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IT’S DONE!! 6 months, 20,000 stitches, and ~240 hours of work later and the syndicate cross stitch based on @valeriapryanikova pixel art piece (original can be found here) is finally complete!! You may have seen WIPs of this floating around but the whole thing is finally complete!!! I’m so happy with how it turned out. The colors presented a unique challenge and i had to invent most of them by blending threads. But I had a whole lot of fun stitching this :D

if coyotes are just indie wolves and wolves are just bass boosted dogs what the fuck are moths to butterflies

The Exile Conflict: George's POV

So. The other day I wanted to see what persuaded George to testify in court against Tommy for exile, so I pulled up his vod of the day of Tommy’s court hearing to see what was said.

Five and a half hours later, I have combed through the entire lore portion of the vod, analyzed it by rambling into a Discord channel, and I have found some SUPER interesting lore insights into both c!Dream AND c!George. So here is, in chronological order, c!George’s side of the exile debacle.

(this is all rp, names refer to characters, not content creators)

So, not going to lie, I had no idea what happened before I went in. I believed that Dream had talked to George, convinced him to help him get Tommy exiled, and George gave him approval to build walls around L’Manburg. I wanted to see what exactly Dream had said to convince George to let him do all that.

Start of the vod, George learns from his chat that his house got burnt down. He, Quackity and Karl head over there to assess the damage, and while George is upset that his stuff got destroyed, he’s optimistic. He says, “It’s not actually that bad, I can fix this,” and starts clearing out the signs and netherrack while Q and Karl are standing there being unhelpful and teasing him by lighting more fires. So I figured that the conversation with Dream came later.

And then I saw this.

[ID: a screenshot from George’s vod. George is rebuilding his house. There is a chat message from Tubbo reading “dream this goes agenst the treatys (sic).”]

That’s Tubbo discovering the walls. That’s him confronting Dream about them. As you can see by the timestamp, George hadn’t even been live for ten minutes, and he had NO CLUE what happened. I did some more investigating, and discovered that the walls were built THE NIGHT BEFORE, barely an hour after the actual grief took place.

So Dream discovered that George’s house had been griefed, and his literal first response was to build walls around L’Manburg. He didn’t ask George for his input, or even tell him that his house was griefed. He only talked to George about it once George physically went looking for him (and we’ll get to that conversation in a bit because it’s a DOOZY), and I firmly believe that if George hadn’t gone over there, Dream would’ve never said a word to him.

(Sidenote: Karl, at this point in the story, had declared himself “vice vice president”, and REALLY wanted Tommy’s position. That’s why he’s so adamant that Tommy needs to be punished by being stripped of his rank. He even outright tells George that Tommy needs to be overthrown, and the vice vice president should become the new vice president.)

At this point, Karl goes over to L’Manburg and tells George about the wall. From George’s reaction it’s IMMEDIATELY obvious that he has no idea what the wall is about; his first reaction is confusion, wondering how building a wall is helping him. Then, he shifts gears and says that yeah, there SHOULD be a wall! George, at this point, is angry, and willing to accept the wall as his revenge, but is still confused as to what it’s even trying to accomplish.

Karl: Here's what it is. It's two people. That are just obsessed with power. Tommy and Dream. And they're using your ashes, the ashes of your house as a political statement.

Now Karl is wrong about Tommy here. Tommy didn’t grief George’s house to make a political statement, he griefed it cause he thought it’d be funny. However, DREAM is absolutely using it to make a political statement. Griefing the king had never been treated as a serious offense, Eret was robbed blind practically every day by Hbomb and Fundy (the then-president’s son), and they never faced consequences from Dream. Dream had also been going around griefing various structures and trying to frame Tommy for them the previous week, so of course he would jump on this immediately.

So, at this point, George has fixed his house, and goes to L’Manburg to meet up with Karl and see what’s going on. He’s shocked upon realizing the wall is made of obsidian, and goes to find Dream, who is sitting in a hole. Thinking he’s AFK, George pours water over his head, but Dream wasn’t AFK at all, and joins the VC right after.

The conversation that follows goes like this:

Dream: George! Um… I guess just to keep you updated that way you know. [...] Tommy griefed your vacation home.

George: It was Tommy? If I scroll up in the chat, he said “No” when I asked him.

Dream: Well, it’s him. But anyway, Tommy griefed it, and since you’re the king now, that’s like griefing the king’s property, so I decided to build the wall around L’Manburg, and because the treaties are technically void… I just want them to handle Tommy accordingly. (Karl: I agree.) I’m dealing with it for you, don’t worry.

[...]

Dream: But don’t worry! Don’t worry. I’m handling it, I’m handling it, okay?

George: How are you handling it? By building a wall?

Dream: I’m- I’m handling it.

Karl: Dream, in your opinion, do you think Tommy should step down as Vice President?

Dream: Yes. One hundred percent. That’s not even enough.

[...]

Dream: I’m taking care- George, I’m taking care of it, okay?

George: How do you know you’re properly gonna take care of it?! I did nothing wrong, and my house was just burnt to nothing!

Dream: George, don’t worry!

George: I had to rebuild it just now.

Dream: Look! Do you see this?! George, look at how much I’ve already done for you, I’m handling it, George.

George: But this isn’t gonna stop them from ruining my house in the future!

Dream: I know, nono, trust me. George. I’m handling it. I’m handling it. Bye.

[Dream leaves the VC]

(Note, I removed stammering and unrelated tangents for clarity, but didn’t change the meaning of sentences. Please watch it for yourself if you’re curious.)

There is a LOT to unpack here, so let’s start with Dream.

First, his tone during his explanation of Tommy’s crime seemed almost… bored? I don’t think that was bad acting, we know cc!Dream can act, it just seemed like Dream was trying to get the explanation out of the way as quickly as possible to get back to making demands from L’Manburg.

Second, Dream isn’t telling George anything about what he’s planning. George brings up very valid points, like “how is a wall around L’Manburg gonna prevent further griefing?” and “how are you planning to handle this situation?” Yet Dream tells him nothing. He brushes off all of George’s questions, and when George keeps refusing to back down, he breaks out the guilt trip with “Look at how much I’ve already done for you.” Then when George KEEPS asking questions, Dream just repeats that he’s handling it and leaves.

Third, Dream never mentioned he was trying to get Tommy exiled. George doesn’t KNOW he’s trying to get Tommy exiled, the word “exile” won’t get brought up for a WHILE. Hiding his true motives from George and trying to keep him away is not only a huge dick move, it’s also hampering George’s ability to figure out what’s actually happening here.

After Dream leaves, we get this conversation:

George: ...is he just gonna stand here or is he gonna handle it? Dream, go handle it! Karl, how is he- how is building this wall "handling it?" Can you explain that to me?

Karl: I just wanna know, like... I feel like that's handling it. That was the first step in handling it. By him building the wall, it sets a precedent.

George: It is a statement... Like, you mess with George, I... build a wall...? Question mark...? But like... There's nothing stopping them from just coming out of this wall and doing it again.

Karl: Think about it like this, though. It wasn't Tubbo. Y'know what I mean? And Tubbo now has to deal with the fact that his silly little vice president has the audacity.

George: It's just that... I just don't feel safe anymore.

Again, Karl is right on the money, but missing the point. Tubbo SHOULDN’T have to deal with this. This isn’t his problem, and it’s not his fault, this should be between Tommy and George alone.

Then, George gets in a call with the L’Manburg crew. They’re all freaking out, Tommy most of all, and George can barely get a word in before they move VC’s to have a crisis meeting. However, before being dragged into the meeting, Tommy does manage to talk to George quickly.

Tommy: Gogy, whatever happens bro, just remember, me and you, we tight.

George: Rrrright... I dunno- Dream said it was you, why would Dream lie?

Tommy: Cause he's out- he's a menace to society! (Tommy keeps rambling about how Dream is like the Joker before he’s dragged into the meeting).

Is Tommy doing this to try and lessen his punishment, or is he genuinely saying he and George can still be buds? I don’t know, but either way, George doesn’t believe him, Tommy leaves to meet with the L’Manburg Cabinet in the Camarvan, and George suddenly realizes that everyone else left too. He moves VC’s to join them, only for Tubbo to immediately ask him and Karl for privacy. When they refuse to leave, everyone else moves to VC2.

Karl is upset that they’re not treating him like a L’Manburgian citizen, and George sympathizes, trying to comfort him a bit, until he gets a DM from Dream.

[ID: a Minecraft DM from Dream saying “get out of the borders”]

[ID: two Minecraft DMs from George to Dream saying “should karl come with” and “are you going to hurt them”]

[ID: two DMs from Dream saying “just stay outside the borders” and “stay neutral ur king”]

Again, Dream dodges the question. George wants to know whether he’s gonna hurt the L’Manburgians, and Dream just tells him to get outside the borders and stay neutral. This is basic information, a simple yes or no would’ve been enough, yet Dream gives George absolutely nothing.

At this point, Dream is very blatantly disrespecting George’s autonomy by making every decision about how to handle the griefing of his house for him, and refusing to give him even the most basic information about what he’s doing. GEORGE is the victim, yet he doesn’t even get to know what is happening. No dispute over griefing has EVER played out like this, at no point did somebody else take it upon themselves to take revenge for a grief without telling the actual victim that the grief even took place, what their plans and goals are when it comes to the actual revenge, and without the victim being able to weigh in.

This behavior can only have two explanations: either Dream thinks George is completely incompetent and will get seriously hurt if he attempts to resolve this himself… or he’s already started seeing George as another tool for him to use. Remember, this is only days before the Spirit-speech, and a few more days before he dethrones George without warning and - again - without asking him what HE wants. Whether Dream has lost all care for George altogether at this point is impossible to say, but he clearly doesn’t respect George enough to let him know what he’s doing, handle things himself, or listen to his opinions.

Because boy does George have opinions about this.

George: I'm gonna go do my own thing. I'm not interested in war. Okay. I don't want these shenanigans. I'm gonna stand with Dream, 'cause me and Dream... I'm not gonna be hurt if Dream's next to me.

George is a pretty non-confrontational guy. Retaliating against someone griefing his house by surrounding their entire country in obsidian and causing a massive uproar isn’t something he’d do, or would WANT to do. He’s going along with it because he feels like it’s his chance at revenge, he trusts Dream, and every time he tries to do something else, he gets ignored by L’Manburg (not out of malice, but because there’s a MASSIVE DIPLOMATIC CRISIS that needs to be dealt with first).

George, at this point, is starting to get very restless, and tries to vent his anger by taking it out on things around him, while still trying to stay neutral. He threatens, but ultimately doesn’t go through with griefing the L’Mantree, and takes a live fish from the pond under Party Island to drop onto the cabinet as they’re meeting with Dream (which is, admittedly, very funny).

What’s also very interesting is that George is starting to heavily exaggerate how much his house was actually damaged. He started the stream off upset, but optimistic, saying he could rebuild it easily, and took maybe fifteen minutes to fix the house (George isn’t a very fast builder either, not helped by the fact that Q and Karl were messing with him, and he had to replace a wall made out of mushroom stem blocks). But about fifteen minutes after leaving for L’Manburg, he’s claiming that his house was completely destroyed, and that he had to rebuild it from the ground up.

I’m psychoanalyzing a bit here, but I think George is doing this to try and justify both Dream’s actions, and his own anger.

See, griefing on the Dream SMP (as well as literally every single other Minecraft server ever) works something like this. Person A wrecks person B’s shit. B gets pissed and retaliates by wrecking A’s shit. A retaliates against THAT, and so it continues until either A or B gives up and leaves it alone, A and B decide things have gone far enough and hash out a compromise, or an outside influence (usually an admin or another player) forces them to cut it out.

This is likely how the conflict WOULD have played out if Dream never intervened. George would’ve gotten angry and griefed Tommy’s house back, and Tommy would’ve rebuilt it and either retaliated, sparking a semi-lighthearted feud, or ignored it, as he doesn’t really start shit over people destroying his house or stealing from him unless they take something he has a lot of attachment to.

But Dream threw a wrench in that entire dynamic.

Suddenly, George, angry and ready to take it out on the guy who wronged him, is being shoved to the side by Dream, who keeps telling him to stay out of it, that he’s got it handled, that he doesn’t need to worry. George tries to go to Tommy to read him the riot act, but Tommy is already getting raked over the coals by the L’Manburg Cabinet, stuck in meetings and trying to figure out what the FUCK to do next, so he’s too distracted and freaked out to divert his attention to George. Same goes for the rest of L’Manburg, it’s hard to deal with one guy pissed that his house got wrecked when you’ve got a national fucking crisis on your plate.

So instead of a lighthearted prank war, there’s now a diplomatic crisis in L’Manburg, Tommy is suddenly facing the prospect of losing his home and friends and everything he ever loved over what he thought was just a funny prank while being screamed at from every direction, Tubbo has to play the voice of reason in an impossible situation he’s just not equipped to handle because he’s sixteen goddamn years old, and George is just… sitting on the sidelines, hopped up on anger he can’t vent without starting ANOTHER diplomatic crisis, feeling completely helpless while Dream is running around, “handling” the situation, and refusing to tell him anything.

Anyway.

George eventually joins the call, and Tubbo asks him to take them to his house to assess the damage. George tells him that the damage was fixed already, at which point Tommy starts yelling that if it’s fixed, there’s no proof that it ever happened.

Then something very interesting happens. I may be reading too much into this, but I’ve seen nobody bring it up, and I think it’s important to take note of.

Dream: Listen, if you want to, you can review his [George’s] VOD!

Tubbo: Can we review the VOD?

[...]

Fundy: Wait, whose VOD?

Tubbo: Tommy’s VOD, I assume.

(people talking over eachother)

Dream: Nonononono, why would you do that when you can watch George’s VOD? You can watch George’s VOD when he just fixed it. And he saw all the damage. And he’s heartbroken.

This is… Odd. What they’re looking for is proof that a) there was a crime, and b) Tommy was the perpetrator. Why would Dream want them to watch George’s VOD, which just consists of him looking around in the aftermath of said crime, when Tommy’s VOD has undeniable proof that it was him?

This is speculation but… Which would make Tommy look worse, you think? The VOD where he just fucks around on the SMP with Ranboo before breaking into George’s house, taking some stuff, putting up mean signs and making a mess, screaming and putting out an accidental fire, then leaving? Or the VOD where George walks around the ruins of his house all sad?

Tommy’s VOD would prove without a doubt that it wasn’t a politically motivated attack, and that the fire was an accident. It was still a robbery, but… That’s not the worst thing that’s ever happened on the server. It’s not even the worst thing that Tommy has ever done. It’s certainly not exile-worthy. And I think Dream knew that, because in order for him to know that Tommy griefed George’s house, he’d have HAD to have been streamsniping, meaning he knows EXACTLY what Tommy’s VOD looks like.

(Also I wanna point out that George’s VOD wouldn’t have been much better for him, especially since George was only mildly upset and said that the damage would be easily fixable while walking around his house. But I mean, we all know Dream isn’t listening to a single word out of George’s mouth at this point.)

Dream and Tubbo leave to talk in private, and Tommy leaves the call when Quackity and Fundy start yelling at him, so George is left alone once again. He wonders out loud why Tommy can’t just admit it was him. Keep in mind, George still hasn’t heard the word “exile” being dropped yet.

Anyway, George yoinks part of the L’Mantree while the cabinet talks in a different VC. When he joins back, they all take Tommy to court.

I’m not going to describe the whole court case here, because I’m assuming most of you have already seen it, and there’s not a whole lot of other stuff there on George’s side of things (and also it makes me very sad). However, I will be posting some quotes from Tommy that make me think he’s DEFINITELY onto Dream, and has realized this is unfair.

Quackity: Alright, this is a case of the nation of L'Manburg versus crybaby who got his fucking house burned down. (laughter) Tommy: (quietly, very seriously) Except the crybaby has Dream on his side…

Tommy: Listen guys, (inaudible), you do a bit of graffiti, you do a bit of stabbing, that's all fun! That's all fun and games!

Tommy: Dream retaliating by building obsidian walls is absurd! I did no griefing, I only did robbing! I'm a robber!

Tommy: Tubbo there's WALLS around your home! There are WALLS, bro! Tubbo: Yeah, and I'm hoping that this will be enough of a satisfying conclusion to get them torn down! Tommy: BUT WHY ARE THE WALLS EVEN THERE?! You can't just build walls just 'cause I- me and... by myself, I did it- Tubbo: George is the king of the Dream SMP, Tommy. He is the king. This is considered... I don't even wanna know what this is considered. George: T-t-t-t-t-treason. Tommy: (crosstalk) There are massive walls all around, dude. That is a- That's griefing! Surely we should arrest Dream as well!

Anyway, Tommy ends up confessing to keep Ranboo out of trouble, and Tubbo sentences him to probation. This, finally, is where we get our first reference to Dream’s exile threat.

Tubbo: Tommy, I have been advised to banish you. [...] However, that is a very extreme measure, and I'm hoping that we can please both parties by probation.

Except this isn’t telling George anything. He doesn’t know that “advice” came from Dream, or that it was more of a demand, or that the walls are there to facilitate exile. To him, this may as well have come from a cabinet member to threaten Tommy into complacency while in court.

George stays in a VC with Karl, Ranboo and Niki. Ranboo apologises to him for the damage, and George accepts it, says he doesn’t blame Ranboo because he believes Tommy infected or manipulated him somehow, and says he just wants his stuff back.

Meanwhile, in another VC, Dream is overriding the decision of the court, saying Tommy should be exiled anyway.

George missed all of that. He doesn’t know Dream demanded exile, or that he was using the walls to threaten L’Manburg into exiling Tommy, or that he went behind his back and overruled the decision George had agreed to!

George: (responding to a dono) "Sorry about Tommy burning your house down, homie." Yeah, I mean, it sucks. And he's- he's getting punished for it, so it's okay.

George was perfectly satisfied with the probation. All he wanted Tommy to do after that was give him his stuff back. He didn’t think that Tommy deserved even more punishment after that.

Anyway, after joining the call with L’Manburg again, George catches Tommy being yelled at for wanting to get the discs, then laughs at Motherinnit yelling at him to empty the dishwasher.

At this point, Sapnap joins the call. He’s completely out of the loop, and George gives him the short version of the story as far as he understands it. Sapnap doesn’t factor too heavily into this analysis but he does have some… ahem, opinions.

Sapnap: These L'Manburgians, George... They should've learned their lesson the first time around. We dealt with them. (referring to the L’Manburg Independence War) Niki: Hey, don't say anything against the L'Manburgians! It's just... Tommy.

Sapnap: You know, Tubbo's the president. He should really be doing a better job of keeping his people in check.

Sapnap: Tubbo needs to get better control of his people. Ranboo: I think it's just harder to control Tommy than most.

...yeah.

Anyway, Karl is sad and Sapnap and George try comforting him for a while… and then George gets another message.

[ID: a DM from Dream saying “come here”. Under it, a message from Quackity, saying “o_o”]

George goes to find Dream, who returns him the unnamed fish that lived in the pond by his house.

[ID: a string of DMs between Dream and George

Dream: I saved your fish from quackity Dream: been keeping it safe George: how did you get it back!?!?!?! Dream: I robbed him tbh]

Dream then demands that George give him the bits of the L’Mantree. George asks why, but Dream once again refuses to elaborate.

[ID: a string of DMs between Dream and George

Dream: give me the leaves George: why (x4) Dream: I need them Dream: trust]

Here, Dream is doing the EXACT same shit as he was doing earlier. He’s making decisions for George without his input, and refusing to answer even the most basic questions.

Anyway, the lore kinda petered out at this point, Tommy asked for some leather for his book, then Sap, Karl and George hung around L’Manburg for a bit before they got invited to play Scuffed Chess for the last hour or so of the stream.

So what is the takeaway from this?

In my opinion, this is a very obvious sign that Dream doesn’t value George as a friend. He used the fact that his house was griefed as an excuse to bully L’Manburg into exiling Tommy, and not only did he not ask George’s input before he did ANY of the shit he did, he refused to answer even the most basic questions with anything except “dude trust me”.

The way Dream acts here is pretty obvious foreshadowing to his later actions: the Spirit speech, where he screams that he doesn’t care about anything other than the discs (and Tommy by extension) while Sapnap is right fucking there, and dethroning George because him being king is supposedly putting him in danger, while ignoring his protests, dismissing his genuine upset as him just being dramatic, and instead of abolishing the throne (because ANY monarch would be in the same amount of danger George was, and the position doesn’t mean anything anyway), he hands it right back to Eret, because apparently he’s more disposable.

Dream claimed he’s doing all of this for George, but he’s not. George never had a say in any of his actions, never wanted things to go as far as they did, and was purposefully kept in the dark about so, SO many things regarding the leadup to exile. George was expecting to get Tommy back, maybe have a small prank war, then move on. Instead, he became complicit in getting a sixteen year-old kicked out of his home and HORRIBLY abused, ALL against his will.

Dream wasn’t protecting George. He wasn’t defending George. He wasn’t setting a precedent for how to treat the king. George didn’t benefit from this situation, in fact, he suffered from it too, being repeatedly brushed off, having his wrecked home used as political ammunition, and being stonewalled by the guy supposedly helping him.

Let’s not pretend that Dream did any of this for George’s sake. Dream was the only one who benefited from any of this.

*mic drop*