I was feeling agitated and artblocked yesterday so I decided to give my brain a rest by watching TV and then the next thing I knew these were in front of me
Got this comment by @selenite-moonstone-2019 on this [post] and per usual my answer ended up too long lol but I thought it was also a good discussion to share :D
So, while that is the common understanding of the timeline, it is actually not universally accepted (even by more than just me) because like a lot of dsmp things it is still just an assumption and there is no irrefutable evidence for it. Sure, its on the channels and the website, but there is actually no mention of the timeline in the revival video itself or anywhere else I’ve found, so people assume that is the case based on speculation founded primarily I think on the layout of the video and on the idea that Dream would want to make sure the book works prior to his planned arrest incase they decided to kill him, which of course makes sense and seems like a logical thing to do. This is not an unreasonable perception and I even believed this too. That is until I found actual proof in the form of the map in that revival video showing L’manberg covered in vines and such placing it post prison [post]. So, while unrecognized by people, I did find actual concrete lore evidence placing the experiments after prison not just reasonable assumption.
There is of course a world in which we ignore this and such, which I cover in that post, but I think it actually aligns with other things we know too. For example, Dream even in his evil monologues hides a lot of truth in them, so he actually does tell the truth a lot. I mean also half of his villainous master plans actually just happen not by his control. He didn’t push Wilbur to destroy L‘manberg as a traitor, he just gave the TNT after Wilbur convinced him to. He didn’t push George and Sapnap away, he dethroned George which set them off and they left him. Then he gave Tommy some of his stuff during Pogtopia that ended up getting blown up. So, really the idea that he “cut his attachments” is bullshit when he just simply lost them. Plus, he didn’t even steal the items in his evil vault, they were already in his possession.
Like his masterminding so often is not by his design lol. So, for him to be telling the truth to Tommy and Sam about Tommy being the first revival, as well as him telling the truth about how they experimented on them for quote “months” (since they could not have done so for months before as there is not enough time to do so between when Vikkstar last appears on the server [Dec 28th] and Dream is arrested [Jan 20]) isn’t actually that uncharacteristic of Dream.
It also actually means that perhaps the experiments started around the posting of the video in the January after he gets out. In addition, it then makes sense why he would be so afraid of people like Quackity killing him in prison after he gets bored of torture because either Punz can’t (perhaps doesn’t have the book) or Dream doesn’t know if it’ll work hence the experiments later. Like it’s always bothered me that if death is not that big of a deal and so meaningless like he makes it seem in the finale then why does he seem so freaking afraid of it in prison if Punz could just bring him back. I mean yes I’m sure we could come up with other reasons why, but this explanation works well.
And if the experiments happened after about 11 months of inhumane treatment, I think it’s a lot more understandable for him to have lost his mind after being tortured and driven to insanity in prison to the point he thinks experiments on people is reasonable for the greater good. Prison and the aftermath then can clearly define the place where things begin to really become “jumbled.” Where an obsession for knowledge, immorality, power and revenge is born from fear and pain and indignation. I’m not saying it’s right, but I’d say it’s par for the course after being in isolation so long and all the rest that happened in prison. That after being tortured, torturing other people seems a lot less unthinkable than it did before.
Also, that timeline is more accurate to the cycle of real life that hurting people hurt other people. Like bullies are often facing things at home. And there’s a reason many horror movies show the abuse that created the killer and it’s not to brush off what they do as okay, but to make them a more compelling character that you can see the path of events that led to their breaking point.
But even if we ignore that and stand by the experiments happening before, I think it’s important to note that during the height of the fandom this ‘Dream deserved it’ mentality was widely supported long before January of 2022 (when the revival book video came out). I was late to the fandom but I was there during prison arc and saw it all over, so let’s not pretend that that mindset amongst the fandom was largely founded by the human experiments because for a lot of the fandom that wasn’t it (still isn’t). So even if we say the experiments happened before, neither the audience nor characters knew that until later and yet still said on multiple occasions about how Dream deserved it and that to me is wild. Hence why my statement in the orginal post was “The sentiment that c!Dream deserved the Prison Arc especially because of what happened in Exile is so messed up to me.” Because it’s that belief of Exile making it deserved that really bothers me, way more than the idea of him facing some kind of karma for torturing Vikkstar and LazarBeam.
Even so, as a pacifist, an unsupporter of revenge, who believes that everyone has the capacity for change even if unlikely to, and certainly has the right to be treated with human decency no matter if they showed the same for others, I think that it’s disturbing to see so many people believe that anyone, nonetheless someone who didn’t even commit mass genocide like Hitler, but at worse (and I’m not trying to downplay but I’m just comparing) tortured a couple of guys for months, deserved an eternity in that torture box considered by Tommy (before Quackity) to be a fate worse than death [post].
Furthermore, to say the experiments were worse than prison I think is rather unreasonable. Especially because firstly, Dream’s sentence was forever, so even though he was broken out, the intended sentence they thought he deserved was a lifetime, which is a hell of a lot longer than months. But also since I recently looked at Minecraft deaths, let’s look at the math of things. There are about 70 ways they could have died in that minecraft version including the caves and cliffs update (78 if we include the updates since the dsmp). Course being slain includes any object so let’s add in all 6 of the the weapons/tools. Now adding that up you get 76 (or 84) Minecraft deaths. Now that number does include the messages ‘killed by — while trying to escape player’ and ‘killed by — while trying to escape player using named thing’ which is perhaps inaccurate cuz are we really saying they felt the need to squash someone with an anvil with and without hitting them first? Seems redundant. Regardless, if you exclude the newer updates, you get a number that is still less than the 83 days Dream was tortured by Quackity. So even if we assume they did one death per a day, then they still suffered a shorter amount of time. And that’s not taking into account his total 314 day stay in the inhumane conditions of Pandora’s Vault, which again was defined by Tommy as worse than death.
Additionally, the fact that Dream’s torture was not intended to be fatal and therefore was allowed to heal in between means that he suffered more times (like how because Techno was healing during Quackity’s torture with the shears, he was hit 55 times instead of the 20 times it would have taken to kill him [post].) So really, I’m gonna have to disagree that being killed repeatedly is worse, I mean plus given how Dream feeds Sam in Daedalus and clingy duo in the finale, Vik and Lazar were likely fed way more consistently and better than Dream was. So yeah, I’m not saying the experiments weren’t torturous, savage and horrible, this is not be brushing it off, but what I am saying is I don’t think we can reasonably say it was worse than prison.
Finally, I think you can feel bad for a character without liking or supporting their actions. Like I can feel bad about what happened to Tommy in exile and prison and still hate his guts lol. And I can sympathize with him even if I say that whether or not you see it as karma or justified, some of the things that happened to Tommy were directly of his own making. These things aren’t mutually exclusive. So I think it’s fine to like and empathize with Dream even if you discount everything I’ve said above. Because you don’t have to write off the torture he put Vik and Lazar through to feel bad for what happened to Dream in prison and to consider prison not a just, deserved or fitting fate. (And as an aside, given how Sam and Quackity treated Techno and Tommy in prison I think there are more reasons beyond what they did to Dream to also hate them lol. Just saying.)…
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A coming of age story about Black kids who finally have power to fight back against systems designed against them.
you don’t realize how important lunch is until you’re wandering around thinking about how unloveable and untalented and uniquely cursed you are and then it’s 4pm and you finally eat lunch and you go Oh. oh right.
you don’t realize how important lunch is until you’re wandering around thinking about how unloveable and untalented and uniquely cursed you are and then it’s 4pm and you finally eat lunch and you go Oh. oh right.
If you're writing anything involving cons, scams, heists, or morally questionable characters who are very good at lying, here are some free resources I've been using for research. Saving you the "why is this in my search history" anxiety.
1. The FBI's Famous Cases & Criminals archive (fbi.gov/history/famous-cases) has detailed breakdowns of real fraud cases, Ponzi schemes, and confidence operations. The language they use is clinical and precise, which is perfect for getting the procedural details right.
2. The FTC Consumer Sentinel Network publishes annual reports on the most common fraud tactics in the US. Great for understanding how modern scams actually work and what makes people fall for them.
3. The Smithsonian's American Art Museum has a free digital collection of forgery case studies. If your character forges documents or art, this is gold.
4. Court Listener (courtlistener.com) is a free legal database where you can read actual court transcripts from fraud trials. Want to know how a real con artist talks under oath? This is where you find out.
5. The Internet Archive's collection of old newspaper crime sections. Search for "confidence man" or "swindle" in papers from the 1920s through 1960s and you'll find incredible real stories that would feel too dramatic for fiction.
Bonus: The Psychology of Fraud section on the Association for Psychological Science website has accessible articles about why people trust, how deception works cognitively, and what makes someone a convincing liar. Essential reading if you want your con artist characters to feel psychologically real.
Reblog to save for later. Your WIP will thank you.
Restricting food Does Stuff To Your Brain. "Restricting" doesn't mean stopping when you're full. I feel like this is what gets misunderstood a lot. It means placing rules and limits on food that supercede what your body is signalling that it wants. Let's use cookies as an example. Restricting would be:
- I can only have cookies when I deserve them.
- I can only have cookies when I'm alone.
- I can only have two cookies.
- I can only have low-calorie cookies.
- I can only have cookies on set days, or so-called cheat days.
- I can't have cookies.
- I can't have cookies in the house.
- I'm bad when I eat cookies.
- Cookies are a bad food and I must compensate for having eaten them.
Whether or not you stick to the restrictions you set, your brain is learning to be an anxious mess around cookies. It might want to avoid anywhere that has cookies. It might feel shame for wanting or eating cookies. It might get exhausted from suppressing the craving and decide to binge. It might go into binge mode every time you eat cookies because you've taught your body that This Will Not Be Available Whenever. It might feel ridiculously important to eat all the cookies while you can.
I know we're all so used to constantly talking about food, diets, weight and bodies, and it's completely normalised to look at absolutely everything you eat and assign it the level of guilt you're gonna feel for eating it, and to brag about not eating this and that, and to announce that you know it's a Naughty Indulgence when you eat anything sweet.
But oh my god, it's such a huge weight off your shoulders to just let yourself eat cookies because you wanted cookies and stop when you feel satiated and know that the cookies will be available next time you want cookies because you don't need to earn them in any way. Because a brain that knows it can have cookies whenever it wants cookies, doesn't crave cookies all the time. Nor does it feel any self-loathing when it does crave cookies.
And I just wish everyone a very chill brain and some cookies
baratheonpilled
stormborns
turnnoffyourmind
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pixelskylines
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