#tell me if i'm off but there's so much vaguely implying the harmony and the family have the capability to use

[wri0thesley]

I am glad that u agree that Sunday has a corruption kink

angel-coded characters have corruption kinks 99% of the time, i don't make the rules. and a well-placed, handsome, well-spoken and polite young leader like sunday? taking into account how suspicious the whole 'family' are? oh, he's absolutely definitely mired in it.

[cube-cumb3r]

The Means Reflect On The Ends Actually, (c!Dream & the conditioning of Exile)

What was the point of exile, storywise? What does it say about c!Dream? Sure, it’s showcasing how far he’s willing to go to achieve his own ends, but I don't think all discussion about what exile tells us about c!Dream should start and end there.

Dream is not cruel for cruelty’s sake. Dream’s end goal is not to hurt as many people as possible. He views his cruelty are “necessary evils”, and he doesn’t dwell much on whether the things he does are “good” or “bad”. He’s fully aware he’s hurting people and he ultimately thinks that hurting people, to the extent that he does, is worth it. That being said, while Dream has an ends justify the means mindset, but the truth is, the means absolutely reflect on the ends. His true intentions aren’t a mystery, it’s very clear in the text that his ultimate goal is unity, but why does he want unity? And what would said unity entail?

(Before this essay starts I have to do an ad break to promo @daggryet's very helpful [transcriptions from the exile streams], which I'll be using a lot of. Thanks for the very helpful resource.)

TW: Relatively extensive discussion abt the abuse in exile arc & the effects of said abuse.

Firstly, I don't think you should deny his relationship to control. A through-line of his character is achieving harmony through control, and more specifically, obedience. There’s a reason why he tends to single out Tommy the most. It’s not actually because Tommy is remarkably more troublesome than anyone else on the server, but rather, because his disruptive nature is at Dream’s expense. Tommy is the only character who’s consistently over and over again refused to respect Dream’s authority, and though he isn’t particularly threatening on his own, it’s the sentiment itself that’s dangerous. Similarly, this is why he has consistently targeted L’manburg, moreso than any other faction on the server such as, say, Badlands, El Rapids. It’s almost as if they represented the sentiment, “Hey, why are we listening to you anyway? Why can’t we be listening to anyone else?”, which is why he crushed them, over, and over again. What if everyone figures out they can just stop listening to him? What then?

We talk a lot about the effects exile had on Tommy, and rightfully so, but we don’t talk enough about what Dream was actually doing. What was the purpose of exile? Was it just a way to get closer to the discs? Just a means to an end? What was the end?

TOMMY: What, what could you possibly want more from me? You’ve tortured me.

DREAM: I’m just keeping an eye on you, Tommy.

TOMMY: What does that mean?!

DREAM: I’m just, I’m making sure that you’re not up to no good.

TOMMY: But, how, you’ve exiled me, you fucking stupid, manipulative fucking green bastard!

DREAM: I know! And you know why I did that?

TOMMY: Yes? 

DREAM: No, you know why?

TOMMY: Why?

DREAM: Because you don’t listen to me ever, you’re the only person who doesn’t ever listen to me. If I tell you to do something, you’re like “no, fuck you!”, and you go and like do like the exact opposite.

[full transcription]

As much as I have to preface this with that this is speculative and we may not have any irrefutable confirmation, I think it's very likely that it's literally just what Dream is saying he's doing. Tommy is the one person who refuses to listen to him, and he wants him to listen. Exile was not only conditioning Tommy to believe that nobody other than Dream cares about him, not only conditioning Tommy to be entirely reliant on him, but also conditioning Tommy to listen to him, without question, without disobeying. And that is such a significant and reoccurring motif for it to arguably just be the intended reading of exile.

Abuse is a vague term that encompasses a lot of abusive practices. There are a good handful that apply to exile, I'm sure if you ask someone qualified they'll be able to provide you a nice handy list, but ultimately, all of them target Tommy's own sense of agency and autonomy, and it all revolves around power and control. Dream creates rituals purely to disarm him, threatens him and punishes him when he doesn't listen, and rewards him when he complies (or rather, conditions Tommy into thinking that not being punished is a reward).

TOMMY: [begins throwing his armor and axe down for DREAM to explode.]

DREAM: No, no, it’s fine.

TOMMY: Re-really?

DREAM: Yeah. Today’s the party, right?

---

TOMMY: So when can I- no, I wanna go back. I… hey, thanks for letting me keep my armour today.

DREAM: You’re welcome.

TOMMY: Kinda nice of you.

[full transcription]

Dream isn’t only hurting Tommy for the sake of hurting him. People tend to frame it as if Dream Just Hates Tommy, but that’s not true. He finds Tommy fun, in a twisted way. There are a lot of moments in exile where they’re both on very good terms and Dream is friendly with Tommy. But, it's also all part of horror of exile, making Tommy reliant on him and his company, getting him to doubt his sense of reality, making him question whether his friends back in L’manburg ever cared about him at all, and possibly questioning whether he’s imagining the abuse as well, Dream is so kind to him after all, why would he ever want to hurt him?

Over the course of exile Tommy agency and sense of self start to deteriorate as well as his mental health, he starts worrying about what Dream would think, starts asking Dream for permission, going out of his way to avoid upsetting him, his only friend, his only reliable caring companion.

TOMMY: Yeah, so I’m thinking we- and then I can- but the thing is; so recently my buddy, Dream, has been doing this thing where he, uhm… it makes sense, though, because I’m not in his land anymore, but he takes my shit from me, so I need to make sure- […]

---

RANBOO: Yeah, so what do you say- does Dream like take your armor? Is that what you said?

TOMMY: I don’t know, he just- hey man, I just follow the boss.

[full transcription]

TOMMY: “Visit Techno” no, no, what would Dream think? […]

---

TOMMY: I’ve had a little idea, by the way, and I wanna know what you think, and also if I’m allowed

DREAM: Okay?

[full transcription]

TOMMY: Yeah, I know he’s actually - he’s sort of my- he’s borderline my owner, Big Q, so I’m not really sure.

MEXICAN DREAM: He’s your dad?

TOMMY: No, no-

MEXICAN DREAM: Ey! Ey, Papa Thomas!

TOMMY: No, no, we’re- as in labor.

MEXICAN DREAM: You gotta teach your child some manners.

[full transcription]

Dream’s outburst in exile after finding Tommy’s chests, is arguably one of Dream's most emotionally honest (and reckless) moments in exile considering it was what made Tommy realize he needed to save himself and escape. And it's punishing Tommy for going behind his back and planning to revolt.

TOMMY: I’m really, no, I’m really sorry, though. Why don’t we just pretend this never- yeah, let’s, shall we just pretend this-?

DREAM: Sorry doesn’t cut it, Tommy. Listen, I’ll leave you here to think about what you did-

TOMMY: What about the nether? What about the nether, my friends, what-?

DREAM: No! You can’t go to the nether, no one can come here, you are alone, okay? As soon as I think that you have changed, have become somebody who isn’t going to hide and lie and try and revolt; then people can visit you again. You can go to the nether again. But for now - no, no one can. You- I was being very lenient. Yesterday I let you go into the Dream SMP on a temporary pass, and then what do I find out the next day?

TOMMY: I’m so sorry.

DREAM: I have been nothing but gracious to you. Tommy. Think about what you did.

---

Exile wasn’t only a means to getting closer to the discs or getting Tommy out of the way. Exile was a means to conditioning Tommy into listening and respecting Dream as his superior. Dreams solution to Tommy being disruptive and troublesome was to [physically beat], emotionally abuse, and psychologically condition him into obedience. Only seeing exile as a testament to how far how willing he was go to meet his ends is reductive, and not acknowledging what Dream considers to be a “problem” and what he considers to be “solutions” is to not engage with his worldview. You have to take exile into account and what it actually says about his ideals of harmony and unity.

---

TOMMY: I can’t go back… I can’t go back, and see my friends and see Tubbo. This is a shithole! He wasn’t- he wasn’t here ‘cause he was my friend. He was here to- what did he say on the first day? Got a little bug that he can’t flig off? I’m the only person who never does exactly what he says?

TOMMY: I’m the only person who never does what he says. Me! He said that to me, didn’t he?

TOMMY: He was here to watch me.

[full transcription]

Dream’s relationship to Tommy can (and honestly should) be compared to his relationship to the entire server at large. Not to imply that He Literally Wants To Abuse The Server, but rather the he views the server revolting as a problem, and the solution? Well. The [prison]. The hall of attachments. It’s no surprise that the disc war, a conflict that was initially only primarily between Dream and Tommy*, is suddenly about everyone. Bargaining and blackmailing using attachments, something Dream initially only subjected Tommy to, to keep him under his control, is now a means to control everyone.

Is Dream's goal of unity for the sake of the overall happiness and quality of life of the people living within said unity? I don’t doubt that this at some point in time was true. But, the fact that he’s willing to ruin lives and long-term psychologically destroy people over it, means that his goal isn’t unity for the sake of the people living in his ideal version of the server, but at their expense. Him believing he needs to control people to maintain unity and harmony means that he believes himself to know what's best for people moreso than the people themselves, and therefore he's the only one responsible enough to make decisions for them. And it also means that his motives has warped and twisted overtime, it’s likely that he’s become so fixated on the goal of unity itself that he’s lost track of why he wanted it in the first place.

Anyway. Stop buying into Dream's own self-justification of "ends justify the means" and put his deeply flawed and broken worldview and view of people under a little bit of goddam scrutiny.