⟡︎ Dreamtale - Original Timeline

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀[ Credits: Dreamtale was created by @jokublog on Tumblr, who has since been denounced for her actions. She may have told fragments of a story but it is no longer in her hands. ]

⠀The starting point: what little there is of a beginning to a tale as old as time. I will try to make sense of what we know, but nothing here should directly go against canon. (If it does, please let me know immediately!)

⠀Dreamtale lore goes here. (Very much a WIP. More details on people featured in Dreamtale will be in other pages!)

⠀The Beginning

⠀Before the village established itself. There was maybe a year of this at most, but it was peaceful. There wasn't any need to worry about food - there was no need to eat in the first place, though it was definitely possible - but weather definitely still existed and the only shelter was the Tree. Good thing no natural disasters happened, at least..? Well, to my knowledge none happened. Who knows. But if any did, it wasn't severe or close enough to the Tree to mention.

⠀It wasn't always sunny. Thunderstorms certainly did exist; we see one directly later on. Rain must've been present as well, I'd be rather concerned if it wasn't, but unfortunately there was never a comprehensive weather report for that timeline. Was that even a job back in ye olden days?

⠀Several Years of Clumsily Justified Torment

⠀The village established itself. Where the people came from, nobody knows; the AU was previously uninhabited.

⠀Things weren't all that bad at first. They probably didn't have many biases towards or against the twins in the first few... days? Weeks? Months? Some arbitrary amount of time. Dream was definitely more social, while Nightmare was far more wary.

⠀Not everyone was completely awful at first. Probably. Some felt bad about how Nightmare was treated, but they turned a blind eye instead of actually interfering or doing anything to help him.

⠀Apple Incident

⠀If you're here, you know what happened that day.

⠀It all came to a breaking point. He couldn't handle it. He wanted so desperately to prove himself, to show them that he wasn't as bad as they always said he was. He could protect the golden apples just like his brother, and maybe if they saw that, they'd finally realize he didn't deserve this. He reached for a golden apple, plucked it from the Tree. His nature as guardian of negativity opposed the positivity the apple was made of. They are both types of emotion, and the guardian's nature could not bend, so only one thing could happen. The apple turned from golden to black. As there was already much more negativity in the Tree than there should have been (courtesy of the man that killed Nim), it was likely a chain reaction that turned the rest of the positive apples into their negative counterparts. This was a disaster. The Tree was meant to hold both in balance, not be overwhelmed by one over the other, and it withered under the stress. So did the rest of the timeline.

⠀Such a thing did not go unnoticed. The people from the village were enraged at how 'their' golden apples (the apples never belonged to them) were no more. The first thing their minds went to was violence, and Nightmare had experienced that from them enough times to immediately know what they would do. He panicked. He didn't know how to undo this. He had made a terrible mistake, and this time it really was his fault, and he didn't know what to do. He couldn't think straight.

⠀He needed someone, anyone to guide him.

⠀It was at this point Dream knew something was terribly wrong. He had with him a golden apple and hope that he could fix things, heal the Tree. He saw those from the village approach with malice. Dream tried to protect his brother, he really did, but no one would listen. They didn't even care for the guardian they supposedly held in such high esteem. They pushed past and trampled over him in their rage.

⠀The Tree was withered, but the apples were not. They were as alive as ever. A familiar voice came from them; Dream might not have known it, but Nightmare did. It told him what he already knew. The people who had tormented the guardian of negativity for so long fully intended to hurt him as much as they could, if not kill him outright. He needed to protect himself. He needed to get stronger so they wouldn't be able to hurt him at all.

⠀Nightmare knew the apples were incredibly potent. He knew that, even with who he was, he may not be able to handle this. He hadn't lived for long, but he had enough knowledge to be very, very aware of what would happen. It would overwhelm him.

⠀There was still a choice, awful as it was. He could refuse. He could try to fight back - useless as it would be in his current state - or he could just let them attack him. If he died, it would be an end to their torment of him either way. Nightmare didn't want to die. More than that, if he was going to go out regardless, then he didn't want it to be by their hands.

⠀He bit the apple.

⠀The rest is history.

⠀Small Canon Archive

⠀Since canon Dreamtale information isn't that easy to find and I really want people to know the original lore, I've decided to make a space for it here! None of the stuff in this section specifically was made by me. Credit will be added directly above each entry.

⠀By jokublog:

⠀Dreamtale Comic
⠀Dreamtale Comic Part 2 (unfinished)
⠀Dream's Canon Design (link WIP)
⠀The Twins Meet Their Future "Human" Selves (link WIP)

⠀By xxtha:

⠀Common Dreamtale Misconceptions (link WIP)
⠀Dreamtale Info Dump (link WIP)