#that didn’t really happen with Ranboos death

[aspparticune]

I realized something about Generation Loss that made me love it even more. Someone else has undoubtedly already thought of something like this but I’ve seen no other posts about it so I’m just gonna imagine that I’m clever okay here we go✨

During the finale when Ranboo was tied up to his crucifix, Hetch told him that when the mask had been off during the events leading up to that point, Ranboo had been fully in control of himself. Ranboo protested, saying it had been Showfall making the fatal decisions, that he was being controlled by them and had no choice. It was true that Ranboo, even while in control when the mask was off, didn’t realize exactly what was happening. It’s not like those moments of lucidity were ever long enough for them to figure out how to change anything. But they were still moments of lucidity. Tiny scraps of free will that Ranboo was given. And the choices made in those moments didn’t save anyone, but who knows? Maybe they could have, if Ranboo had played his cards differently. Ranboo argued that he didn’t have a choice, that there was nothing else that could have been done; he was horrified by the blood on his hands but denied that he could have changed the outcomes.

The day after the finale, CC!Ranboo told us on stream that there had indeed been an ending planned for if the majority had voted live, and they told us what it was, debunking the theories that the ending was always going to be death no matter what. They confirmed that the votes hadn’t been rigged, that the outcome was 100% true to viewer votes. After all, their goal, the very experiment that gave this Generation its name, was to see if we as a collective would actually vote to kill somebody. And just as they’d been hoping, we did. If you really want to see whether the majority would vote for death, you wouldn’t rig the vote because you’d never get your answer. That final vote was a test of our human psychology; we were the subjects of the social experiment. And yet there were still posts being made weeks later about how the ending was predetermined, about how our votes never really mattered, about how no matter what we did that box would have closed on his head.

At the core of this whole experiment, CC!Ranboo did to us exactly what Showfall did to GL!Ranboo. They gave us just enough free will that we were able to argue that we never had any at all.

[cdroloisms]

Sixteenth Day Event Prompt:

Anticipation & Survival

woo :D was able to participate this time with a little fic, hopefully this means i'll have the time to try and write more consistently again :') hope you guys enjoy 2.8k words of c!Dream being Normal and Fine and c!Sam being absolutely miserable.

---

The prison is working out well. 

Dream spins the clock. The background is mostly a sunny blue sky, with the slightest creep of dark blue rotating in along the right. The sun is a bright dandelion yellow. It’s afternoon. Maybe two, three o’clock. He’s been tracking the days by sunset, when the clock is split in equal halves of blue and navy. Ranboo visits too, to corroborate the time, but it’s a good habit to keep track while he can. It’s been seven days. A whole week. 

Besides Ranboo, there’s been one visit. Tommy. He’s seen three people, since being put in here. Tommy, Ranboo, and Sam. He’s eaten twenty potatoes. Counting is mundane, but so is everything now. There isn’t much to do in prison. Just sweat, and stare at lava, and stare at obsidian when that makes his eyes hurt, and wait for Sam to come in and check that he’s not been doing anything stupid, and wait for visitors, and eat and drink and sleep. It’s not a big room. He wouldn’t say it’s a particularly small one, either. The ceiling’s a little low, and there’s not anywhere to run, of course, but there’s plenty of room to pace and sit and lie down straight and he can sit down on the chest fine without hitting his head on stone. It’s not like he’ll need much space to carry out any plans in the foreseeable future. The cell is absent of certain comforts—a cot, for one, for obvious reasons—but once you get used to that, and the food, and the heat, it’s really not that bad. It’s not like he’s any stranger to roughing it. 

From a certain point of view, it’s almost relaxing. Sam is predictable. Almost more of a clock than the clock he’s given him, which is half the reason Dream throws it in the lava at all; Sam is reliable. His reactions are reliable. He gets food delivered twice a day, once in the morning, once at night. The nightly visit is accompanied by questioning, and occasionally Sam comes into the cell around midday to interrogate him too. Dream cooperates. Why shouldn’t he? He’s already spilled his whole plan to everyone on the mountain, gloated to Tommy, who has surely run his mouth to everyone within earshot by now. There’s no point to him being cagey at this point; no, better to rave and rant about Tommy and exile and his plan in the mountain, better to let Sam get all the information he wants and watch his eyebrows knit in disgust. Sam raises his voice, Dream answers his questions, Sam storms off. He’s even started watching the clock, just out of curiosity, and Sam leaves his cell pretty much the same time every day. Clockwork. 

There was one day when Sam didn’t come at all and Dream had—a moment, admittedly, embarrassing enough, just a string of disconnected thoughts about what would happen if the Warden of the prison suddenly dropped dead and died—but Sam had been right there the next day, looking more miserable than Dream has ever seen him. He made a quip about skipping work that made Sam snap at him; Dream takes it as a good sign, that the man guarding him seems to be more pained about the fact that he left him alone for a day than Dream was bothered about the disappearance of the single person responsible for every aspect of his life for the foreseeable future. That’s Sam, though. Dependable. Dedicated. Never one to not take his job seriously. If Dream put Sapnap in charge of the prison, he’d probably starve to death before the first month was up, but Sam looks like he’d rather fall on his own sword than leave Dream alone for a full twenty-four hours again; Dream has it in him to feel bad that he’s putting the guy to work for the sake of his own vacation. Just, a little bit. 

Back to his point. The prison is relaxing. Really. It’s boring, sure, but obviously he expected that; he’s never had so little to do before. He wakes up at night (he’s been attempting to sleep at nighttime, just because the light apparently is supposed to mess with you, but his sleep schedule has been shot for months so it’s not like it really matters to him all that much) with his brain racing, grasping for a list of tasks to do, only to come up empty. It’s a bit of a marvel. He thinks it’s funny. Yeah, brain, he’s in his—vacation arc. They’re doing nothing. Absolutely nothing. Just like they planned. Nobody’s getting into this place to kill him, not without smacking face-first into, like, a billion security protocols, not without dealing with Sam’s workaholic Warden schtick on their ass. He’s even getting food hand-delivered to him. Full service! Or something. 

He spins the clock again. Tommy gave him books to write. Sam flipped through them, asked questions, Dream answered. He’s not writing answers for them. He might throw them in the lava, if Sam doesn’t just confiscate the damn things; Dream knows he wants Tommy nowhere near him. Fair enough. Maybe he can write some long-ass manifesto about how much he wanted Tommy’s discs for Sam to chew on, if he gets bored enough. He laughs a little at the thought as he thinks it—okay, yeah, nah. He’s not at that point yet. 

He lies down. Horizontal. The ground is hot, but everything’s hot, and he’s getting used to it at this point; better hot than cold, honestly. He’d rather sleep here than out in the snow. The ceiling is a plane of unbroken black stone. Dream raises his hand, splays out his fingers. His nails are starting to get long. Nothing to file them down with in here…teeth it is. Whatever. He lets his hand fall back to the ground, sighing. His eyes glance over at the clock. 

Barely any time has passed. Still hours before Sam comes back. Dream bites back a low groan. Fine, fine, the boredom is getting to him. A little bit. He’s not surprised—it’s not like he’s ever done well with sitting still—but it’s still, annoying. He waves his arms and legs like he’s making a snow angel in the obsidian. Or doing jumping jacks. He should do jumping jacks, maybe. He’s got a basic workout routine to do daily—or several times a day, when there’s nothing else to do (there’s always nothing else to do, but whatever), but he’s not in the mood for it right now. 

He clicks his tongue, just to hear himself. He talks to himself, sometimes, but he has to be careful what he says. Not that it’s not a good thing to keep up, though, for the madman routine. It’s much better to talk to himself when he knows he has an audience, muttering Tommy, Tommy, Tommy in those minutes before Sam enters his cell. Fun, even. Sometimes he writes out evil speeches to give in his notebooks, burning the pages in the lava before Sam arrives. He shouldn’t get reckless with it or anything, pushing the things too far past the point of absurdity, but at this point he could probably get away with saying—just about anything. He could blather on about how he wanted to keep Tommy in a cage and play his dumb little discs to him all day until he goes insane, and Sam would write all of that down in his—book with his face twisted up under his helm while Dream tries not to break down laughing and give away the whole ruse. Not that laughing doesn’t work out for him either, to be fair. He’s gotten pretty good at the villain laugh. 

Dream stands up. He looks at the clock mounted in the item frame; the sliver of night sky on the right side has grown just slightly wider, enough to expose the slightest edge of one white-dotted star. Still hours before sunset. He pulls it off the wall, watching the background tick ever slowly forward. The gold gleams, polished to a mirror finish. 

Sam’s craftsmanship is unmistakable, even with something as small as this. He almost feels bad for what he’s about to do. 

He holds the clock up to the lava, keeping it in his hand for as long as he can handle it before the heat against his palm makes him shove it entirely under the flow, watching it disappear through strings of smoke. The crackling noise fades back into the normal hisses and pops after a few seconds; the smoke will linger for longer. Dream stands there, the lava’s heat at his face. It hurts his eyes to look at.

…whatever. 

He backs away. Then claps, brushing his palms against each other. Clock’s been burned. Another item of his daily itinerary handled—not that he does this daily. Has to keep Sam on his toes, right? The crazy prisoner isn’t supposed to be the predictable one, not like the ever-punctual Warden. This is—important, he’s decided, for his image. Well, not important, maybe, but it’s calculated. Beneficial. Nobody sane takes the one thing they have in their cell and destroys it repeatedly for literally no reason. Sam’s prisoner, the crazy guy that was trying to take over the server, isn’t sane. No one questions why an insane guy tries to control everyone with a bunch of shit he doesn’t even have, why he thinks he can keep someone locked up in a two-by-one box with a couple of iron bars, why he listens to a guy threatening to kill himself when he can literally raise the dead. It’s all set dressing. Method acting. One or the other, or both; it’s not like he’s ever watched a real play in his life. All that matters is that everyone thinks he’s crazy because no one asks a crazy guy why he’s acting crazy, and crazy people do stuff like obsess over stupid pieces of vinyl and talk to themselves and destroy their own shit for no reason. 

(Which probably makes Tommyinnit a crazy person, ha.) 

Sam will come back. Soon. He will bring potatoes with him, and investigate the cell, and see the missing clock. He will complain. He will threaten Dream, rave about the destruction of prison property, telling him that he won’t replace it. He will question him about Tommy. And tomorrow morning, a new clock will be put in its place. Honestly, Sam would probably give himself an aneurysm if he had to look at the cell with one of its components missing. It seems like the kind of thing to bother him too much not to set straight. And tomorrow, maybe Dream will throw the clock into the lava again, and maybe he won’t. He’ll see. 

He’s the one that decides, in the end.

— 

Sam checks his comm again as he waits for the lava to fall, head already pounding. He’s had an on-and-off migraine ever since his night with the Egg, and the current wave shows no sign of abating any time soon. If he could have it his way, he’d be back in his bed, Fran curled up beside him, where it’s dark and quiet and comfortably cool instead of sweating half to death in a suffocating suit of full armor. Instead, he’s nursing a headache that only gets worse with every notification he reads off the log pulled up on his screen; he doesn’t even bother counting the string of [Dream tried to swm in lava] that appears under today’s date. The fact that it’s a seemingly longer list than the days previous does little to help his already bad mood. 

He still has no idea what Dream hopes to achieve by doing this, besides attention. Not that Sam has even been trying to give him that, these days; he visits twice a day, once at 9 the morning and once at 6 in the afternoon, and then leaves the prisoner to himself. Sam doesn’t answer to him. He’s not going to get the same reaction he got the first time he pulled this stunt, when Sam had rushed into the cell in the middle of the night, heart in his throat after running halfway across the server, only to find Dream waiting for him in the middle of his cell with his mask smiling back mockingly. If he’s hoping to stir Sam into a panic again, he’s sorely mistaken. But still Dream continues. He’s probably just doing it to get a reaction out of him. He probably thinks that’s funny. 

Dream is standing, waiting for him. Muttering to himself, he thinks he can hear. Sam pulls the lever for the bridge and steps on it, his sword in hand, wanting to get this visit over and done with as quickly as possible. He might sleep in the Warden’s quarters here, tonight, just to avoid the commute back to his base. Yeah, that sounds good. All he has to do is survive one conversation with Dream. 

The prisoner has stopped talking to himself by the time Sam steps into the cell, lifting his chin as he looks at him. 

“Hi, Sam.” 

Sam makes a vague noise of acknowledgement, not more than a low grunt. His eyes scan the room from left to right, stopped prematurely by the sight of the empty item frame mounted on the wall. His headache grows exponentially worse in an instant, a stabbing pain hammering itself into the back of his skull. He grits his teeth. 

He should’ve expected this. He knows he should’ve expected this. 

“Prisoner.” 

“Sam,” Dream replies, his smile audible in his voice. Sam closes his eyes, a prayer flitting across his overtaxed mind. God help him.

“Where’s your clock.” What’s the point of asking, even. Dream sways from foot to foot. 

“I burned it?”

“Why did you do it. Again.” Dream shrugs. Sam steps forward, shoves him back. “Don’t be so dumb, Dream.” 

The prisoner barely seems to react, his back hitting the wall. His voice is nearly sing-song. “Ohhh. I got you though.” 

Sam wishes, not for the first time, that he didn’t have the work ethic that keeps him from coming into the cell drunk. Surely the prisoner cannot be any more infuriating to handle with the help of some alcohol. He holds the prisoner by his jaw and knocks his head back against the wall, gauntlet digging into the pale skin under the bottom edge of his mask. 

“What is wrong with you!” Dream struggles, slightly. Sam kicks at his legs. “Don’t move. Answer my question.” 

“Let go.” 

“How many times have I told you not to burn the clock, Dream!” He knocks the back of his head against the wall, harder this time. The struggling stops. “Do you think it’s funny? I don’t have to replace your clock!” 

Dream sounds a little dazed when he replies, arms crossed at his chest. “I just wanted to burn it. So I did.” 

“That’s ridiculous. What is your problem.” He shakes his head by his jaw, once, then lets go, giving himself enough distance to swing a fist into Dream’s side, making him double over. He scoffs at the sight, anger white-hot. He knows he shouldn’t be letting the prisoner get to him. Knows that Dream is only doing this to mess with him, mess with him the same way he messes with everyone, trying to get into his head. His skull feels like it’s being split apart. 

Dream stands up straight again. All Sam can see is the flat, smooth plane of his mask, that smile, unchanged. His hands, knotted into tight fists at his sides, shake. The heat pulsing behind his eyes feels like rage, and also almost feels like he’s going to cry.

He can’t do this. The realization is abrupt, but sure. Not tonight, not with this headache, not with Dream. He can’t go through the same song and dance, can’t sit here and examine the cell and give the prisoner his potatoes and go through questioning for an hour, can’t spend the rest of his night going over his words with a fine-toothed comb looking for the nuggets of truth hidden in the midst of the prisoner’s crazed ramblings. Hasn’t he done enough? For the whole server, for everyone, day after day he stands and faces the monster before him and day after day he stands strong; retreating now feels like weakness, but he can’t. He honestly, truly, can’t. He ignores the weight of the potatoes in his inventory and turns. 

“Sam?” Dream speaks again when he’s reached the edge of the cell, sounding slightly winded. “What are you—?” 

Sam pearls across the gap, slamming the lever to lower the lava wall as soon as his vision clears. Tomorrow, he will be the Warden of Pandora’s Vault. Tomorrow, he will stand toe-to-toe against the one he has been entrusted to keep and stand firm. Tomorrow, he will do as he must, as the one responsible for the survival of everyone and everything he holds dear. 

Today, it’s just too much. He looks back to a wall of unbroken lava, only able to stare at it for a few seconds before turning away. 

[larks-birdhouse]

GENLOSS FOUNDERS CUT THOUGHTS

i want to make it so so clear i don’t want to dunk on genloss. this is my braindump and i LOVED genloss. please support young creators as they grow and improve i beg of thee

im putting this under a cut because i expect it to be long 😭

❤️ - negative

💚 - positive

💙 - neutral

💚 once again reminded how much ranboo’s acting has improved since dsmp <3

💚 AND a fantastic reminder of how great the other actors are!!!! all the deaths still hurt and the security officers did SO SO GOOD

💚 i love that hetch is more evil now. hurts even more watching hetch manipulate ran even harder up to his death

💚 ranboo has survivor’s guilt :’[ god him slowly accepting it was his fault (even though it WASNT) broke me

💚❤️ i think redubbing certain parts makes sense, but for some reason it was just really obvious during niki’s intro?? it felt so jarring

💙 ngl i paused the premiere to catch the qr code. in my defence i was about half an hour behind already :’]

❤️ GOD i wish we saw more of the carousel folks. so much time spent on setting up mousetrap, so little on them. is that in of itself a commentary? genuine question i do not know

❤️ also i am so sad we didn’t see more of austin’s “hey what the fuck is happening.” there was plenty of it but i want MORE

❤️💙 and i wish there was a little more time on ethan’s fashion show simply because it is funny

💚 the play on words with austin being the straight man is still fantastic

💚 someone else pointed this out (i’m not sure who i saw it from first but i’ll find them) but hetch near exclusively calling ranboo “hero” is such a good detail. not their name, but their character

💙 i forgot about the charlie stream! but honestly i would fully believe that is something charlie would just Do

❤️ I WANT MORE SNEEGGGGGG WHERE WAS HE

💚 the ART!! the DESIGNS of the devices!! adds so much to the story and i’m so glad they were shared. such fantastic art too!!

❤️ the create-a-creature kinda came out of nowhere, i was so confused and i wish there was a bit more buildup

💙 about hetch saying they aren’t themselves anymore: how many times can the actors get tortured and brainwashed before they stop being themselves? how much of them can be taken and replaced before it stops being them? (theseus’s ranboo)

💚 I LOVED THE SQUIGGLES ANIMATIONS!!!! SO GOOD I NEED TO FIND MORE OF THE CREATOR’S WORK

❤️ i might have missed it so correct me if i’m wrong but i don’t think we had the wide shot of the hero-kill-inator or whatever and i WISH we did because it goes so hard

💚 in terms of ending changes, i loved both endings!! both so good for different reasons, and the “thank you” KILLS ME IM SO SORRY BOO I HOPE YOU CAN JOIN YOUR FRIENDS IN THE CANON AFTERLIFE

💙 actually only hell is canon. maybe heaven just Doesn’t Exist. only suffering

💚❤️ at some points i thought the gore was great and at some points i wanted MORE. all the blood seeping out from under the doors, the room they haven’t “reset” yet, the guts instead of food were all great. but i wanted more of surgery charlie’s suffering to contrast the absurdity and just generally more carnage

❤️ i also wish there was more audio gore with austin & sneeg’s deaths. the wall just kind of Stops with no indication of them being crushed and its not apparently obvious that they died

💚 gen zero preview!!! i’m so excited, wondering who will be brought in for that one

💚 hearing the echos of “just let me die” in the beginning was haunting, fantastic stuff loved it

💚 HOW DID I FORGET THE PHOTOS THAT WAS SO GOOD ARE THOSE REAL BABY RANBOO PHOTOS?? INCREDIBLE

💚 overall i quite enjoyed the founder’s cut! can’t wait to see what comes next and i’m so proud of ranboo!!

💙 what is it with media about content creator self inserts that suffer immensely with little to no comfort that draws me in so? why has this happened so many times??

[atreefox]

Lmao, this is a really long tangent jusy about my current thoughts and “theories” on Genloss cause OML I had a neuron activation when I saw T_3

Okay okay BUT GENLOSS IS SO BACK OMLLL ITS SO BACK DUDE DUDE

IMA RETYPE MY “THEORY” (or JUSY THE THOUGHTS I HAVE).

So so

First thing that’s noticed me was the noises preceding the door scene in the newest video (T_3). They were physical noises, and what I mean is that it’s happening in real time, it physically happened so clearly there is something on the physical plane that went on. Maybe it’s this person breaking into a room, and this door symbolizes (either metaphorically or physically) represents a barrier they have to get past. There’s something important behind that door! It hasn’t been opened, cause this is the second time it’s seen. And no room or animation or anytning has been shown to symbolize that door opening.

That’s the first one, this door, I feel like, represents a barrier that this person has to get past in order to achieve their end goal.

Now secondly, the person. This secret person that’s somehow managed to break through any barriers or censorship Showfall could have placed up to prevent any of the truth getting out.

Now I feel like this person can be trust worthy, and here’s why (though it’s up for debate! I’d love to hear more about this 😭😭 OML ITS SO INTERESTING)

When I first watched generation one, Hetch seemed a little… weird… the way he was so dismissive of Genloss!Ranboo (ofc the environment at the time, or the perceived/fake environment🤨🤨, made it so Hetch couldn’t fully explain the situation at hand), all throughout the episodes always ticked me as odd. Especially in episode three.

The way Hetch was so dismissive of Ranboo’s concerns and questions, very valid questions too! Struck me as odd. He was so set on his end goal on trying to finish the show, to make it good (was that is end goal? I’m still tryna figure it out😅, something like it!) that it felt like his concern was fake (which it was). It all felt very uncanny. Even Ran said that Hetch’s lines in the founders cut were redone to make him sound uncanny!!!!

Yet this person in T_3 is different. They seem to be more human.

And okay o feel like there’s a difference in Showfall’s performance of, well, acting human and actually and being human. Showfall desensitized its characters and forced them in character tropes, made them feel like their 2D. Such as in the carasoul of death and the streamers shown in episode three. These people are forced into character tropes and they seem inhuman, just 2D characters for the thrill of the show.

Yet with Jay and Zero and this person, they all seem human because, at this moment, they aren’t forced into a role. They aren’t necessarily being controlled.

This person has similar goals to Hetch. They wanna reach their end goal by stopping a connection (shown in timestamp 1:16, the blotted out text possibly reads “There is something coming, the connection has gotten stronger”) because they themselves seemed to have been affected by it.

Yet the difference is that, unlike Hetch who was more or so “aggressive” (not angry but antsy to hurry on) in trying to reach his goal, Hetch seemed to know EVERYTBING about the facility. The ins and outs of the absconded mall and was able to control the camera man and employees, EVERYTBING was basically under his control.

YET THIS PERSON ISNT LIKE THAT! They don’t even seem to have full control or technology to reach their goal. They seemed unsure, yet certain, throughout the entire video. They seemed concerned and didn’t rush anything. They felt genuinely human. Which is what I love about this fucking horror project.

Maybe the person is Jay.. a reach, but Jay seemed close to Zero, or Miss Roads🤨🤨, so maybe Jay somehow figured out what’s going on and wants to stop whatever this connection is.

And that brings into question, what is this connection?? Did it already happen (such as GL!Ranboo being in his own dimension (a theory, but one I believe) and yet showfall somehow connected to us on earth), or is it going to happen…? Why is this specific video, one that’s clearly opposing Showfall’s goal, posted on a channel where it seems to promote showfall. Is this channel a point of. Neutrality, showing any and all sides, or is showfall also controlling it. Mostly likely controlling it, but Jesus Christ I want to know so much about this world. DUDE.

Okay, rant over. But Jesus I can’t wait for more😭😭 no rush ofc, I’m just so excited about this!!!

Edit: but rewatching “welcome to generation zero” and what if Zero is the founder! It’s a long stretch, but just a random thought-. Also the wormhole/portal is going backwards possibly indicating that gen one happened and now a new story is being shown.

[caesurah-tblr]

EMETOPHOBIA TW!!! TW FOR GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS AND MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH!!!

This was inspired by this tweet:

I hope you enjoy :)

Someone is sobbing.

He’s sitting up- no, he’s leaning against something. Something cold and impersonal. It hurts. Everything hurts.

“You’re finally awake. I didn’t think I hit you that hard.”

It’s Hetch. He’s crouched in front of him, blocking the view of whatever is behind him. The sobs haven’t stopped.

“Hetch?” He rasps. “I thought you were-“

“Dead? You really thought I was dead?” Hetch shakes his head in mock disappointment. “You should know better, Ranboo. You should know that things aren’t always what they seem. I should thank you, though.”

“For what?” His head hurts so bad… He was almost free. He was almost free and if he were free it meant that all of those people- that Charlie- hadn’t died for nothing. But they had.

And it was his fault.

Hetch leans back enough to show him a bit of the scene behind him, and Ranboo feels his stomach turn.

There’s wires, and they’re going through the flesh of someone’s palm. The person’s hand shakes so badly it causes the wires to shake with it.

“You gave me a hell of a show.” Hetch is saying, but Ranboo can’t turn his eyes away from the gore. “And I think it’s time for the finale. You’ll give the people what they want, yeah?”

He stands and steps to the side, giving him a full view of the scene in front of him. It’s Charlie- wires through the palm of each of his hands, forcing him to hold them out like some mockery of the crucifixion of Jesus fucking Christ. His feet barely touch the floor, forcing him to stand on his tiptoes to keep gravity from ripping his hands in two.

“Charlie!” Ranboo lunges forward, but Hetch pushes him back with his hand. Charlie looks up at him, tears in his eyes. The sobs- it had been Charlie, crying out in pain. The only friend Ranboo had left and he had failed him.

“Ranboo.” Charlie tries to smile, but it falls flat. “You okay?”

“Am I-?” Tears fill Ranboo’s eyes. Fuck. Fuck this. Fuck Showfall.

“You know, this was supposed to be you.” Hetch gestures to Charlie absentmindedly, almost as if he were an afterthought. “But he begged for it to be him instead. Got on his hands and knees and begged me to spare you. Said it would make for a better ending. And I’ve always been a sucker for a good endings.”

Charlie whimpers from his place on the stand. Ranboo wishes it were him instead.

Hetch steps forward, rapping his knuckles on something Ranboo hadn’t noticed before that is locked firmly around Charlie’s neck. “See this?”

It’s a metal box, covered in rust and what is unmistakably dried blood. The hinges are open to show the inside- rows upon rows of metal spikes. No.

“Please! Don’t do this! I’ll do anything!” Ranboo begs, “I won’t tell anyone! I won’t do anything! I won’t leave- I’ll play as many times as you want. He’s the only thing I have left. Please.”

He ends his sentence with a sob. Charlie is his friend- he may not have memories from before, but they had been friends then too, right? There’s no way he would connect with anyone so quickly otherwise. There’s a part of Ranboo that knows that if he had left Charlie behind, he would’ve been able to escape. But given another chance, he’d pick to save his friend again.

Charlie didn’t deserve this. None of them did. Surely they all had people waiting for them to come home? Were they looking for them?

Hetch clicks his tongue. “Not a chance. I’ve put too much time and effort into this finale and I won’t let it go to waste. I’ll give you a proposition.”

“Charlie is going to die here, no matter what. If it were you, I’d let the people vote, but since it’s not, I get to decide. What matters is how you handle it.”

“Please!” Ranboo stands, this time without a fight. “Please don’t do this! Why can’t it be me?! Why can’t we just let Charlie go? It’s a trade, right? Me for him.”

“You’ll watch him die. You’ll see the whole thing happen.” Hetch continues, ignoring his pleas. “And I’ll give you two choices: let me turn the mask back on. If I turn it on, you’ll forget it ever happened. No skin off your back.”

“Or, you don’t let me turn it back on, you’re going to see his death in its full glory. As a bonus, I’ll give you your memories back and I’ll let you go.”

Ranboo barely hears the words. He’s watching Charlie- his friend’s face is full of anguish and pain. His arms and hands become slick with blood as he loses the strength to stand on his toes, and the sound of tearing flesh and Charlie’s screams fill the room for a moment, before he once again quiets except for the occasional sob.

“Charlie… Let me go?” His head snaps towards Hetch. “You’ll give me back my memories? You’ll let me go?”

“Sure thing. What’s another death on your hands if it means you get to go free?” Hetch waves his hand dismissively. “Should be no big deal for you, hero.”

“You gotta get out.” Charlie’s voice is hoarse from screaming, “You gotta get out. Everything will be okay. I forgive you- I forgive you for everything.”

Ranboo looks at his friend- Charlie is smiling. He’s smiling like it’s just another day, but the illusion is ruined by the blood on his face.

“Thank you.” He continues, “Thank you for caring enough to try to save me. You’re the best fucking friend a guy could ask for.”

“Thank you.” Ranboo wants to hug Charlie, wants to give his friend just a moment of comfort, but he knows he can’t so he just holds out his hand. Charlie smiles wider.

“Ranboo?”

“Yeah.”

“Tell my girlfriend I love her. And that I’m sorry.”

SNAP!

The trap snaps shut. Charlie’s body jerks for a few horrifying moments before going limp.

There’s blood on his face. Charlie’s blood. Ranboo raises a shaky hand and wipes it away.

“You gave him back his memories.” He says, horrified. Hetch laughs.

“Of course I gave him back his memories! What’s an ending without a twist?!” Hetch steps away to avoid the growing puddle of blood. He’s laughing like he’s just heard to funniest joke.

Ranboo falls to his knees, unable to care about his friend’s blood soaking into the denim of his jeans. Charlie remembered everything… He remembered everything and was still okay with dying.

The corpse on display is still twitching. It’s legs have buckled, but the trap snapped shut around it’s head keeps it half standing.

He keens, collapsing onto his hands before getting sick. He vomits into his mask and it drips down onto his hands, but he doesn’t care. Charlie is dead.

Another death by his hands.

Ranboo whimpers. “Charlie… I’m so sorry.”

Hands grab him, pulling him up and away from the gruesome site. There’s a tug at the back of his head and the soiled mask falls around his neck.

He breathes for what feels like the first time in years. He’s free, but at what cost?

“You did well.” Hetch steps around to in front of him again. He’s holding a Showfall mask in his hands. “So well, in fact, that I think we should do it again.”

“You promised.” Ranboo tugs at the hands holding him in place, but they don’t budge. He’s so weak. “You said if I watched, you’d let me go. You’d give me my memories and let me go.”

Hetch shrugs. “I lied.”

Just before the mask slides over his face, he catches one more glimpse of Charlie’s broken body.

I’m sorry.

[bleue-flora]

didn’t they experiment on themselves I’m confused by you saying “may not” gen

[context]

Well ya see, I’m not saying they did or didn’t, but I realized in my rewatching that to be honest, despite it being basically considered canon by dreblr at this point, it never really is actually confirmed. (I’ve talked about why a bit already here). In fact, the basis of this widely accepted canon is I’m pretty sure mostly the dialogue in the finale (transcript below), which even if we take as 100% truth doesn’t really confirm or necessarily imply they did.

It only states that they did tests - which duh we already knew they did on Lazar and Vik - and that they ran tests that apparently included suicide and self-sacrifice. We are also informed that both Dream and Punz have been to Limbo before the finale. With Dream including them in his list of revivals as well as him saying nonchalantly, “it wasn’t my first time” and Punz saying, “Yeah, I've been there also, it fucking sucks. My Limbo is terrible.”

But the thing is that only really means they’ve both died at least once. In fact, the way Punz used“my” Limbo when we know Limbo changes based on the circumstances of your death, doesn’t make sense if he’s been multiple times. And as for Dream, his again only implies that he has died before, but for all we know that could be just once not multiple times.

And there’s also the point of Why would they experiment on themselves when they also experimented on Lazar and Vik (especially now that we know those experiments happened after prison and came presumably first)? It doesn’t really make much sense. Or at least why would they run test after test on themselves in the way I’ve seen commonly portrayed. I’d say there is a strong argument for them dying to maybe get to the End somehow or test whether they can revive themselves. But why kill Vik and Lazar in every way imaginable and then what, do the same to yourself right after?…

Plus, should what they say, in which we base this canon, even be taken as all true since it’s staged duo giving a ‘villain monologue’ to clingy duo. I mean in this same conversation we have lines like “This is so cute we shouldn’t interrupt them.” [clip]. (I’ve talked about this here also).

So yeah, that’s what I mean by “maybe.” A ‘take’ that I think a lot of people here dislike and think is weird. But it’s not so much my take or whether I personally think it is or isn’t true. I’m really just looking at the lore and facts, and highlighting that at the end of the day, this canon we have all accepted is not actually objectively true.

Transcript:

Tommy [18:36]: “What do you mean you know so much more?”

Dream: “Listen the separation from us to you in terms of our knowledge and our power and what we have and what we know, we might as well be a God—we might as well be! We might as well be Gods! Punz might as well be a God. I might as well be a God—because in terms of what we know and what you know—you're puny—your little ants—you know nothing—“

Tommy: “You’re a psychopaths.”

Dream: “Like he said you're one-dimensional—you're simple-minded. You go about your day you go and you go to your base and you sit there and you—you f—farm potatoes well we're sitting here, dealing with God and revival and life and death and—you know people—we've—we’ve realized over time, so much stuff has happened and I—I at this point the thing is that death has such importance on the server there's—there's so much to death. You realize—have you even realized people have developed like powers? You know that Foolish could die infinite times he just could—he's invincible. You know Ranboo—h—he could pick up blocks? You know—you know there's—there's such thing as mind control on the server?“

Tommy: “What?”

Dream: “I—I bet you—you didn't know that. That could have—could have been used for the longest time. You know Ranboo when he, you know, he made the explosions and he helped—the whole time.”

Tommy: “Ranboo made what?… Sorry, what do you mean Ranboo made the explosions—what explosions?”

Dream (laughs): “When you got trapped in the prison...”

Tubbo: “What’s going on?”

Dream: “Look—you know nothing, Tommy!”

Tommy: “That was Ranboo?”

Dream: “You know nothing—you know nothing!

Tommy: “You’ve been controlling him.”

Dream: “There was there was a period of time when we—we were dabbling with mind control—and it has to do with the Revival Book and the way it works, and it has to do with death—“

Tommy: “The reason I stayed in prison with you… You can't play God, Dream, because shit like this happens—you ruin lives, not just mine but so many people. You don't even know the effect… you can't do this. You have to stop now.”

Dream: “Tommy—“

Punz: “There's no fucking stopping this, Tommy.”

Dream: “It's—it's too late and that's the thing is we—we did make a couple mistakes and—we made mistakes but—through testing we realized—“

Tommy: “What do you mean he made mistakes?”

Dream: “Well… I mean, Laserbeam and Vikstar—I'd say that's a little bit of a…you know—“

Tommy: “Wait, where’s Vikstar?!”

Tubbo: “Woah! woah woah woah woah—!”

Tommy: “Where’s Vikstar?”

Punz: “We’ve done a little bit or experimenting—“

Tommy: “Where is Vik?…” (quieter) “Where’s Vik?”

Dream : “They’re dead…. Tommy, we—we locked up Vik and Laser in a room very similar to this one—very similar to this one and we ran test after test after test for months on end we killed them in Every Way that you could think this—this sounds morbid—but we had to, Tommy, we had to know what—“

Tubbo: “No one has to do something that evil!”

Tommy: “No one has to!… Tubbo’s right!—You’re a fucking psychos the both of you”

Punz: “We needed—we needed answers, Tommy! We needed to figure out—“

Tommy: “Why would you do this, Punz?!”

Punz: “We need to figure out—we need to figure out the ins and outs of the Revival Book: how do people, how people die, how they react to dying, how you come back to life, Limbos…”

Dream: “Tommy, did you know—did you know there's a whole other dimension?”

Tommy: “What?”

Dream: “There's a whole other dimension—and there's dragons and there's—there's infinite void.”

Tommy: “What?”

Tubbo: “What?”

Dream: “Yeah, you didn't know that... And you know—you know what's interesting is—“

Tommy: “What?”

Dream: “We—I—I said we made mis—I said we made mistakes and—and we did. We did—we did make mistakes because by reviving people by reviving Wilbur by reviving you by—you know reviving me. I just—I was just in—in Limbo, you know, I just… it wasn't my first time but—it… you know..”

Punz: “Yeah, I've been there also, it fucking sucks. My Limbo is terrible.”

Dream (laughs): “Yeah, it’s—yeah it’s not all that fun but…”

Tubbo: “Wait—wait why didn’t you bring Vik and Lazarbeam back?”

Tommy: “You've been to Limbo before? Wait, wait, Toby, one second—you've been to Limbo before? You've Died—before?”

Tubbo: “What's that?”

Tommy: “Toby—

Dream: “Look—“

Tommy: “You know when I died and I told you that I couldn't speak about the one thing that happened to me?”

Tubbo: “Yeah.”

Tommy: “An unspeakable place—your worst nightmare—the worst thing to you comes to life forever, that’s Limbo… How have you survived?—Dream, you're a monster. You can't—Punz, Punz, tell me?”

Punz: “What, Tommy?”

Tommy: “Have you always been like this? Because—“

Punz: “Yes.”

Tommy: “We trusted you.”

Punz: “Alright well, you're a fucking idiot and simple-minded. I've said this like eight times, Tommy, get it through your head—you're simple-minded, we need answers and you are—just don’t know that.”

Tommy: “What do you want from me and Tubbo?”

Dream: “Okay well, wh—what I was saying just now is we—we—by all these revivals and all this death th—there's been kind of a—a—a balance. W—we've realized like you—you know have you ever thought about where do people come from? W—where do we come from? There's people that just show up on the server now and then—they just out of nowhere they're just here. They weren't here before. You at some point that happened you just—you were here. How? And we realized that it all kind of it all comes down to like life and death and—and right now we created… an imbalance because we've revived you and me and Punz—and we revived Wilbur and we revived people to where death right now—there's an imbalance and we've seen it in the other dimension. We—we've seen the problems it causes in—in the corruption it can cause into this world and… it's—not looking good—it's not looking good, at all and—“

Tommy: “Dream—“

Dream: “Tommy—“

Tommy: “Why are me and Tubbo here?”

Dream: “Well, we have to—balance the world again.“

Punz: “People need to die!

Tubbo: “Balance? What? Wait—what are you trying to balance?”

Punz: “People need to die, Tommy.”

Tommy: “People don't need to Die, Punz!”

Punz: “They need to die.”

Dream: “People do need to die. And that's the problem—the problem is that people need to die to restore—“

Tubbo: “Says who?”

Dream: “Says us through our testing. The balance on the server is messed up. We—we've—we revive to many people and death isn't permanent and we've—we've messed up and I think that in the eyes of—in the eyes of whatever God is and whatever this place is that we haven't figured out—is that the world could very well just—just end if w—we don't kill people. But the problem—“

Tommy: “What does that mean? What are you planning to do?”

Dream: “The problem is if we kill—if we kill—the problem is if we kill some people then everyone else comes against us and tries to force us to revive them and tries to, you know. kill us so—we have to kill everyone… We have to kill—“

Tubbo: “Like Everyone—everyone?

Dream: “Everyone… Everyone.”

Tommy: “You won't be—you won’t be able to.”

Dream: “Why not?”

Tubbo: “Even Badboyhalo?”

Tommy: “There’s Phil, there’s Sam, there's—there's so many good pvps, players equal if not better than you. They’ll kill you. They'll kill you both. Me and Tubbo by their side will lead an army to fucking kill you, alright.”

Dream: “You and Tubbo—I mean, maybe—maybe one of you can try but—“

Tubbo: “That’s—that’s… What do you mean, one of us?

Tommy (in sync): “What do you mean, one of us?

Punz: “Look, how do you know that we can't revive ourselves after we're already dead. You don't know that either.”

Dream: “They don't know anything—they don’t know anything.”

Punz: “You don't know anything.”

Dream: “They don't even know. You don't know what death is. You don't know.”

Tommy: “Dream—“

Dream: “Tommy, let me ask you a question. When you died, why didn't you come back as a ghost? Before you revived, why did you come back as a ghost? But why did Wil—“

Tommy: “I don’t know.”

Dream: “Wilbur was a ghost.”

Tommy: “I don't know.”

Dream: “You don’t know.”

Tommy: “I don't know, and that's okay!”

Dream: “Do you—do you want to know? Do you want to know?…”

Tommy: “Dream, you have a power—you two both have a power to revive, alright and with that power comes a Great Responsibility. That you are taking No—No responsibility over! Please, just think for a second.”

Punz: “We know the responsibility, Tubbo. The world has an imbalance now because we've revived too many times!—alright?”

Tubbo: “Wh—where is the scale? Where—how do you know? I don’t understand!”

Tommy: “How do you decide?!”

Dream: “The world—the world's fucked up. We fucked up.”

Tubbo: “Explain it to us!”

Dream: “Everyone—everyone fucked up! everyone—there's too much death, too much destruction, everyone hates each other, there's a fucking Egg there's—there's—this world is so… fucked that we just need to restart. And if that means we have to kill everybody—and ev—everybody that doesn't wanna go along with what me and Punz have to say, everyone that doesn't want to figure it out, then fine you can be simple-minded and you can die simple-minded. But if you wanna actually know what's going on in this world and you wanna fix it, and make it the best that we can be and live forever, then they can join us. But, we already know your answers, so we don't really care about that. But, the thing is—is we did realize through all the testing that we've done that—“

Tommy: “Oh no.”

Dream: “Your Limbo, and that what happens to you after you die changes based on how you die—“

Tubbo: “What?”

Dream: “And what happened to you before you died. And the thing is—is we've tested by murder, We've tested by—self-sacrifice and suicide. But we haven't tested… is somebody being selfless and dying a hero. We don't know anything about that because… we—can't test that because we're evil, we're so bad and—murderers—bla bla bla, whatever—who cares. But… We can test that now.”

I just wanna say in making this transcript and trying to break apart their voices as they talk over eachother I noticed a lot of things I didn’t before. My favorite bring what I think Dream laughed out (very hard to pick out his voice) at Punz’s limbo comment of “Yeah, it’s—yeah it’s not all that fun but��” Also shoutout to Tubbo who really be asking the real questions that no one hears ooof…

[luminarytex]

do you ship genloss!Ranboo and genloss!charlie? do you have any headcanons about them if you do? :D

I DO‼️‼️🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 i drew a whole confession comic and everything they’re my babies

and i do have a few hcs (haven’t thought about them much though)

^ old art

charlie was terrified to be alone with ranboo bc memories of being cut into would pop into his head. during their escape, the fear of dying overpowered the fear of the past which is why he wasn’t scared of ranboo in that moment. charlie doesn’t hate ranboo for that though, he knows it wasn’t their fault, they were both victims.

they’re very domestic!! ranboo can’t cook do not put them behind the counter!!! charlie can but doesn’t really go out of his way to make anything, they abuse online pick up.

charlie’s ears are pointed, demon or unknow surgery, his ears are pointed

ranboo has scaring all along his face mostly around his nose/cheekbone are and mouth from where the mask used to be. considering it was imbedded into their skin, it was not easy getting it off. (we are ignoring the kill switch in this context)

haters of technology, they are ipads kids at most, no tvs. (let’s say sneeg is alive here, he introduced ranboo to roblox…)

ranboo fell in love with charlie over the course of episode 2-3 mostly out of desperation to feel love/d. they didn’t want to die alone, or have their last memory be nothing but death… they wanted something to fight for, it just happened to be charlie. they definitely kissed in that building on the last day, whether charlie reciprocated that or not is debatable. charlie officially fell in love AFTER they escaped though.

^ tragic yaoi is tragic..

[antimony-medusa]

The Pros And Cons Of Digging Your Own Grave

Ranboo had tried to strike up a conversation with the person driving the City Defense car, really he had, but they’d responded with bland politeness, and he’d stumbled over his own words, and then he’d given up and stared out the window as they drove downtown. The buildings had steadily gotten taller and more ornate, and now they were crawling along between skyscrapers, him with his gym bag of personal items on the seat next to him and the symbol of his new job resting on his wrist, and the driver staring forward into the vehicle in front of them. They didn’t really blame the driver for not wanting to talk to them. People were always a bit weird about heroes—too aware of their sacrifices or too relieved by their service—and given the choice they would take silence over the person being overly positive about their future or worse—sorry for them. Ranboo slipped their fingertips under the power bracelet again, picking at it like a scab. OR: In a world where being a superhero turns you into a deadly monster, Ranboo is the newest hero recruit. They don't know what they're doing.

Status: 1/1 chapters, updated 3 February, 15,260 words

Fandom: Dream SMP

Rating: Mature Audiences

Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Characters: Niki | Nihachu, Phil Watson | Philza, Ranboo (Video Blogging RPF), Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF)

Relationships: Niki | Nihachu & Phil Watson | Philza & Ranboo & Technoblade

Tags: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Body Horror, Monsters, Extensive discussion of impending death but it does not happen during the story, Jokes about Death and Dying, dark humour, Ranboo-centric (Video Blogging RPF), Anarchist Syndicate on Dream SMP (Video Blogging RPF), Self-Sacrifice, Bittersweet Ending, Non-traditional superheroes and superpowers

Hi guys! I'm back! I sat down to write this one and was like "what if I write superheroes, but I'm really, really weird about it". And then this happened. 15k of body horror superheroes and impending death. Mind the tags on this one.

[knine-nights]

Genloss Theory 10

So. Is c!Ranboo going to be revived?

It’s something I’ve seen mentioned here and there. Some people talk about how Showfall wouldn’t just let him die, that they’d revive him.

Ignoring the fact that cc!Ranboo was clear that he isn’t going to be the “protagonist” for future generations (which somewhat implies he isn’t getting revived), what does the in universe lore suggest?

Honestly, I do think Showfall was “letting” him die.

First, as I’ve mentioned before (in Theory 5), the mask that Ranboo wears is literally sewn into his face (as shown in canon pictures from the Twitter account) and in the last scene, Ranboo’s mask is damaged. I have my own vague theory as to why, but it’s undeniable that it is heavily damaged. Which would be very difficult to fix.

Apart from that, there’s the fact that Showfall clearly doesn’t have qualms around permanent death for its actors. Based on the shrine in Episode 3, the Puzzler is completely dead, not going to be revived. And it’s not entirely clear what the deal is with Frank but it’s shown, based on a poster found on a wall when Ranboo is searching the Showfall offices in Episode 3, that Frank was a real human who is now dead.

So, why would Showfall let Ranboo die? They clearly found him profitable. He was, after all, a pretty damn good Hero and he did get a lot of viewers to tune in.

The way the show is framed is that his death is an act of mercy. That’s how c!Ranboo sees it by the end. He’s literally asking for us to let him die and just as the box closes he says “thank you”.

But that’s a side theory I’ll explore later.

So why then?

I think Showfall is trying to scare the audience. To prove to us that they have more power than us. We may be the ones choosing the key or the person on the carousel to save in Episode 2, we may even be the ones voting on Ranboo’s life, but they’re the ones with true control. They decide what happens if he lives and they decide if he stays dead.

We didn’t really know the Puzzler long enough and closely enough to be too attached. We definitely knew Ranboo enough. So Showfall is showing us that they have control here, they’re giving us the options.

More Theories

[smolldust]

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Heya! I’m smolldust but you can call me Dusty Boxington. I use it/he/they/void pronouns and I am enderhoard. I am also aroace and a minor.

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[guppybubbles]

oooo,, i really like your writing!!

if you’re still taking prompts- mayhaps something including.. dragons(i 👉👈 i really like dragons), or mers? as for with who, my personal preferences are peer pressure duo or alliumduo, but if you’re not up for writing either of those, feel free to do whatever!

apologies for not following the fake title format, i am- not good at titles of any kind,, dkdnkdndkdk. hope you have a good rest-of-your-day! — 🎲

GOLD FEVER [1/2]

Ranboo is an Enderman being hunted down by monster hunters. Unable to protect themselves, they offer tons of gold to The Blood Dragon.

Word Count: 2777 words

CONTENT WARNING!!! : mentions of scars and swords, general fear, fear of death, implies being eaten (but nothing happens)

( A/N: no need to apologize!! the fake titles prompts was just smth beckyu wanted to do! nothing wrong with not following the format <33 anyways, i hope you enjoy! teehee )

He's been standing here for an hour, maybe even two. Ranboo just can't bring themselves to enter. The entrance looked so intimidating, he can't even imagine what lies inside.

The mouth of the cave was huge, big enough to possibly fit every single tree in this forest. Every time he tries to hype himself up to go inside, his fear pulls him back to where he started.

But would he rather die by hunters who've been known to make their bounties deaths slow and merciless, or die by a dragon who would most likely just make their death as quick as possible?

Yeah, dragon. Dragon sounds better.

Ranboo took in one deep breath of air and stepped in once more, trying to ignore the strong urge to run away and return home. Even with their excellent night vision, the cave still looked dark. They could barely make out the claw marks scratched on the walls. It felt like something out of a horror book.

He knew he was nearing more into the dragon's den when he noticed thin stripes of light being hidden behind a thick layer of leaves. Ranboo felt like their heart was going to break out of their chest with how intense it’s been beating. As quietly as possible, they pushed through the foliage and held their breath.

Redstone ores were scattered around the den. Ranboo remembers they shine much brighter than other ores he’s mined, he’s not a rock expert but he assumes the reason why they shine so much is their energy source. It’s one of the main ores being used in many advanced communities, perhaps the shine is an indicator of how much energy just one ore has.

Redstone wasn’t the only thing sparkling in the dark cave, because right in the middle was a large pile of gems that could make a King seem poor in comparison. Ranboo swears they can see crystals they didn’t even know exist, and they mine as a hobby! They feel entitled to at least know a decent amount more than basic knowledge when it comes to ores.

Ranboo froze when he saw whose head lay on top of the gold pile. The Blood Dragon.

Staring right at him.

"It— it's not—" They stuttered, "It really isn't what it looks like." Ranboo fully emerged from the curtain of leaves, holding their hands up to emphasize their intentions.

The dragon growls, a rumble so loud that the Redstone's lights flicker with fear. Its large tail wraps around the mound of riches, assuming that the enderman was here to steal their possessions. Ranboo couldn't blame them, he was holding a suspiciously big brown sack that reminded him slightly of the material thieves used.

"I'm here to give you offerings—! Actually!" He quickly added, throwing the sack in between the both of them and gold spilled through its opening. The rumbling stopped and Ranboo released a breath of relief.

The Blood Dragon looked interested in his gold, to say the least, and Ranboo wasn't even sure if they could understand his words. There have been cases that stated most dragons have a consciousness and can understand simple phrases, and Ranboo was desperate for any sort of protection— so he'll keep trying until he was sure they could understand him.

Slowly, they picked up the sack of gold again and approached the dragon. The dragon's eyes squinted, skeptical of the enderman.

"I'm… I'm being hunted by monster hunters and I need your protection. Not forever! Just, just enough to… I don't know, scare them off to make them leave me alone?" Ranboo stopped right in front of the pile.

A gust of warm air washed over him, the dragon just huffed out a puff of smoke— almost looking tired and annoyed. It seemed less angry than it was when he first entered, so he'll take it as a good sign.

"… Okay. I'll take that as an… unsure response." Ranboo slowly placed his brown bag right next to the bundle of gems.

The dragon stared at him, then carefully inspected the bag with its snout. Seeing a dragon— not just a dragon, the BLOOD Dragon, up close is a surreal experience Ranboo did not know they would ever have. The tales spread across the SMP mentioned how the Blood Dragon would slaughter anything and anyone in its path, yet here it was now, pouring the bag's contents onto his pile, seemingly accepting the offer, but still wary of the enderman.

"It's not a lot of gold, I know— Compared to your treasures." Ranboo spoke, "But, I promise, I'll keep paying you until you accept to protect me from the hunters… Is- Do we have a deal?"

The dragon stared at him for a long period, and Ranboo starts to think he was insane for even trying to make a conversation with them. Then, the Blood Dragon slightly bows its head and closes its eyes, accepting the enderman's offer.

Ranboo lets out a sigh of relief.

──────⊹⊱✫⊰⊹──────

Ranboo arrives the next day with another big brown bag of gold, mixed with bits of diamonds and iron. While there was still a bit of anxiety when he entered the mouth of the cave again, it didn't take him nearly two hours to even consider going inside, which isn't a big victory, but a victory nonetheless.

The dragon was there when he set foot in the den. He huffed out another puff of smoke through his nostrils but remained lying down next to his riches. He didn't seem aggressive today, though still looked wary of his presence— Ranboo regarded that as another small victory. "Hello, um, dragon."

The Blood Dragon softly grumbled in response. He decided to think of that as the dragon greeting him back. “Maybe you won’t like being called just dragon. Do you have a name? You probably do but you can’t tell me. Should I call you something else?” He rambled, “Should I just call you Blood, Gold, or I don’t know, Michael?”

The dragon stared at him silently, and Ranboo felt like he was being judged for his name choices. “What? I think Michael is a good name!” He defended, “Though, I guess it doesn’t suit you…” The suggestions may suck, but in his defense, he’s never been good with names. As he offered another addition of gems to the dragon, he took that time to examine the treasures he has from afar. Ranboo noticed a sharp sword encrusted with the shiniest diamonds and even bits of Netherite. “Oh! What about Dagger, or Blade?”

They laughed at themselves, Prime, what were they doing? They were trying to make conversation with a dragon and trying to give him a name. He felt stupid and pathetic. “What am I even doing?” They silently asked.

The dragon moved to examine Ranboo’s offering, and the enderman plopped himself on the ground. “I’m talking to a dragon.” This was unbelievable, “I can’t find anyone willing to protect me, so- so I have to turn to a dangerous dragon because, because what? The hunters find me dangerous since I’m half enderman, half—” Ranboo cut themselves off, opting to sigh instead.

He can’t ramble on about something the dragon wouldn’t care about. Mob hybrids aren’t usually treated with the greatest respect. He’s met Charlie, a slime hybrid, they acted with childish wonder yet had random times where they showed an infinite amount of wisdom. They’ve been on trips together and he’s seen how many villagers disregarded his existence. It felt unfair, Charlie has been nothing but kind yet still treated like an unredeemable criminal.

Fortunately, Charlie found a safe place for shelter from the hunters. They were taken in by one of the richest people on the SMP, a gambler who owns multiple casinos and owns a big portion of land dedicated to stealing money from the unsuspecting in a ‘legal’ way, Quackity from Las Nevadas. Ranboo did have his doubts meeting him, but he noticed the strong bond between him and the slime hybrid, and who was he to interfere with that?

Ranboo thought he could find safety in a person just like Charlie had with Quackity. It doesn’t even need to have a strong bond, just someone to shield him from harm. He attempted to pay experienced fighters for that reason, but he’s been accused of stealing something that was rightfully earned by hours and hours of mining.

“Do you accept my offer, Blood Dragon?” The dragon made a low growling sound, not as scary and hostile as before but it did make Ranboo tense up. It reminded him of exactly what he was dealing with, he shouldn’t let his guard down no matter what whenever he gets near this giant dragon. The dragon letting him enter and giving him mercy by not outright killing him shouldn’t be a reason for him to relax.

Ranboo scrambled to his feet and patted off the dust on his pants,

“Okay… Next time then.”

──────⊹⊱✫⊰⊹──────

Ranboo didn’t visit the day after that, nor the following days after that either. They decided to spend their time mining in ravines and mineshafts. Who knew giving most of your gems to a dragon would almost empty your supply of ores? They didn’t mind it though, they loved spending their time mining around and always get satisfied with how many resources they got from hours and hours of emptying various caves.

It wasn’t all that dangerous either. Because he was half-enderman, Mobs recognized him as just another mob and left him alone, giving him a safe space. He was hidden away from the judgments of villagers, the spying eyes of hunters, and the awful stares of other beings. In here, Ranboo felt safe.

Safe, but isolated.

It’s what he wanted, but did the price of safety mean taking away his company? Any sort of interaction would be void if it meant living in the caves forever. Mobs aren’t very responsive to his attempts at socialization. It didn’t help that he was an enderman hybrid either, one of the mobs most known for not being able to handle interaction with species that aren’t other endermen and hate eye contact.

He wanted to visit the dragon today, but he hesitated on that decision. Hours of mining led to him upgrading his items at his base using those materials, which left him with nearly the same amount of materials he had before he started mining. Most of what he had was a bunch of emeralds he didn’t have much use for. Trading them with villagers was great, they’d trade some decent stuff but the quality slowly declined over the years. The last time he tried to trade, they tried offering ten pieces of paper for 8 emerald gems, which he didn’t need when he had an entire library of books and journals back at home. It meant most of the emeralds he has and the emeralds he’s mined collect dust in chests.

He debated if he should give emeralds to a dragon who clearly prefers gold, but wouldn’t it be better to have something other than nothing? Ranboo didn’t have the energy to keep mining either. Don’t get him wrong, he loves mining but he loves rest as well.

Ranboo held a large bag of emeralds, and he had that deja vu of wavering fear when he reached the dragon’s den again. What if he didn’t accept his offer? Everyone knows emeralds aren’t of much use other than trading, they can’t be used to make armor or tools. They’re pretty much useless!

Just like the times before, the dragon was there next to their heap of jewels. “Hello, Blade.” Ranboo greeted softly, and he knew he heard him when he did his signature puff of smoke as a hello. “D’you get lonely without me? I know, I’m pretty good company.” He joked and Blade thumped his tail on the ground.

Ranboo chuckled. “Ah- I think I should just be honest here. I don’t… have gold, I just have emeralds and I—”

The Blood Dragon then suddenly popped up from where they were laying and stared at Ranboo. In instinct, the enderman immediately looked away. Oh Prime, Oh Prime, Oh Prime. Coins and metal shuffled around, Blade was moving. Fear struck in Ranboo, especially since they have never seen the dragon stand up or move away from their treasure before.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

He was walking closer and they closed their eyes, trying to touch into their teleporting skill and get out of there. Ranboo could feel the particles surrounding him, and he attempted to imagine the forest outside to teleport to. They weren’t great with teleporting, in fact, it mostly only works when he’s scared and oh, he’s so scared. “Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry!” They screeched out ender apologies, only coming off to the dragon as warbles of sounds.

Blade pressed their snout against Ranboo’s chest, effectively trapping them between him and the wall of the cave. “Oh my Pr- please, please, don’t kill me!” Panicked clawed hands made an effort to push the dragon’s face away, to no avail. This is it, the exact scenario he was worried about. He should’ve just waited for more time and come back with the items the dragon had wanted, or maybe he shouldn’t have even come here at all. This deal was nothing but just the dragon milking out Ranboo’s resources until he was bone dry. Tears welled up in his eyes and they burned his eyesight. Wow, thanks for giving him every enderman trait except for great teleportation skills. Thanks a lot, Universe.

Ranboo didn’t know what he should feel in his last moments. Whether it was anger or sadness, he just wanted the dragon to get it all over with as swiftly as he could. He knew he was taller than the average human but the Blood Dragon was huge, so he could make quick work with him.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Blade made a sound, a small roar that sounded a lot like curiosity.. Or was it happiness?

Ranboo opened their eyes and felt their heart thump louder than they had before. The dragon was mere inches away from himself, though their attention was focused on the brown bag on the floor, or maybe what was inside it. They never noticed the dark pink scales scattered across his body before, and the scars of what were presumably sword scars were displayed at his neck. Not just on his neck, but scars displayed on his wings, tail, and even on his chest.

Blade sniffed at the bag and made soft sounds, gently poking the bag with his snout. Ranboo, still in a state of shock, tried to speak. “Oh. Oh- so you were- you like emeralds?” He questioned, and noted that the continuous thumping was just Blade’s tail excitedly hitting the floor.

Slowly, he picked up the bag full of emeralds again and watched as how Blade’s thin irises expanded, reminding him of a cat focusing on a red dot from a laser pointer. “Jeez, you-” Ranboo breathed deeply, unable to find the right words for their feelings. They approached the heap of treasures again, and Blade followed right behind them. Their massive shadow covered the entirety of the enderman and they made a delighted trill sound as the emeralds were added. “There. Happy?” Ranboo squeaked an ender curse as Blade pressed his snout against his body again, and the sound of thunder outside just made his nerves rise again.

Wait… Thunder?

He could barely hear it in this huge cave, but there were sounds of raindrops and the occasional thunder outside. That was strange, he could’ve sworn there weren’t any clouds in the sky when he had first entered- but to be completely fair, he wasn’t paying attention to the sky when he was contemplating about entering the cave earlier. He’s stuck. “Crap…” He mumbled.

Blade turned their head to the ceiling of the cave, aware of the thunderstorm happening outside. Ranboo walked up to the curtain of leaves to see just how bad the storm was, maybe they could set off back to their home. Sure, it may hurt but— “Wait, wait, wait, what are you doing?!” Blade’s tail wrapped around his waist and lifted him just a few inches off the ground and brought him closer.

Blade laid down and gently placed Ranboo by his neck. Was he asking him to stay here? “Thanks, but I got to get home, Blade.” He said, patting the dragon's neck. The dragon replied with a pleading rumble, eyes closed and cuddling their neck closer to him.

Ranboo smiled softly. He couldn’t say no.

[genlossneg]

thank you for this blog im boutta post a lot of my suffering in here enjoy the essay

I’m not a ranboo fan at all, i just heard about a cool horror project from a name i’m familiar with and i was excitedly waiting for perhaps a new kid on the block with cool content and the resources to do so. I’ve seen what people with three coins and a piece of lint can do out of passion, and so i expected that someone that has far more resources out of the gate would be able to really take it out of the park if they were equally as passionate. I’ll just grab a couple of points and elaborate.

Intentionally bad.

This is the poorest excuse for low quality content I’ve heard. Not a single self-respecting creative that actually cares about their project would make something ACTUALLY bad. Anytime you see something that’s intentionally bad and yet somehow beloved, look DEEPER. Because behind that veil of “bad” is actually often a HUGE amount of effort and care put into something a creator cared about. 

Intentionally bad content is still made with the intention to be fun to watch, to be entertaining. There is very little entertainment found in any of the genloss bad content.

Lack of horror content

The main excuses i’ve seen is that they were scared of Twitch TOS, to which I say lolwhat. You had two whole years to contact twitch and talk it out with them and figure out what part of your project and show would fly and what wouldn’t, and instead you opted to really cut out any horror aspect at all for fear of being banned on twitch? And even then, content more gorey and disturbing than this is allowed on twitch. If Until Dawn flies on twitch, I think gen loss could have gone wilder.

And if they REALLY didn’t want to risk it, for the love of god at least be creative with your attempts to circumvent it? The goofy poor editing of the red in ep2 during the surgery sequence took me out of it entirely and confused me so much. You know what they could’ve done? TURNED THE LIGHTING A STARK RED. THAT’S IT. THE MOST BASIC THING, TO AT LEAST REALLY GET ACROSS THAT SOMETHING IS WRONG.

The acting

I was a theatre kid in highschool and let me tell you even the 13 year olds acted with more passion and devotion to the role than 95% of the cast in gen loss. Even during improv. You can tell that there is basically no script to gen loss and that its purely “X will happen then Y will happen and we need to fill it with conversation and improv” with zero direction on tone or anything. It was so painful seeing how little effort had gone into the acting. Ranboo can’t act for shit and should have gone through some acting classes before taking on a live show. The only ones that were visibly trying were charlie and jerma and the people who were frozen robots during ep3 (because as someone who had to stay frozen in pose hours on end for a play while on-stage, that shit is HARD)

Hetch’s acting was even more laughable, and his fakeout death was… something. An incredibly cartoonish “uguguhh” exiting his mouth- really? Also It was so frustrating to have his voice come from seemingly nowhere. There was no source to his voice.

It sucked so much seeing ranboo actually TRY to be better in his acting in episode 3 because when he suddenly started being intense it felt WRONG and out of character, because there was no natural leadup to him being like that. ep 1 and 2 were so bad that even when ep 3 was better it felt disappointing.

Lighting

Its already been mentioned by film student anon that the lighting is such a huge amateur mistake but I want to touch upon the creative aspect of the lighting a little more.

There was such an utter lack of using colored lighting to really set tones in scenes and it SUCKED. Like, already with the lack of outright horror blood and gore, they NEEDED creative lighting to at least intensify scenes! Add some damn flickering lights! Green lighting? Something- anything. Again, TEENAGERS have been more creative with lighting in a performance and all they had was four colors to work with and nothing fancy.

Camerawork

I wish they would have actually done good camera work. Set up some cameras in locations and acted in front of them instead of having someone follow ranboo around and having some “lore” explanation for it that makes little sense. Having moving cameras that are shaky and constantly cutting people frame-wise is just not pleasant to watch and does not add anything useful. On top of the camera quality jarringly changing between shots constantly it just… ruined the flow. 

in ep3, we had an explanation for why there’s a camera following ranboo, and we got some REALLY COOL ESTABLISHING SHOTS THAT…. made no sense in lore. Why would the “drone” following ranboo take establishing shots? It’s supposed to follow ranboo- but then later it gets dismissed and we suddenly have sharp camera cuts to what im guessing was a prerecorded scene due to the camera quality change and it just felt. So sudden and jarring? Like okay you just dismissed the camera and now we suddenly get a different non-canon camera because they remembered we actually need to still see whats happening.

Lore/Story

The lore and story we have gotten so far is so scatterbrained and nonsensical. + knowing that this project isn’t actually what gen loss was supposed to be (which: Why are you advertising it as gen loss then, ranboo? You’re just staining the name of your passion project). So much of genloss is in the “I guess” category of why things happened. But the consistensy also felt so off. From what I understand, Charlie is the slime demon, and was the guy on the gurney, and was also in ep 3 as  himself. And all those other versions WERE the ep3 charlie. How? Charlie died? twice? According to what has happened? But he’s alive anyway at the end until he gets killed again by a cheap backrooms monster? But supposedly everyone else did actually die? 

I just. Genuinely do not understand what the story here was. What the point was of everything. I’m not gonna ask who the characters were because the characters were just the streamers and nothing special or new. If you know the streamer, thats the “character”. It’s just godawful writing.

Viewer interaction

Viewer interaction was pointless and didn’t matter. Either every choice the viewers made was gonna happen anyway, or ranboo decided to ignore it lol. It felt like there was no impact to viewers doing anything to influence the show and the show probably would have been largely better had viewer interaction not been a thing at all.

also idk maybe making ranboo’s “character” aware of the audience from the get go would have been more fun as they could’ve been trying to get the audience to do anything while we’re just watching quietly. And they could’ve gotten more and more desperate with the audience as things went on. But then again that requires actual acting skills that ranboo barely has.

Just as some final words, this really feels like a case of someone who has never done anything like this thinking they can do this because they’re famous and well-liked online. I know ranboo makes a lot of money, so they certainly had enough money to make something good. Take some film classes or acting classes. Instead they became overambitious and made just a generally unpleasant show that is not going to make me want to watch any future gen loss content in good faith.

The entire show depends on going “MY STREAMER!!! THATS MY STREAMER!!!” and would not survive on its own merit. The hype towards gen loss was misleading on what it’d be, and the fans made amazing fanart that does not live up to the reality of what they got and i feel genuinely sad for them. The fanbase made a better interpretation of what gen loss is WITHOUT EVEN NEEDING GEN LOSS TO BE OFFICIALLY RELEASED.

also a final thing about the merch but why is the merch so bad lol. Its such boring design. The gen loss logo appears barely anywhere in the show itself. The fans could’ve had some sort of cool merch, like masks based off of ranboo’s mask and the showfall robot masks. Shirts and merch based off of the slime demon and warehouse master. 

Anyway sorry for the huge wall of text I have just been going insane abt this to my friend in dms enjoy

————————————————–

i could probably spend hours responding to all of this! thank you for the mini essay, you make a ton of great points. i really sympathize with the “not a ranboo fan” stance because my friends are way more fans of him than i am, and were way invested.

i personally haven’t heard any “it’s supposed to be bad!” defenses but i can totally believe there are people like that out there lol. i definitely in the “there’s no entertainment when it’s bad”. you’re entirely right about the lack of horror! i was so confused after the first stream and everyone was like “it’s not supposed to be horror yet! you don’t understand!” and then it took until the 3rd stream for anything significant to even happen, and even then it was weak.

charlie and jerma did so much for gen loss man, ranboo’s acting was just.. not that great and when it was, it felt so jarring. more interesting lighting would’ve been so fun! so much could’ve been done with that, and that’s especially clear when they switch cameras because they had the ability to film this incredibly and just.. didn’t. i feel like we didn’t get so much lore that we should have, especially with how long the streams were. i hope we get something clearer later on.

the idea of him being aware of chat the whole time would be cool, but idk if it would’ve worked with the “brainwashed” thing he was doing. overall i agree - gen loss was super hyped up and in this form, it didn’t live up to it as well as it could have. once again, ty for the mini-essay, it was a great read!

[nomsfaultau]

Daily ask №15

Symbolism edition!

What type of metaphor/symbolism do you use the most often? (Ex. Comparing people to animals/inanimate objects, prophetic dreams, foreshadowing, flower language)

What is your favourite symbolism you've put into Fault?

What cool symbolism idea didn't make it into the final cut? (Ex. A character was supposed to be another cryptid originally and it mirrored their personality perfectly but then you changed it)

If you tried to talk about how symbolic their life and trauma was, which characters do you think would tell you to muffin off? Would somebody actually eagerly discuss it and maybe try to use it to predict their future? Who knows. You do probably that's why I'm asking-

Unrelated, but what the heck is "Evil "? You've mentioned that Wilbur speaks.. Evil mole? And the only thing that came to my mind was Evil frogs. And then the "They turn the fricking frogs gay" song. And- okay, I'll stop.

1.Comparing people to animals when under extreme pressure is a favorite -growling, snarling, whimpering, cornered animals, allusions to prey- it’s all really fun and to me exemplifies how panic robs people of more cerebral responses to problems. Tommy as an altar lamb is delicious. 

Dreams I usually use as short hand for a characters unconscious fears or desires. Say, Wilbur’s graphic nightmares of eating his friends and family, Tommy’s dreams of Phil burning him as a symptom of abandonment. 

There’s a flower/tree metaphor for the Hive which WHiT Croplabds really digs into plus all the hive members having flower names whereas Willow is an independent tree. 

The sea of voices is. Potentially NOT a metaphor? It started as vague description but visual hallucinations can be a component of DID and The Blood God and voices are already a magical thing so potentially The Blade very literally built a fortress around his mind to hold back the bloody sea with the god of Slaughter and Supremacy lurking in the depths. And the further I went I realized water has very much become a symbol of memory between The Blade, Ranboo, Niki. Which is extra funny for how it screwed over Phil. 

Plus the little detail of all the chapters being named colors that tie to the main pov/arc that’s in the chapter, some color theory thrown in. Some colors have a lot of thought in them when picking, such as darker shades for heavier chapters. Things like Scheeles digs into the toxic history of that green color and reflects the poison in that chapter, or fog tying into disassociation of the grey period, Rose as a double entendre for “A flower with thorns; or, ascension” and a joke about Rosalind, shamrock for something lucky happening.  2.Tommy’s door. On a literal sense it’s him being a teenage boy slapping the door frame every time he leaves. Which technically has some implications for freedom and rebellion etc but that’s not the real kicker. Because of the Hallway Massacre, it becomes an allusion to biblical Passover, with the threshold smeared in blood being the only one safe from The Angel of Death. It is only when Philza reaches Tommy that there is clemency. It’s a really fun nod to Philza’s nickname and a harrowing allegory at the same time. 

3. Niki was initially going to be fire aligned. A body that could move in between flesh and fire, growing and shrinking depending on how much fuel she had. Which would do well with things like her burning L’Manburg tree, personality, anarchy wahoo, etc. But also that’s because Niki was originally going to be Sapnap (or Pændamonium and I’m still mad about how clever that name was). There was this whole minor plot line about accidentally merging with Phil’s godflame and a mind suffering trying to encapsulate billions of years of life, epic team up, etc, but then like I didn’t want to include the dream team for reasons. Which sucks too because Dream had a really cool theme with puppet strings and soul bonds. He got recycled into honestly a way cooler and better written villain, but with Niki I really wrestled with it. I liked fire with her but I wanted it more tailored. She’s still developing, but the miasma mermaid direction has a lot more to play with.

4. Wilbur would tell me to muffin off because it’s already sharply aware that the dark/light dynamic thing it has going on with Phil is very on the nose. Tommy would just feel very ill. I think he’s start crying if I lay out all the Rose animatic symbolism to him, but also he’s not a very introspective guy. I think The Blade and Phil would be most likely to use the knowledge but symbolism is also debatably literal with them. Tubbo gets told about the freezing metaphor and just dryly replies: yeah, we’re pretty aware of the disassociation, thanks. Dr. Blake finds the scimitar smile thing amusing and accurate. Webb flatly: a spider motif? Ohhh my goooood. Who would have guesssssssed. 

5.Evil [language] is a joke that Wilbur’s language abilities come from knowing forbidden eldritch tongues. Ergo he can’t speak Mole, only evil Mole. If it were to speak whatever is the equivalent of Evil Mole, it would probably have a cooler name, such as Wilbur being partially able to communicate with Tubbo via Evil Bug (Venderblight). It’s not actually the same language but it has enough similarities for minimal coded communication.

[lgbtiba]

SO. Buckle up, kiddo!

I will not explain every single detail that led to this screenshot, but I will try for it to be as comprehensible as possible in a short format.

tw suicide, death, abuse

You know Tubbo already. The storyline of Dream SMP started when he was 16, hand in hand with Tommyinnit. When you think about Tubbo and Tommy, think about a connection something like Tazercraft. They are best friends, soulmates, partners, everything. Interconnection in the ways, that held them together despite everything that happened to them in the story.

Tommy’s older brother Wilbur started a country L’Manberg with Tommy, Tubbo joining soon after (as well as a couple of other people). They fought a war of Independence, gaining it after Tommy gave up his most prized possession (his music discs – Cat & Mellohi) to Dream – the leader of the Great SMP faction and the main antagonist in the story. Everything went fine until Wilbur lost presidential elections to Schlatt, who exiled him and Tommy, at the same time making Tubbo his Secretary of State. I will not go into this arc, because a lot happened that is not really necessary right now. Wilbur and Tommy created a Rebellion to overthrow Schlatt (who was a dictator), but Wilbur’s mental health deteriorated and he decided he would rather blow up the country and commit assisted suicide. Not before making Tubbo the new President of L’Manberg.

So Tommy and Tubbo left with a hole in the ground instead of their country, that Tubbo is supposed to lead. Tubbo gathered people and they built New L’Manberg on platforms on top of the crater, filling it with water. Everything seemed to be fine, until it wasn’t.

Tommy (& Ranboo) burnt down GeorgeNotFound’s (who was the king of the Greater SMP atm) house. They didn’t mean for it to burn, but it happened. Was Tommy’s fault, but my guy just so his favorite (along with Tubbo) person blow up their home and made someone else kill him, he was coping so hard. And Dream saw the opportunity in this to threaten New L’Manberg and manipulate Tommy and Tubbo,

After a lot of discussions, threats, suggestions, Tubbo was left with a horrible choice: get his country surrounded by an obsidian wall as tall as the sky, destroyed, fighting a war they couldn’t win but have Tommy with him or to exile Tommy. And he, as the President, chose the second option. Dream took Tommy to lead him away from New L’Manberg and Greater SMP.

Exile… wasn’t a good time for Tommy. It was actively miserable. Dream was abusing and gaslighting him, making him believe that Dream is his only friend and only person that cares about him, Tommy was starving, harming himself, debating committing suicide (Dream SMP has a set of canonical lives, Tommy was on his last) and waking up every day drowning in the ocean that separated him and New L’Manberg. Sure, that nobody wants him, that everyone is happier without him, that Tubbo hates him…

Tubbo also wasn’t having a great time. He got more paranoid, suppressing all his emotions as much as he can, getting into constant working and risky plans to assure safety to New L’Manberg. He was sure Tommy hated him, felt immense guilt for exiling him and just wanted him back,

Wilbur didn’t respawn because it was his last life, but he did come back as a ghost – Ghostbur. Separate entity to Wilbur, that only can remember happy things and doesn’t understand evil. And Ghostbur saw how miserable Tommy and Tubbo because of being apart. So he decided to give them a gift.

He created two compasses, connected to the Loadstones – one under Tommy’s exile tent and one under Tubbo’s Presidential office – and named them Your Tommy & Your Tubbo.

Ghostbur gave ‘Your Tubbo’ to Tommy. “What does Tommy like the most? His favorite thing in the whole wide world is… Tubbo! Listen, I know you really really like Tubbo and I know you really miss him, so I made this! It basically will point you in the direction of Tubbo at all time! So no matter where you are on this bitch of the earth, you will always be able to find each other” <- almost the exact quote from my memory.

Tommy really appreciated it. And, despite being the reckless and emotionally-driven out of the two, he put it in the enderchest next to his music discs to keep it safe. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EvMuFCWnfUs&pp=ygUcZ2hvc3RidXIgZ2l2ZXMgdG9tbXkgY29tcGFzcw%3D%3D

Ghostbur gave Tubbo ‘Your Tommy’ one, and Tubbo almost cried, because he did miss Tommy so much. And despite usually being more precautious and rational one, he always kept it in his offhand, always with him. Which was a mistake in hindsight because he lost it in a creeper explosion and it was awful. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8mMmNvzA9lo&pp=ygUYZ2hvc3RidXIgZ2l2ZXMgY29tcGFzc2Vz

Dream lied to Tommy and said Tubbo burned his compass, and Tommy debated throwing his into lava, bit couldn’t. He kept it safe. Throughout a bunch of events that led to another Battle for L’Manberg, where Tommy and Tubbo were reunited after a big fight. Which is better to watch than for me to explain, because it’s an incredibly powerful moment and one of my favorite in the story: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oGT-gIZ7TXE&pp=ygUldG9tbXkgYW5kIHR1YmJvIGNvbW11bml0eSBob3VzZSBmaWdodA%3D%3D

They fought. They died multiple times. And at some point part of Tommy’s inventory got to Tubbo. Including the ‘Your Tubbo’ compass.

COOL!! Oh my and this isn't even everything! They sound like the blorbos ever ❤

[mediocre-noodle]

the 2.9k story you ordered: tw death (on and off-screen), gun, yelling kinda, lots of swearing.

note: a star cluster (AKA a stellar association) is basically a star nursery.. for newly forming stars.

phasing is teleporting for dallas but its done a bit differently. i’ll explain better in a different ask most likely—

—

in the timeline, dallas popped on the server around pogtopia time, realized it, and then RAN bc no way is he going to mess around with all that drama.

kept away from the greater smp and l’manburg and las nevadas and the badlands— thousands and thousands of blocks away. basically no one knew where he was or WHO he was. he showed up randomly and always got to the point.

he built a base far enough away that he could live peacefully. it has an emergency bunker and escape tunnel, of course— it’s dallas. he was raised in a revolution. a farm to keep him busy and animals to keep him company. the entire base is also cloaked with protection spells and such. almost impossible to get near.

when tommy’s exile had begun, dallas had began to visit him. no one else was. maybe ranboo for a little while, but things happened. it was easy really. he only had to See if dream was there and then just teleport to logstedshire.

tommy and dallas had a weird start. you know tommy: he’s very standoff-ish, loud, wants to prove his worth. what would you do if you randomly came across this weird, unknown person at your exile spot?

of course, dallas just showed his hands and the lack of weapons on their person. asked tommy what he was doing out here by himself.

(“what are you doing out here?? who even are you??”

“my name is dallas. i joined the server a while ago.”

a squint. “how long ago?”

a hum… and then a shrug. “during schlatt’s presidency and your first exile. definitely before november 16th.”

“wha— but that’s so long! where have you been, then?”

“here and there. avoiding the drama.” (he avoids saying exactly where. he might regret it.))

time passed and they became good friends. tommy’s exile eventually came to it’s unofficial end after the incident and him going to techno. the friendship went cold for a while—cold as in no talking, not bad. perhaps quiet would work better—dallas did not tell tommy where his base was and they would not send messages over communicators, in case someone picks up tommy’s. it was a mutual agreement they made a week after meeting up.

(“but what if something happens and i need you?”

“you’ll find me.”

and tommy didn’t know what dallas meant by that.)

when the disc confrontation had began and tommy had gotten the message from dream, he worried about his friends. but, a thought popped up, what about dallas? what if something happens and dallas won’t know? (yet dallas always Knows—) tommy had to tell him! because what if—

and at that moment, he felt a strong pull. and tommy knew what dallas meant by “you’ll find me.” thus he packed up what he might need into a bag or his inventory (food, blocks, ender pearls, tools, potions, emergency torches—) and set off.

the trek seemed to last forever, but the more the pull tugged, the calmer the environment got. mobs would stop attacking and, some point, disappeared completely. tommy didn’t think anything of it, really.

eventually, after days, a weird dome appeared on the horizon. it looked a bit like a bubble with the light shining off it. getting closer, tommy could see several fields of crops inside of it, animals roaming around freely in other fields.

he walked up to the dome—the pull was going absolutely crazy—and brought up his hand, gently placing it against the transparent wall. it rippled upon touch, but it really felt like touching regular air.

tommy set aside his uncertainty and slowly pushed against the wall. he suddenly stumbled forwards as his arm just fell straight through the dome, body going with it. ‘oh shit—‘

and there it was. in the midst of flower fields and small, random houses was a lovely cottage. and he saw a blurry figure out in the yard. he picked up his pace, ignoring the ache in his feet, slowly moving into a jog and then a run. the figure drew ever closer.

and he stopped, standing by the wooden gate and staring at dallas—dallas who was dressed in a button-down fishing shirt, dirty pants, hiking boots, and a baseball cap covering his now shoulder-length hair that was pulled into a teeny-tiny ponytail. dallas who was just standing in the garden of daisies, watering them gently.

but dallas paused his watering, setting the watering can down, looking over his shoulder before turning all the way around with a smile.

“so…” he said, “i see you’ve found me.”

tommy nodded, a smile on his lips too. “yeah… real fucking hard to get you out here, eh?”

dallas laughed and just opened his arms, beckoning tommy over for a hug. so tommy went over and hugged him tightly, breathing out shakily. the pull was gone.

a few minutes later, they both sat on the front porch in the rocking chairs dallas had made.

“what brought you looking for me, starling?”

“dream… he… he left a message at my house. told me and tubbo to visit dream on january 20th or my—my discs will be gone forever.”

dallas nodded his head. of course, he already Knew this, but it’s nice to not rely on that. “so…?” he drew it out. a question. he knew tommy by then. he wouldn’t go down without a fight.

“i plan on getting everyone’s help— everyone on the server. big k, i don’t— i don’t know what will happen— what could happen.”

death was left unspoken.

“i guess i better get my things ready then, huh?”

tommy’s head whipped around. “what?”

“well, i’m not gonna let my starlings out of the cluster just to wander into a trap! hell no! not unless i’m there.”

“wha— you don’t know who you’re up against. i mean—“

dallas caught tommy’s fidgeting hands with a look in his eyes. it was hardened and cold—chilling even. yet they still carried fondess. tommy knew that look.

“i’ve done this before, tommy.” (the tone left a small sinking pit in tommy’s chest. dallas shouldn’t’ve—) “i’ve done this many, many times before. i have killed and i have died and i have won. i know thousands of ways to make a human scream, to cry, to beg, to bleed, to die, and to wish for death. it’s not me who doesn’t know who they’re up against— it’s them. i am coming with you and you are not facing your abuser alone— period, end of story.“

(what else could tommy say? ‘hey, big k! so sorry to hear you’ve fucked people up and also had experience with this. that sucks a lot.’ no!)

tommy sighed. “okay.”

dallas raised an eyebrow.

“well? go get your stuff, dumbass!”

“call me a dumbass again and see what i do!”

“what will you do? you can’t do shit— aCK! yes, you can!! shit! don’t hit me with the towel, it’s fucking filthy!”

their laughter rang out across the flowers and the crops.

“okay! you ready to go?”

dallas was back in one of his usual outfit— black t-shirt that was cropped (literally. dallas cut it into a crop-top), brown cargo pants, a dull blue jacket with its collar folded down, black, heavy-duty boots, and black fingerless compression gloves (they help with the pain). his hair was pulled back like earlier, but less dirt was in it and you could see the slight pointed ears left exposed. a scar on his face also stood out, an X right under his left eye. in his right ear was a green dragonfly wing earring.

“bitch, are you? you haven’t even geared up! and it took ages to get here!”

dallas waved tommy’s comment off. “i have everything on me already. and it’s fine— it’ll only take, like, a minute to get back.”

“fucking HOW!? it took me days!” tommy threw his hands in the air. this was outrageous!

“you’ll see! but are you ready though?”

“yeah, yeah, let’s fucking go.”

dallas nodded before grabbing tommy’s wrist—ignoring the noise of ‘hey!’— and pulled him forwards. he hadn’t phased with another person in a while. this would be weird. “hold onto your hats!”

“i don’t even have a haAAT—!”

and they disappeared into the Universe with a flash of gold.

the Universe spat them out right by tommy’s dirt house— where it would be if it wasn’t exploded and set aflame— tommy stumbling forwards while dallas seemed pretty fine, letting go off tommy’s hand. tommy whipped around to dallas and started firing questions.

“what was thAT-?! could you— you could fucking do that the whole time?! is that how you got to logstedshire so fast!? how did you—“

“yeah, i could do that the whole time and it is how i got to logsted quickly. it’s similar to admin and mod teleportation, but it’s more of walking through the planes of existence…” dallas rubbed the back of his neck then dropped his hand and shook his head. “anyways, it’s nearing the 20th. did you contact everyone already?”

“yeah. just fucking hope they’ll be there.”

dallas hummed. “they will. now, come on! you need to introduce me to your friends!!”

“punz?” nervous laughter echoed.

“i’m sorry, dream. but you should’ve payed me more.”

and then from the portal came Sapnap, Sam, Quackity, Jack, Ponk, Puffy, Eret, Ranboo, Antfrost, HBomb, Callahan, Niki, and BadBoyHalo— all geared in netherite or diamond and baring weapons, except one. the last person who exited the portal had no armor or weapons, hands tucked into their pants pockets.

“YOU CAME! it wor—“

“wait—“

“tubbo, tubbo, tubbo! over— BEHIND, BEHIND, BEHIND, BEHIND, BEHIND!” tommy yelled as he dragged tubbo behind the crowd of players. dallas caught his eyes as he scanned the crowd and gave a salute. tommy just kept smiling.

dallas turned back to the main attraction: dream and his stupid ass. the man kept backing into the hallway while the others taunted him, mostly tubbo and tommy.

“dream? hey, dream.” tommy pushed his way through the crowd and tubbo cautiously followed. “i know you’re not gonna kill me. i know you’re not. sapnap, can you hand me a pickaxe, please.”

and tommy actually got the axe of peace instead… ‘it’s weird seeing this in person,’ dallas thought. ‘it’s much more adrenaline-fulled than the Core streams.’

Dream was killed by TommyInnit using [The Axe of Peace]

Dream was killed by TommyInnit using [Nightmare]

‘love that he’s getting revenge on his abuser, but goddamn! get to the fucking point!’ dallas lamented. he knew when to step in— and there it is.

“tommy, we were FRIENDS!!” dream yelled as he backed away from tommy who was cornering him.

dallas pushed his way through the crowd. some of them looked at him with caution-confusion-skepticism-judgment. he couldn’t give two fucks.

“dream. you meant nothing to me… this is it. The Axe of Peace—“ he raised the axe and—

“WAIT— listen! tommy, i can bring people back to life!”

“The Axe of Peace—“ and tommy froze.

that was dallas’ moment. time stood still.

he didn’t give a single damn about that revive book. wilbur was weird when he came back anyway. if dream was dead now and not in that dumbfuck prison, it would stop many unnecessary events. tommy would not die. ranboo would not die. perhaps quackity wouldn’t go paranoid for that revivebook.

so when the familiar metal of a pistol spawned into his hands, he brought up his arms, aimed, then pulled that godforsaken trigger.

the shot deafened the room, making dallas’ ears ring as dream’s now lifeless body fell to the floor. the bullet hit right between the eyes, ignoring tommy’s body with a bit of magical interception. the scene reminded dallas of something he buried deep down. those unseeing eyes with a bullet to his head. how he deserved it— how they both did.

then came the uproar of the players yelling. dallas un-tensed his shoulders, bringing the pistol to his mouth and blew the slight smoke that was leaving it.

“what the fuck was that?!”

“what the hell?!”

“what did he do?!”

“what is that loud, metal thing?!”

tommy stood at dream’s body still, then turned around to face dallas. (and tommy stared into his eyes and saw anger-rage-hurt— saw something Otherly in those yellow eyes. that was dallas. and then that was what dallas meant when he had done this before.)

dallas could tell tommy was a bit angry, but held up his hand after stowing the pistol away in the Universal folds. “i told you i’ve done this before.” he crossed his arms.

“you did.” tommy nodded, grinding his teeth a bit. “why did you do that? why did you if— if he could revive people! revive wilbur!”

“frankly, that revive book brings nothing but devastation! bringing wilbur back won’t help either. he’s been in a deserted train station for thirteen years—“

“we could’ve put him in the prison!” exclaimed sam from behind dallas.

and dallas spun around with a snarl and fire in his eyes. “that prison won’t fucking stop him! i do not give a DAMN how secure it is! it’s not secure enough! i do not want to hear the alarms go off when he pulls in that favor from technoblade and he’s out, leaving withers in his wake! withers and a pissed off warden who uses a CHILD as leverage to someone WHO DOES NOT GIVE A FUCK! then the warden SLAUGHTERS that child. do you want to kill ranboo, AwesamDude.”

players shuffled around, not knowing what the strange man was screaming about. yet in horror, they come to the idea thats he’s talking about their futures. they could tell the last sentence was said more of a threat.

“do you want to deal with a week-long prison lockdown because while tommy is visiting his fucking abuser, explosions go off on the top of pandora’s vault?! and by the end of that fucking week, you have a DEAD TEENAGER who was BEATEN TO DEATH WITH A GODDAMN POTATO! simply because dream wanted to prove that the revive book WORKED! so then tommy is stuck in limbo for three days until he is revived! and, by the way, in this server’s afterlife: a day in our time is a month in limbo. is that not CONVINCING enough for you!?

“and if there’s no revive book, quackity doesn’t go fucking paranoid and insane trying to revive JSchlatt—“

said man steps back in shock because what—

“—practically torturing the information out of him because he was to get his hands on it by any means necessary. have i mentioned the fucking NUKES?!” dallas threw this hands up.

“dream is a fucking psychopath,” dallas finally spat out with venom. “i have seen my fair share of tyrants and dictators. they are roaches—you think you’ve got them bested but they keep crawling back.”

dallas took several breaths, glaring at the crowd in front of him. their faces are covered with horror and shock. tommy is frozen and pale while ranboo—poor ranboo— is trembling, tubbo holding onto their hand tightly.

“so yes: i shot dream. and he got what he fucking deserved.”

there was silence until—

“who are you?”

it was said with disgust-concern-confusion-horror-terror-terror-terror—

“my name is dallas striker.”

“you see the future or what?”

“i See everything.”

and the room got colder as they stared into the unsettling eyes of something they could not comprehend. someone comes into a bate without armor— when they’re vulnerable— but finishes it quickly and the enemy is left dead. if you focused, you might see the faint gold outline on their body and in their veins, the multitude of wings on their back that only are seen if the lights hit them just tight, the thousands of scars, the flickering gold devil tail, the Eyes on their face that seem to open for a millisecond— what is this thing?!

but then someone laughs. a snort and then a full-blown cackle. and dallas turns behind him to see tommy wheezing his lungs out.

“WAIT WAIT WAIT— AHAHA— so THATS how you knew about that one time! you’re just— AHAH— your magic fucking sussed it out for you!”

dallas chuckled. “not only that, you suck absolute ass at pranks, starling.”

“HEY— i’m the best at pranks, don’t you fucking dare—!”

“really!? because you fell outta that tree—“

“HEY, WOAH— WE DONT TALK ABOUT THAT— i have a reputation, you know!?”

“yeah! a reputation of being a fucking dumbass!”

“‘mimimimi, i’m dallas and i’m so smart—‘ OW! DON’T THROW A ROCK AT ME!”

“you deserved it!!”

(later, when punz had went to look for the book of death, he found it missing. in it’s place was a gaping rift at the bottom of the chest, making the shape of an Eye.)

dallas stays in the area for a bit since the egg is about to go on a rampage. it’s better for him to purify it and then just fucking destroy it. after that, the egg will most likely dissipate from the eggpire members. he’ll still go around and purify them, though.

and that he does. egg is scrambled and the corruption is gone. nothing can withstand a Guide. he visits each former eggpire member and makes sure that the corruption is gone from their systems.

when he leaves to go back to his base, a certain blond follows behind him. with that blond comes his two friends and their son. so the trip is taken on foot— dallas cannot phase four players, are you nuts?!

two more houses find their way onto dallas’ property, which are now inhabited by one _Beloved family and the other by one TommyInnit. however, there are many sleepovers in dallas’ huge living room.

and it’s peaceful. it’s home.

(purpled would want to stay back in the smp probably)

AAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!! dallas is is the mvp FR!!!!

“i have seen my fair share of tyrants and dictators. they are roaches—you think you’ve got them bested but they keep crawling back.” <- OBSESSED WITH THIS LINE BTW????? oooough

love how dallas just like. spares everyone the time and trauma of the future with a bullet to the head 😭 thats actually so based

I LOVE THIS!!

[llitchilitchi]

thinking about the revive book again and how there is just so many more questions raised now that we learnt more

what makes limbo so bad? why is limbo so bad? how does the death influence it? he said all of those things, though it’s possible to argue that not all of the limbos are as bad as we make them out to be (or maybe I’m just a chronic dnfer and wouldn’t mind watching space croissants dsmp compilations for the rest of eternity, but I digress) why does limbo choose to hurt the player after they died? why is it miserable even for people who met a horribe unfortunate end?

what kind of death was the one Tommy died in the prison, to make the limbo a black void? why was Wilbur’s limbo an underground station? (could it be that, at the heart of it all, his death was a suicide and he died miserable, so he was stuck within his own creation that he hated because it reflected those feelings?)

why are there ghosts? why doesn’t everyone get a ghost? what made Ranboo and Wilbur so similar that they both got ghosts? did Dream become a ghost, at some point while they were testing? did Punz?

how did Dream and Punz test the deaths? do the means of death affect the way their limbo works? if Dream were to stand in one spot and get stabbed, a willing sacrifice, and get beheaded with just as much fervor, would his limbo be the same, or would it be different? how did they guarantee that the death was one thing or another - self defence, suicide, death in a battle, anything, really?

why was Dream so scared to die, during the disc finale? no matter how I look at it, him allowing himself to be killed a third time would be beneficial. he was in limbo before. he knew what to expect. he had Punz waiting for him in the realm of the living. surely, dying and being considered dead, only to be brought back by Punz somewhere far away would have been much, much safer than him being locked up in Pandora where he has no control whatsoever? what made his limbo so horrifying that he chose his own hand crafted hell over limbo? why was he so scared to die?

he was brought back, before, and then he lost two canon lives in the staged finale. that means he was brought back with all three lives. but then after he revived Tommy, the only canon death Tommy suffered was during the s1 finale in the vault, and he went to limbo immediately. does that mean that they get to choose how many lives they bring the other people back with? (did that cause the imbalance that Dream spoke of, with death and DXD?)

Dream was in limbo. and so was Punz. and Dream said that they can revive each other from limbo. was that just an empty threat to scare Tommy and Tubbo? or was he telling the truth? the implications of the truth are absolutely wild,  because it means that they both had to die at the same time and try to revive each other From Limbo. or is there a third person that they didn’t mention that has the access to the revive book? would there have been a third person, just in case, so if revival from limbo is impossible, there is still someone waiting for them in the realm of the living? (was it Ranboo? was that what the mind control experiments were about?)

what went wrong during the testing? why is there an imbalance? what happened to Lazar and Vikk that Dream needed to mention that Things Went Wrong With Them Especially?

when did the tests happen? was it before or after prison? was it both? what tests happened before the staged finale? did Punz keep testing while Dream was gone? if they kept testing after, is it partially responsible for Dream’s slow deterioration that Tommy pointed out?

where do the resurrected people appear? can the necromancer affect that? the first revival we saw was of Tommy, and he woke up in the prison in the spot he died. the second one was of Wilbur, and he crawled out of the button room. we could almost assume that the place the person is revived at is the place of their death, or the place where their body is. but Dream got revived at the bottom of the staircase, right by Punz’s side. (is that why we heard the End portal when he was revived? or was that something else entirely?)

what have they tried, really? why was the only death they haven’t tested yet a heroic sacrifice? was that something that Dream did just to play villain? (why were they given such an easy way out, then? with the wooden pressure plate, and food, and possibly hiding items that Dream and Punz haven’t thought to check for?)

does that mean that they tried the worse options? does that mean that Dream was, at some point, hurting and broken enough to walk off a ledge, or throw himself into lava, and recount what happened in limbo after? (after all, he did have these tendencies in Pandora. who is to say they weren’t something he developed before he got locked up, and now they were just so much clearer and more on display, with nothing left to hide them?)

the revive book is just so damn interesting, and they dropped too much on us in the finale for me to believe there isn’t more to it