#c!stageduo

Dream doesnt remenber a big part of what happened on during the filmation but some details. He's on treament still and is having a relative calm life. The only person that he keeps contact with is Punz, who constatly jumps from one work to another, who he sees rather often. He hasnt woke up in random places he doesnt remenber walking to in a long time.

the first thing i want to be clear about is that i like c!drunz. they’re a very important duo (they were explicitly paralleled with c!CLINGYDUO for god’s sake) and the point of this isn’t to diminish their importance to each other. i ALSO want to say that the point of this isn’t to be like, super aggressively /neg towards any one character (even tho i am, admittedly, a self-proclaimed c!drolo) or to demonize them. and finally, that this is just the way i see them, not necessarily the views of anyone else (though i’ve very much been inspired by talking to certain friends abt the Blorbos (tm) for obvious reasons.)

all of that out of the way, onto the c!dream and c!punzisms . i have no plan for this post it’s probably gonna be messy as fuck . but i think first and foremost it’s important to acknowledge that c!dream and c!punz, each are characters with their own goals. a lot of the finale is about c!dream’s side of this, especially in terms of how much he lost sight of what he actually wanted (and i still have to do a rewatch of the 3rd finale stream just to parse through ALL THE SHIT HE SAID bc jfc man . what.) and how a lot of what he wanted were a lot simpler than he allowed himself to realize. 

but on the flip side of this, obviously, is c!punz. who also has his own motivations, and as is shown in the finale ... these motivations exist in a space that is . in a lot of ways. directly incompatible with what c!dream actually wants. c!punz is representative of The Plan. he calls the desires that c!dream and c!tommy share “simple-minded.” he wants to unlock the secrets of the universe just because he can. 

(and it’s worth recognizing that c!dream’s initial reaction to the existence of supernatural powers beyond his understanding on the server was to freak the fuck out, to the point of the prison’s construction being EXPLICITLY as a result of said discovery. Does c!dream want to understand things in order to Fix Them? Certainly. but i would hardly characterize his initial response to the supenatural as being, uh, impassioned curiosity of the unknown, so to speak.) 

c!punz has motivations that aren’t c!dream’s motivations. that’s ,, kind of the point of a lot of what was going on in that last finale stream! c!punz wants to Know Shit. he wants to elevate himself above simple-minded desires. he really,,, wasn’t convinced or swayed the same way dream was when tommy tried to get him to have a heart to heart, and actively discouraged him from continuing to talk about what he actually wanted. and again this isn’t to say that c!punz didn’t care or that he was trying to hurt c!dream or otherwise was trying to act in a way that was malicious towards him but all that still happened you know and speaks to a fundamental difference in the driving forces between these two characters. c!dream and c!punz are each characters with DESIRES and MOTIVES and they’re,, not always on the same page w/ regards to what said desires and motives actually are. 

and, yk, it’s not to say that two characters with different motivations can’t work together or have a relationship that’s rendered completely impossible by their differing desires. but a lot of what defines c!dream and c!punz has a lot to do with c!punz As The Plan, which is significant when you consider how much of The Plan is about both outward and self-destruction for c!dream. this in itself doesn’t completely throw their relationship over a cliff, even if it’s a huge disparity that has a lot of implications when we consider how unaddressed it was by the characters until the last stream of the finale, where c!dream and c!punz are markedly NOT on the same page about what they want. but that kind of brings me to my other point of what’s...really important to c!drunz, at least to me. which is how it’s so often defined by inaction. 

because, yeah, c!punz was always on c!dream’s side (except for that period of time in Pogtopia where he wasn’t, lol.) and yeah, c!punz was the one person he trusted with a lot of the details about his plan to Save The World and whatever. but also the separation between the two was so important that it was quite literally the cornerstone that ended up ensuring their joint survival; it was crucial post-staged finale that no one knew they were working together. c!punz started on c!dream’s side because he was a mercenary for hire. a degree of alienation has always been a part of their dynamic down to the finale, and is also an extremely IMPORTANT part of their dynamic if we consider c!dream’s silence to c!punz calling them friends. 

i find the post-prison era to be most damning about this point in particular, but just look at staged finale in itself: one one hand, c!punz and c!dream were in on a plan to fool the entire server, which spoke a lot to the level of trust involved there. on the other hand, c!punz took a very active and physical role in literally locking c!dream up in his personal hell. c!ranboo took a more significant role after he was locked up than c!punz (which, like, again makes SENSE re. security. but. like. that absence still speaks volumes)--like c!punz as an enabler, c!punz as someone physically cut off from c!dream...that’s a pattern. 

and again, when we look at the state of them after the prison, the absence is even more damning. c!punz specifically (even when considering c!dream’s obvious role in the planning) gets c!dream killed twice in staged finale and then you know, has him metaphorically killed when he’s put in the prison. and then AFTER the prison, we have three specific cases at the very least: c!punz’s signal in the scrapped lore is what ends with c!dream being trapped by both of his torturers, c!punz’s involvement in the Las Nevadas revenge plan nearly gets c!dream killed either by the slime army or if he was in c!purpled’s position at the top of that tower, and his running away from Las Nevadas is explicitly what allowed c!tommy to stalk him for weeks and end up breaking in and killing him. Not to mention how that ends up leading up to both of them getting trapped in the prison with a nuke about to come down over the server. 

and obviously c!dream almost dying/literally dying in all of these post-prison scenarios isn’t Part Of The Plan or something that c!punz actually wants, right, but also...where was he? what did he do to prevent this from happening? c!dream was stalked for literal MONTHS after las nevadas and we see no mention of c!punz being around,,, at all? (we KNOW he wasn’t visibly around in any way considering c!tommy thought that c!punz was still on his side, even.) c!dream didn’t LEAVE the prison for weeks after LN and c!punz wasn’t around? this is with c!punz obviously knowing that c!dream was going to confront his TORTURER. and he wasn’t watching from the sidelines? like, forget c!tommy, c!sapnap found about c!dream’s place of residence IN JANUARY and was apparently still harassing him outside IN JUNE. people broke into that prison to threaten dream multiple times !! like ? 

and god it’s not to say that c!punz didn’t care--his anger speaks for itself--but it’s important to acknowledge that that distance existed and was actively detrimental to c!dream’s safety. fuck, the ANGER in itself was detrimental to c!dream. c!punz’s defining characteristic according to the cc is his anger, when he’s not putting on a persona for the rest of the server,,, and this anger was doing c!dream no favors. we could see that in the finale. we could see that as he literally spent months upon months wasting away in the prison AFTER RECLAIMING THE KEYCARDS and apparently just spent all his fucking time in that place. we can see that when c!punz’s anger leads to c!dream confronting LN which ends up with him staying in the prison without moving for weeks on end, when c!punz’s anger leads to him reviving c!dream minutes after he dies in front of c!clingyduo which ends up leading to the events that prompt them to nuke the fucking server. 

Till the end, c!Punz was still the one who stays for c!Dream. From the start to every war and then until the very very last moment.

Maybe that relationship was built-up on money, and how unstable c!Dream was (so so lonely). The loyalty is undoubtable though. They exchange their life for each other, the experiment (that sent them both to limbo)(how many trust you must have to put your life on someone else's hand, knowning they have full power to control you will live or not)

There weren't just loyalty and blind trust, there is emotions, they are allies, they are friends. (The way c!Punz just so mad over C!Dream's torture, the way c!Punz couldn't let c!Dream stucks in limbo any longer and rush into revive him)

And in the end c!Dream can't even admit "he is my friend", it comes from Punz, and Dream hesitate.

But. Was it blame on Dream at all ? Like, sure ? All of your friends left, they have better friends without you now, they even laughed at you and mostly have a death bounty aimed in your heart.

And you stands with your last final, friend. The one you know, has the server on their side, the one you know, has the same power as you (the one you gave them), the one you know, is the last and only you got.

He can't be sure anymore, betrayal did a ton to people, and he is not a stranger to that. They were right, thats a relationship on power and on benefit, as long as i'm alive, you are immortal. They exchange their life. But how many of it comes from pure friendship, from caring, from loyalty and how many of it comes from power, and a promise of immortal.

He doubts it, and it might not be the first time he even doubt it. Because he was too scared of losing more, he was too scared of "being alone". That's not fair. He couldn't find a friendship after all of this, look at them and didn't think "they might also left me too".

And it's not fair, because at the end, someone truly look at him, and said, i understand you. And in that moment he allowed himself to hope, and be greedy.(is it not too late?)

Now I’m not super versed in Ranboo’s lore, so not entirely sure how he got them (probably shenanigans with XD), but the point stands that if he has them, then surely staged duo could have gotten some as well without going to the End. Which thank goodness, because I really disliked that implication in the first place as it’s wildly problematic. Especially because Eret revealed that his finale lore is them fighting XD and the ender dragon, but if that’s true then that means staged duo somehow left the End without slaying the dragon (yes I know you can summon another but in this instance that doesn’t really make sense) which is impossible unless you die. Needless to say I’m glad we can scratch it off the canon list.