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sp0o0kylights · 7 months

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Still working on the BB fic but have another snippet of that Stobin Timeloop AU. This can be read as stand-alone.

Steve Harrington snaps on a completely random Friday.

Well--not completely random. It's both the day of the Big Sportsball Game as well as Hellfire’s grand finale--but neither of those things should matter to Harrington.

Not that he needs a reason to lose his shit--Eddie’s long used to being threatened, insulted or outright attacked out of the blue.

It’s the whole reason he built up the persona he had--because the scarier he was, the more people left him alone.

Unfortunately it would appear that Hawkins fallen king hadn’t gotten the memo, given he seemed hellbent on kicking Eddie’s ass.

"Come on Harrington, we can talk about this." Eddie says, as he’s shoved back, scrambling for a way out, as the former jock gets up in his face.

The guy had called out his name the second he pulled into the parking lot (sans Buckley or any of the freshman they shared, which has Eddie's back up instantly) but Eddie had simply ignored him.

It was too early to deal with whatever had Harrington sounding like his ass was on fire.

Pity Steve had charged over instead, a look in his eyes that said whatever happened next was going to hurt.

Eddie carries a switchblade, but hes never had to use it before.

Had instead made an entire production about having it, including cleaning his nails with the blade or stabbing it into the cheap wood desks when a teacher stepped out of the room.

Had shouted that he’d pull it even when Harrington had charged him, but the guy didn't even blink.

Thus forcing Eddie to confront the fact that he really doesn’t want to stab someone.

Particularly not someone whose family has the police in their pockets (or did with Chief Hopper, though Eddie doesn’t doubt that the Harrington Hoard won’t immediately grab onto the next pig to get promoted.)

His panic leaves him flailing but somehow, (and unfairly Eddie may add) Steve seems to expect this.

Knows how to navigate it.

Eddie's back hits the metal of the van and he winces, expecting the hit, the pain.

If he can duck, if he can make it so the first punch only grazes him, he can grab his fucking knife and wave it around, see if that gets the asshole off him, except--

Instead of hitting him, Steve reaches past, to yank one of the van’s passenger doors open.

Herds Eddie inside, slamming the door behind him before snatching a fistful of Eddie's shirt and hauling him forward.

"What--" Eddie asked, confused, right before Steve smashes their lips together.

It's a hard kiss, practically a claim.

Steve kisses him like a drowning man gasps for air and Eddie can only fall into it, stunned.

(The stunned portion only lasts long enough for Eddie to blink before he's kissing back, hot and heavy.

He's been horny for Harrington since the asshole did a trick shot that showed off his ass and involved flipping Hagan off at the same time, sue him.)

Thinks as he does, that this is probably a trap.

That even if it isn't, then whatever it is Steve will make him regret it--even if he started it.

(Not like Eddie can claim he wasn’t enjoying it, either. He’s giving as good as he gets, dick quickly overwhelming any rational thought in his brain.

He clings to Steve like a lifeline, gasping when the jocks takes his bottom lip between his teeth and lightly drags it out, begging to be let into Eddie's mouth.

This isn't reality.

Cannot be reality, must be the start of a wet dream or some…vivid hallucinations because when Eddie grinds himself upwards into Steve, cock chasing friction, Steve presses back.)

"Fuck." Eddie moans when Steve finally releases him, panting up at the ceiling.

"Do I have your attention now?" Steve asks, voice raspy and Eddie finds himself able to die happy, because that tone is downright possessive.

"Yeah big boy, you have me--it." Eddie corrects himself fast, the words practically blending together.

Steve gives a strangled sort of laugh at that, and instead of getting up, presses his face down onto Munsons shoulder.

Eddie expects him to spring up at any moment. Declare insanity maybe, or far more likely threaten him about telling anybody.

If past bar hookups were an indicator, he'd throw a few slurs in for good measure.

(And those men had been at a gay bar, not Hawkins high school parking lot.)

It's nothing Eddie can't handle, but Steve…isn't doing any of them.

Instead his breathings gone weird, body trembling--and Eddie can see how Steve is holding himself up.

Like he's worried about Eddie taking his weight.

Slowly, carefully, he raises a hand to the back of Steve's hair.

He presses in slow, waiting to be yelled at, waiting to be rejected but never is.

"You can lay on me, Harrington, I won't break." Eddie tells him and knows his voice is too sweet when he says it.

Too lovey dovey, too awed.

Too late, for him to recover into a normal voice but fuck it. Not like Eddie was known for making smart decisions.

Nothing could have prepared him from the wounded noise Steve makes in return.

"Hey--hey." Eddie says, in rising panic. "I've got you."

"I know." Steve raises, and head coming up at last, cheeks red and tear stained but his eyes are clear.

Clear and fucking haunted.

"I know you do, Eds, but we don't have time. Which is why I need you to listen to me, because I'm not the Steve Harrington you know."

Utterly reeling from being called "Eds" it takes Eddie a moment to digest what was just said. "What do you mean?"

"I mean," Steve sighs, a blast of frustration, and Eddie finds himself automatically scritching at Steve's head.

For some reason that seems to help.

"Your D&D finale’s tonight, right?"

"Yes." Eddie says slowly, his mind spinning uselessly, every coherent thought derailed by something new. The moles on Steve's neck. The way he shifts, how his leg is tangling with Eddie's, awkwardly because it's cramped as shit back here.

"I'm way past this. I've lived this. More than once."

Aha.

So it's a mental breakdown Steve's having.

"I'm still waiting for you to make sense, Harrington." Eddie says to buy himself time to think.

"Steve." The younger man corrects and he's holding Eddie's gaze. "And I'm not making sense because saying it sounds stupid."

Eddie can't help the little derisive laugh that breaks out of him. "I hear a lot of stupid things, one more won't kill me."

"I know, you're famous for your rants about them." Steve snarks back, but it's teasing.

Friendly and familiar, like he's used to bantering.

Not just that, but bantering with Eddie, specifically.

He doesn't know what to do with that, so he tugs a little on Harrington's too perfect hair.

Demands an explanation with that little jolt--and somehow, Steve doesn't haul off and punch him for it. Instead a shudder rollers through him, eyes closing just a touch and--Oh.

Oh, Harri-Steve, likes it.

"I'm from the future." Steve says, which does indeed sound stupid.

Eddie blinks. "What?"

"Robin and I are stuck in a time loop-- we keep living this week over and over." He continues, only now he's leaning his head against Eddie's arm.

"Every single time, you take the longest to get on board and buy in, and every single time I fail to get everyone out alive so fuck it. Fuck all of it--I'm speedrunning this part."

Oh this is beyond breakdown.

This is 'took something he shouldn't have and then some' and Eddie knows how to trip sit.

He just…doesn't want to get punched for being the first person Steve released his repressed homosexual urges out on, drugged or not.

(The fact Steve's still letting Eddie pet him like a cat absolutely does not have anything to do with it, no sir.)

because his mouth bypasses his rational mind most days and today is no exception.

"Okay." Eddie says. "Let's say you are from the future and not shot up with what I'm assuming you were told was steroids and was very much not."

Steve rolls his eyes.

He never bothered to dry his cheeks and Eddie does it now for him, with the hand that's not in Steve's hair.

Steve leans into it, which somehow feels like the craziest part of it all.

"Prove to me that you're from the future." Eddie challenges.

"Oh the kissing wasn't enough? Fine." Steve bitches, before rattling off facts like he's blowing through answers on Jeopardy.

"You call your guitar sweetheart and apologize for cheating on it anytime you use your other guitar, who is named Arwin. Your favorite mug in Wayne's collection is the Garfield one and you can play Master of Puppets by heart even though the album came out last month."

"And this is coming from the future and not one of the freshmen we somehow share custody over…?" Eddie says, even while alarm shoots down his spine.

Had he told the kids about his Garfield mug?

That his acoustic was named Arwin…?

He suddenly couldn't recall but that made the most sense. Had to make sense.

Steve huffs, annoyed.

Its very cute, and Eddie bites his own lip hard to keep himself focused.

A finger dips under Eddie's collar, wrapping gently around the chain that sits there before he can react.

"This," Steve emphasizes with a gentle tug, "was your mom's. She gave it to you the morning of the accident."

Eddie's world stops.

Not the same way it stopped when Steve kissed him, it stopped in a way they felt like ice had been dumped over his head. A flash freeze that squeezed his chest, claws digging into his exposed heart.

The only person who knew about the pick was Wayne.

No one else, not even his band, his closest friends, knew the origin of it.

To tell someone that, to say it was not only his mothers but that shed given it to him the morning before some drunk asshole t boned her shitty, shitty car and killed her-- was akin to handing over step by step instructions on how to hurt him.

Eddie would go to the ends of the earth for that pick, and he had never let anyone know just how important it was to him.

Except Steve Harrington, apparently.

"Okay." Eddie says, "Okay, you're from the future. You said--" He pauses, swallows.

Fights down his disbelief even as the dots connect, because why else would he tell anyone about his pick?

The only reason he can possibly conjure is if he needed someone to give it back to Wayne, because he, for whatever reason, couldn't.

"You said you're reliving this because you can't get everyone out alive?" Eddie managed to get out, grappling with the knowledge that "everyone" included him.

"Yeah."

"Are you also my boyfriend or something?"

"If we can make it there, then yes." Steve says, slightly hysterical. "And really? You're finally gonna believe me?"

"Are you arguing here for me to believe you or not, Steve, you're giving conflicting signals--"

"No it's--you've fought me on this man. I've tried every method of getting you with us and every time you argue until the bats show up but one kiss and you're all for it?"

"Give yourself some credit, it was a grand slam of a kiss.” Eddie replies, because it was by far and large the best kiss of his life.

He’d follow Steve to hell and back if more kisses like that were on the table, mental breakdown or no.

Steve snorts at him, a half-hysterical sound. “Noted.” He says.

Then; “You believe me though?”

“Not at all!” Eddie chirps with a wobbly grin that betrays him. “But on the off chance you’re right the uh…the thing about my pick…” He trails off self consciously.

“I should have guessed that was what it. You only ever tell me that when you’re dying.” Steve fills in for him, and it’s weird, to know that for two seconds Steve Harrington apparently read his face and correctly guessed what he was thinking about.

Abruptly decides he doesn’t want to think of his impending doom any longer.

“So how about we skip the dying part and focus on the boyfriend part?” He says, poking at Steve’s cheek.

Steve makes a face at him, before grabbing a his hand and pressing a kiss to the back of it.

“We gotta fix this mess first, Munson.” He tells him gently, looking up at him through his lashes and oh, that is a look Eddie will keep for the rest of his life.

“Lead on, lassie.” Eddie tells him to hide how dazed he feels. “Let’s go save the world and shit.”

With one final kiss to the palm of Eddie’s hand, Steve does.

#steddie #actual steddie for once lol #miscommunication #stobin timeloop #this starts off kinda dub con but quickly turns #steves just desperate lool #eddie munson #eddie is like those owls who puff themselves up to look mean #robin is gonna be equally annoyed the kissing is what finally gets eddie on board fast #steve harrington #0o0 fanfics #stranger things #stranger things fanfic

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skitskatdacat63 · 7 months

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2011 Italian Grand Prix - Vettonso

#SORRY. I AM GOING THROUGH IT.#this is why i had to put vettonso merchant in my bio bcs if i dont post them at least 5x a week ill die #their dynamic in this race is like actually indecipherable to me #cause this is the race where fernando 'allegedly' said fuck you my boy #but their dynamic is so odd????#like they have that happen in the cooldown room #and then generally ignore each other on the podium #and then we randomly get this cute moment and then they INSTANTLY go back to being awkward #but then in the press con they keep talking about each other and looking at each other???? okay :)#sometimes im just like. yeah no i give up on trying to understand them #not rly noticeable in these buts its so funny how seb pats him to get his attention #and then immediately goes to cheer as if to be like 'huh what i didnt touch uou'#to ref that one post about this race said: he didnt wanna embarrass himself again by getting turned on #stealing this from c cough cough but hes like 'oh no!! if he looks at me im gonna embrass myself on broadcast again!!'#anyways i love this moment and the pics from this are like my fav ever 2010s pics of them so yeah <3 #f1 #formula 1 #sebastian vettel #fernando alonso #vettonso #we do a little bit of f1 #*its so odd i completely remember finishing this and scheduling it last night #*but when i woke up it was only half done??? im still confused #2011 italian gp

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mixtercandy · 1 month

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Coukd i get Milky way cookie art? [^_^]/

Sure thing!! (⁠っ^ w ^)⁠っ i'm actually working on my milkyway cosplay rn, so this doodle felt nice to draw!!

#going to a con this friday for the entire weekend im so EXCITE #cand posts #cand arts #cand answers #milky way cookie #cookie run kingdom #cookie run #unfortunately- i feel like the combined price of what i paid for the ticket and my share of the hotel mony #is probably much more than im gonna spend on the actual con.. (⁠ ⁠･ั⁠﹏⁠･ั⁠)

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cononeillbreastingboobily · 6 months

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One of the things I'm particularly bitter about when it comes to this ending is how it flattened Ed and Izzy's relationship.

You can't, in the same season give me

"I have... love for you, Edward." "I loved you, best I could." "Artsy outsider was always your thing." "A shark did this."

and

"Hello Mr. Latch! it's not your fault you're broken, no. Were just trying to do your job, weren't ya?"

and expect me to just... move on from that, accepting that we will never get anything more from them, that their relationship won't get explored, that they won't have a the chance, time and space to finally talk it through as a crew, to air out their grievances, to reach a boiling point, and to decide where to move on from there. Within just a few episodes they became the most fascinating part of the show for me, and the fact that, as far as we know, this is it for them... yeah, I don't like that at all.

#they deserved so much space to try and work through all the shit they've been through and what they did to each other #speaking hurriedly as izzy was dying in ed's arms was just not it chief. like. if that's the ending we're gonna get. fine. but they deserve #so much better #not to mention that this season fully showed that Con and Taika are spectacular actors #they could carry material of absolutely catastrophic emotional intensity #and i think that's the kind of skill you'll need in your cast to show the end (or rekindling?) of a decades long relationship #they could've done it!!!!!#sigh. SIGH!!!!!!!!!#edizzy #blackhands #izzy hands #edward teach #con o'neill #taika waititi #ofmd s2 spoilers #ofmd s2 finale spoilers

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yuenity · 7 months

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OH MY GOD HES SO RIGHT

#I’m never gonna be able to unsee it #oh my god #ALSO #can we talk about how every time I get interested in something it gets brought up in something else #I watch Jesus Christ Superstar and suddenly I see Con talking about how Izzy is Judas #LIKE WHAT #everything is connected #anwyays #izzy hands #con o'neill #jesus christ superstar #judas iscariot #ofmd #blackbeard #edward teach #our flag means death

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eldritch-araneae · 9 months

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Bumblebee Week Day 1 - Cybertron

Free yourself Float away Let go Or here you'll stay Hold it close And open wide You have no faith The mirror lied 'Til the truth comes out 'Til the truth comes out 'Til the truth comes out Every night I die just a little All this time, I'm caught in the middle All your life, you fought with no winning This is just the end of the beginning Every night I die just a little All this time, I'm caught in the middle All your life, you fought with no winning This is just the end of the beginning

Song: Les Friction - The End of the Beginning

#bumblebeeweek2023 #bumblebee #megatron #transformers #maccadam #my art #sparkpulse au #so i couldn't prepare so i'm gonna just try whip out sketches #i guess it will help me battling perfectionism if i'll make more messy artworks ahahah #the song gave this idea to highlight the battle between these two #usually its Optimus who opposes Megatron but in my continuity its Bumblebee #opposing both Megatron and his puppeteer - Shockwave #i wasn't planning on this initially but i just liked the idea that its Bee who is the main threat even he doesnt look like one #poor cons dont know what they got themselves into ahahahah

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dr3amofagame · 6 months

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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

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camels-pen · 6 months

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consider sanuso bodyswap where Sanji is of course "admiring" Usopp's body and Usopp is trying desperately to keep himself from getting worked up so that he doesn't light himself on fire.

Luffy and Chopper are not helping. They are in fact doing the opposite of helping. They've ramped up their pranks and are doing anything possible to get Usopp angry so that he combusts, freaks out, and then dives into the ocean to put himself out. They think it's hilarious.

Nami and Brook are Also not helping, since they're conspiring with Sanji to put on a fashion show with Usopp's body. Sanji called it "not wasting a precious opportunity to get him in something other than overalls". Usopp called it mutiny and he was gonna- dive into the ocean, holy fuck Sanji why is it so easy to catch fire?!

Best part about this is that Sanji assured him, several times, that his body doesn't get hurt by catching fire. Usopp still jumps into the ocean every time.

Robin pipes up at one point, asking if Sanji was immune to just his own flames or all flames. Sanji just kind of shrugs and said it depends. Franky, having just been leisurely watching all of this gets an idea. Would his Franky Fireball hurt Sanji's body or just give him more fire to work with?

He tries to coax Usopp into agreeing to test it out and, somehow, he manages it. Albeit, Usopp is all knocking knees and chattering teeth, a very odd sight from 'Sanji'. As part of the deal though, he can only shoot a fireball the size of his hand.

Usopp meant his small hand. The one Franky used for tinkering and fine detail work. He did not, however, clarify this.

So, when a fireball the size of Franky's big hand comes out, well. Usopp runs for his goddamn life.

It takes him a few moments- and the voices of his friends sounding distant and below him- to realize he hadn't, in fact, run to the men's quarters, but rather into the fucking sky.

And oooooh, boy he is gonna kill Sanji one of these days. Why was his body's first fucking instinct when running to go up, what the actual HELL-

Usopp lit himself on fire again.

He curses out Sanji as his Sky Walk fails in the same moment and he plummets towards the deck.

#one piece #sanuso #nemotime #usopp the first time he lights himself on fire: WHAT THE FUCK WHAY THE FUCK WHAT THE HELL OH GOD OH F-#oh ndvdggdvdv okay listen. listen. omagine Zoro's been asleep this whole time. and he misses the memo that there was a bodyswap.#and he wakes up to 'Sanji' kicking him abd immediately goes into fight mode... and then is really fucking spooked #bc 'Sanji' is blubbering about Zoro going to kill him and that he couldnt die this young and Zoro's just. Still as a statue.#Literally cannot compute.#and then 'Usopp' comes up to him. threatening him and calling him names the way he was expecting from 'Sanji'#Brook: oh dear he mustve slept through all the commotion. Zoro-san! Usopp and-!#Nami covering Brook's mouth: No wait i smell a money making opportunity #shes gonna con him. idk how or with what yet but shes definitely gonna con him #hes gonna be sooo pissed when he finds out she conned him but his usual outlet for physical violence is currently indisposed so. lol. lmao.#i like making zoro suffer idk why its just funny #wait wai what if Usopp didnt trip on him what if when he plummets to the deck he lands on Zoro lmfao #also Franky's standing there like 'Why did you dodge it?!' and Usopp is right back to trying not to light himself on fire again lol #oh n Jinbei gets roped into the fashion show stuff #where he incurs 'newbie's first debt to Nami'#damn now im thinking about him slightly concerned about all this spontaneous combustion and then Robin saying something to make it worse lol #ANYWAY MORE IMPORTANTLY the real tragedy of this post is that because Usopp's constantly worried about Combusting #it never really sinks in how blatantly Sanji is checking out his body + enjoying doing that fashion show #and because of Sanji 'enjoying the view' he never notices the brief moments where Usopp quietly does the same #before being interrupted by Luffy and Chopper coming out of nowhere wanting to roast marshmallows on Usopp's leg #okay im done were done im good its bed time gnight gmorning gday to all

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