Careful, I Bite

Ranboo couldn't breathe. He had fallen into a spiral for seemingly no reason, and now he couldn't get any oxygen in, no matter how hard he tired to follow the square breathing technique Techno had shown him.

Ranboo

"No no no please I can't I cant-"

The walls were closing around him, obsidian burying him alive-

Ranboo listen

Old wounds opening once more, all alone but it felt like he was back in New Lmanburg, screaming and accusations of things he doesn't remember doing-

"I swear I tried so hard I didn't mean it please-"

RANBOO

The next gasping breath he took felt like it was ripped out of him, tears of relief as his form was changed against his will, the shift enough to snap him out of the spiral, like shoving your hands in ice.

Ranboo slumped into the floor, his new wings covering him, soft and fluffy and grounding.

Ranboo

No nevermind, back to panic time. Because that was Dream's voice and Dream was supposed to be in prison and no one was supposed to know about the panic room-

But the room was empty.

"Dream?"

Ranboo called out, his voice rough, cracking embarrassingly

Yes?

"I- Where are you?"

He leaned against a wall,pushing himself up into shaky legs

I'm right here

Dream's voice cooed back, sounding completely directionless. There was something about it that made Ranboo's shoulders loosen, and he feels a bit guilty about it. Dream might be their God, but he's also Dream.

"Here where? Y-You're supposed to be in prison."

Ranboo turned around, covering himself with his wings as he searched the small room. There isn't much to it, there shouldn't be anywhere for Dream to hide in, yet he can't find him. He doesn't even have a couch in here!

I am in prison.

"What? Then. Oh void I have actually gone insane"

A chuckle sounded on his head, and Ranboo felt like something had nudged his mind, a pyscic equivalent of a cat bumping it's head against his forehead.

No, I'm in your head. Don't have another panic attack.

"Wha- How? Why?"

He keeps spinning around, scouring the room. Somehow he would be more relieved if he found Dream now.

You were praying

Dream starts, pausing awkwardly for a moment

Very very loudly

"No I wasn't! I was-"

Panicking. How do you think animals pray to me Ranboo?

"Oh."

Yeah

They fall into silence and Ranboo sits down again, still shaky and unsteady.

It does feel better to not be alone tho. To have the quiet reassurance of someone else with him, even if it's Dream and even if he's not really here.

So... what happen?

"It was... nothing."

It didn't feel like nothing. Ranboo you have no clue how loud you were.

Ranboo squeezed his eyes closed, hiding his face in his hands. Void, this was his personal hell.

"I guess," he hesitated, fluffing up his wings and curling up further under them as he hid his face in his knees, "I've been overwhelmed lately I think? Which is stupid because all the wars are over because- uh."

Because I'm in prison?

"Yes! Or at least they were supposed to be. But everyone is so tense and there's all these politics and ugh! It's supposed to be better now! But it's so scary all the time"

That sucks buddy

Dream's voice had a tilt of dry humor and bitterness that Ranboo didn't really get

I don't know, go take a swim about it? Get away from all this shit?

"I can't swim Dream, I'm an enderman hybrid!"

Of course you can, just-

And then Ranboo was falling over, barely catching himself before he face planted the cold obsidian as his wings and legs dissappear, being replaced with a tail.

"...I'm a seal."

Laughter rang in his head once more, and Dream let go of his form, the tail staying just a few seconds more before splitting back into his normal legs

You're a seal

"And I can just. Do that. And jump into the ocean. And get no burns"

Yes, why would you?

"Well, because I'm an enderman-"

You are. Until you're a seal. And then you're not.

"Oh."

All the response Ranboo got was a small wave of fondness and the mental equivalent of an eye roll. He stood once more, leaning against a wall as he made his way out of the panic room.

From there he walked straight to the ocean, feeling a sticky mix of terror and wonder as he reached the shore.

Dream had left him when he left the panic room, but he once more reached for the god, shaking as he reached the waves bobbing gently against the ice.

With a leap of faith Ranboo jumped in, squeezing his eyes shut as he sank.

Swim

And Ranboo did, opening his eyes and sliding across the water, kept warm by the fur scattered across him. His skin did not burn.

Rivals Duo Prompt Week

Day 7 : Springtime Revival / Healing

so close to scrapping hh au ;__;

And if I post this? Then what? What’ll you do? I believe I’m in the right here.

NOT MY POST

Bro this is exactly the hypocrisy I’m talking about

Because I know damn well they ACTUALLY WOULD

They did when Cantu did it

I can even name multiple other creators off the top of my head who have said slurs and most gave them the pass because they’re so well liked (and usually apologized)

Jacksepticeye, Markipler, W*lbur, etc.

They were forgiven when they apologized, and most of them said it in the first place because either they didn’t know what it meant/how bad it was, or the exact same reason as Dream, that being that he didn’t understand the “rules” of reclaiming slurs, and this is BECAUSE of the people who were hypocritical and PRAISED Cantu when HE called Dream slurs (and that Uber driver but no one EVER wants to talk about that part)

The fact that everyone’s main point of Dream being in the wrong when showing proof of stuff is always saying that he is/was “being manipulative” just shows that it doesn’t matter WHAT he does or says, you will always see it in a bad light

Saying you think he’s manipulative means that you think he’s being nice for the wrong reasons. You THINK he’s presenting himself as doing nice things for some sort of gain

Which means overall you still see most of his actions and communications as positive on the surface, you just think he’s lying

I think this is another reason people keep bringing up the fact he’s autistic as a GENUINE explanation for why he gets treated like this

Autistic people, majority of the time, do not mean ANYTHING past the surface

We say what we mean, and how we mean it, and if it doesn’t come across, we try again until you get it

Allistic people have the tendency to read more into what is there because that’s how THEY communicate. Autistic people (generally) don’t.

They see bluntness, directness, and total mental and emotional honesty (telling them how you feel and think and why) is either rude or irritating or there must be some motive behind it

But that’s NOT what autistic people are trying to do. We’re actually trying to do the exact OPPOSITE. We try to be honest and direct so you get exactly what we mean and DONT take it the wrong way, and then you go and take it the wrong way anyways, especially if we try harder to explain ourselves, because that just gets seen as stubborn/argumentative/aggressive/etc.

It’s never enough

The reason why I think a LOT of autistic Dream fans are really speaking up about this is because many of us have experienced what he’s experiencing now, just on a much smaller scale

We just had to deal with ableist pricks

HE has to deal with POPULAR ableist pricks and the ENTIRETY of the internet, so much that it has turned into a public smear campaign

When we’ve had friends and family in the past misunderstand us or read into subtext that wasn’t there, that has greatly negatively impacted our relationships and confidence in ourselves and our stances

So we see exactly what is happening with Dream and we feel for him, and it makes us angry and scared us to see him be mistreated like this at such a large scale with so few people seeing the problem with it

Is there even a dream apologist who hates c!technoblade??

When c!Techno is nice to c!Dream when visiting him in prison

The character designer in my wants to make technos eye green because contrast would stand out so well

The character writer in me wants to make it red because it feels correct and ‘piercing blood eyes’

(Like it also feels like to represent the nether, and the blood god)

But if I make his green what do I make dreams??

(I could make it red with a green pupil to match dreams green and red pupil)

Philzas would also be green but like a darker and more calmer green (dark sage green?) compared to the bright neon green Dream has (Phil’s pupil would be black btw) (to match with kristin hehehe) (maybe dark purple)

Decisions decisions…

Given that the “If YouTubers Were Honest” video seems to be the breaking point talked about by both Dream in his stream and Tommy in his recent podcast, I kinda wanna talk about it a little more for a second.

(note: I haven’t seen the podcast because I refuse to pay and missed my opportunity when it was on YouTube but here are a couple summaries/transcripts of both it and Dream’s stream from two different pastebins).

First off, personally, I don’t even find the video funny. (I mean the best part is arguably the Philza rap, but anyways.) Clearly, Dream was massively hurt by it, as he says in his stream and as evident by the scathing text messages he evidently sent to Tommy afterwards. But I don’t think it’s hard to see why he’d be hurt. It’s already a painful situation, he’s already under fire from fans and then this just makes it worse. Dream and his family are currently dealing with doxing and scary things, meanwhile Tommy thinks it’s a good idea to make a video joking about it? wtf. That’s messed up any way you spin it in my mind. You can say the qsmp fans were the people coming after Dream but we know this isn’t true, you can say the video didn’t make that big of a difference but has 2.2 millions views so I hardly think so. If we know anything about the internet it’s that often humor goes over peoples head.

The biggest argument made by Tommy that is also mentioned by Tubbo recently, is that the video is satire, and a joke so it was supposed to be funny and not taken seriously. But here’s the thing, satire is based on truth. It’s using irony, sarcasm, exaggeration of truths widely known in a humorous way to humiliate someone or a group of people, often to point out a flaw or corruption and such. One of the most famous satires is A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Smith which suggests that in order to solve the problems of poverty in Ireland the poor should butcher their children and sell them for food for the rich. This is ridiculous, but also based in truth right? Ireland was actually dealing with poverty and starvation as a result of over population so why not eat the children. Technically, as ridiculous as it is, it is still based on truth even if an extremely over the top answer crazy reasoning. But technically speaking, it would solve the issues that exist. That’s part of why it works to make fun of the corruption and poor logic of the elite and politicians, as well as their callousness toward the suffering people of the lower class. Satire is the extension of irony and irony is based off of the truth. Dramatic irony is when the audience knows something the character does not which makes what the character does problematic often in a funny or tragic way. If you’ve seen Wicked then a foreshadowing dramatic irony in the song “The Wizard and I” is about how ‘there will be a day where all of Oz celebrates her and she’ll be so happy she can melt’, which the audience knows is pretty true from The Wizard of Oz, only her melting is her death and all of Oz celebrates that. It’s truth, that’s what makes it funny or tragic and satire is just the extreme extension of that.

What Tommy did, was not the truth. He lied, something Dream specifically points out as a main problem he had with the video. Tommy didn’t do satire, he wasn’t highlighting a specific flaw in Dream and Quackity or irony in the situation, he just painted a narrative that wasn’t true and used that to make fun of Dream. That’s the problem with it, that’s why it’s hurtful and not funny (in my opinion). It’s missing the satirical elements of irony and sarcasm that come from being clever with the truth. And that’s why Dream was hurt by it because Tommy made a video lying about a situation where people were already rallying against him, to an audience who already hates him. Tommy just straight up made fun of Dream for laughs in one of the lowest points in Dream’s life.

Even further, what’s also flawed with the argument that it was just a joke is what Tommy says in the podcast

“He didn’t expect Dream to snap at him over the “If YouTubers Were Honest” video. He used that video to test Dream because he had many friends telling him that Dream’s a bad person but Tommy told them no and didn’t believe them. After he posted the video, Dream sent him a very long angry message that was full of horrible words, which made Tommy realize Dream’s a bad guy.”

Tommy didn’t expect Dream to snap? But also did it as a test? Seriously?! Oh let me see how far I can make fun of Dream until he snaps at me and when he does this confirms he’s a bad guy… it’s just a joke my ass, you didn’t just make a video for laughs, you made in your own words to test Dream and your friendship, furthermore to test how far you could push him until he snaps (<- huh wouldn’t you know, isn’t that a familiar idea…). During a time when you know his mental health is suffering and he and his family are being actively doxxed. That’s just insane. That’s like… like… it’s so wild I’m struggling for an analogy… it’s like kicking a starving animal to test how dangerous it is and then after it finally bites you, labeling it a danger society…

In summary, Tommy didn’t make a satirical video joking about Dream, he performed a humiliating skit about Dream, making fun of him. In order to test if Dream would snap at him and then labels Dream a bad guy when he does…

If you told me this was cdream when I was younger I would’ve laughed in your face