#c!quackity is mostly there for the c!wilbur parallels. c!wilbur is mostly there for the c!wilbur parallels.

[lasnevadaslaborunion]

Characters ranked based on whether they should destroy Las Nevadas

I'm going to cry: Foolish, Fundy

Yeah I'd be okay with this: Dream, Ranboo, Karl

Not my first choice but has potential: Quackity, Jschlatt, Purpled, Wilbur, Sam, Sapnap, Tubbo

Lmao can you imagine: Connor, Michael McChill, George

Absolutely the fuck not: Techno, Charlie, Tommy

[princeandreis]

honestly c!wilbur teaming up with naive little ranboo and making a burger van as a direct parallel to his creating the hto dog van with tommy just feels... a little narratively on-the-nose to me. granted i’m not in cc!wilbur’s head so i don’t know what his plans are for the character but it feels like we’re being hit over the head with the idea that wilbur hasn’t changed at all but in a weirdly specific way if that makes sense.

like. personally i want c!wilbur to have changed and grown and it seems that’s not the way it’s going, which is fine. he’s not my character and it’s not my lore. it’s a very valid choice for cc!wilbur to have him appear at least somewhat static in terms of his personal growth. what i’m not liking, though, is the way that we’re being told about it.

it just seems painfully obvious to have wilbur take in a kid who looks up to him, create a silly little van with said kid to sell one specific food, and use the situation for his own ulterior motives. first it was using the hto dog van to run the drug cartel and gain power on the server, and now it’s using the wilburger ranvan to compete with his rival quackity (plus god knows whatever else he’s up to; that remains to be seen).

it’s just. i don’t know. it feels like an oddly specific callback and that’s my only problem with it. there’s no issue with creating deliberate narrative parallels; those parallels are part of what make the story of the dream smp so cool. my only gripe is how it feels like i’m being smacked in the face with wilbur once again using a fast food van for some other shady purpose and, intentionally or unintentionally, roping in with him a kid who doesn’t know any better.

(i do want to say as a disclaimer that i’m not a c!wilbur anti and this is not intended as criticism of the cc either. i guess i’m mostly hoping to be proven wrong as more of the story develops in the coming weeks. thanks for reading pals and remember this is a post about a fictional minecraft guy and it’s really not worth getting upset over)

[markets]

helloooo

so this post of mine has been gaining some traction lately and due to popular demand (aka one comment telling me to write it), i actually wrote an essay about it. is it good? probably not lol, but its like 3 double spaced pages long and i actually really like it, so id appreciate it if you checked it out!

 it’ll be under the cut but first i just wanted to clarify some things: this is about their characters on the smp, not them as real people. so just pretend that theres a c! in front of every name i mention lol. also, im still about a month behind on the smp and havent watched every stream, so if anything is inaccurate/not up to date i apologize

              Two Sides of the Same Coin: A Tommy and Tubbo Analysis

      Over the years, many fictional characters have been deemed two sides of the same coin; two things that are closely related regardless of how different they may seem. Tommy and Tubbo fit that description to a tee. Their positive and negative qualities balance each other out perfectly, something that allows them to bring about meaningful change when they’re together but causes chaos to reign when they’re apart, a fact that Dream used to his advantage during the exile arc.

      One of the ways they balance each other out is in their leadership styles. Tommy leads with his heart and tends to let his emotions take control, while Tubbo has been known to lead with his head and make decisions based on logic rather than what he’s feeling at the time. An example of this was when he exiled Tommy to avoid violence and trouble for his country in the long run rather than letting his lifelong friendship with him cloud his judgement. By themselves, anyone who leads with their heart or head alone is bound to run into pitfalls, but being together allows the good qualities of these forms of leadership to shine through and the bad ones to cancel each other out: Tubbo acts as a voice of reason for Tommy and helps him think rationally, while Tommy helps Tubbo lead with more compassion to avoid becoming, in his own words, “the next Schlatt”.

In addition to this, some of their greatest flaws complement each other as well. Tommy is constantly regarded as being too stubborn, emotional, and angry, qualities that made Wilbur believe he would never be president and are the reason why Dream is scared of him. On the other hand, Tubbo is known to be a pushover, a “yes man” who, despite being able to stand his ground sometimes, typically gives in to others too easily. Just like Tommy, this quality made many believe he’d make a horrible president. However, the complementary nature of their friendship allows them to help one another and balance out each other's flaws: Tommy helps Tubbo stand his ground and make decisions for himself, while Tubbo helps Tommy avoid doing anything rash. A great example of this last statement is the aftermath of Tubbo’s execution, when Tommy was angry and started looking for the button to explode Manberg, despite his hesitancy to do so earlier, saying “Where’s the button? They fucked up for the last time”. However, Tubbo put a stop to this by telling him to go with him to Pogtopia.

      There are many more examples of how they balance each other out from the times when they have been together, but even more can be seen when they're apart. Their separation was the root cause of all the chaos that occurred during and directly after the exile arc. Without Tommy and his warnings against becoming “the next Schlatt”,  Quackity was able to take the helm in most major decisions and pressure Tubbo into violent political plans, despite one of the main reasons for exiling Tommy being to avoid violence. Tubbo only stood up to him when he realized one of his plans directly paralleled his execution under Schlatt’s rule. Meanwhile, without Tubbo there to support Tommy, he ended up teaming up with Technoblade, another thing Tubbo sought to avoid with the exile. Tommy’s habit of letting his emotions take over, not to mention his post-exile mental instability, and Technoblade’s penchant for violence and the destruction of L’Manberg proved to be a dangerous combination, since Technoblade not only failed to stop Tommy’s rash behavior but also encouraged it.

      It is highly likely that Dream was not only aware of these facts but also motivated by them. This can be seen many times throughout the exile arc, as well as right before it began. Not only was Tommy’s crime arguably worthy of no more than the originally proposed three week probation, if Dream really wanted to unfairly punish Tommy, there are many arguably worse punishments he could’ve chosen, such as execution, forcing Tommy to give him one of his precious discs (though it’s not likely that Tommy would’ve given in to that easily), or the destruction of L’Manberg. However, Dream likely knew that, by separating Tommy and Tubbo, they would do his work for him and destroy L’Manberg from the inside. After physically separating them by successfully getting Tubbo to exile Tommy, Dream took it upon himself to emotionally separate Tommy from his best friend as much as possible by talking about how much better things were in L’Manberg without him there, breaking his spirit, and feeding him lies, such as the lie about what happened to Tubbo’s compass or his sabotaged beach party.

      In addition, there is a small detail in Dream’s plan that is commonly overlooked: his mention of Technoblade's house. Without looking too much into it, it simply seems like an offhand comment made to perpetuate the idea that Dream was his friend. However, if Dream’s primary goal was to keep Tommy as isolated as possible from everyone else, it would make no sense for him to not only tell him how close by another person lived, but also give him directions to them, even if the person was one of the people Tommy hated the most. From this standpoint, it seems foolish, but it could actually be viewed as one of Dream’s smartest moves. From this, it can be inferred that Dream was not only aware of how destructive a Technoblade and Tommy teamup would be, but also encouraged it. For this same reason, he let Tommy stay in hiding with Technoblade, even after he told Ghostbur he knew he had been there. By doing this, Dream was able to twist Tommy’s volatility and aversion to the rules, the very qualities that made him the only person Dream feared, in his favor.

      For all his flaws, Dream is a smart man, and he was able to realize what many others failed to: Tommy and Tubbo’s bond was the heart and soul of L’Manberg, one of the only things keeping it running. Without them together balancing each other out, they became powerful forces of mostly unintentional chaos and destruction, collapsing the country they loved and playing right into Dream’s hands. They are two sides of the same coin: despite how different they may seem, they are closely related, necessary to each other's ability to flourish, grow, and survive, and cannot be separated.

TL;DR: DO!! NOT!! SEPARATE THEM!!!!!!!!

[catuinqz]

Seeing people genuinely believe c!Wilbur Soot’s trauma-dump was done simply to “manipulate” c!Ranboo to open up to him is kind of.. interesting?  Also, I believe it gives him too much credit. Yes, I do believe he has actually influenced and manipulated people, a recent example being how he got c!Tommy to join him instead of Quackity in Las Nevadas.

“Look Tommy- look at me. I’m-I’m not going to stop you man but you’re- I’ll be honest with you, you’re all I’ve got...” [Wilbur, A Deck of Cards with a Green Smile on Them]

This sentence, does in fact ring true, as Wilbur currently has no one beside him except for Tommy, but it was said to successfully influence him in order for Tommy to choose him over c!Quackity but unlike how the fandom seems to see him- no, not every single interaction he takes is “mansplain manipulate, malewife” some of it is,,, actually genuine. Shocker. Many people I’ve seen seem to place him on the same level of evil as c!Dream, or close to it. Yes, he has done fucked up things, but his fucked up things were mostly due to his paranoia and deteriorating mental health, and alongside those bad things, he has also done moderately good things not for him to “gaslight gatekeep girlboss” the people around him, but because he is a person, unlike Dream, who has been pure malice. 

His conversations with Ranboo went as follows:

Ranboo: “...And then I also think- just you know- you can- you know - I think you’re an alright person....”

Wilbur: “Why?”

[Healthy Competition, Timestamp: 35:05 - 35:15]

Wilbur immediately stops here and is genuinely surprised by the idea of someone thinking of him in a remotely positive light.   

“Can I be real with you man? I think I scare people.” [ Wilbur, Healthy Competition, Timestamp: 36:32 - 36:39 ]

The breakdown that follows this conversation was clearly not planned by c!Wilbur. This is the closest he’s ever been to actually opening up to people about his issues. 

“....I’m going to stop psychoanalysing now. Let’s- Let’s [pause] Ranboo how’d you feel about thievery?” [Wilbur, Healthy Competition] 

He immediately completely changes the subject, and moves on to different tasks after this. 

Wilbur clearly believes that he remains firmly unlovable for fair reasons, and he genuinely does want to change, as seen from his reaction to what Ranboo said about him. Up till here, i think he has no ulterior motive. I think it was a little “bonding moment” with Ranboo, a little similar to his relationship with Tommy. He did not use his breakdown as a manipulation tactic, it was quite the opposite.  I believe if he wanted to actually manipulate him, he wouldn’t have been so reluctant to start this burger van business with Ranboo beforehand either.

A conversation I had with someone was them saying it was done to find out about Ranboo’s weak spots. I believe Wilbur did not need to open himself up to do so. He already understood what the kind of person Ranboo already was. His first interaction with Ranboo shows this already. He had no need for Ranboo to do anything other than share his resources, which he already was doing. This breakdown did not exploit, or convince Ranboo- he was already, and Wilbur was well aware of this. It was unintentional, and genuine.

What he did after that, though, I think were all tests, of sorts, starting from how comfortable Ranboo would be with him stealing Las Nevadas’ cows and then getting him to break the glass and blow up part of Las Nevada’s restaurant, I think parallels how Wilbur got Tommy to bring stacks upon stacks of stone to him. He wanted to test how far they’d both go to execute his orders. And they both had the same answer - quite far.

 His idea of relationships has been severely warped, which goes back to the very beginning of L’manburg, where he’d get Tommy to call him  President even after being exiled, and wanting to be the higher ground as he and Tommy argued during A Deck of Cards with a Green Smile on them. He clearly does care, but he fundamentally always seems to have relationships where he is the higher ground. I think this stems from his own idea of him only having worth when he’s actually useful, which can be seen from his interaction with Quackity during A Deck of Cards with a Green Smile on Them.

 One thing that stood out to me was in timestamp 35:45, where he opens up his inventory and hovers his mouse over the stack of TNT. This was the foreshadowing of what was to happen at the end, where Ranboo blew up part of Las Nevadas’ restauraunt. 

At the end, the conversation was not manipulation, it was “”bonding””, paired with Wilbur’s fucked up ideas of relationships.

[fraseris]

Hello! I am just curious what is your opinion on c!Dream. Because I am now seeing the parallels between c!Wilbur and c!Dream. Because c!Wilbur is the founder of L'manburg as c!Dream is the founder of the Dream SMP.

mmmm hes absolutely awful but i find him very interesting and the way that the fandom interpolates him is so cool to me

like, if you watch tommys streams, c!dream is a terrible manipulative jerk who consistently abuses and maybe tortures? c!tommy, takes his items and conditions him to think that he’s tommys only friend when there are so many people in lmanburg who miss him and regret exiling him

if you watch tubbo, quackity, or sam, c!dream is more of a looming god-like figure that is kind of detached from everyone else, but often intervenes to get what he wants. not nearly as bad as from tommy’s pov, much more of a classic villain that just vibes

if you watch techno or phil, dream is a friend/rival. he helps c!techno get away from his execution, and hes surprisingly charitable to both of them, but the whole techno vs dream duel from a few months ago and the subsequent rivalry has kind of bled into the plot, and with technos “absolute repocricy“ concerning how tommy was treated things are very tense between the antarctic empire lads and dream

i mostly watch tommy for this arc, so im usually inclined to commit violent acts towards c!dream, but honestly whenever i watch other peoples streams i really enjoy his villain character and how he deals with stuff

[stellocchia]

Tommy-Wilbur parallels and Tubbo-Shlatt's parallels are becoming a lot. What with Tommy calling L'Manburg his unfinished symphony and the violence and Tubbo comparing himself to the ex dictator (because of everyone leaving him) and the executions... but wanna know what else is increasing?

The differences

Tubbo today has made it very clear that he wants to go back to some of the original L'Manburg's values such as peace and general non-violence. He even said he would not retaliate against Techno and Tommy, or, at least, not in a violent way. Of course there is still tomorrow's planned execution, but Tubbo is definitely not the main one pushing that. (Also it's against c!Dream and we all unanimously agree that he kinda has it coming...). It also is to be noted that, while everyone left Shlatt because they hated him, the reason they're leaving Tubbo is mostly just chance. Tubbo has shown to not be a very charismatic and strong willed leader which is why people don't stick to him much and don't rally behind him. It's not because they think he's evil and needs to be overthrown, but because they are getting better opportunities for power elsewhere and don't have many reasons to stay.

And then we have Tommy. Tommy has indeed mentioned L'Manburg being his unfinished symphony but, one thing I'm seeing 90% of people ignore, is that he himself said that he wants to finish it by getting the disks back and ending conflict. It's not his "unfinished symphony, forever unfinished", it's a work in progress. Also he mentioned multiple times that L'Manburg is his and Tubbo's home and he still cares about it (even after being abandoned by it) and doesn't want it gone. Even when he joined Techno he specified he wasn't on board with the destruction. Heck, he didn't want Techno to spawn the wither today! He may change his mind (we'll probably see it tomorrow) but destruction really isn't his end goal. He just once again found himself alone in exile with his only ally being a violent terrorist he looks up to. (This is not a justification for his wrong doings, he very much still did some seriously messed up stuff but, at this point, I don't think there is a single character that can be considered entirely good or who hasn't done some awful stuff, so I'll just file it up in the things that make him morally gray and move on...)

If anything Techno is becoming more and more similar to Villbur, thinking that destroying a piece of land will bring any sort of change. (As if L'Manburg hasn't literally been exploded twice now and survived... come on!)

And Quackity is the one becoming more like Shlatt: power-hungry and somewhat cruel. He even gave a whole villain monologue to Techno before their duel...