#I wasn't expecting to like it really

[iztarshi]

Mirage!TMNT is a lot more fun than I expected. I don't think Turtles Forever really did these guys justice either. They do kill bad guys very casually but aside from that they're not really mean or anything.

I'm only a few issues in but it's much more action-packed than grimdark and at the moment a lot like reading a speeded up version of 03.

Don's pigeon puppet for covering security cameras is Mirage canon.

#I wasn't expecting to like it really #but it's cute #yeah these are edgy turtles but they're cute edgy turtles

[egophiliac]

so excited for Kalim to save the day by swiper-no-swiping this dip. you can do it! I believe in you!

god I hope this reads properly

#art #twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland spoilers #stage in playful land #stage in playfulland #i feel like kalim and the marshmallow test operates under roger rabbit rules #whether he passes or fails depends on which option is funniest at the time #anyway HEY things are finally actually happening! #so glad fellow agrees with me there #did he even expect them to make it to the show. did he very quickly have to choreograph a poppy little dance number. #honestly in retrospect i am also shocked that they lasted as long as they did #i mean. floyd is there. c'mon. #speaking of which i did really enjoy floyd going BYE JADE! MAYBE I'LL COME BACK TO SAVE YOU LATER IF I FEEL LIKE IT! #revenge for the popcorn #sorry if this is nonsensical! somehow it became like 4 am while i wasn't looking #i am super digging the evil theme park shenanigans (now that they're actually happening) #it's just Very Late!

[inkskinned]

before you know about women, you hear that you do not need to love the man, just that you need to love him through his manhood. which is to say you have seen the future painted in lamb's blood over your eyes - how your mother shoots you a look about your father's inability to cook right. how your aunt holds her wineglass and says i'm gonna kill em. men, right! how your best friend bickers with her boyfriend, how she says i can't help it. i come back to him.

you learn: men are gonna cheat. men aren't going to listen when you're talking, because you're nagging. men think emotions are stupid. they think your life is vapid and your hobbies are embarrassing. men will slam things, but that's because men are allowed to be angry. if you get loud, you're hysterical. if a man gets loud - well, men are animals, men are dogs, men can't control their hands or their eyes or their bodies. they're going to make a snide comment about you in the locker room, about your body, about how you're so fucking annoying. you're going to give him kids, and he will give you the money for the kids, and you're going to be running the house 24/7 - but he gets to relax after a long day, because his job is stressful. the man is on stage, and is a comedian, and says "women!"

and you are supposed to love that. you are supposed to love men through how horrible they are to you - because that's what women do. that's what good women do. wife material. your father even told you once - it'll make sense when you're older. it was like staring down a very lonely tunnel.

it feels like something's caught in your throat, but it's all you know, so. it's okay that you see sex as a necessary tool, a sort of okay-enough ritual to keep him happy, even though he doesn't seem to care about happiness as-applied-to you. it is relationship upkeep. it is kissing him and smiling even though he didn't brush his teeth. it is getting on your knees and looking up and holding back a sigh because he barely holds you as you panic through the night. it's not like the sex is bad and you do like feeling wanted. and besides! he's a man! like... they're another species. you'll never be able to actually communicate, right. he isn't listening.

you just don't get it. you don't feel that sense of i'm gonna climb him like a tree. mostly it just feels fucking exhausting. you play the part perfectly. you smile and nod and are "effortlessly" charming. and it's fine! it's alright! you even love him, if you're looking. you could have good life, and a good family, and perfectly happy.

in the late night you google: am i broken. you google i'm not attracted to my husband. you google i get turned on by books but not by him. you google how to get better in bed.

the first time he yells at you, it almost feels like blankness. like - of course this is happening. this is always how it was going to end up. men get angry, and they yell, and you sit there in silence.

you mention it to your friend - just the once - while you're drunk. she shrugs and says it's like that with me too, i just try to forget and move on. men are always gonna hear what they want to. pick your battles and say sorry even though he's in the wrong. you play solitaire online for a month. you go to your therapist appointment and preach about how you're both so in love.

after all, you have a future to want. nobody lied about it - how many instagram posts say marriage is hard. say real love takes work. say we fight like cats and dogs but the best part is that we always make up. how many of your friends say happy anniversary to the best and worst thing to ever happen to me. if you really loved him - loved yourself too - you'd accept that men are just different from you.

the first time she kisses you, it's on a dare at a party. something large and terrifying whips through your body. you wake up sweating from dreams where her mouth is encrusted with pearls and you pick them off one by one with your teeth. fuck. you sit at the computer and your almost-finished game of sim city. you think about your potential perfect life and your potential future family. you google am i gay quiz with your little hands shaking.

you delete each letter slowly. you don't need to love him. you just need to keep going.

#warm up #writeblr #this is also about being ace btw #my identity has slowly shifted over time and maybe if everyone is REAL cool i'll talk bout it #bc it's complicated and nuanced. but this is like #trying to warn u that if you find it “relationship upkeep” to have sex with ur partner #and don't actually enjoy it or seek it for urself. u might just not be attracted to them. #which is fine ! ace ppl can be perfectly happy in any relationship they feel good in! #but also i wasn't as straight as i had expected! #> the first time i saw dick i was like. huh. oh okay that's fine i guess #> the first time i saw pussy i was like. WAIT ACTUALLY HANG ON I GET IT #i just assumed sex wasn't all it was cracked up to be ya know #but also like. btw? this IS NOT saying ''u might be gay not ace'' #bc tbh i'm grey ace/demisexual #it's saying u might not be into ur partner. explore urself & ur feelings. turn inward. #TAKE THIS IN THE MANNER IT WAS MEANT> GENTLE AND KIND #AND NOT IN A WEIRD INTERNET WAY PLEASE #bc the truth is that there ARE ppl who are gay who assume that they just ''don't like'' sex #and ace ppl who might need a different partner w/different needs #and i would have REALLY needed to hear ''check in w/urself about if u actually like sex'' #WAY EARILIER in my life. but nobody said anything bc they assume if ur having sex. u like it. #not just the actual act of sex. not once ur turned on. do you ACTUALLY like it. or is it a burden? #even if ur gay. check w/urself. maybe ur more ace than u realized. in which case. ADDITIONAL FLAG BB #i love collecting my flags. i'm at like 354 at this point #but also btw this is about how toxic relationships are SO normalized that u can be in one #and have everyone around u being like ''THATS JUST MEN LOL''

[journey-to-the-attic]

one thing about ik is that she will always reach out

#obey me #art #i had the idea for this and managed to bulldoze through drawing it all without losing motivation halfway through #but Do Not expect me to post art this frequently in future #idk how to do panels so if the middle bit with the text might be laid out weird #i added the stars and feathers and stuff because there was a bunch of empty space around the boxes #obey me satan #jtta ik #(btw the crumbling symbol next to the exploding feather is the wrath symbol from in-game) #(with the pride symbol attached upside down at the bottom) #(not so much symbolism as it is just me whacking you over the head with the point but it looks cool) #i had a lot of fun doing satan's more monstrous design so i might try my hand at some of the other demons later? #i do have some ideas for levi (deep sea creatures are just really fun) #also happy nightbringer release day!! it showed up on my homescreen like half an hour ago and i was like “wait what” #for some reason i thought it wasn't releasing til next week?? #the new genshin patch is today as well so looks like i'll have plenty to do with the rest of my free time for the easter hols #(i promise i'm also working on the next chapter of jtta but i am so stuck on how to get lucifer actually Talking) #anyway. here's a gold star for making it through all my rambling in the tags for anyone who did so: ⭐

[slutabed]

barbie spoilers?? maybe?? but idk why one of the things i loved most about the movie that i’m not seeing anyone else talk about (because maybe it’s a hard thing to bring up, or “bad” to talk about, or whatever, but) is that sharon rooney features so prominently as one of the main Barbies in Barbieland. i know sharon rooney from her role as rae earl in “my mad fat diary” where it was the first time i was seeing myself and my struggles with binge eating disorder and depression and fatness being portrayed on tv, and while maybe it wasn’t a super mainstream show (idk how popular it was in the uk), it was a show that was seeing me. 

and now sharon rooney is playing a barbie in THE barbie movie, and she is not “plus size barbie” or “body neutrality barbie” or like any of mattel’s recent attempts to make barbie have a normal body despite the original doll’s unrealistic proportions. she’s just a barbie!!!! she’s as much of a barbie as any of the other barbies!!!! idk why that’s giving me such a thrill especially to see her in the movie and i can’t really articulate what it is (that a person without margot robbie’s body shape/size is perfectly, evenly on par with her in a movie of this caliber -- not the main character or star, obviously, but is equally considered as beautiful and perfect as stereotypical barbie and all the other barbies just by being herself) -- but i loved loved loved loved loved it and i’m so happy that it was just a *thing* without needing to be quantified. 

#barbie #barbie movie #barbie spoilers #barbie movie spoilers #sharon rooney #idk like #obvi there's something to be said about the whole cellulite thing like how it was brought up that women are expected to be thin but not too #but not too thin #but that this wasn't mentioned but like #idk #idk idk this isn't really coherent i just like #i just love sharon rooney and im so happy she was a barbie that was just as barbie as all the other barbies :) #i loved this movie so much and this was just one thing i've been excited for since they dropped the barbie ads #and like...she was barbie :) i want to cry about it i love it

[canisalbus]

If I remember correctly you created Machete around 2007-2008. But when did you create Vasco? (I'm sorry of this has been asked before, I couldn't find anything)

First finished pictures of Vasco are from 2018, but even before that I had been thinking it would be interesting if Machete had had one (1) romantic relationship in his youth before he was ordained. I just didn't have a name and design for him yet.

In the earliest sketches of Vasco, he first looked a little bit like a bordercollie, then like a spaniel or a setter. He had a darker color palette as well, sort of chestnut brown with white markings, but combined with the overpowering whiteness of Machete he looked kind of impassionate and drab, so I kept making him warmer and lighter until he became the golden boy he is today. The name came later, I just thought Vasco sounded friendly and charismatic. (Also the old finnish word 'vaski' means brass and bronze, and even if it's a tedious connection and doesn't factor into their canon at all, it felt too fitting to me personally and I had to go with it).

#answered #anonymous #he was meant to be an absent character #one who appeared only in a couple of flashbacks or dreams #but the fact he used to be there and then wasn't was something that still influenced Machete #how he viewed love and other people and himself #Vasco wasn't supposed to show up again but he sort of elbowed himself back into the story and into a central position just last summer #really switched up things you could say #I originally imagined him to be more cocky and entitled and thrill seeking #but he mellowed out pretty instantly #I like him a lot better as a genuinely good and sincere person #maybe partially because you wouldn't expect someone that coddled and spoiled to have a sense of empathy and a working moral compass?

[petricorah]

i've been so busy thinking about oikawa waterbending au i didn't even stop to consider the obvious...zukka volleyball au

#what a fool ive been #expect sketches. threat. #i know i did that volleyball drawing a while ago of them at the beach but that wasn't really a volleyball au #zuko's obviously a spiker #i think sokka would be a really good all around player. like solid captain material but he feels bad that he can't stand out #i kind of like the idea of him being the mastermind/setter #a role that isn't quite as shining but he holds the team together. but can still spike it if need be #also he's setter so i can have him work off of spiker!zuko

[fizzytoo]

i had to get my hands on them BADLY

#ts4 #sims 4 #ts4 horse ranch #ts4 cas #townie makeover #dani davila #dani uses they/them #dyke <3 #did i change too much??.... maybe. not rlly like the general energy is still there #i swear their face was longer in the trailer?? #they have this mix of fem and masc style which i wasn't expecting but it's really cool #gave them top surgery free of charge 😁 back alley top surgery by fizzy <3

[zxal]

So you guys have just been coping with this since 2019. Okay.

#yugioh vrains #ygo vrains #vrains #'now i understand that definition. i loved you.' OKAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! #i need to go back and listen again but i'm like 95% sure that the word that gets translated as 'people' can also mean 'someone' #ai means to love someone. i loved you. #vrains spoilers I GUESS? SORRY I KNOW THERE ARE PEOPLE FOLLOWING ME WHO HAVENT WATCHED VRAINS #BUT IT'S ALSO BEEN OUT FOR 4 YEARS. IDK. #i've been steadily processing this for the past three days straight. i admittedly wasn't crazy about vrains' last season but good lord #i didn't expect the finale to grab me and shake me violently about like that. you guys really live like this?

[clouvu]

I love them your honor

#genshin leaks #genshin impact #arlecchino #sandrone #arledrone #I HONESTLY DIDNT THINK I WOULD ACTUALLY LIKE LONG HAIR ON ARLE BUT THEY REALLY DID SOMETHING BY GIVING HER A LOW PONYTAIL;;; #rika pokemon looking ass..... i love u sm #sandrone looks SO pretty too and I wasn't expecting her outfit to be as dark as it is #also curious about the lil key thing jammed into her back ngl she's like a lil wind up toy #LOWKEY kinda grieving over her being the size of a garden gnome tho #@ the other 5 tall woman model sandrone believers we lost #random observation but i like how in all of sandrone's appearances she either is making a neutral :I face or a :) face #despite this I still can and will draw her looking like she's constipated because it's funnier #her being officially short now only proves my point further because short people are closer to hell and thus angrier #just like me fr

[sysig]

Off to make mischief and terrible decisions for everyone (Patreon)

#Doodles #UT #Handplates #Gaster #Papyrus #Sans #Help they keep appearing #Where have I heard that one before lol #Genuinely! I wasn't expecting to keep drawing them but my pencil kept moving and they kept showing up on my paper! #Especially Gaster but the other two plenty as well #Got to employ a bit of my favourite coloured pencil ♪ I Will find a way to use my blue on nearly anything #Luckily for me they come prepackaged with blue magic so that was easy enough #Wiggly baby Papyrus does Not want to go >:( At least he's not being hurt :( #Some smoking Gaster ♪ I still quite enjoy drawing smoke honestly - fun to get to do so with a character who actually smokes haha #You can see I also added swoopy-swoops to his Lost Soul head - I like it much better for being such a small detail #I think it looks weird in black rather than white but against a white background- #Without them he feels....hmm something. Something old that I don't want #Not like the Classic Lost Soul head tho haha - similar but not quite the same! #I love his design ahh ♪ He's really so pretty but so much of that is in his details! Like the way he wears his clothes or holds his body #I'm always a sucker for that style of turtleneck as well haha ♫ #Perhaps his turtleneck keeps the smoke in chest from escaping longer :0 Yet another reason to wear them! #Shot of the little family before things went Completely terrible - before the plates and all that #I'm rather pleased with his hand pose there actually :) Keep an eye on your kids Gaster you've only got the one eye to do so! #And then some silly ones lol - I am desperately curious if animated skeletons would have a hyoid bone #It's not as though hyoid bones are specific to humans! They're just A Type Of Bone! Surely skeletons would have All their bones right? #But in the human skeleton it's not resting against another bone it's just floating there tethered by muscle and sinew #Would it float? Would it rest inside the lower jaw? Would it attach to the neck vertebrae?? #It'd probably get caught on his turtleneck a lot easier than like - getting it caught on his neck bones for example #They have a kind of fused canine-teeth-like structure as well they're like a weird set of tongue-teeth lol #It's just fun to imagine ♪ Similar to how the rest of the skeletal body like - magnetizes? to itself :)

[prongsmydeer]

Things I Loved About Fleabag (2016):

The careful balance of spiralling and sincerity that keeps you rooting for resolution and relief, despite the show intentionally framing itself around grief

The way that it is clear based on the way that they talk about her that Fleabag is a great deal like her mother (her off-colour jokes, her charisma, even hints of difficult friendships through the Godmother) but they don't have anyone make that comparison until the last episode of S2, with, "You are the way you are because of [your mother]" and the look of surprise on Fleabag's face when she hears it

"Don't make me an optimist; you will ruin my life," being such a telling line, because as you fall in love with the Priest, and Fleabag, you want to believe that things will work themselves out

The love in Claire's line to Fleabag, "The only person I'd run through an airport for is you," and the delightful contrary optimism of her deciding to go to the airport anyway

The revelation that Boo had offered to take Fleabag's love for her mother, intertwining both losses

The way that the Priest not only breaks through the carefully constructed narrative relationship that Fleabag has with the viewer, but also himself directly looks toward the audience on a separate beat as he tries to understand her more ("You don't like answering questions, do you?")

The entire sequence of the last few scenes, "Being a romantic takes a hell of a lot of hope," to "I love you." "It'll pass," to Fleabag walking around with a statue that is, in some ways now, a physical representation of the love she is carrying around. Because while the show is about grief, and love, it doesn't feel like it is asking you to overcome those things, but to learn to live with them while moving forward

#ayesha says things #fleabag #hot priest #priestbag #claire fleabag #fleabag series #television #more thoughts in tags #i'm glad i stuck it out bc the first few eps i was like 'i don't know if this is for me' and then as it continued i was like 'OH.' #i love how s1 feels like a complete story. and then s1-s2 feels like a more complete story #and i adore how you can see the love in its writing. it's like watching tgp. it feels intentional and sincere and a bit clever #also not to undercut the sincerity of my feelings for this show #but i wasn't expecting to find andrew scott's hot priest SO HOT. they really did something there. every time he was on screen i was like #I Am Looking 👁👄👁 #alright 2010 sherIock fans. u win this round

[puppy-pill]

what do you mean they announced a Wonderful Precure movie??

#precure #wonderful precure #like damn that really got me I wasn't expecting it for today #and it looks like it's gonna be video game themed somehow? #hmmmm lookin up to it

[breezy-cheezy]

Vash cuddling Meryl or carrying her around like a teddy bear because she's Smol and Sof and Warm. 🥰

Wow that looks big in this format. E. Extra tol Vash? (click for better quality)

Meryl is not happy with these arrangements. Vash may have found a new weighted stuffie jkHDSKFLS

(new requests are closed now btw)

#my art #trigun #trigun stampede #breezy replies #ask meme #x-i-l-verify #I really feel out of practice hhhsdjkfs #shoulda know these would take longer than expected #still there are many I would LIKE TO DO (I did get. alot. I should be selective.) #maybe I'll keep doing them over the week #even if valentine's is over #never enough platonic love around so might as well #sorry the clothing for the au idea wasn't as squishhhyyy #and I feel like if I tried it I would wanna do it justice and not...doodly and rushed aheh #maybe a commission someday eh? wink wonk wink wonk -dies- #anyway love tiny queen Meryl #Wolfwood asks for a turn and Vash reluctantly hands her over #ww proceeds to swing her around like a sack of potatoes #(like he used to do with the smaller kids at home) #much screaming kJHSDKJLFHJSDGFS #mmmkay bed time

[ratguy-nico]

So this is the comic, I wish to say is something original but this is exactly what happened in the "Bob Actually" san valentine episode, good episode, dont really like the Gene part, I know, a shocker, but all in all a great episode.

Also this whole dialog is taken out of another tv serie and I challengue you to know wich one, dont tag it until some one guess it.

Hope you like it like I dont.

Is in spanish too because some times me baja el amor por mi lengua materna, and this is one of this ocasions.

#bob's burgers #bobs burgers #my art #really sad with this one #but hope you like it #still not a roudise shipper #but apreciate an overprotective Louise #and an all too sweet Rudy #Louis the wingman you dont want by your side #I think I made a funny little thing there in the second panel #some build false expectations #I swear it was unintentional #or wasn't? #esta va pa gente latina #los quiero perros #make some changes so the comic look biggers just for appeling reasons #as promised #someone guess the serie so here it is #what we do in the shadows #wwdits #reference #i take my time to do things #dont judge

[dr3amofagame]

I find it strange that a lot of people are coming forward and saying that the staged finale was a bad play for one reason or another but it really isn’t and I don’t understand where the hate is coming from.

yeah i've seen some of this the last few days--staged finale has always been somewhat "controversial" in the lorehead scene, so a measure of disagreement/discourse about it makes sense. especially bc it was honestly a very big change to what people thought was the story and required people to go back and reevaluate a lot, which. people are naturally resistant at doing

but while obviously i think that some healthy discussion about these things is good, and i feel like i have seen a level of...misunderstanding? about it?? which has gone into the ways that people disagree

staged finale refers to the decision to stage the finale. that's it. staged finale just asserts that based on preexisting foreshadowing and based on the sheer level of suspension of disbelief in order for genuine finale to be real, it made more sense for the finale to be staged than for it to have been genuine. how the finale was planned, when the finale was planned, and to what ends it was planned are all things that you can disagree on w/ other staged finale believers/supporters while still being a staged finale believer/supporter, ykwim? if you believe that c!punz faked his betrayal to c!dream, then congrats! you believe in staged finale. oftentimes i see people say things like "i don't believe in staged finale, i think that c!dream faked the betrayal and all and always had c!punz on his side but i think that the reason behind why he did it is [X]" and it's like. staging the finale is one (1) event, not a comprehensive explanation for everything c!Dream does. that would be more in line with something like the "strategist dream interpretation," which in itself does have different readings as well.

people have listed all of the inconsistencies in the staged finale before, but just to summarize--the guy literally could've dipped when everyone came to "defeat" him, c!tommy leveraging his own life is basically no leverage at all when the mans has the revive book, skeppy cage is a joke, c!dream revealing all of his plans when they were maybe 10% carried out (the entire damn attachment vault was empty of items besides stuff that was literally faked, his own damn stuff, and stuff that he stole recently from c!tommy such as the Axe of Peace and the discs) is ridiculously stupid, why the hell does he have blackmail against c!punz included in a bunker that c!punz clearly had access to???? the list goes on.

(as someone who took awhile to be fully convinced in staged finale, what really tripped me up was the stream punz did the day before: here's a post breaking it down that definitely helped me to see it in a different light.)

as far as foreshadowing goes, just off the top of my head: the original prisoner is a constant question from the day of the prison's creation, being something that's even highlighted on the day of the staged finale itself. c!Dream saying he has "the biggest house on the server" and how it's full of redstone. the entire conversation he has with c!punz, obviously. his holding back on the favor with c!techno, the connection between the revive book and the prison that he establishes the day they begin prison construction.

from a logical perspective, the plan as c!Dream establishes it doesn't make any damn sense. c!dream had opportunities to escape that he didn't take for illogical reasons (if the only reason why he allowed himself to stay in a fucking possible kill chamber was to keep c!tommy from committing suicide, then? what about the revive book? what about the fact that he literally kills c!tommy just a few months later????) -- a level of plot contrivance is expected in the medium, but for a lot of people this was just. Going way too far. Unless he literally lost his whole mind (which, to be fair, was the persona being played) there's just. really no other way to make sense of what was going on there, if it was all genuine.

the other argument is a narrative one--people claim that the story established by a genuine finale is cleaner than the story of the staged one, and honestly. it's like. like that's...a feature, not a flaw? the reason why the genuine finale worked isn't because it was logically believable. dream is Dream Manhunt. he's famously hard to nail down, famously good at escaping sticky situations, famously a man that can outsmart his way out of crazy disadvantageous situations--like. just in terms of minecraft skill, i'd wager that most people would think that dream would've technically been able to pull off an escape even when facing down the collection of enemies that were there. like he had 2 stacks of pearls.

narratively, though, the staged finale has a story that's quite appealing on the surface. the "story" of the events from the spirit speech onwards is one that revolved around the idea of "attachment." c!Dream rejects attachment in favor of control in the spirit speech when he says he refuses to let his love for his dead pet control him anymore, and he focuses on the ability to use the discs to control c!Tommy. the fact that c!Dream's relationships deteriorate at this time seems to support this point, and c!Tommy's strength in his relationships being what saves him and damns c!Dream ties everything off into a neat bow. c!Tommy wins because he has friends and c!Dream loses because he doesn't, moral of the story established, hip-hip-hooray. And so it goes.

but when we look at this more in specifics...? it does start falling apart a bit, doesn't it?

although c!Dream supposedly begins his rampage over his existing emotional connections with the spirit speech, his reputation had been in shambles long before that point. c!Dream-as-villain is first established as part of the greater story in the lmanburg revolution, and that's a title that he never really sheds (this point being emphasized in inconsolable differences and the book c!Wilbur has c!Dream write.) Dethronement happens within a day of Spirit Speech, iirc, and on that day c!Quackity specifically points out that c!Dream has no one on his side but c!Punz. the moments where he is more specifically isolated go back to events such as november 16th, where his alliance with c!Wilbur involved blowing up L'manburg, his deal for the revive book, which involved his publicly betraying Pogtopia, or his opposing Manberg to the literal Manberg cabinet. etc. all of these events in the Manberg/Pogtopia era had c!Dream's loyalties erode to end up as just c!Wilbur and later c!Schlatt for the book, two dead men. (and i say eroded loyalties as if pogtopia really believed dream was on their side, like, ever? like he was never trusted in their ranks, even by c!Tommy, who was definitely the person he worked the closest with outside of c!Wilbur.)

if we look at Dethronement itself, it doesn't actually fit the pattern of "c!Dream cuts off his attachment to people in order to make himself uncontrollable" -- in fact, what it does fit the pattern of is. Staged finale? Faking an end in a relationship with people that he does consider important to him, making a public appearance of betrayal + anger to mask an existing connection, drawing attention to their being enemies to hide the fact that they're actually friends--that's not c!Dream cutting anyone off. That's just the exact same ploy that he uses to make people think that c!Punz betrays him (only c!Sapnap and c!George ended up deciding that Nah We're Gonna Kill You Now. Fuck You It's Coup Time. so that's how that ended up.)

Otherwise there's...the Badlands, who were perfectly happy to agree to joining the coup on the day of dethronement if it got them more power and land. c!Techno, who c!Dream wasn't an ally of until later on with the favor established and then doomsday, and who was someone c!Dream was quite openly wary of + afraid of due to his combat skill. c!Dream was alone literally before exile even happened, his remaining "attachments" of c!George and c!Sapnap turning against him like the day he goes on a whole spiel about ohhoho from today onwards i DONT GIVE A SHIT ABOUT MY ATTACHMENTS !!! I ONLY CARE ABOUT THE DISCS !!! like congrats you don't even have a chance to cut off any attachment at all dingus they all hate you and want you dead already.

further, with c!punz, he literally says that they're more than just employer/employee in the infamous conversation they have about planning a betrayal. if the whole point of the story is "attachment good," then why is it that what takes down c!dream is...his one remaining attachment? if his fatal flaw is that he didn't trust people enough, why is it that he loses because he trusted someone too much? it's not like c!tommy had any attachment to c!punz--c!punz explicitly "has a reason" to betray c!dream because of money. he helps c!tommy because dream "should have paid [him] more." none of that reflects that spirit of "attachment" that people claim was c!dream's downfall.

(not to mention how the people present in the staged finale to take c!dream down included people who literally hated c!tommy's guts. like. what brought them together wasn't the power of friendship, it was the power of we hate this green bastard.)

this isn't to say that c!Dream didn't have some relationships that go up in flames because he starts acting particularly cackling evil villain (with the green festival being the specific moment where he really goes full in with that persona, going from someone that was framing himself as having a Reasonable Complaint to literally the joker as soon as he gets the disc from c!Tubbo. It's purposefully played as a "mask off" moment that is meant to make him look like a crazy fucking villain in front of a large audience--whether or not you think that was a choice that he made in character or not, the way his personality changes as soon as he receives the disc is jarring.) In particular, his relationships with c!Puffy and c!Sam come to mind--c!Puffy burns the house she made him when she decides that he's too evil (but, uh, c!dream really wasn't even there for that and didn't ever have a particularly close relationship with her) and c!Sam is among those whose opinions of c!Dream become drastically more negative around the period of time that spans green festival->doomsday->staged finale. but it's important to note that c!Dream's relationships on the server aren't...great, at the time of spirit speech. They're uh, really fucking bad, actually. dethronement only makes them even worse, and all of this happens pre-exile. c!Dream had significant reason to be paranoid and afraid for his life long before exile happens, which is Quite Significant, Actually, when you consider that that paranoia is literally what goes into his decisions to carry out the staged finale + put himself in the prison (which isn't the case for genuine finale, where he's more motivated by a desire to control the server without being controlled himself.) staged finale does solidify c!dream-as-villain for a lot of people, but it never would've worked if people didn't already see him as a villain in the first place. c!Dream doesn't make people hate him with the staged finale; he uses hatred that he already knows exists to put himself in what he sees as a safer position.

and look we could go into a whole discussion about manberg/pogtopia c!Dream (which i do think is way overdue to be fair considering that that's where the paranoia + isolation that motivates him post-november 16th comes from in the first place) but this post is long enough already and i still have to figure out a better way to articulate my thoughts on the matter. anyway. carrying on:

people still have different feelings on why he carries out staged finale in the first place, but what we do know for sure is that it was meant to protect punz and protect the revive book. by firmly establishing that c!punz and him were on opposite sides, he keeps the revive book safe and both of their lives safe by extension: as long as no one would kill both of them at the same time, they had a means of reviving the other if need be and obviously had the information on how to raise people from the dead secure. which was important to them. and otherwise...c!Dream is paranoid. c!Dream is very, very paranoid, and this paranoia goes back at the very least to when he learns about the revive book. the prison, for all the dependence that it required of him, was tailor made (and the construction process controlled by dream every damn step of the way) to make sure that whoever was in the main cell would be safe from external threats. the security of the prison and the prisoner was the POINT. i've seen some assertions that staged finale implies that he predicted everything that happened after he was put in prison and...no? i'd say that c!dream's behavior indicates him being thrown off by c!sam as early as bad's prison visit, c!sapnap's prison visit for sure. c!Ranboo being banned from visitation pretty damn obviously fucks him up, tbh. he has c!punz explicitly out there to keep an eye out on the server while he's in the prison, where he was meant to remain for a period of time that was supposed to be much shorter than how long he ends up being there. likely because, you know, he was supposed to have a consistent and reliable source of information with the outside world in the form of c!Ranboo, and c!sam wasn't supposed to fall off the fucking rails as soon as the prison started. people have also talked about how having the staged finale be true means that c!dream doesn't lose, which...i mean. gestures at the prison arc? that whole thing is a loss so catastrophic it literally destroys him. he's never the same after the prison happens. the false betrayal of c!punz is deliberately like ironically described to c!sam, who was the REAL betrayal that fucking. ruins him. he loses SO MUCH over the course of the prison, which was something he literally designed to keep himself safe from external threat. as far as losses go, i definitely find that a lot more compelling and a lot less contrived than watching c!dream go "whoop de doo guess i have to die now" when he's like 3 pearls away from making a clean escape in the disc vault, tbh.

at the end of the day, i think having some conversation about staged finale is fun! and it's always good to reexamine what you believe to make sure that it still holds water. but i've really not seen much staged finale crit that makes the genuine finale feel favorable as an explanation: logically, it makes a lot less sense. narratively, it relies on a story that the audience wants to be true and acts as a "clean" explanation for everything while not actually taking into account a lot of what was ACTUALLY going on for c!dream (cutting off attachments for the sake of control versus watching people turn against you and becoming increasingly paranoid, for example). and believe them or not, the content creators involved have always asserted that staged finale was the plan from the beginning, not any form of retcon. (and we do know that people have been dodgy about stuff like the "original prisoner" literally since the week that c!dream was imprisoned, so take that as you will.) (okay to be fair theyve been dodgy about the original prisoner since the day that the prison began to be constructed, but the QnA from that first week of imprisonment sticks out to me in particular because cc!Sam had the biggest fucking smile on his face and staged finale would've been planned out and then carried out in entirety by the ccs and the c!s by that point.)

this is a longass post but uh hopefully it makes sense, lmao. tried to touch on most of what i've seen recently 😅

#my asks !! #long post #c!dreamisms #also like. im making this post from the perspective of someone who always saw staged finale as really cool #but really wasn't 100% convinced until like ehhh halfway through the prison arc roughly? #like im not claiming any credit as a believer from the beginning it took me awhile #so like. i get it. #i think for me a lot of it was also just a lack of faith in the ccs' planning and writing and feeling that narrative contrivance #could be explained through the ccs being less experienced writers + the sheer level of what they were carrying out #but you know. staged finale canon now and im not gonna sit here and pretend that im the smartest person in the room #when these guys definitely overachieved in terms of what i was expecting them to pull off #by making a plot twist that was THIS BIG and conning the whole damn fandom and server in one #like nah they deserve their W actually lmao