccount]

“Here comes the tickle monster~”

“Nohoho…”

”He’s gonna get your tummy, Dreamie~”

”Noho, Ihit’ll tihickle!”

“I’m gonna tickle your belly button~”

“Dohon’t!”

“Aww, why not~?”

Ihi’m tohoo tihicklihish thehere!”

“Good.”

[anxiouslyextroverted]

So a few of my irls were talking about how c!dream never targetted c!tommy and or had a dependency issue and I just wanna correct that.

c!Dream at the start of the series (since now the start is considered canon) constantly went after the discs even when c!Tommy told him he wanted to have a truce and that they were allies even wanting to play them together with c!Dream. c!Dream agreed to those terms but then attacked him 5 minutes later anyway.

Not forgetting the first disc fight where c!Dream targetted c!Tommy the whole time and only gave c!Sapnap and c!Ponk and c!Alyssa a slap on the wrist.

c!Dream spent a good portion of a Tommy stream donating him msgs to play the discs.

A couple of early streams of c!Dream trying to get c!Tubbo o someone else against c!Tommy.

Not really targetting but he said "Tommy is under my protection" which is that dependency thing idk it counts.

c!Dream built a tunnel to c!Tommys base.

c!Dream during L'manberg arc seemed more against c!Tommy than c!Wilbur and the others more often than not.

c!Dream focused on getting c!Tommys friends against him, such as most notably c!Tubbo and c!Wilbur in pogtopia arc.

c!Dream betrays c!Tommy in pogtopia arc after initially helping c!Tommy out. He tells c!Tommy this is due to 'business' he also tells him, 'that he put something better over friendship' (aka the revival book he got from c!Schlatt) (either way, he still betrayed him.)

He tells c!Tommy at the end of l'manberg blowing up that 'everythings just getting started', and makes it out as if c!Tommy was in the wong.

A few weeks before exile. c!Dream and c!Puffy went around destroying everything including c!Skeppys home and then framing it on c!Tommy with signs. c!Dream in particular is excited for people to log on and for them to get mad at c!Tommy.

The above was confirmed canon when during Exile trial, c!Dream says that c!Tommy had blown up c!Skeppys house (or he infers it), showing the damage that he himself did.

In Exile trial, I'm not gonna lie c!Tommy totallyyy fucked up here by burning a little TINY tiny small tiny bit of c!Georges home and then trying to fix it. And then he lied about it. (/sarc) But, c!Dream was provoking him in the whisper chat with ":)" and "have fun on probation :)"

During exile, he focuses on putting all blame for his problems on c!Tommy. Not just saying that to c!Tommys face but on other people's streams, he was there talking about how much of a nuisance c!Tommy is and what not.

In exile, he proceeds to get c!Tommy dependent on him so c!Tommy will help with his goals later on. But the way he goes about this is to a severe extreme like how he snaps at him and hits him with an axe or arrow, he takes great enjoyment in bullying c!Tommy and getting others like c!Lazarbeam to bully him too, he makes sure c!Tommy is completely lonely even sending c!Ghostbur away who was memory loss so how could he break c!Dreams plans exactly?, he gasights c!Tommy into thinking that c!Dream didn't kill Mexican Dream, he blows up c!Tommys base despite never telling c!Tommy the rule about how he can't have chests underground.

He goes onto track c!Tommy down. And again, its more the way he goes about it.

Once c!Tommy is back in L'manberg, c!Dream blows up the community house and frames it on c!Tommy. Getting everyone against him and he tells c!Tubbo that he is affiliated to c!Tommy based on the disc that he says is 'Tommys most prized possession' which is him getting c!Tubbo to go against c!Tommy once more.

After Lmanberg gets blown up again. c!Dream tells c!Tommy "I'm not done with you. Our stories not over... Our stories not over" c!Tommy says "Our stories not over but it will be... It will be soon" and c!Dream replies "I don't think our story will ever be over, Tommy. I think that you're just too fun. I don't think It'll be over."

In disc finale, he proceeds to act like that c!Tommy is his main target, calling him the key to the server and going after him more than c!Tubbo. And puts the idea in c!Clingyduos heads that he needs all the possesions to control the server. (now even though c!Dream staged this whole thing and wasn't actually saying his motivations, c!Tommy never knows that he lied about that not at this point at least. It further riles c!Tommy up and has him believing that c!Dream really is obsessed with hurting him and since c!Dream never explains why properly, it comes off to c!Tommy that he is obsessed for no reason.) (Also possible for it to be half staged making the motivations semi-true)

Then, c!Dream causes c!Tommy to get stuck in the cell with him by controlling c!Ranboo to do that (which this is confirmed that he really did do this, confirmed in the final lore stream and in dream xds video)

The point of c!Dream allegedly lying to make c!Tommy think c!Dream was after him all the time is further solidified when in the prison arc. c!Dream refers to c!Tommy as a light, and key and keeps going on about studying death with him. I know a lot of this may very well be real and a result from him being mentally ill from isolation, but theres so many lies sprinkled in here like telling c!Tommy that he never tested out the revival book before when he had (btw correct me if Im wrong here, I could of got the dates mixed up)

c!Sam also claims that c!Dream kept going on about c!Tommy in the prison, c!Sam also says that c!Dream was practically manically laughing after he killed c!Tommy. (Obsession, putting on an act of obsession, mentally ill from the prison sure maybe all 3)

After c!Dream escapes prison, he immediately goes after c!Tommy. (Which sure is to scare c!Tommy into no longer going after him or whatever it could be an act) But he's still putting the idea in c!Tommys head that he's obsessed with hurting him, and don't say that he did this unintentionally because we already have the 'you're too fun line' and several other moments to prove otherwise. He also then puts signs around c!Tommys home saying 'watch your back' and ":) I'm watching" and he makes a trap for c!Tommy to fall into playing back a messed up disc. Don't say that this was apart of c!Tommys delusion because c!Eryn saw it too and a few others did from what I remember-unless thats retconned idunno.

In c!Wilburs finale, c!Dream can't stand the idea of the discs being burned. (The discs are affiliated with c!Tommy as c!Dream has said before, and has said that the discs are c!Tommys most prized possesion) He still cares about them even now. He also watches c!Tommy for majority of the time.

In Dreams space, he claims that his character was not solely torturing c!Tommy for the sake of it, but that he still really enjoyed hurting c!Tommy. Its to vague to tell if Dream is denouncing the 'c!Dream is obsessed with c!Tommy' theory or not. I believe he is saying that it is half true- as in that his character is, but that he has reasons to do so, and or that this wasn't his only plan.

During the final lore finale, c!Dream claims that he wasn't targeting c!Tommy and that he had left him alone however that contradicts with everything I wrote above, so 1. He thinks he left c!Tommy alone, 2. He was referring to the present where he did leave him alone and purposely/or accidentally ignoring the past, or 3. he knows he didn't and is just trying to rile c!Tommy up. Either way he goes onto admit that he did cause c!Ranboo to get c!Tommy stuck in the prison. He also confirms later on that he genuinely believes c!Tommy is the cause of the ruining of his server. "Why are you ruining everything all the time" "You deserved it (torture)" "I am (a villain), I tortured you."

And not to mention. Out of everyone on the server that gets c!Dream to give up and somewhat open up, its c!Tommy... because ofc it is. No ones surprised.

I think that's everything. as always I'm happy to debate with people and stuff preferably in dms but idm. If anything is wrong, correct it. If anything is missed, let me know. ty

[simplepotatofarmer]

seeing a post and immediately thinking about c!rivals duo. there is actually something wrong with me.

[crimeboys]

SOBS I FORGOT QUACKITY WAS THE ONE WHO GAVE TOMMY THE OBSIDIAN AND YELLOW CONCRETE TO BUILD THE WALLS AROUND HIS HOUSE AFTER DREAM BROKE OUT OF PRISON

[rozugold]

Forgot about this

[rainystressed247]

Five of Swords

C!Dream my beloved evil meow meow

[art--harridan]

[Image description: A digital comic about TommyInnit. It begins "everything aches so enormously when I lay down, allow my bones to rest,". This is followed by two panels depicting Tommy. The first shows him laying on the shore of exile, waves creeping up his body. He has a hand on his chest, a blank expression, and shadows over his eyes. The other panel shows him during his death, back against the wall and hands held above his head in a protective position. He's bleeding profusely. Below these panels, there's Tommy's open palm, blood sticking to his fingers. The last line is "and altogether I feel a sort of loneliness in my soul.". At the bottom of the page, there's a silhouette of Tommy with a burning heart. Smoke billows from the fire, surrounding three islands. The first is in exile, partially scorched, path bloodied, and surrounded by water. Next, there's a chunk of obsidian and blackstone with a chain affixed to the top. Lava flows from it. Finally, there's a desolate piece of land, beige in colour. Footsteps start on it, and then lead directly into the pool of blood at it's end.]

a comic from a couple of months ago that I never posted, with words courtesy of @cyberstatik (on instagram) :)

[llitchilitchi]

oooookay, I'm not super versed in dsmp lore and I don't even really know the whole events in chronological order. but!!!! I love your monarchy restoration au. your art is so gorgeous. and the emotions there ... man

can you please give me some guideline of what should I know from the og lore to understand your au? or maybe some summary of your au?

just talk about it I really want to interact!!! :D

hi, editing Li here, the summary ended up being over 2k words. then I realised you asked for a summary to the AU, which is part of the masterpost. I went over the lore in brief, I promise it's just brief despite the length and doesn't tackle All there is to the SMP

okay, lemme try and speedrun the lore of the dream smp - given that the story of monarchy restoration centers around the Dream Team, or at least the parts that I shared, I'll be focusing on them. this will get long and I'm really sorry jghdfjd

the core ideas you should know is that: Dream, George and Sapnap were close friends, but they drifted apart as time went on due to conflicts on the server. Dream crowned George as King, but then due to George doing badly as a king and this position putting him in danger made him dethrone George, which made the rift between them grow. they were once inseparable, and now George and Sapnap thought of Dream as obsessed maniac who no longer cared for them as people. after Dream got put in prison and tortured, he broke out, and this is where the lore of Monarchy Restoration diverges from the original story of the SMP and becomes an AU, as instead of reuniting with Punz as intended, Dream is too weak and injured to do much and runs into George, who takes him in.

now for the Actual Lore Recap:

at the very beginning of it all, there were two friends - Dream and George. they found a little piece of the world for themselves, and everything was fine. then a third came, Sapnap, and then more people joined, and they lived in the same house in the middle of the lake and things were okay.

months passed, and fights turned into splits in the community and a community turned to factions, and the conflicts of factions were intertwined with interpersonal fights. (the interpersonal conflicts? the disc saga, aptly named over 2 music discs that were used as a bartering chip and have a pretty good significance in the overall story. put a pin into that.)

the two factions at play were the (retroactively named) Greater SMP and L'Manburg which declared independence from the Greater SMP on basis of xenophobia. they lost the war against the Greater SMP, the final fight being a duel between Dream and the original owner of the discs (Tommy). a deal was struck after, where Tommy offered his discs in exchange for independence (or independance, if you want to stick to the original text)

an important aspect of this war is to note that Dream offered one of the people on L'Manburg's side a deal - they betray the faction and get to become the King of the Greater SMP. this establishes monarchy in the story. they accepted, betrayed their allies, got the role of a King with the promise of 'staying neutral and uninvolved in further conflicts'.

I'll breeze through the Manberg era for the most part (despite being the most interesting one, imo). L'Manburg ran a presidental election, the original leader (who wanted to take power by scamming the whole thing) lost, and the new leader of L'Manburg (renamed to Manberg, because they're not taking any L's anymore) exiled the OG president and his right hand man Tommy, things went bad. the two exiled men started a new faction (Pogtopia) that they hoped to use to take back their "rightful place" and were given support from Dream because the new Manberg was a little too expansive. (he ended up siding with Manberg last minute for Yet Unknown Reasons, we will get to them, again, put a pin in it)

the King of the SMP very vocally sided wih Pogtopia, which was a betrayal to the core principles of their position as King. the King was dethroned, and Dream put his best friend George on the throne, with him and Sapnap serving as his knights.

upon the defeat of Manberg by Pogtopia (since Manberg's authoritarian regime ended up driving people out and most joined Pogtopia, Dream and his people fought for Manberg only as mercenaries), one of the core allies of Pogtopia - an anarchist, the blood god himself, Technoblade - turned on his former allies because they told him it was about defeating a tyrant, but all they wanted was to kill one tyrant and put their own people in his place. Techno then fled into exile.

next chapter begins after the rebuild of L'Manberg, yet the L' is back, under a new rule given that the OG president uhhh Blew Up The Country with several megatons of TNT and then persuaded his father into killing him.

King George is vibing. he is unaware of all faction wars, builds himself a holiday house far away from everything, enjoys time with new friends, all while Dream grows more and more distant due to trying to keep what is left of his old life together.

the reason the home is important to mention is that, once peace has settled over the world, Tommy decided that the discs that he traded for independence are His, in fact, and he needs to steal them - or barter for them in any shitty way possible. he still had tons of grudges against Dream, and in one of these half-grudge fueled fuckeries, he and one other character set fire to George's holiday home.

Dream found it in ruin and still burning when he came see his friend with a bouquet of flowers. there are several interpretations to this, and since Dream himself never really specified, there's a speculation that he thought that this event maybe killed his best friend, and given that George is the King of the Greater SMP, an attack by the right hand man of the current L'Manberg president on the physical property of the King of a rival faction is de-facto a war declaration.

so we are presented with an ultimatum, where Tommy is either exiled or a war starts. (exile won. it was voted on by the fans we wanted that bitch Out. this is not quite as important but the dynamics shaping up between Tommy and Dream had a massive impact on the plot.)

while Tommy is in exile, George becomes rather friendly with a new budding faction on the server. his involvement with them means that his neutrality vow was broken, and given how frequently he got harassed by L'Manberg, Dream decided to dethrone George, and put the previous King back in power. this dethronement caused a huge rift to form between George and Dream (and Sapnap, who sided with George) and the three of them fell apart with the parting words from George to Dream being "Just say you hate me."

I'm sure this won't have any lasting effects on the man who was tearing himself apart to make the world the same as it was when it was just the two of them

now in brief: the L'Manberg cabinet decided to take revenge on Techno after he turned on them after they tricked him into helping them against Manberg. the punishment? execution. how did they achieve that? they hunted him down, threatened to kill his animals, told him he will get a court process but just set him up in a guillotine. Dream intervened and saved him, thus earning a favour from Techno because both of them are traumatized warriors with trust issues that rather treat kindness as currency. Tommy runs away from the place he was restricted to in his exile, moves in with the anarchist-in-retirement-gone-pacifist Techno, the two of them end up teaming up for the time being as Techno protects him from Dream. L'Manberg in the meantime decides to host a festival to show that they are peaceful now, and nothing bad will happen again :) it takes place a week after they unlawfully tried to execute Techno, and the festival is meant to serve as public execution of Dream. However, the festival is cut short when Dream storms in because the original house where he and his friends lived - known as the Community House - got blown up. he blames L'Manberg and Tommy, and after a short conflict that happens then he declares that L'Manberg has a day to evacuate and him and Techno agree to blow up the country. a second time. and completely now.

so L'Manberg is gone now and the members of the faction scatter. within days, Tommy receives an invitation from Dream to come get his discs (I didn't know how to include it, but after the whole 'setting George's house on fire' Tommy tried to barter for the discs and for Dream to ignore him setting the house on fire, all while trying to leverage things that Dream held dear. attachment to objects and people is a running theme in here. Dream then proceeded to give his "I don't give a fuck about Spirit, I don't give a fuck about anything actually" speech, basically telling everyone they have nothing to leverage against him and he will destroy them if he needs to and them holding something hostage won't bother him.) This sets the stage for the Disc Finale. Tommy and his best friend Tubbo make their way to a specific location, far away, all alone, where they are to fight against Dream to win the discs back. they lose spectacularly and Dream reveals his "grand plan" where he has a vault to gather "all the precious items people own to control them" (and I wrote "grand plan" because it was a farce. it was a show, it was staged, all just to get Tommy to leave him the fuck alone and stop meddling with his greater plan. what is the greater plan? fuck if I knew.)

the whole thing is then intercepted when a large group of people, one of which is Dream's right-hand-man Punz who was running errands for him before, and more importantly, Sapnap. he's beaten and just as he is about to be killed, he reveals his secret: the reason he sided with manberg, all those months ago, is because in exchange for his services he got a book of necromancy. he can now bring people back to life. because of this, he is locked up in an inescapable prison in case anyone needs to use the book.

Sapnap and George are very much under the impression that Dream doesn't care for them. Sapnap comes visit Dream once, promises to return, never does. George doesn't even bother coming in, instead sleeping his days away and it catches the eye of a deity who wears the same face as his beloved Dream, and he loses himself to the illusion of being reunited with his best friend in a world where everything is perfect.

another important thing to note is that Sapnap stumbles upon a Book Of Death (yes, its death note, sapnap is a weeb, it even functions the exact same.) the thing about the book of death and the book of necromancy is that they are both books that were placed into the world by the deity wearing Dream's face (known as DreamXD, or XD for short, yes it's a little silly) and XD reveals to another character (a somewhat-deity, Foolish) that the books and their owners are intertwined in a way, and if one were to die the other dies with him.

so we have three friends, one locked up in prison and seen as nothing more but an object to use (Dream), the other a man who watched his friends, his parents and his lovers fall apart (Sapnap) and a man who cannot face the world falling apart and the loss of his friends so he gives into an illusion created by god in his dreams. and all of them have a strange tie to a stranger god.

this very fractured relationship the three have, along with their ties to the god, were the main driving force behind making this AU.

the last thing you should probably know is that Dream was locked in prison for 10 months, starved, tortured, with little to no social contact until Techno was locked in with him, but with the use of some fun magic Techno managed to escape and then "return the favour" from when Dream saved him from execution, and broke him out of prison.

there's a lot of little nuanced things I probably forgot about but this is the core of it all I hope it helps

[the-final-sif]

c!Dream has a very confusing day. So he makes it other people's problem. This is not a good long term plan.

Dream stared at the offending object, unsure of his own emotions about it. There was so many of them that they had all blended together into a soup.

He' been staring at it for nearly 15 minutes now. Trying to make sense of what it could possible mean.

Figuratively and literally.

Sam had brought the cake in 15 minutes prior, mumbled a bunch of stuff that Dream had no hope of making out (the man hadn't even bothered to remove his mask to let Dream have a chance at lip reading), and then left.

Dream had been so lost he hadn't managed to collect himself in time to say anything. So here he was, left staring at the cake on the nightstand.

The core question he was wrestling with at the moment felt like it should be so simple.

Was Sam a fucking idiot or was this cake intended as a threat?

....

15 minutes in and Dream had made no real progress on that question.

The main issue at hand was that the cake itself was chocolate, very obviously from the smell and color.

Now, Dream had a mostly human digestive tract, but he was still a hybrid.

Everyone knew that no animal hybrids should have chocolate, save for piglins.

Hell, Dream was pretty sure chocolate wasn't great for creeper hybrids. Sam must've known that chocolate would be poisonous for him.

On it's face, that felt like an obvious threat. Or maybe Sam was just hoping that he was fuckin' stupid and would just eat it and... end up sick? It was just frosting, so it wasn't going to be enough to kill him. It'd fucking suck and make him throw up, but that was about it.

That presented an issue though; Dream was already pretty sick. Sam already knew Dream couldn't walk on his own (although he was getting closer to that with each passing day). What more would he get out of poisoning him?

Not to mention Sam of all people knew Dream was careful with his food. He wasn't starving right now, he wasn't falling for this.

That brought back the second issue, the writing on top of the cake.

The cake had been topped with a blood red icing, but... Dream was struggling to tell if it was messy on purpose, or if Sam had just put the icing on without letting the cake cool properly and it was melted.

Giving that the frosting seemed to be in a similar state, Dream was leaning towards the later.

That added to the very unsteady, messy handwriting, meant that Dream could only pick out a few words.

Prison was one of them (or imprisonment, still, the same implication). He was pretty sure that the starting word was his own name. The last one was Sam's name for sure.

He thought one of the words might be hybrid, but it could also be 'highly' or 'hardly' or maybe hydras. There was little context to help understand.

That would lead to this being some sort of attempt at a threat. Maybe threatening to put him back in the prison?

Dream would like to accept that everything pointed to that but...

Okay. Listen.

Sam can write a fucking letter if he wanted to be threatening. He could just say something out loud or figure out some sign.

Who the fuck makes a cake to deliver a threatening message?

It just didn't add up.

Which lead Dream to wonder if maybe Sam was just a fucking moron and didn't think about the chocolate thing. Maybe this cake was some sort of sincere offering?

But then again, maybe there was the poison aspect? Or maybe Sam wanted plausible deniability? He could just claim to.... Ponk? Maybe? That it wasn't meant as a threat?

After fifteen (now nearly 20) minutes of turning these argument over in his head, Dream was fed up.

Still, he didn't have a great solution, until his communicator silently buzzed against his wrist.

Oh. right. Check-in time.

Punz was the one who messaged him this time.

'You good? Sam tried anything? Ranboo says sorry for nearly getting caught btw. Also he said you were a rabbit hybrid? Unclear where that's coming from. Are you lying to him or is he lying to me?'

Shoot.

Dream forgot that that would get back to Punz.

It wasn't really a big deal. It shouldn't be a big deal.

All the sudden Dream found himself frantically reviewing everything he knew about Punz, interrogating his memory for any indication that somehow, this would be what split Punz off. Not being strong enough, not being what Punz needed him to be. Dream forcible shut that part of his brain off.

Sure, Punz might not be happy about not knowing, but he'd understand. It wasn't even an intentional secret. At some point... Dream just forgot he wasn't born human.

Snapping back to the present, Dream moved to type out a reply before Punz got worried.

'I'm fine. One weird situation but it's probably okay. Neither Ranboo nor I are lying.'

There was a long, long pause.

'okay. i have. questions. is the weird situation urgent?'

For a moment, Dream considered if he could successfully distract from having this conversation using the cake.

Ehh, probably better to answer the basics then get into the cake to avoid deep questioning.

'Not really.'

Punz only took a moment this time.

'how long have you been a rabbit hybrid?'

That one was easy

'22 years, I think. I don't remember the date right now.'

'okay. so this isn't, new? are you like. 1/9th rabbit on your grandmother's side or something?'

In reality, Dream actually wasn't sure what the breakdown was. He went with the easier answer.

'Nope. Full rabbit. Ears and legs.'

There was another long pause. At this point, Dream was fucking with Punz a little bit, but in his defense, it was fun.

'am I just the most blind motherfucker in existence? i know you keep your hood up and like to wear socks but i feel like ive treated enough injuries on you that i woud've noticed that.'

Alright. He should probably be nice now.

'Nah. Mask keeps it all hidden. Wasn't ever really a secret, but I got so used to it that I never mention it. Once I'm healed up I can put the mask back on and be back to normal.'

The pause wasn't quite as long there.

'i dont wanna push, but is there... like, a reason? also im not a hybrid expert, but isnt that not great long term?'

Ugh. Dream didn't want to get into this. Time for the cake distraction.

'It's nothing bad. Lets me eat chocolate and stuff safely. Can't without it. Speaking of which, hypothetically if Sam brought me a chocolate cake with blood red writing on it that's mostly garbled, would you think that'd be a threat or just him being dumb?'

He held his breath, and...

'he fucking what??'

Hook, line, and sinker.

'I can send a photo? I can't figure it out. Wanted a second opinion.'

Who knows, maybe Punz could help make out Sam's terrible handwriting?

It was worth a shot.

[cgogs]

here I'm feeling bold heres some truth. Exile wasnt about controlling tommy or putting him down or conditioning him it was about separating c!clingy so dream could get the discs for the attachment vault. That's it. It is as simple as that

And this doesnt diminish what happened in fact i think it makes it a little bit worse that c!dream was willing to step on his back for something so simple i think it's a testament to how ruthless c!dream really is. But it wasnt about "conditioning him", and anything pointing to that is a mask he wore for tommy specifically

it's not excuses its reasons