irl manhunt time! (ft. a very special ender dragon)
without layout;
OKAY so what ive been thinking about for ages is ctommy and being soft vs quiet . because i feel like it's one of those things in his fandom characterisation that sparks the most debate and in my opinion theres a huge difference between the two but i keep seeing people mix them together.
ctommy is soft but he's not quiet, and to disregard either of those things is what makes him less believable in fanworks imo
because on one hand, of course he's not quiet, that's the most obvious and i think one of the most commonly accepted qualms that we have with general fan interpretations of him. he doesn't just lie down and take shit, he's always committed to being an annoying shit, he's straight up rude so often, and even just. vocally. man's loud as fuck. i think that's pretty easy to establish .
but then what i find is that sometimes we veer into the other opposite, by completely denying that ctommy is also very soft sometimes. and by this i don't mean he turns into strawberry shortcake or starts being polite or whatever, but it's the fact that he's not just crass and rude. he's very considerate a lot of the time, he just shows it. uh. in his Own Way let's say. he cares for animals so so much, he's always so apologetic when he thinks he's hurt one of them, for fuck's sake he sung to the FLOWERS. he's very soft with nature, with things he's attached to, with things he perceives as weaker than him and needing protection.
the complexity of ctommy and what makes him so hard to grasp is that he's loud, he's brash, he is NOT a perfect quiet victim who suffers in silence, he asks for help, he's rude, he steals stuff, he's annoying as shit; but he's also soft, and incredibly empathetic, and he has no shame in showing that softness for animals or nature or his friends.
ctommy, and this is very much because cctommy himself acts like that a lot, is constantly vacillating between someone with the maturity of a thirteen year old boy who shouts and swears and pretends not to give a shit, and a boy who will stop everything he's doing to look at the sky or a flower or an animal (which does contrast his stereotypical rude teenager persona, because lots of aforementioned thirteen year old boys Would be embarrassed or whatever to do that).
he does BOTH. he's not just quiet and nice and sad and lonely; but he's not just rude and loud and """uncaring""" (if there is one thing ctommy is not i think we can all agree its UNCARING).
and i think this is why a lot of debates around "woobifying" ctommy (who remembers the july 2021 trenches . the butterfly clips.) tend to point any ctommy design that portrays him as soft, cozy, or even leaning into his feminine side as the be-all end-all of reducing his character.
in reality i think that misses the mark a bit because while there IS something to be said for sure about people turning ctommy into Blonde Anime Child #249824 and stripping him of his Very Vibrant character, i don't think that putting him in butterfly clips and skirts erases him in the same way. i think he could very much lean into that kind of thing . as long as he's still flipping off the camera we're all good
TLDR : fans strip ctommy of his loud-and-annoying persona but in avoiding that some forget that he's a character who's not afraid to be soft
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(please go look at this post by @maagee first)
Tubbo: "I'm not thinking that many moves ahead."
Dream was the first to take a piece.
Dream built the obsidian walls around L'manberg after Tommy griefed George's house, the first direct action taken against a faction since the war.
They traded knights (each taking the other's piece).
Tubbo and Dream agreed to a compromise at the subsequent meeting. Tommy would not be exiled and the walls would not be taken down, but they also wouldn't grow and Tommy would be punished.
Tubbo blundered (moved to where Dream could take).
Tubbo didn't hold Tommy back enough. Tommy provoked Dream, causing the compromise to be broken and the walls to be built higher. Dream presented the ultimatum that Tommy needed to be exiled else L'manberg would be encased.
Dream: "I'm pushing your queen back and you have no choice but to do it."
Tubbo made a "tactical retreat."
For the good of the country, Tubbo decided to agree to Dream's demands. He declared Tommy exiled so that the walls could come down and L'manberg could be free again.
Dream let Tubbo fix a mistake (he left his queen unprotected).
Dream played nice with Tubbo after the exile. He praised Tubbo's presidency and abided by the L'manberg laws for the first time ever, taking off his armor within its borders. It looked like an actual gesture of respect towards Tubbo and the country.
Fundy said that Tubbo was better-placed, having misread the board.
The Butcher Army decided to hold a festival as a cover for execution. Dream would have his armor off and they would take that opportunity to kill him. Fundy specifically helped put everything together as decorator and they all were very (mistakenly) confident in its success.
Fundy: "Dream severely has the advantage."
Tubbo moved to threaten Dream's queen and put himself in danger.
The festival was a massive, immediate failure and by extention, so was the plan. Instead of doing as they'd predicted, Dream led them to the destroyed community house and demanded that if Tubbo truly had no ties to Tommy, he would give up the disc. Tubbo complied.
Dream won.
Extras:
Dream played white.
White always moves first and thus begins the game with an inherent advantage. Dream has always had the upper hand.
Tubbo was repeatedly surprised by Dream's moves.
The walls being built didn't make sense to him because Tommy had gone behind his back in destroying George's house. Dream's agreeable-ness after the exile came as a shock and made Tubbo believe they were closer to friends than enemies. Dream started doomsday itself 20 minutes early when no one was actively at the ready.
Ranboo watched the game from Tubbo's side and didn't know what was going on.
'Tubbo's side' - Ranboo was in the cabinet, he was the minutes man at the meetings. On doomsday, he decided to choose a side only to not let Tubbo down; his loyalty to L'manberg was just loyalty to Tubbo.
'Watching' - He didn't actually really participate in doomsday, simply observed the destruction. He also was greatly unaware of the days prior - he forgot both Niki yelling at him and (we learned later) destroying the community house.
Fundy stood by Ranboo, then alone.
Ranboo gave a speech on not picking sides and Fundy decided that he agreed, attempting to ally himself with others away from both L'manberg and Dream. Ranboo was not interested, and Fundy single-handedly destroyed all of L'manberg's gathered supplies.
Philza left the game halfway through.
Phil was put under house arrest for not helping the Butcher Army reach Technoblade, even though he was a citizen of L'manberg. He ended up disowning Fundy and escaping, joining up with Techno after Techno's execution with no more ties to the country.
Can we hear more about that theory?
it's less of a theory and more just derangement, and a specific angle of viewing the story. but smth i think that is crucial to how i see the story and something that i think is too-often deemphasized in the fandom, regardless of how much you buy into the derangement lmao, is that c!discduo is not...really a standalone relationship. i mean it is, but in just as many ways it isn't...and the reason why the finale and you know, an actual conversation between the two of them takes so long to get to is precisely because it was overshadowed by the third component of their whole deal. are you following? does this make sense? i dont know.
c!dream + c!tommy are one side of a triangle that supports quite literally everything abt their whole central conflict and narrative, with the third part being, well, c!wilbur. and the c!wilbur-c!tommy-c!dream of it all is quite understandably easy to miss, but it's also what i think leads to some of the most striking differences in c!dream and c!tommy interpretations, not to mention the story as a whole. c!wilbur's relationship with c!dream and c!tommy separately AND together is critical to the ways that the two characters develop and how their conflict evolves--i'd say that that's more just. canon, than a theory. but how far you extend that is where it kinda delves into different interpretations of canon, you know?
but it's just like ... when the whole fucking point of that last stream, the whole damn crux of it is when tommy says "i thought you were just a villain" and dream replies with "i am and i always have been" and the whole damn POINT is that these viewpoints were never true to begin with, when what dream throws to tommyinnit is a picture of lmanburg, when the shit that they have to dismantle to reach out at the end of the fucking world is the hero/villainisms that have DEFINED THEIR STORY independently AND together, it's like. look . when the story is like dismantling the literal source of their conflict and c!wilbur's fingerprints are all over the damn thing, it feels a Little reductive to see the conversation so consistently happen without even invoking his name, you know?
At long last, the winners have been declared! With 57 total nomination forms and 381 total final vote submissions, here are the results! Equal congrats to all the winners, runner-ups, and nominees who didn’t make it into the final vote, your work is highly appreciated among the fans so give all yourselves a pat on the back!
Below the cut are the winners, show them some love! ( and to the winners themselves, feel free to use this as bragging rights whenever your authority is questioned ;) )
{I was unable to properly format images of the full % charts, so if you want to see a specific one just send me an ask and I’ll gladly screenshot & share it.}
Czytaj dalej
c!tommy's whole thing is that he unironically has some terrifying levels of being able to read people based on The Vibes while also like. literally being completely incapable of trusting his own instincts