you can make both always. I love the concepts of boths designs for cdream. One bc it's shocking seeing the guy that destroyed countries and scared everyone into thinking he's a monter, just being a human like everyone in all senses.
And the other bc it's actually cool to challenge the ideas we have and how it's easy to dehumanize things that look different from the standards qe have. And how people don't think someone can be vulnerable or hurt when does not look close to what we think as "vulnerable".
Cdream fits so well with either design it's hard to choose i get You struggled sm
You get it Anon, you get it
On the one hand, Dream being human - just a guy who has made himself larger than life and flaunts this persona of him being the villain and a threat, is so satisfying during the staged finale in particular. The person behind the mask is just a 20 something guy. He's young. He's human. He's human and is constantly treated as lesser. It's an excellent narrative for the story and adds a LOT to the guy who's POV we never get. I do love any Dream that is just a guy for that choice alone.
Though hybrid Dream, GOD, it writes a slightly different story that's just as compelling. Admittedly I almost always fall back into writing him as a hybrid, and it's without a doubt my favorite for the variety AND the reasons you listed as well as some of my own.
Cause usually, regardless of who it is, there's a decent amount of other hybrids on the server, it's established that they are at the least uncommon - but most likely society still follows a similar status quo to us on how they judge. There are unspoken rules of society for the hybrids that are 'dangerous', that you don't bear your natural weapons, you don't do anything to make others uncomfortable, you must conform to the comforts of others. It's all subtext and undertones, rules never spoken. Societal Conventions the loathed.
I'd like to think, with my Dream who's a chimera - based on the combination of a Florida Bobcat, General Ambiguous Serpent Creature & a Bongo/Forest Antelope (taking that last one from my buddy Charlie cause it's just so silly) - that he detests such things and has fought his whole life to ignore them, he wants to be accepted for ALL that he is, he doesn't want to bend to rules that paint him as dangerous and untrustworthy if he doesn't adhere to shit that people don't even talk about. This is without a doubt why the server in its early days is so important to him, cause he doesn't need to hide, his friends accept him and could care less about what he is. He's not a monster, he's a friend, he's a companion. They care about who he is - not what he is. Even if his reputation from the manhunt days proceeds him. The mask only becomes a courtesy when new people show up, to hide his face - not for their sake, but for his own anonymity that ties back to the Manhunt reputation, it is not to hide his fangs despite what others may think.
Then there's the thing of him being shoved into this box cause of what he is, and it makes it so easy for others to dehumanize him - to villainize - to justify. Yes, he's done bad things, he's done horrible acts and it's all too easy for people to say "it's in his nature" than to acknowledge HIS perspective and reasons, to even consider that maybe, just maybe he was simply pushed too far. A snake kicked one too many times. And unfortunately every single time he's forced to or tries to defend himself with the only language anyone understands, violence, it's just more 'justification' that he cannot change and is eternally a danger.
It also adds another layer of parallels between him and Sam - Who in my interpretation has done everything he can to fit in with society, to prove he's not a monster or anything of the like, he's a good guy. Unfortunately as we all know, that line of thinking goes to Sam's head in the end, and he becomes a monster for reasons that have nothing to do with him being a creeper hybrid. And that's not even TOUCHING Rivals Duo and how they mirror each other.
I could say SOOOO much more but I think you get the gist - I generally just have such a soft spot for characters who look different/have certain features and are shunned by society for it in one way or another + plus the whole motif of characters who struggle to change their ways cause it's the only thing that works - At the end of the day I'll be sticking with the hybrid take, for sure, I was just stuck in my own head thinking it over for a minute XD
