Evil like Me (yes from Descendants)- Dream SMP Protégée AU

Welp hi 10 people who probably will see this during the premiere
Made it a premiere cause i don’t know, it seemed like fun.

Anyway, don’t know why or how this popped into my head. I’ve never watched or listen to Descendants since it first came out like five years ago but once I connected the dots I couldn’t just not draw it.

(This is a role-play btw)
I don’t know if there an “official” Protégée AU but mine is that Dream takes Tommy under his wing after he blows up Tommys chest room during exile. He promises Tommy revenge on those who abandoned him, and pretends to be like a older brother to Tommy to make him follow his plan (you know- Gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss stuff) (Also Tommy be lowkey replacing Wilbur tho)

In this animatic: Dream reveals his plan to blow L’manburg up to bedrock and Tommy is torn between following Dream or not (cause he has obvious attachments to L’manburg). Dream shows up to convince (*cough manipulate cough*) him to follow him

I’ll do a bit more explanation on the characters and such in the comments after the premiere cause I love character analysis and put a lot of unnecessary though into this animatic lol

Hope this is good. In my eyes the animations a little jank and the timing is off but I say that about every animatic so

Oooo next video I’m going to try my hand at animationnnn. (If I actually finish it lol)

Song: Evil like Me- From Descendants

[randomsuff]

Right so, now for my though process behind this animatic (Lol if your'e interested)

(This is all roleplay)
Ok first off, just replace mother and daughter with brother lol. Tommy would not see Dream as a father figure, but as a older brother figure, like Wilbur. And Dream would never see Tommy as his "son" (oh god no)

Now Tommy's character- ohhhh boy-
Now some of you may be wondering "Why would Tommy ever agree to blow up Lmanburg, he would totally be against that" something something
Mans is feeling completely abandoned by his closest friends and feels that if he doesn't follow Dream, he'll leave him to. Tommy is loyal to a fault, (see following Wilbur's plans in both wars and giving up the disks for Tubbo's life) and since Dream placed himself in a position where Tommy has to rely on him, (acting like an older brother figure, kind of replacing Wilbur, bantering with him and making it seems like he cares for what's best for him) Tommy will go along with the plan in the end.

But Tommy won't go along just like that, he still has a strong moral compass and will snap out of it if he goes too far. So in this animatic, Dream plays to Tommy's feelings (since, even if he doesn't want to admit it, Tommy is an emotionally driven character)
It's never really stated in the animatic, but I'd say Dream convinced Tommy that getting rid of l'manburg entirely would help the server as a whole (that's why he said they have to be evil in quotations at the end), saying that it corrupted his best friend and caused division on his once peaceful server. Dream says he'll be admired by all once they realize that and he uses Tommy's anger towards everyone abandoning him (them having fun during Christmas and Ranboo 'replacing' Tommy) and Tommy feels like he'll honor Wilbur and follow in his footsteps to finish what he started.

The actual story throughout this animatic is Dream telling Tommy to push aside his feelings towards L'manburg in order to do what's best for the server, setting the chess board up for Tommy cause some chaos on his own, and essentially tells Tommy when the time is right, they'll revive Wilbur together (because Dream told Tommy about the Revive Book to convince him to be on his side even more). The middle bit is Dream's true intentions coming through, saying that he wants power and control, but Tommy brushes over that when Dream calls him he's brother. Tommy almost fully convinced by the end, but Dream really nails it home by saying they'll stick together through all of it, and do it together.


woo I wrote like a whole essay on this and I could write more but here it is for anyone who wants it lol

[remie]

The scene with Dream saying he put his heart aside and motioning towards Sapnap and George was so good!

[catno]

the detail of dream having the queen's headpiece and tommy having the king's headpiece in the chess scene is amazing, because the king is the most vunerable and targeted and the queen is considerably powerful. BEAUTIFUL <3

[ntpersephone]

dream is the definition of “gaslight, gate keep, girlboss”
also i am very excited :))
edit: i missed the premiere but this is amazing!!

[Atalante]

2:08, that frame is so very canon in this AU, I have now decided that and I do not take criticism

[benjaminizquierdo]

In the animation it seems Dream actually cares a little bit about tommy, while he is still manipulating him, it’s not total manipulation, it’s like he’s trying to convince tommy it’s ok to be mad and evil

[lynxhart]

THERE ARE NO WORDS I am just filled with endless delight watching this. The expressions, the subtle inserts of Wilbur when Tommy is doubting, the slow descent into acceptance, and the TIMING of the ending where he flips the mask over and everything about the portal scene is just (chef's kiss) lovely lovely lovely

[shadow_shine]

Oh my YES YES HE GOT HIS OEN MASK DREAM WAS SO TERRIBLE IT WAS AWESOME OH MY GOSH!
I love their designs so much.

[jadedragon]

I like that the Chess piece that Dream hands to Tommy is Ranboo, really nice detail!

[katdiangelo]

You don't even wanna know how many times I've just thought of Tommy, techno and Ranboo singing as mal, uma and evie respectively for night falls

[fates_karma]

Dream is so good at manipulating people that he can make it into a song and fun looking at the same time in this universe. Imagine all the other songs and dances he did with everyone else. 🙂

[whomst.isthere]

DUDEEE I (used to) LOVE DESCENDANTSDDFSDF THE CONCEPT IS SO COOL YOOOO

[aspen]

God everything about this is genius. Tommys smirk of bitter happiness when he steps on the compass, Dream showering him with praise and items that would mean fame as he appeals to Tommys ego and want to be loved all while twisting words and using Tommys toxic anger to his benefit. Dreams queen crown and little scoff/giggle at the idea of Tommy following him to a fault. All WHILE taunting him with the idea of reviving Wilbur. This Dream is a better manipulator than c!dream

[ashley.p.]

i remember my descendants phase and memorized all the songs

[regnirps]

I don’t even know how to begin to start to say how underrated you are. This is one of the few animatics that truly encompasses how gaslighting and manipulation works, and I believe the song set up such a great structure that you modified perfectly to fit the characters. This is such excellent storytelling! Please keep up the good work!

[Lilackity]

1:28
That moment where tommy pauses to look at Wilbur's villain portrait was perfect

[afeatherinthewind]

ASLKSGJFLKJ THIS IS SO GOOD! And it fits so well as an alternate universe I could absolutley see this all happening in rp...
The way you captured Tommy constantly remembering the past with the low opacity shots of wilbur and how dream is determined to get him to focus on the anger from being abandoned and replaced (especially the timing of the change with the music around 0:35 is so good). And then the Puffy shot OW. The little bits of humor throughout are just SO GOOD and SO IN CHARACTER. You're so dang good at expressions I adore it. I love the use of smudged lines to indicate what real vs illusions dream is creating. Little ranboo figurine my beloved (oh god the foreshadowing of using enderwalkranboo is killing me). The chessboard imagery that's so fitting for dream and the way him flipping the chessboard up is really well animated. 2:08 Cool Dream (tm) lives in my head rent free now thanks. 2:47 the flashes of wings and the X... Does Dream want to be Dream XD? Are they the same person? All the possibilities are so cool!! And the ending is super dramatic.
haha sorry this is long I just love analyzing all the little details in complicated and symbolic animatics/animations like this! You did an awesome job and I hope maybe we see more of Protegee AU in the future! <3

[oceanetir]

I love the smooth movement and expression in this especially when dream was playing chess

[the_real_vixen]

This is why you are my favorite animator, I loved the white lines with the black background! You did the face expressions so good it’s amazing!

[S_Valentine]

This was so good and I kinda wanna make fanart for