#unsympathetic wilbur soot

[dreamsclock]

🐸 hi sparrow

hiiiiii charlie :D have some dnd dsmp au i wrote idk how dnd works but i had a cool idea for this fic and then never continued it. here is something to make you giggle

“Welcome home, Tommy. Welcome back! Welcome– Welcome back to exile!”

Tommy’s breath stutters. “You’re– You’re not–” The words register with him, click in his mind. “This isn’t– This isn’t fucking home, Dream, don’t–”

“Knew I’d see you back here eventually!” The masked man saunters closer. When Tommy looks closer, he’s favoring his left leg, the right one dragging just a little. “Not like– I mean, you’ve got anywhere else to go, right? Like…” The older pauses, tilting his head. Dread runs down Tommy’s spine. “I mean, this is where you belong. This is where your real home is.”

“No it’s fucking not!” 

“Oh yeah?” The masked man cocks his head. “Look around, Tommy! Look around! There’s nobody else here, just the two of us. Just like old times. You’ve got nobody outside of me, Tommy. Of course this is your home.”

“You’re a sick fucking monster, Dream,” Tommy hisses, backing away, heart pounding in his chest. “And I have– I have friends, alright, I have so many fuckin’ friends, just–”

“Then why are none of them here?”

Tommy has no answer to that. A laugh builds up in Dream’s chest, mean, thin, as the younger stumbles against a break in the ground, almost falling over. 

“Don’t you miss exile, Tommy?” Dream continues. “Don’t you miss how close we used to be? Me and you, we were… I dunno, we were like best friends! That’s why you’re back, right?” The Axe of Peace glints in his hands, and he chuckles. “You’re not back for the axe. You’re back because you miss home.”

“Can I roll for a trauma response?”

The tension in the call shatters like ice. From his little office room, Wilbur buries his head dramatically in his hands while Dream splutters in amusement. From the groans and complaints from the others in the call, Tommy doesn’t need to look at the other cameras to tell his other friends are feeling similar ways. 

“Roll for trauma?” Dream wheezes. “Haven’t you been playing him traumatized this whole time? Why do you need to roll now?”

“No, no, no,” Tommy says airily, “that wasn’t trauma. That was just a little taste of the trauma. I like to keep my characters spicy, Dream.”

“And by spicy you mean messed up.”

“Yup.” Popping the last syllable, grinning like a madman, Tommy glances towards the screen, giving his best puppy-dog expression to the Dungeon Master. “What do you say, king? Roll for trauma?”

The Dungeon Master, the only person with their camera off, laughs. “You can roll a memory check,” they suggest in amusement, “see how badly exile affects your character. That’s like trauma, right?”

Flinging himself back in his chair, Tommy slides down it, expression shifting from pleading to pained. “You know I have low stats for memory,” he complains, “can’t trauma come under… I dunno, like, fuckin’– dexterity, or something?”

“Make him roll for a survival check,” Tubbo chirps over the call, and Tommy can hear the grin in his voice, “just because he’s being difficult.”

The call resounds in laughter. Tommy sits up straighter in indignation. “Now hang on–”

“Make him roll survival, make him roll survival,” Sapnap says excitedly. 

George snorts. “Yeah, great idea. Start working on a new character sheet, Tommy, you’re going to need him next session.”

“I’m not really gonna need a survival check, am I?” Tommy pouts. “C’mon, Wil– Yeah, Wil, you’ll back me up, right?”

He locks eyes with Wilbur. Wilbur Soot, ex-Dungeon Master of the Dream SMP campaign, experienced D&D player, master of the die and evil mastermind, smiles back at him.

“Roll the dice, Tommy,” he says unsympathetically, and Tommy groans.

“This is so dumb,” he whines, picking up the dice, “I mean, it’s gonna be fuckin’ fine, but it’s just a waste of–”

He stops. He stares at the face of the die incredulously. 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!”

The call erupts with laughter.

“What’d you get?” Tubbo goads. “Are you gone? Are you actually dead?”

“There’s no way– There’s no way,” Dream giggles, barely able to get the words out, “Tommy, tell– tell us the number. Tell us the number. Are you alive?”

“You guys are fuckin’ dumb!” Tommy mutters viciously, holding the die up. The face reflects back a single dot. Everybody present finds it far more comical than Tommy himself, who sinks down in his seat, dismayed. “I did it as a joke, it was just a joke– C’mon, you can’t be serious, this isn’t real, right? This isn’t canon?”

“Dream,” the DM says, “roll to hit. How are you gonna kill him?”

“I–” Dream’s wheezes are overtaking his words. “I just rolled a natural twenty.”

Wilbur is crying in the call. Sapnap’s raucous laughter drowns out most other people. Quackity has slid off his chair from laughter. Slowly, Tommy feels his lips begin to quirk upwards. 

“Roll for damage?” The DM is chuckling, and the chuckles only turn into a full blown laugh when Dream turns his camera to his die, which shows maximum damage. “Oh, God. Okay–”

“I use healing,” Tommy complains, “I eat bread and throw a pearl.”

“I slam my axe into Tommy’s back while he’s trying to heal,” Dream turns his camera back around to his face, wiping his eyes, “and he just drops dead, right– right there, on the ground, before he can enderpearl away. Boom, story over. I win.”

There are various boos and laughs from the call. Tommy buries his face in his hands to hide the mirth on his face. “What the hell, man.”

“Oh, God,” Techno drawls, “what’re people gonna do without the main character? They might actually have to start acknowledgin’ every character is their own main character and a side character in everyone else’s, oh no.”

“Techno, oh my god,” Philza gasps, and Tommy can see the tears of laughter in his eyes, “Tommy, mate, what’s your move?”

“No, don’t worry.” The DM – Tommy’s knight in shining armour, the love of Tommy’s life, the apple of Tommy’s eye, the beauty in Tommy’s beholder, et cetera – clears their throat. “Don’t worry, I was kidding. Tommy, your character doesn’t actually die. You’re fine.”

George boos.

“We’ll get to you, George,” the DM snickers, “you might have to roll survival checks yourself. Your whole storyline with XD isn’t looking so good for your character.”

“I’m ready,” George says, dramatically, “I’ve had my death planned out since I made him.”

Sapnap splutters. “Dude. That’s so sick. Poor character-George.”

“He’s an idiot,” real-George shrugs, “and he sleeps a lot.”

“Oh, so people deserve to die because they sleep, now?” Quackity asks. When Tommy looks at his camera, he’s giving George a deadly smile. “Okay, so how about when you slept through our last session–”

“Quackity, you’re so violent–”

“Guys!” Tommy yells. “I am about to die in the game and in real life. Pull yourselves together, Jesus Christ. Let me have my fifteen seconds of fuckin’ fame.”

“Whatever.” George rolls his eyes haughtily. “Proceed with your little ghost character. TommyGhost. GhostInnit.”

Ignoring George’s mocking with a dignified air, Tommy sniffs. “DM?”

“Right.” The DM chuckles, and from their black screen, there’s the rustle of notes being flipped. “So, Tommy and Dream are facing off..."

[briarlovesclara]

Wilbur: the ultimate unreliable narrator

A stream of consciousness analysis of Wilbur’s character on the Dream SMP and the stuff I’m afraid people are going to try to gloss over.

Spoilers from Wilbur’s May 5th lore stream, though I hopped in partway through so I haven’t seen the very beginning.

This is stuff that I genuinely believe people need to pay attention to if they want to at all understand Revivebur-- I was very disconcerted about him until today’s stream and I connected some dots. 

/rp!

We shouldn’t be surprised. 

Wilbur Soot, as in content creator and real person, confirmed a long time ago that the dream smp was full of unreliable narrators, including and starting with his own character. We knew that. His character crumbled before our eyes, but we focused on it wrong-- and we were supposed to. We did what we were molded to do. 

Now, I came in late with a lot of things on the Dream SMP. I resisted joining the fandom despite my TikTok FYP until I got trapped by an audio pertaining to Tommy and Vilbur (it was a “let’s be the bad guys” audio). I arrived post November 16th, maybe two weeks later, in that lull period where Ranboo, Philza, and many others were getting onto their feet, Wilbur was dead, and Ghostbur was a full cast member.

And I fell in LOVE with Ghostbur, immediately. 

He got me into the DSMP. His character was so rich, and complex, and simple at the same time to the point of fascination. I was able to watch him and understand him, then click off clips of him and figure out who the hell Wilbur was. I filled in the gaps. I watched the story of L’manberg unfold in front of me, its rise and its fall. 

And I loved it! I really, really loved it. Wilbur’s character arc sang to me, as a deeply angsty spiral full of power and the need for control to the point of lacking any of it. 

But when, a couple days ago, Wilbur got revived, it felt wrong. 

I didn’t know why I was so hesitant. I love Ghostbur, and preferred him over Alivebur, sure, but I had liked Wilbur. What had changed? Why did I feel so deeply and viscerally uncomfortable?

The answer, of course, was Quackity. Or more specifically, his lore.

Up until the flashback to the L’manberg era, Wilbur fans had seen the ‘unreliable narrator’ tag as one similar to the way everyone else played it-- the character doesn’t know that they are being unreliable, because everyone experiences things subjectively and we’re shaped by that. That Wilbur’s narration was solely influenced by his deteriorating state of mind.

But then Quackity was shown talking to President Wilbur, what many thought of as the Golden Age, our Wilbur… and it was all wrong. 

Not only did this Wilbur not talk like the Wilbur we knew then, he didn’t talk like any Wilbur we had ever seen. Revolutionary Wilbur stood for peaceful discooperation, for bloodlessly removing himself from the SMP and only striking when struck (similar to Ranboo in that sense). 

Vilbur was insane, we had all agreed, and he was violent to a point, but never this bluntly. He was wrapped up in himself so much that he was self-destructive more than outwardly hurting anyone else. 

But here was Wilbur, canonically, advising Quackity to take the fight to the power. To hurt and to maim, and that the strategies that got Wilbur into power didn’t work. 

And it made me uncomfortable, because that wasn’t Wilbur.

But it turns out we were looking at Wilbur all wrong. 

When cc!Wilbur told us that there were unreliable narrators, he meant that even the ‘flawed story’ that we were getting was wrong. 

The Wilbur we saw wanted a peaceful place to live. He wanted to raise his son and live with his found family by a lake. 

Today, we were told that that dream was simply a farce-- but he didn’t want power, simply to take it away. 

L’manberg was a tool, a vessel. It was a way of “sticking it to the man” (Dream), a way of rebellion against someone who was unjust. He couldn’t care less about its actual contents, only what it meant. When we wept at the walls falling under Schlatt, under the hand of his own son, he didn’t care. And if he DID care, it was about the fact that Fundy had joined ‘the man’ (Schlatt). 

But I think that Wilbur realized that he was the new ‘man’ after all. He was kicked out of L’manberg, sure, but it was by his rules and because of the power he had created. He had, to be a cliche, become everything he sought to destroy, minus the inherent oppression that he felt Dream held. 

When I thought of Revivebur, I was so uncomfortable because I was looking at a character that, quite frankly, didn’t add up. I was looking at Alivebur and the person who talked to Quackity and I couldn’t understand how they could be the same person, but that’s the point. They aren’t. The Wilbur we saw, the one we watched fight and scream and die for a chunk of land, never existed. 

We were played like we were supposed to be. 

Wilbur was never the big, valiant hero he acted like. It was always Tommy. He just wanted something and was getting really into, essentially, the bit. Like a person playing DnD who gets legitimately attached to the storyline. But at the end of the day, he didn’t need it.

Can you imagine playing Dungeons and Dragons, but the NPCs were sentient? Can you imagine putting your heart and soul into a character, so much like you, and falling in love with the people that surround you? But in your heart you know that it is just play, and that they cannot know. And then you leave. Wilbur, essentially, left his fully sentient DnD game running without him. 

We were fed a cohesive, in-depth character. Wilbur, our Wilbur. The kid who grew up with mixed feelings and was the storybook hero turned villain against those he once thought with. But all this time, we were just seeing what he wanted us to see. And maybe he started to believe it, because just because it wasn’t true doesn’t mean that he was trying to hurt everyone. He cared, truly, about the people he was with, but not the same way we thought. Every concrete emotion we experienced was a detailed lie that we filled in for ourselves. 

After all, Wilbur plays solitaire. 

A/N: this didn’t fit into the rant above, but Wilbur’s character isn’t stagnant, he just always needs power and it always creates the same dynamic! It can feel weird seeing the server kinda pull back full circle energy wise to L’manberg with developed characters, but his power rise and fall is just a requirement of his existence. It’s his rhythm.

[skeetlehand]

some wips that are now irrevocably out of date and out of canon. rip

[ruby-whistler]

oh man, i'm so tired of people insisting c!dream is written to be only a bad villain that is at fault for everything bad and that he is meant to be completely unsympathetic and has no nuance on purpose, it ignores so many aspects of the character but i guess nothing can really change the way fandom views hi- IS THAT CC WILBUR SOOT WITH A STEEL CHAIR???

[smallplaceinthecosmos]

I posted 1,257 times in 2021

181 posts created (14%)

1076 posts reblogged (86%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 5.9 posts.

I added 313 tags in 2021

#mcyt - 85 posts

#dream smp - 57 posts

#dsmp - 44 posts

#tommyinnit - 28 posts

#ranboo - 24 posts

#wilbur soot - 21 posts

#tubbo - 19 posts

#dream - 14 posts

#vastcosmoslive - 12 posts

#streaming - 9 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#y'know what though sometimes i go back and listen to stuff i listened to in middle school and shit still slaps so who's the real winner here

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

I think the thing people have to realize is that Techno's character is just...kind of an asshole, and that's not a bad thing.

cc!Techno knows this, it's intentional. That doesn't make him a bad character. He got rid of the in-character family dynamic for a reason - we're supposed to be mad at him if we're fans of Tommy's character. If we are upset about him dismissing Tommy's death, his character is working as intended. Things are going according to plan.

It doesn't even make him wholly unsympathetic; it's fine if people are enjoying his character, because that's an intended consequence too. There's room for both.

354 notes • Posted 2021-03-07 14:53:59 GMT

#4

/rp

I know Tommy's always the main character and I sympathize with people who want to see other people be involved in the lore instead of Tommy, but I honestly really hope Tommy is the person Ranboo trusts to help him with his enderwalk state. From Ranboo's first day on the server I've really enjoyed his and Tommy's dynamic, and it just kind of fell off after Tommy left Logstedshire and teamed up with Techno - I'd love to see them actually interact again.

I think Tommy could be really good for Ranboo, and vice versa - Ranboo's admittedly quite lacking when it comes to standing up for himself, and for Tommy that comes in abundance, while Tommy's tendency to act without thinking about how it might affect other people might be balanced out by Ranboo, who always looks before he leaps.

They've both gone out on a limb for each other before, they have a basis for being able to trust each other, and so far there's absolutely nothing souring their relationship. After Tommy was exiled protecting Ranboo, and Ranboo was one of the only people visiting Tommy in exile, they have a basis for a very ride-or-die friendship that I think both of these characters are in sore need of. I want to see that come to fruition.

396 notes • Posted 2021-02-16 04:12:57 GMT

#3

I've been meaning to make this post for a while, but in light of recent events...I hope I can word this properly like I want to, but I'm not going to lie, the more people use "They're minors!! >:o" as a reason for why shipping Tubbo, Tommy, Ranboo, Purpled, etc. is bad, the more it grates on me a little bit.

The truth is, guys, it really won't be that long until they are adults. Using the fact that they're minors as the main reason why it's bad to ship them is infantilizing at best, and at worst it could lead to some...unforseen consequences after they do turn 18.

The main reason why things like "enderbees" and the like should be considered inappropriate is not the fact that they're not legal adults yet. The fact is, in both the US and the UK, the age of consent is 16; if that were the only issue, you might still find it weird, but it wouldn't be worth getting up in arms over, if all involved parties said they were okay with it.

The reason shipping them is bad is the fact that they don't consent to it, and I imagine that will remain true in a year or so. They're not babies, they have the capacity to understand and decide how they feel about being shipped irl (and every right to say it's fuckin weird); it's unfair to them to take away their agency like that, and we need to set a precedent for that now instead of later when people are saying it's not bad because they're not minors anymore without understanding why it was bad then anyway.

Tl;dr: Tubbo, Tommy, Ranboo, Purpled, etc. are old enough to make decisions for themselves, shipping them is bad mainly because they don't consent to it, not because they're minors.

509 notes • Posted 2021-02-19 17:52:50 GMT

#2

Ok forget the teens having their relationship drama go like Bad's tweet actually

2039 notes • Posted 2021-02-26 20:01:49 GMT

#1

God I can’t describe how much I appreciate the fact that Wilbur Soot is the sort of person who can respect when other people enjoy things and doesn’t use popular fandoms/hobbies that are typically considered “cringey” as the butt of his jokes

Like no offense to the man but at first he sort of comes across someone who would make jokes about people who like Homestuck, or like, musicals or something, and then he’s just...genuinely so respectful of other people’s interests, like do  you know how tiring it is seeing people use a person being an Undertale fan or smth as some kind of “gotcha” like. Idk he just. He likes Hamilton, he does political roleplays in Minecraft with his friends and gets far more into them than he should have to, he calls a 17-year-old his best friend with no hint of irony or sarcasm, he’s just...the complete antithesis to cringe culture I respect him so much.

Wilbur gets so much shit but he is so cool, genuinely he’s an amazing example of actively choosing to be a good person. He deserves fucking everything 

5294 notes • Posted 2021-10-01 00:58:10 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[shroomtalker]

preview for c!tommy angst fic!!

ok so i’m having a lot of fun writing this but i just wanted to share a small snippet on here! lmk what you guys think!

Destructive Disposition | Chapt. One

Glowing eyes tore through the shadows as the moon fell from the heavens. Each waxy leaf that danced with the breeze formed a sound that only ached the anxious boy, provoking the sudden yearn for comfort. There was nothing between him and the reflection but a sudden calling for temperance; a middle road to balance all that surrounds you. He didn't know what to ask the shadow this time around. All it could do was sit in silence as smoldering flicks of light judged him through all means. What did it want—the boy didn't quite understand. All that was known about the creature is that it took the shape of a jackdaw, representing the pillars of a jury. 

The human boy shifted in his seat within the fields, waiting for any sign of a voice to break away from the endless fantasy. Was this a test brought back by the damned? Ever since that dreadful tumble into the afterlife, he could only taste the acrid burn of smoke. Now what awaited before him was the embodiment of armies cascading with a boyish revolution into a damaging sun, in the form of a small raven. 

"You still struggle with a personal Armageddon, Tommy." The boy raised his attention to the shadows, eyes widening in response before a crackle of a groan broke away. The voice chimed like rocks clashing against each other into the pale dawning arc beyond. "You've fallen down the well before, but now it seems you cannot crawl out." Tommy scoffed, crossing his arms as the umbra continued. What did it know about his own troubles? It took his full self-restraint to stop himself from sparking an ignited flare. "You're not even real! I don't have to listen to what you say." The crow hummed, vanishing away into the depths of eternal rest leaving a trail of feathers behind. Songs of the raven chorused across meadows, reaching toward the inevitable end that only he dreaded. Once the feathers landed gracefully onto the soot-covered earth, he clenched his fist tightly enough that nails dug into his palm. 

The shadows consumed his failings and fears. By creating a façade polished by the constant reminder of the tale of what it meant to be, Tommy felt there was no way to break the chain. He awaited the sudden splash of an unsympathetic breeze to sweep him away back into the comfort of his pillow. Closing his eyes, the boy took the scent of smog with hesitation before coughing away the polluted gas. It was a familiar aroma he knew too well. On some days, it felt like family. On others, it was merely a sword through the heart.

--- Tommy felt his eyes peer open once all that surrounded him was walls that acted as shields. All the shadows loomed away from the mattress, retreating to each deep corner there was. He let out a disdain for the strange dream while getting up to put on his jacket. It was ragged with noticeable marks of dirt and dried blood splotches on different areas of the sleeves and back. Tommy didn’t have the time to wash it—even if he did, the stains would never disappear. Today he planned to visit Snowchester, a small community that his old friend built with the remnants of what they had left. It was one of the only places he felt welcomed in a long, long time. Pulling the sleeves to reach his forearms, the boy picked up a worn bag and swung it over his shoulder before tying his shoes to leave a sanctuary he never wanted to rely on.A sudden stench filled the grim port; a mixture of tobacco and that of a corpse made Tommy scrunch up the bridge of his nose. It gave the familiarity of a tombstone that rested on a grey-ridden hill only the wind kept secrets for. He clenched his fists, shuffling the bag tightly to secure his ground. “Hey, Wilbur.” Emerging from the shadows like a fox leaving its den was a tall abalone man. Hanging from his raggedy teeth was a lingering cigarette, barely reflecting the face of a toothy grin. Once the tall creature found the light in a cloudy afternoon, he opened his arms to respond to the dreary greeting. Tommy could feel the air sucking in. That offering only rubbed salt in a wound that never healed; patched by a band aid found only in the deepest lakes. Feeling the wind wrap around his ribcage as if coral snakes slithered toward his anatomical heart, a sudden pull gravitated the boy to pull in close. A bond that can only form out of a hold was that of a dagger cutting open the thread of family. The embrace was laced with poison, stinging Tommy’s sense of comfort as the two brothers hugged under the orange sun. ok thats all for now but hope you guys enjoy some writing here and there!

[ruby-whistler]

"ruby is going to manifest a c!dream redemption arc with her essay" i'll do you one better, i'm going to manifest a c!dream sympathetic arc via the power of logic behind the laws of decent storytelling

alright so here's why the "the narrative makes him unsympathetic on purpose" and "we don't have his pov" arguments are gonna crumble beautifully from the base up as the story progresses

1. Technoblade - Due to the laws of Chekhov's gun, he's going to visit Dream in prison after he gets the message. A Dream prison breakout will very likely ensue. We get Dream content - not only that, we get sympathetic Dream content, because that man's gonna be a wreck. Since we'll see him more after that, expect information*. Note that his interactions with c!Techno in this case will logically be positive.

2. Wilbur Soot - We'll be watching from the POV of someone who is sympathetic to c!Dream. Whether they end up interacting or not, or whether this affects them negatively or positively as characters, it's going to make him sympathetic and we might even get more positive interaction (c!Dream called c!Wil "awesome" last time he talked about him, and I wouldn't expect c!Wil of all people to shut that down). Since c!Wilbur is who he is, it's highly possible we'll get information*.

3. Ranboo - The more memories he uncovers regarding Dream, the more information* we're going to get - even more so, since these memories would be from Season 2, we'll get his perspective from when he's most unsympathetic in the whole story. Ranboo mentioned recently how there might be a completely different story he might be missing, which very likely refers to the relationship between his Enderwalk state and c!Dream. Relationship has been insinuated to be positive, meaning the revelations are likely to by themselves paint c!Dream in a positive light.

4. Lore Stream - Guaranteed information*. Everyone's perspective of themselves is going to be sympathetic to themselves.

5. MichaelMcChill. Enough said.

*Now, as you might notice, I left the little asterisk things besides all the mentions of information. What's the deal with that?

Well, I believe very strongly that the narrative is pushing the prison arc as the beginning of a c!Dream sympathetic arc. It might be a very harsh start, and it doesn't contextualize his past actions, but it's setup - priming the audience, you could say.

Now, since c!Dream has been very deliberately shown as a victim, the information we gain about him has no business being negative. If we take Season 2 as his "unsympathetic arc" and a parallel to this one... we've got enough c!Dream negativity, plus gaining more information about him being just a Terrible Person right after making him out to be the victim would both confuse the audience and probably tear the groups apart further, which... the writers would know this much, they aren't idiots, which is why logically this isn't happening.

That's right. There's two kinds of information then that we could get: positive, and context.

A lot of people say that even with a c!Dream perspective, they would think the same of him because of his actions. These people are clueless about how storytelling impacts the human psychology and don't know anything about perspective bias.

Context itself is going to make c!Dream seem a lot more reasonable, and portray him in a positive light - not his actions, but most likely his motives, his reasons, and the general behind the scenes we usually wouldn't get to see because the character is so secretive.

And the positive narrative that would apply to his current situation is just going to - you know already. We're all redemption arc truthing here fdkfhk my boy is gonna get OUT he's gonna get BETTER he's gonna be LOVED and HAPPY and NOT IN PAIN and then we're all gonna celebrate and the world will be beautiful.

Yes, this was literally just an excuse for me to pull wishful thinking and then start gushing y'all but if you haven't noticed yet c!Dream is my comfort character and he's going to get a sympathetic arc if it's the last thing I ever manifest.