#Anyways yeah Wilbur definitely didn't not apologize to Tommy because he doesn't feel he has to; it's because he genuinely doesn't know how

[smp-live]

"How was your day off, Ranboo?" Asked with the pull of a cigarette, smoke blown out from the roof of a food van to waft over the rest of Paradise. A little grey cloud of pollution and waste, dissipating into the air before it could bring much harm to any passersby.

The enderman pulled himself up onto the roof, into the danger zone of secondhand smoke. Wilbur reluctantly lowered his hand holding the cigarette - at least, for as long as he would last before subconsciously bringing it back to his lips.

"Oh, uh, good,” Ranboo stammered out. “Yeah. It was good."

"Y'know, I've been wondering.” Elaborated without even an attempt at eye contact, simply staring off into the distance. Gaze unfocused, but not a thousand-yard stare. Not haunted with memories, seeing things that weren’t truly there. Not right now, at least. Instead, simply drinking in the beauty of nature. “What do you do in your spare time?”

A vague question, met with a frown and a shrug. “A lot of things? I don’t know.”

“I’ll make it easier, then. What did you do yesterday?"

"Uh, I... rested, mostly. Hung out with Tommy and Tubbo a bit." Spent time with my son, he doesn’t say. Michael requires trust. Not hesitant, but true and solid. Something that Wilbur does not deserve, not yet.

Tense shoulders hike up unwillingly, drawing the short silence between them taut. Then, artificially softened, "I haven't spoken to Tommy in a while."

A hum of understanding. "You made it your goal to apologize to everybody, right?"

"Mm-hm."

"Did you apologize to him?"

Wilbur took a pull of his cigarette; didn’t even notice it was between his lips until Ranboo turned away on his exhale. Stared up at the stars just beginning to emerge in the fading sunlight. "No."

With a head tilt, "Why not?"

"Because," a heavy sigh, eyes shut under its weight, "I'm scared of what I’ll do if he doesn’t accept. Of what comes after."

"Don't you wanna know what he'll say, though?"

"I'd rather stay in a known in-between - a known Limbo, if you will - than take the risk and potentially fail. Even if it's unbearable." One final drag, and then it's out. "Call it cowardice, I suppose."

Fabric rustling, Ranboo shifts. Too-long legs drawn up on the rooftop, as he too gazes at the half-visible constellations. Stories with only half the words. “I don’t think I’d call you a coward.”

“Really? Why not? I took the easy way out, didn’t I? Blew it all up instead of fixing, properly fixing, the mess I created. I started that cycle of violence, and I just left it to them to clean it up. And they never even suspected a thing.” Eyes shut, a blown-out breath. “I keep all my cards close to my chest so that they don’t have to face the real me. So I don’t have to risk them getting close, then leaving in disgust."

“But... you stood up to Dream when nobody else would.” A frown, trying to comprehend the thought process. “At least at first. That’s not cowardice. You divided people, yeah, you made sides, but you... you’re not afraid to say what you think. That’s definitely not being a coward, or weak.”

A sigh. “Maybe so. But I still left them all. I hurt them all. Tommy needed me, and I wasn’t there.”

“Is that... being a coward? You wanted to die.” He glances over for confirmation, and Wilbur hesitantly, jerkily, nods. Admittance. Acceptance. Vulnerability. “I don’t think I’d call that cowardly. More... desperate. You hurt people with it,” shoulders draped in thick leather shrug up from guilt, “but... dying, I don’t think... I don’t think that’s something you should blame yourself for.”

Silence, as they stared at the newly-darkened horizon. A sniffle, wet eyes wiped away with a sleeve. A quiet, whispered, trembling,

“Thanks, Ranboo.”

“Y-yeah. No problem.”

[dreamsmp-au-ideas]

Hello, Cloud Anon here, I have a new au idea and I'm going to make that everyone else's problem.

So! George and Dream XD are messing around in Kinoko Kingdom, when they accidentally stumble across Karl's library. Not realizing what it is, they hang out there for a while, reading through the stories. Suddenly, Karl bursts into the room clearly stressed. He can feel another jump through time coming on, and he's been trying to get to his library before he gets yeeted through the time-space continuum again. He starts freaking out and trying to get George and Dream XD out of there, and then George starts freaking out and trying to apologize because he didn't know he wasn't supposed to be there, and Dream XD starts freaking out because there is a powerful energy building around Karl and they can tell something is wrong but don't know what's going on. Karl grabs George's arm to throw him out of the library and Dream XD's power spikes because if there's one thing they're going to do it's protect George- and suddenly everything goes white.

When Karl wakes up, he's alone in his library. He can tell he's time-traveled, so he'll have to deal with George and XD later, right now the most important thing is figuring out where and when he is. But when he climbs out of the hatch of the library, his surroundings are surprisingly familiar- he's back in the Old West. After walking around he confirms that yep, this is definitely the same town he visited before, and based on the fact that he finds John John alive and well at the bar, it seems like he hasn't been here yet at this point. There seem to be a couple more people around than before too, though they're far enough away that he can't really make them out. Karl is confused, but this is nothing he can't handle. Maybe his time traveling got messed up somehow and he just has to... do this one again? He shrugs and goes to sit at the bar and chat with John until the bandits start pulling up outside. Pretending not to know what's going on, he asks John who the people outside are. John John fearfully tells him that they're the infamous Bee and Boo Bandits and that they've been ransacking the town for months.

Wait. What? Before Karl has a chance to question him, the doors are thrown open and he's greeted by two *very* familiar faces leading the bandits into the bar. Normally he might be glad to see Tubbo and Ranboo, but normally, Tubbo and Ranboo aren't threatening him with guns while they rob a saloon! Just what the fuck is going on here?

What Karl doesn't know yet, but will soon figure out, is that something weird happened when he time traveled. His jump through time combined with the sudden spike in Dream XD's power sent a wave of energy through the server that somehow dragged everyone on the server into one of the stories in his library. Now all of his friends are scattered throughout his stories, with new roles and memories that fit their settings, as if they had lived there all their lives. And it's up to Karl to find everyone and get them back home.

Alright, that's all the poetic/storytelling bit out of the way so now for some more details- So, the characters haven't actually been transported to the time period of the stories they're in, and the original timelines of the stories remain unchanged. Instead, the characters have been sort of transported into the stories Karl wrote about the events, rather than the actual events, so nothing they do actually changes history or the future. Also, all of the original tftsmp characters are still there, the dsmp people have just been added to the equation on top of them. And with the addition of new people, some of the stories have actually been significantly changed from how they originally went! For example, when Karl arrives in Mizu, the city is bustling and full of life, and it becomes obvious that Ranbob hasn't massacred the rest of the city's inhabitants yet. Along with the people who have been taken from the dsmp, there are tons of people Karl has never met, the original inhabitants of the city. It becomes a race to rescue all his friends before the massacre when Mizu starts running low on food and oxygen.

I haven't decided on a tales episode for everyone yet and I'm excited to see if people have ideas on where to put everyone but this is what I've got so far:

Tubbo & Ranboo - Wild West, leading the group of bandits that ransack the town

Tommy - Mizu, with Wilbur as his idol

Ghostbur - The Village That Went Mad

Niki - Baker and Co-sheriff to Sheriff Thompson in the Wild West, though this is subject to change because I kind of also want her and Jack to be a fighting duo in The Pit

Quackity - The Masquerade, he's a wealthy casino owner. His mask has a cool poker chip design over his ruined eye

Anyways I've been thinking about this for days and I'll probably just send more asks in as I come up with more ideas but yeah I hope people like this idea, I'm excited to see if anyone else has ideas to add on

-Cloud Anon

Oh lord. We have all of this chaos and man. Karl got to fix all of this or else things will go wrong very fast.

Got to go get his friends back or else everything is going to go to shit.

We got main character Karl and him most likely dragging George and XD along with him and man. This is interesting.