Chapter Text
Real quick because I still don't know how setting up a new book works on AO3; this one-shot is based in my friend deadminecraftfandom's AU where the DreamSMP folk are actors and it's very pog and they gave me permission to write a one-shot and I'm very thankful.
Some triggers are mentions of blood and also spoiler alert for the finale of season 1 (?) of the DreamSMP, the fall of L'manberg one. Have a happy story.
The set was a mess of wires that snaked along the floor and were stuck down with bright green tape, feet stepping over them as people went to talk to other people, their voices filling the air. The lights were on, white fluorescent bulbs flooding the studio and the huge set that had been made; the main street of L’manberg, ending in the raised podium and the hollow plaster mountain behind it, flanked by huge green walls which would later show the greater land of the DreamSMP.
The tension and excitement in the air was near-tangible, actors in full costume laughing with each other or in deep conversation with a co-producer or script writer. The director was talking to the camera men, pointing across the set with his hand and gesturing as they nodded and wrote notes. He was in full costume too, though that wasn’t saying much as the character he played wore only a green hoodie and a white mask that was currently hanging off his arm.
Others were more elaborately costumed. The most grand perhaps was Dave’s costume, who played the legendary Technoblade regaled in a royal cape with a crown and a pink pig mask hiding his face. Hair extensions had been added to his skull and while he frequently complained about their weight, when the cameras were rolling he wielded the long braid like he’d been born with it. Contrary to his character, though, Dave was happily chatting and laughing with the man beside him who wore two prosthetic goat horns and a suit, his ears dotted with green for special effects that would be added during the film editing.
Yet not all of the actors were ready in the studio. One had chosen to withdraw to an empty dressing room, enclosing himself in peaceful silence. His walk, however, was an abrupt pace with a long stride, mumbling lines to himself in a voice that rose and fell in the octaves of a man who knew his sanity was slipping from him. His long brown cloak flicked at his boots, his brown curling hair falling into his eyes despite the efforts of his beanie to keep it back. The near-amber irides were fixed on the ground in a blank stare, reciting words to himself as his voice rose in strength and something on the thin line between aggression and outright panic.
“The very thing that I built this nation for doesn’t exist anymore!” he exclaimed in a fierce but still quiet voice, his pace abruptly stopping and his head rising to stare blankly at the wall, his hands rising as if addressing a crowd, the edges of a vague, hopeless smile on his face. “It’s over.”
“What are you doing.”
The man shouted in fright, jumping a foot in the air and spinning around to see the other man standing at the now opened door who was very obviously holding back a laugh at seeing him. “God- Damn it Phil, don’t do that to me!” the actor exclaimed, a hand on his racing heart. “I was so in character too, god!”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Phil laughed, covering his mouth with his hand. “I had to, I’m sorry. It sounded good though, William.” The older actor wore a green kimono that was folded over his body, mostly covering the black shirt underneath, and a green and white hat shading his face. A strange, brighter green harness was hooked to his chest with two aluminium rods that stuck out above his shoulders. His character was written to bear two huge grey wings and the contraption was to help the Special Effects team bring them to life.
“Thanks,” William said, brushing his hair out of his eyes. “I’ve been practicing for weeks, it took me ages to find a delivery I’m happy with.”
“Nervous?”
The actor scoffed. “Yes! It’s the big finale of season 2, Phil! This is the height of Wilbur, the apex of everything he’s done, the culmination of his whole character development all leading to this one scene, this one moment, Philza! Everything I’ve done, everything I’ve put into place, it all comes to a point, this point, Philza, this one point!” He suddenly shook his head, voice dropping out of those frenzied tones. “I mean Phil, sorry, got a little in character there.”
Phil Watson gave him a worried raised eyebrow. “Are you sure you’ve never built a nation only to have it all taken away from you and then plotted to blow it all up in a fiery inferno?”
William waved his hand. “Only twice, nothing big. Are you excited, though? It’s Philza’s first appearance on the show, this is a big moment!”
“Yeah, and he gets to kill Wilbur, what an introduction!” Phil laughed. “But I’m excited, I’m really excited, I’ve caught up on the whole first two seasons and I’m ready for it. Has Clay talked to you about what he’s planning for season 3?”
William grinned. “Oh yeah, and I am excited, I am so excited. I was thinking that Dream was weirdly in the background of all this but looking at what Clay’s got planned, it all makes a lot of sense. And I haven’t lost my contract, but he still hasn’t told me why I’ve been kept on for season 3 and I’m dying to know. But we’ve got to get season 2 done first, and we’ve got to finish it off well.”
Phil smiled, drawing himself up to a taller height and William could tell that he was pulling on the persona he had specially created for Philza. “Then let’s give them the show they’ve been waiting for, Wilbur.”
William nodded and followed the older actor out of the dressing room, shutting the door behind him. They walked onto set just as the director Clay finished his discussions with the camera crew and turned, spotting them and grinning. Wilbur gave him a nod which was returned, and Clay raised his voice over the hubbub.
“Okay, everyone attention! All actors and crew to their positions, filming of season 2 finale ‘November 16th’ starts in two minutes! Everyone positions, two minutes to start!” He pulled on his mask, the actors moving onto the huge set and donning their personas as the camera crew zoomed in on their targets and the backstage lights were dimmed.
It had been a harrowing, long, long set of hours and at the end of it, the lights of the set were dark and Wilbur was lying in Philza’s arms. His body was going limp, his eyes were dulling, and he could feel liquid dribbling out from between his lips and Philza’s arm wrapped around him, holding him tightly. There was a dull pain in the centre of his chest, Philza’s quiet, bitter sigh filling his ears as the elder buried his face into the dying Wilbur’s shoulder, his tears dripping down his face. They sat there for a long moment, the minutes ticking away as Wilbur died.
“CUT! Brilliant, whoo!”
The silence was shattered with a splattering of loud, furious clapping as the cameras stopped recording and the shoot was saved. Phil let out a shaking breath and William couldn’t help himself, he started laughing, laughing from all the built-up tension that had swollen inside him from that scene, that final, climactic scene to finish it all off. He lifted himself from Phil so he could fall back, arms flopping out and letting out a “Whoop!” between his laughs.
Phil started laughing too, tossing aside the sword hilt prop he’d stabbed to Will’s chest and pulling up his knees so he could rest his arms on them after wiping the false tears from his cheeks. The set was shattered, dramatically so, torn apart by the ‘explosions’ under L’manburg and rising to the raised podium that Wilbur had been killed in. The other actors and actresses and crew were clapping and cheering, shaking hands and celebrating the end of another season of filming. Clay in particular looked overjoyed and walked across the set so he could call out comfortably to the two.
“You good Will?” he half-yelled. “I thought you might have fallen asleep or something!”
“No, I was busy being dead!” the actor called back, waving his hand and wiping his mouth as he sat up. The red blood-simulating liquid tasted like mint, which wasn’t a bad flavour but man did it stain. “How was it Clay? You happy with it?”
“Happy?? I’m over the damn moon, William! I think that was the best filming we’ve done ever, that was insane!” Clay insisted, grinning so wide his face looked like it was about to split. “Both of you absolutely killed it, and like I know I helped write the script and I know we wrote a lot of the script together Will but it sounded so goddamn real, seriously. Phil, you’re an absolutely amazing actor, you’re absolutely perfect for Philza.”
Phil gave a little half-bow where he sat. “Mate, I’m just honoured that you asked me to be part of your show and trusted me not to ruin your finale. I do hope the wings turn out alright, I was doing my best to move with them in mind.”
“Oh, they’re going to turn out brilliant, we have all the best people on Special Effects,” Clay assured him. “You two good to get down, you need a hand?”
“I’ll be good, the adrenaline rush is mostly gone,” William said, shaking out his hands. He felt all full of goosebumps from the inside, shaky and unsteady but in a good way, a nice way that said he’d done a brilliant job. The two actors stood and walked out of the set, joining the others and getting claps on the back as Clay got up on a box so he could address the crowd.
“Brilliant work today guys,” he said as he encouraged a round of applause that was well-deserved by everyone present. “All of you were freaking amazing, you all played your characters so well and I’m so happy to see you all enjoying them. Special hand to William for dying so spectacularly, Phil for killing him so emotionally, and Dave for once again making up killer lines on the spot! And also for all the retakes we’ve had to do because you keep breaking the fourth wall.”
Those gathered clapped furiously, Dave giving a royal wave with a satisfied smirk that he definitely deserved. More than several knew that his lines would no doubt consume the avid fans of the show. Clay waved his hand for attention again when the clapping died down.
“Huge thanks to our camera crew and our producers again,” he said, waving to the black-clad crew who were also clapped, “and huge thank you to our editors and special effects people who aren’t here but are already working hard on all this and they’re all probably hating me. Now!” Clay clapped his hands together, eyes bright. “As you all know, this episode is going to air on November 16th. We want a lot of hype around it so exactly one week before, on the- 11th? No, 9th? What date?”
“It’s the 9th!” a young teen in a suit shouted.
“Thank you Toby! Alright, so, the 9th. That’s when you can start tweeting out little hints about the episode. Nothing big, absolutely no spoilers, but little things about how excited you are for it. Wait until you see my tweet and you’ll know what kind of line I want you to tread. Questions?”
There were none, so the director continued. “Alright, season three! All of you have had your contracts extended so you’ll all be in season three, don’t worry there, I’ve sorted it all out with Mojang. We’ve got most of the plot sorted out and I’ll start emailing out scripts in a week or two. We’ll start filming in a month but you’ll all have plenty of time to relax and recharge and get ready for next season by then. Until then, go home guys! You all deserve the break, treat yourselves!”
The finale of season 2 had dropped and as expected, everyone went nuts. Fans were screaming about it within seconds of it being released, its success growing so rapidly that advertisements for the hit show “My L’manberg” started to be shown on mainstream television and social media apps. The chatter about it only grew at the sudden appearance of renowned actor Phil Watson, known for so many movies that it was pointless to keep track of them all, but most importantly for his own show. He was, of course, regarded as the head of Mojang by the fans even though such a thing obviously wasn’t true.
Soon, a press conference just had to be held. The actors for the show (only the main ones though, there just wasn’t enough room for the huge cast that had been put together) arrayed themselves at a long table, each with a microphone and a glass of water in front of them and facing the huge press crowd in front of them. Clay, as director and an actor, had the seat in the very middle of the table. As was his way, a mask hid his face in the public space and in honour of his character Dream, it was the same mask used in the show. The press was going wild, clamouring for attention that could barely be controlled.
“William! William over here! Many fans are expecting Wilbur to make a miraculous comeback in season 3, can you give us any insight into what we might see!” one reported gushed quickly. Judging by the stars in her eyes, she was probably a fan herself.
“Oh no, Wilbur’s dead, he’s definitely dead,” William assured her. “In fact, I really don’t think that him being alive would do him any good, he really threw himself off the deep end towards the end of the second season.”
“Phil Watson!” a different reporter clamoured. “Philza made a remarkable appearance in the show, can you tell us more about him?”
The British actor finished his drink and set it down with a sigh. “Well, obviously I can’t say too much, but Philza definitely is an interesting character. He’s got a few secrets, and I would say that he came to the SMP with a purpose that we’ll probably find out about in season 3.”
The press spoke over each other more until a waving hand was singled out. “Tommy! Tommy, your character is often regarded as the main character for My L’manberg, what is he likely to be facing in the future now that Wilbur is dead and L’manberg is restored?”
“Oh, he’s going to be going through some wild shit-“
“Tommy,” Clay warned, “don’t go spoiling the show for everyone.”
The young actor waved his hand, his best friend beside him putting a hand to his mouth and chortling. “I’m not, I’m not! I’m just saying that my character is the main character and will continue to stay the main character during the next season.”
“Clay,” a fourth reporter spoke up. “As the director and as an actor yourself, can you tell us what season 3 will hold from a character development point of view?”
The entire room went silent, fingers poised over computer keys as Clay leaned forward, his fingers lacing together in a calculated manner. “Well, I can tell you that we’re going to be exploring several characters that we haven’t really seen much of yet. I can also tell you that this season may be the most daring we’ve done yet, and seeing everything that’s happened, I know that’s a wild thing to say but it’s true. I can tell you that if you loved seasons 1 and 2…” He paused, and he was no doubt smirking under the mask.
“It’s all just getting started.”
The room was dead silent for several long seconds, half of the room’s eyes going wide while the other was furiously writing down everything. Even Clay’s fellow actors had reeled back a little at the deliverance, seeing the hints of Dream that the actor slipped on. It was nearly as if he half lived as Dream himself, which wouldn’t be unsurprising given the mask that constantly hid his face from the public. No one knew what he looked like, and those he worked with had been sworn to secrecy.
“Clay, one more question,” the same reported piped up. “As we know, L’manberg is placed in the DreamSMP, but your character Dream has been in the background for a lot of it. We don’t know much about him. Is there any reason for this?”
Clay leaned back in his chair. His face couldn’t be seen but it was obvious that he was grinning widely as he spoke. “Oh, we might find out soon, maybe, I don’t know. I’m gonna have fun with season 3’s Dream though, I’m excited.”
“I am so excited,” William immediately echoed.
“I fully agree there, William,” Phil nodded.
“I’m not,” Dave said flatly. “Down with the government.”
“Hey!” Toby protested, Tommy immediately backing him up while Johnathan Schlatt shook his head, smiling as he had a drink.
The press conference went rather well.