Dsmp Analysis - Blog Posts

Welcome to a new episode of Sapphire Rambles, today's topic being:

Just as c!Tommy is a simbol of Care, c!Fundy is a simbol of Love.

Let me explain.

(There are going to be 3 principal points to this rant, and each of them is gonna end with a Tl;dr in purple, so it's easier to follow)

If you're a regular in the Fundy tag (or in the Ranboo tag since this argument gets often brought up in relation to C!Ranboo), you might have already seen some rants talking about how C!Fundy is an incredibly loving person, willing to chase after the people he care about if he sees the tiniest hint that mending their relationship is possible, even if they hurted him in the past.

Yeah you are going to see the same argument again here in the first part, but I promise this gets interesting

This became more clear after the Break, when he decided to try and mend his relationship with Philza and Ranboo even if they weren't at all on good terms at the moment, but he thought it was worth it so he tried and will keep on trying anyways, but we have examples of Fundy's really loving and forgiving nature back to the Revolutionary era

Everyone knows about Eret's betrayal I'm sure, but one thing people seem to skim over is how it effected Fundy, because there's the really high possibility that he was the one who was hurted the most by it.

For everyone who has some spotty memory (me too sometimes fam), Eret was the closest person to Fundy at the time, the two being really close friends, so the betrayal must have had a terrible effect on his emotional health, but you know how it went?

It went that Fundy was the first person to reach out to Eret and start to forgive his actions. Fundy always valued his friendships above the side he was in. So even tho he was a L'manburg abitant, he still thought of Eret as a dear friend to him and did his best to not make them feel alone or isolated

There are really few examples of people Fundy actually has an issue with, but even here Hate is a strong and mostly wrong word to apply, for example:

- Wilbur: as we are shown in the interactions with Ghostbur, Fundy didn't hate Wilbut for how he neglected and patronized him, it made him upset (as we saw when Ghostbur called him "his little champion" and he ran away) but he never hated Wilbur for that. The only thing he didn't forgive him was deciding to die, leaving him. And his issue with Ghostbur is not aknowledging or taking responsability. But he doesn't hate Ghostbur, he can talk to him in a civil manner even if the Ghost pretty much upsets him. And about Wilbur? Fundy loved Wilbur, the thing that hurted him was he taking the decision to definitivly leave him.

- Technoblade: even before Doomsday, the correct word of Fundy's feelings towards Techno has never been Hate, but Fear. A lot of people seemed to miss this point about the Butcher Army as a whole, but they weren't move by hate, even if they tried to make it look like they were. They were terrified. On their way to Techno's house, it was more clear than ever that they were TERRIBLY afraid of Techno. The Butcher army was never a movement of hate, but a bad reaction to a traumatic event that scarred them with fear. Also, after the Break? Fundy understands why Techno wanted L'manburg gone, so he doesn't hate him for that.

- Jschlatt: if you followed Fundy's pov, it won't be a surprise me saying that Fundy doesn't hate Jschlatt, but it may be news to other people, since one of the last interaction between the two was... anything but positive. I still shiver at the caravan scene. But even after all he's done, Fundy can't bring himself to completly hate Jschlatt, even if he did a lot of horrible things and was a horrible person, he still doesn't hate him. Fundy took with him Jschlatt's sword, keeping it as a relic and a memory of the man.

There is no one in the server, probably not even Dream Himself, that Fundy full-on hates. No matter how much they hurted him and everyone else, he just. Doesn't hate them. He's able to see the humanity in everyone, even if he wishes he could just hate people that wronged him. He was always forgiving and loving, these two aspects of him becoming even more prominent after his Break.

Tl;dr: Fundy is a character incredibly full of love and almost always willing to forgive and mend relationships with people he cares about at the moment he sees the possibility.

Now that I got the part most talked about out of the way, I'm taking the second tangent. Let's talk about Self-love.

It's not news the fact that there are really few characters, if not actually none of them, who love themselves. Might it be for trauma or for guilt, none of the characters actually love themself and act out of self-love.

Sometimes there are characters that act for themselves, but that is different from acting out of self-love.

Acting for themselves means doing something to achieve an objective that you want, for example: Eret's betrayal.

Eret betrayed L'Manburg becayse he was promised the role of King of the SMP by Dream, she acted out of her wish for power and control. That's an example of acting for yourself.

Acting out of self-love means doing something with the only cardinal reason being that it's good for you, taking care of yourself doing something that makes you feel better and healthier. That is acting out of self-love.

And, if you look at the server, you can easily see that no one has ever done that, expect for one single time.

The closest wrong thing you might be thinking off right now is when Tommy escaped from exile, but that was not an act driven by self-love. Sure, Tommy saved himself and went towards a healthier mindset, but what drove him towards that direction was not a desire to be better and good for himself, but rage towards Dream and a desire to be back to his family and friends.

You know what the only act that could possibly be out os self-love is?

Fundy going away for a years and a half, taking a break from everyone

Think about it for a second. Why did he do that? Let's start putting away the wrong possibilities:

- Doing it for someone: Fundy at the moment was heavily spiraling towards paranoia, wanting to be a villain to make everyone hate him. If that was his mindset at the time, why would he even want to get a break for anyone?

- Having a second cause: what second cause could there be for a choice like getting away from an unhealthy situation to heal? The only second reason a choice like this could have is healing to help someone else heal when you're feeling better, but refer to the last point

- ... that's virtually it

The only reason that could have caused Fundy to decide to take a break from the whole situation because it was unhealthy and heal was because he wanted to heal. For himself. He genuinly wanted himself to feel better for the only reason being, simply, feeling better.

Fundy is the only character for now to have ever taken an important choice for making himself feel better and letting himself heal.

Tl;dr: Fundy taking the year and a half break was the only decision on the entire SMP taken only out of self-love and genuine desire to feel better for the sole reason of feeling better.

Fundy is a representation of love, in any shape or form. He is unapologetically full of love and care, both for himself and for the people around him.

Anyway, the third part is a theory, if younwill kindly follow me:

The above analysis is the exact reason why the Egg causes Fundy an extreme repulsion.

Since both Fundy and Tubbo said that the Egg seems connected to Dreamons, I'm going to roll with that idea in mind.

As we all know, one of the only known weaknesses of a Dreamon is Love and this Dreamon seems to be acting and controlling people out of wishes and desires.

Fundy should be a perfect candidate for the Egg to manipulate, isn't he? One of Fundy's most known characteristic is his research for love, affection and appreciation from people, and we know the egg has no problem using love to manipulate someone, because he is manipulating Bbh using his (platonic?) love for Skeppy against him.

So why the egg would cause a repulsing reaction to Fundy?

Tommy seems immune because he doesn't wish for anything right now, he has everything that he wants

Tubbo also has a repulsive reaction, but is not a hateful reaction but one driven by fear and sadness, the Egg purposefully trying to scare him away, probably to make him unable to fight against him

But why Fundy's reaction would be full-on hate?

I think the egg was trying to do with Fundy the same thing he's doing with Tubbo, scaring him so badly to drive them to the point where they cannot fight back out of complete fear, but it's not working.

It's not working because the Egg fears Fundy, fears how full of pure, unfiltered and unapologetic love his heart is, fears how he's the living representation of the fact that love, of any kind, is the strongest emotion out there. Fundy already was able to defeat a Dreamon because of his own love, and now that he's more emotionally stable and has decided to follow his heart more, mending relationship with people he loves even if they hurt him?

Fundy is an incredibly dangerous threat to the Egg.

So fear is not enough to keep the fox away, he cannot let him anywhere near his plans.

He fears that if he tried the fear treatment on Fundy, Fundy would be able to break out of the web of terror as soon as someone he loved was caught in the crossfire

So he tried pushing him away in a different way, using hate instead of fear, because since Fundy is such a love-driven person all around, the best way to keep him away is to use hate, just like Tubbo is often driven by hope and optimism, so the best way to keep him far fron where he could be a danger is to use sadness and fear.

Tl;dr: The Egg is making Fundy hate him because that's the only emotion that could actually keep Fundy away from him, because he, being a Dreamon, fears how full of love Fundy is.

Hi! I'm a bit confused by DreamXD's origin...so if you don't mind me asking, is DreamXD not he same as Dreamon? And was that not created for a demon/possessed arc involving Tubbo and Fundy? I know about the George/DreamXD lore stream but I don't really see how DreamXD's origin relates to George?

Oh, anon, oh lovely anon, hello, you have no idea how much serotonin this ask gives me-oh how I love xdnf. Just for an update on DreamXD, I would highly recommend watching these three streams because they're the ones that let us understand DreamXD's character the most, but if you want a more quick analysis, continue reading. 

Long story short my theory is that, and with peace and love it's been months so I might forget some things, think of DreamXD and the Dreamon as the angel and devil on c!Dream’s shoulders but he also has some of their power - remember that c!Dream can bring back people from the dead from a book he got somewhere - because maybe c!Dream sold his soul to the “devil” then when c!Fundy and c!Tubbo did the Dreamon ritual on c!Dream the theory is that pulled the Dreamon out of c!Dream and that angered the Dreamon that was pretty chill but now is manipulating other characters (including c!Dream? perhaps?) but also the Dreamon and DreamXD are separate characters in the same body that push each other around for dominance and DreamXD and c!Dream can’t remember when the Dreamon takes over their bodies. If that doesn’t make sense to you, sorry, we haven’t gotten much background and that’s mainly just my mind a-theorizing. 

But most of all what you must understand is DreamXD, the God of the server, the protector, with a Dreamon side for the flavor 🤙 is a simp for c!George (as all the "Dreamverse" characters are hmm-). 

DreamXD’s lore is intertwined with c!George because George was the first on the server and DreamXD fell in love with these little mushroom guy that was kind to animals and poured water over trees that were on fire and was sweet to all the people on his server and DreamXD loved George because George is love. And DreamXD saw George and his best friend c!Dream have fun and exploring the world together and he saw George become king and Dream as his loyal knight and he saw c!Dream going down the wrong path and winding up in prison and he saw how this hurt George and saw how he missed Dream so much and so DreamXD made himself into the best visual replica that he could of George’s friend Dream and he comes to George in a dream and he sees the light in George’s eyes and the smile on his face again. But then George realizes DreamXD’s powers creative mode and George wants this power, he wants Dream back he wants strength but as you saw in the video above, that comes with a price and the price is being DreamXD’s friend forever. It’s an easy price for George, because it’s Dream DreamXD.  

But are the Dreamon and DreamXD the same person? The thing is I think yes. I think DreamXD is a god with a temper. He’s layered. I think the Dreamon side - shows himself to everyone, because as we saw in the DreamXD stream DreamXD kept running up to people and say he was going to eat their souls, etc. so George had to teach him how to be “human” - and the DreamXD side only speaks to George - because he has a “welcoming presence”, because he was the first on the server, because DreamXD loves George because George is love. Notice how when George says DreamXD is scaring him, the Dreamon disappears and DreamXD shows up because he doesn’t want to scare George, George is love and all DreamXD wants is his acceptance, his love, his “friendship” and in return DreamXD offers him a friend, a protector, someone who’s there for him the way Dream always was. 

We don't talk enough about the reasons why people deemed c!Dream such a threat: his terrifying combination of intelligence and skill. It's undeniable that he was one of the best at pvp on the server, even from the very beginning—pair that with his almost obsessive resource-gathering, and you create something deadly. He knows what he's doing. Remember, these people live in a world where physical power is arguably more important than political (or at least to a greater extent than in the real world), where a single person with the ability and the materials can lay entire nations to waste. Justified or not, you can understand why L'Manberg was so scared of him.

Crime Boys on Theseus’ Ship

@wolfythewitch (Brother animatic) // Richard Siken // knp!!! (Saint Bernard Animatic) // The Soccer Journals by Everybody’s Worried About Owen // my rp with @racklime // Theseus by The Oh Hellos // Late-August (lapse animatic) // Alice Notley // @holly-warbs // Alexis Pauline Gumbs

c!Tommy is not the primary reason that either c!Sam or c!Quackity decide to abuse or torture c!Dream. Tommy is a justification that they both use, to different extents and at different times.

The operative impetus that kicks off the torture is NOT Tommy's death: it is Tommy's REVIVAL.

I always remember Dream’s confrontation with Tommy after the prison break being so interesting because he comes with a much more eerie vibe, if that makes sense. But then I realized he was mimicking a lot of what Quackity had said to him.

yeahhhh honestly like. i made a comparison post when that happned too maybe i can find it lmao. but it really is just about everything he said it was crazy

part one because it exceeded the character limit

Thank youuu for the ghostbur response. It read my mind (or my notesapp, rather)! I anonymized myself because I didn't know how ghostbur criticism would be received (since he is VICIOUSLY defended sometimes) but you share my opinion!!!I  think that Ghostbur kind of facilitated the polarization of Wilbur Soot after his death, especially for Tommy. In truth, L’manbur was no saint and Pogbur was no villain, but it’s hard for Tommy to view it that way after Wilbur’s down spiral and death. He would have already deified L’manbur because he’s already associated with much more positive memories, and Wilbur's drastic change in Pogtopia* would have left him a little traumatized at how different his family member/close friend had become, leading him to shift his focus more on happier times (and try to reclaim them, through trying to win back L’manburg and the version of Wilbur he seemed to have lost). Compared to Pogbur, L’manbur seemed like a saint. L’manbur began to symbolize that safety, that kindness that had suddenly “vanished” from Pogtopia Wilbur. And then, of course, that “new” version of Wilbur blows up L’Manburg and any hopes of reclaiming that stability. Tommy would not easily accept that the Wilbur who did all of this is the same as the beloved President Soot. *Pogtopia WIlbur’s change wasn’t that drastic, actually.  Wilbur was canonically a little unstable/stressed during the presidential era, but never opened up to anyone– especially not Tommy, who looked up to him. So to an outsider, Wilbur’s descent looked like an almost sudden collapse. But then Ghostbur is added to the mix. He isn’t L’manbur, not at all, because even L’manbur had suffered and grown as a result (Eret’s betrayal, etc etc), but he’s the closest thing to the Wilbur from the happier memories. He isn’t Wilbur BEFORE the suffering, but he’s Wilbur if the suffering never happened. And Tommy, having just lost a brother figure and been exiled a second time, isn’t going to try to make that distinction. When he or anyone else asks Ghostbur why Alivebur did what he did and Ghostbur can’t answer, Tommy relents– and at that point, Ghostbur no longer is a way to heal from Wilbur's death, he becomes a means for escapism. It’s not Ghostbur’s fault, he doesn’t mean to have this effect on anyone, but it doesn’t mean that he didn’t cause it. You hear this polarization in what Tommy tells Tubbo when they’re going to attack Dream for the last time (in the Final Waltz SAD-ist animatic): “ You know the OLD Wilbur? Let’s make him proud.” ...But there really isn’t an OLD or NEW Wilbur at all. Wilbur has always been Wilbur, yet everyone seems to subconsciously separate “L’manbur” and “Pogbur” into two completely different people. The Saint and the Devil. When Revivebur comes back, he isn’t L’Manbur OR Ghostbur. Revivebur is different, different from what Tommy remembers L’Manbur to be, and Ghostbur is gone because of his return.  

this is such a good analysis

i will say i dont think ghostbur ruined c!crimeboys, i think he was more of a symbol of one of my favorite themes in c!crimeboys which is change:

c!tommy as you mentioned does not like change, so much of his arc is surrounded by this air of things changing before he can really process them, and being forced to pick up the pieces, even though he wasnt the one who caused the change in the first place (this is where a lot of the parallels between him and jesse from breaking bad come in for me, because while he is not an innocent, he suffers the consequences of other people’s actions far too often, with barely anyone actually recognizing that he’s allowed to be upset over how unfair it is)

meanwhile c!wilbur wants change, but only change he can control. control is such a big thing for c!wilbur, and he wants to have control over as much as he can in order to protect those he loves, and often he has to change things to do this. however, change does not listen to someone in charge, which is the major struggle c!wilbur has, and often he creates consequences that tommy has to deal with (especially in the case of when he blew up l’manburg) and in the end, its not something he can learn to accept, and thats why its his downfall (this is a big part of why he blew up l’manburg. he wanted the change, he wanted the control over what he created, but the change wasnt the change he wanted and controlled

so this is the constant strife with c!crimeboys: they are always moving in different directions. c!wilbur embraces change that he controls while c!tommy tries to deny change because its how he feels in control. neither of them really have control over anything, but tommy is the only one who can really accept this, even if he doesnt want to.

so to me, this is what ghostbur symbolizes. he symbolizes the opposite of what c!wilbur is because he can never change, and he cant feel in control of anything. so c!tommy gets a very altered view of c!wilbur because of ghostbur and the way he allows him to cling onto a past that doesnt actually exist, and it largely symbolizes this constant fight they have. they’re brothers, but they’re destined to be each other’s downfall if they actually remain with each other

/dsmp /rp I’ve been rewatching a lot of lore streams lately, and there’s a few things I’ve noticed about Dream’s reaction to being called evil, a villain, the bad guy, a monster, a psychopath, etc.

I’ve compiled all relevant clips in the video below, but I’ve also linked to each individual stream for additional context.

Firstly, there’s Dream’s own view on evil. He tells Sam that people who do bad things for no reason, or who just do them because they like them, are the people who are actually evil. Having no reason is what’s truly evil. Dream repeats this during the snake monologue as well. The snake that just bites without reason is pure evil.

Dream doesn’t see himself as evil because he believes he has good reasons for everything he does. During Tommy’s second prison visit, Dream says that he did bad things but that he did them for good reasons. He later admits to Sam that he doesn’t think he’s a good guy, but that he isn’t evil because he had his reasons.

And not only that, but one of Dream’s strongest convictions is that morality is a matter of perspective. Everyone is a good person in their own story, even when other people don’t see them that way. He brought this up during the staged disc finale, where he says that evil is in the eye of the beholder. He says it again when Tommy gets trapped with him in prison, then when Sam finds him after Techno’s escape, after Sam gets locked in prison, and lastly while speaking to Foolish. This is something that Dream deeply believes in.

What frustrates Dream is that nobody else has this view on morality. Nobody wonders whether Dream has any reasons for what he did and nobody sees their own part in conflicts. They just label Dream as evil and that’s it. This is most clear in the snake monologue:

“Oh, Dream exiled you, Dream blew up your country, Dream built a prison… And… we were just walking down a path. He’s evil.”

Sam says that he believes Dream just does bad things because he enjoys them, which Dream adamantly denies. Right before killing Tommy in prison, Dream gets angry about how Tommy is “annoying and disrespectful” only to then complain to Dream and accuse him of being a liar and of being manipulative.

Even before Doomsday, Dream is already getting irritated that many people portray him as the villain without seeing their own part. After George’s dethronement, George, Sapnap, and Quackity try to do a hostile takeover to reinstate George as king. In the discussion following this, Dream points out how George acts like Dream is a bad guy in that situation. When Tommy gets exiled, Dream thinks that Ghostbur is saying that Dream is the bad guy even though Tommy threatened Dream with burning Spirit’s remains. He also calls out Mexican L’Manberg for trying to paint him as the bad guy and a tyrant after they griefed Eret’s castle and set off TNT. 

Dream sincerely dislikes it when others call him evil or a psychopath. Tommy says this to him many, many times. Sometimes, Dream doesn’t react at all. After the Manberg vs Pogtopia war, Tommy calls Dream, “the villain”. Dream does and says nothing, while Punz goes and attacks Tommy. During Doomsday, Tommy says that Dream is a monster; Dream just replies with “okay.”

Other times, Dream does defend himself. In the staged disc finale, before going down the attachment vault, Tommy calls Dream a psychopath. Dream then says he “wouldn’t say that.” Inside the vault, Tommy says that Dream is a psycho again, prompting Dream to say that he is not a psycho and that everything he does is deliberate. Tubbo also calls Dream and Punz psychos when he and Tommy are taken to the prison, and Dream replies that it’s Tubbo and Tommy who are psychos for breaking in and murdering him in his own house.

Tommy calls Dream evil after he gets locked in prison with him. Dream then asks how he is any more evil than Tommy is. While explaining the staged disc finale, Dream is particularly angry that Tommy made the server turn against him by telling everyone that he was an “evil maniac” who was ruining everyone’s lives. He derisively says that he and Punz can’t test a selfless death limbo because they are “evil”, they are “so bad”, they’re “murderers”, and “blah, blah, blah, who cares.”

But despite all of Dream’s contempt for being labeled evil and a villain, he does seem to have internalized this idea somewhat. He jokes with Techno after the Green Festival that it’s “an evil villain thing” to give their enemies time to prepare. When Sam is locked in prison, Dream calls himself “the evil that was released from Pandora’s Box” and questions whether Sam even considers him a person. In the snake monologue, he compares himself to the “pure evil” snake that bites without reason until it gets put down.

And when Tommy finally realizes that Dream is not a villain, Dream immediately says that he is. The main instigator of the server’s hatred recognizes Dream’s humanity at long last, but Dream can’t seem to let go of the villain label just yet.

c!dreambur literally makes me insane

c!wilbur in inconsolable differences justifying being cruel with Doing It For Tommy vs c!wilbur in the elections literally taking mellohi his own damn self to force c!tommy to do what he wants

How wars are like chess; how this game predicted the events leading up to "doomsday."

(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.

it never ceases to amaze me that there's still debate over what l'manburg was or what c!wilbur intended it to be when cc!wilbur's reaction to matpat's theory video [x] exists:

matpat: l'manburg started as an autocratic nation state with self appointed dictator—uh president—wilbur soot, with tommyinnit as his second

wilbur: YES!

matpat: the dictator for life thing didn't pan out long term, after all a ruler only rules by the consent of the governed, and despite the fact wilbur soot had declared himself supreme leader, the citizens weren't taking his orders all that seriously

wilbur: TRUE!

matpat: so what do you do if you want to secure legimitacy as a ruler? you hold a democratic election

wilbur: this is well researched!

wilbur in VOD: the reason im running as president i felt like it was unfair of me to declare myself dictator

matpat, sarcastically: well maybe if you want to believe the man its because he grew a conscience

wilbur, laughing: GOOD!

like, there's really nothing ambiguous about it. from the text, to word of god to post resurrection c!wilbur's characterization, one message is clear: the idea that l'manburg was made to fight tyranny and as a safe space for non-americans was and always has been a lie.

it’s incredible how i only have these thoughts when i don’t have the energy to elaborate, but here’s why i think the prison arc will be then followed by a reframing of c!dream, straight from the hero with a thousand faces:

Czytaj dalej

Ok there are a lot of things I don't understand about Wilbur and Dream's interactions, but one of the main things that I don't quite get is the whole breaking into the prison and burning the disks with Tommy , like ok why was Wilbur so convinced that by threatening to kill himself he was gonna make Dream do what ever he wants ( burn the disks)

And well we can say that Dream was just agreeing to whatever the hell the wanted because he wanted them out of his living room ( and because he didn't need the disks) but like ,Wilbur didn't know that, what made him so sure that Dream wanted him alive especially after the prison break ( Dream didn't need his help anymore) to the point that he thought he could use it ( his life ) as leverage

Did Dream want to keep Wilbur alive, if so, then why? I don't know man, seems like the only person that would be losing in this situation is Wilbur himself.

I got more questions but like this is what confuses me the most. Idk just don't get it

Honestly I'm going to assume you know about these reddit posts, but while like I think that people should be able to draw their own conclusions to a text without strictly subscribing to what is said by the authors, like, cc!Dream and cc!Wilbur did give explanations behind what happened in this stream that I think are worth checking out: x x

A lot of people perceived cc!Wilbur's comment specifically as speaking for c!Dream in a way that was uninformed and therefore dismissed the post, which I think is...unwise? Like, cc!Wilbur literally says that he's posting from the perspective of his character's thought process, not an out of character word of god on what c!Dream actually values and believes. Further, he literally clarifies that his character isn't entirely correct and is an unreliable narrator.

But looking between the posts and looking at c!Dream's behavior, I mean. What we can say, rather definitively, that c!Wilbur was right about is that c!Dream didn't want to lose that feeling that he had leverage over c!Wilbur. Like, he's pretty damn desperate not to lose it, actually. c!Wilbur "believes that Dream has nothing if not himself"--a perspective that obviously leaves out c!Punz, considering c!Dream's secrecy in terms of this one particular ally, but is otherwise I mean. Like. Correct? cc!Dream emphasizes repeatedly that c!Dream doesn't want to lose "that feeling of control over Wilbur," that c!Dream's power over c!Wilbur is "just in his head," that he's holding onto it even though "it's seemingly gone after the exile reveal." The rest of the server's story only throws this in sharper relief--c!Wilbur literally fucking leaves the whole damn server and c!Dream is cowering in the prison worrying about him A MONTH LATER.

When c!Wilbur makes the assessment that c!Dream is going to hold onto the perceived leverage he has over c!Wilbur tightly, EVEN WHEN SAID LEVERAGE DOESN'T EXIST, to the point of doing almost everything c!Wilbur tells him to? He's 100% right. c!Dream doesn't want to break the illusion. When cc!Dream gives the two examples of what c!Dream wouldn't do, he mentions that c!Dream wouldn't "kill himself" or "give over the revive book," which, I mean. Is literally just saying the same thing twice. Which, again, just goes to show how far c!Dream is willing to go in order to keep holding onto a feeling of control, that--once again! Is emphasized by both ccs AND by the literal text (as we can see that c!Dream at no point is able to actually use the "leverage" he has over c!Wilbur from reviving him to do LITERALLY ANYTHING AT ALL) as not existing in any meaningful manner. This isn't a case of c!Wilbur having an inflated sense of self-importance or a case of him pushing his way into this conflict recklessly w/ a delusional belief that his pitch will work. This is a case of c!Wilbur (as is like, usually the case with him and c!Dream) reading c!Dream like an open book and getting exactly what he fucking wants by force, literally shouting down at c!Tommy and c!Dream until they both comply.

(And it's worth pointing out that like. This whole thing does have a visible toll on c!Dream. He's extra jumpy and defensive in the stream on the same day after Inconsolable Differences, says he went for a stroll outside the prison (something he basically Doesn't Do after he gets the prison back in Daedalus) explicitly to "keep his mind wandering," he bristles at the perception that he's being accused of a terrorist--the exact wording that c!Wilbur uses against him when he makes him write the book in the prison. c!Dream's behavior, while not yet pushed to the point where he starts lashing out in self-defense, was pretty obviously off as soon as c!Wilbur started making demands--he grows quieter, more still, visibly less comfortable--honestly, not at all unsimilar to certain behaviors that we saw in the prison arc.)

And I mean. At the end of the day. Why wouldn't c!Dream want some reason to believe that c!Wilbur would work with him? Why wouldn't he want some kind of leverage? The guy is pretty obviously worried about him, if not outright scared of him. He was ranking c!Wilbur with the likes of c!Sam and c!Quackity when he mentions him in the Finale, for god's sake. c!Wilbur was the person that first called him the tyrant that c!Dream ends up believing he has always been. c!Wilbur was the originator of L'manburg, which c!Dream blames for the literal loss of his home. c!Wilbur is like. Extremely charismatic, extremely good at convincing people that he's well-meaning, that what he's saying is right, that this-person-is-the-enemy and you-want-to-stand-for-freedom and that so-and-so is a cause worth dying for, isn't it. c!Dream was The-Man-That-L'manburg-Opposed from the minute that c!Wilbur decided so and this narrative would follow him literally for the rest of his life.

So yeah c!Dream wanted to keep c!Wilbur alive out of the delusional belief that doing so would mean he has leverage over him. Why he wants that leverage (even though he never uses it and the fact that it literally doesn't exist), I mean.

I personally believe that cWilbur was extremely jealous of what cDream had in the beginning. He was a well respected leader, a strategist and peacekeeper and despite the fact that the SMP had no government or ruler he was looked to as the defacto leader.

And c!Wilbur wanted that.

I mean, when he does L'manburg, he's literally not had a single conversation with c!Dream. He doesn't really know him at all. His original target was Sapnap, and he pivots to c!Dream both because c!Dream seems to be the guy on top and because after a single conversation with c!Dream I mean, it becomes pretty glaringly obvious that c!Dream is the one that's uh, easiest to work with (one minute in and he's already speaking on Wilbur's terms.) The revolution kind of solidifies c!Dream both as the one that should be his target from a leadership level + from a "will play along the easiest" level, which is kind of where we start seeing a specific focus on c!Dream from c!Wilbur (lizard snake thing, suck it green boy, calling Dream lord instead of Eret, etc.)

But I mean. Like, he doesn't really know c!Dream well enough to be jealous at first. And Dream isn't really his first target, either. c!Wilbur's whole deal with Being The Guy On Top isn't really about any specific person or jealousy, either, as exhibited by his towering to stand over literally anyone and everyone. Like look c!Wilbur literally just has control issues😭and the repetition of stuff like iconoclast and sticking it to the man and how he makes a point of wrangling control for himself or taking it more obviously like. This is not a man that likes to feel like he's under anyone or being controlled by anyone or being told what to do by anyone

Wilbur Soot has compared himself to the poem of Ozymandias countless times before. This is something us fans know. 

He’s made reference to it on a handful of occasions, and has even had Fundy read the poem allowed. There was an entire animatic by Sad-ist about him as Ozymandias. 

Ozymandias is this poem about this king, a supposed great ruler of a great kingdom, the king of kings. There’s a catch, and the heavy hitter of the poem. It doesn’t matter, no one remembers it. All that is left behind is a broken run down statue and a name with none of his greatness attached. 

It’s easy to say that Wilbur compares himself and thinks of himself like Ozymandias, a man who may have been beloved by many, who may have had many greats, but left nothing behind that wasn’t wrecked or ruined. He has no legacy that will outlive him.

This is increasingly sad when you realize what c!Wilbur has done over the course of the last several apology streams. He is trying to make people’s last memories of him positive. Whether it’s because of their choice to never speak to him again, or his own. He keeps stating he wants to leave (whether it’s potentially him dying, or simply leaving off on his own), so he wants to leave the people he cared about and wronged the most with some positive memory of him, something that will remain of him, even if small. 

He even says to Eret that he’s left behind and done one of the hardest & most important jobs of all, bringing people together. 

Wilbur is still unable to see how he is the base, the one who brought everyone together in the first place, he’s the one who started it all, and the one that still manages to unite everything and everyone through one seemingly unbreakable thread that is him and his creation and belief in L’manburg.

I think then, c!Eret saying that he doesn’t want to be like Ozymandias, he wants to leave behind a legacy, something greater. He wants to leave behind some positive impact on future generations, namely through history and the telling of it and the preserving of it.

There’s some bit of bittersweet irony of Eret not knowing that Wilbur sees himself as Ozymandias, and how he speaks how he doesn’t want to do what Ozymandias had done, that he wants to be greater (doesn’t everyone?). 

There’s something bittersweet about Eret often praising Wilbur for leaving behind something so great, L’manburg, and being such a large impact on everyone’s lives. Something that Wilbur can’t see himself.

i will never get over the way wilbur used his dsmp character to explore themes revolving around perceiving yourself through a narrative and projecting conventions of storytelling and media onto your own life out of a need to become part of something greater and more “beautiful” than yourself. the complicated relationship between life and art: which imitates which? the attempt to aestheticize your own suffering in the hope of creating a “masterpiece” that makes it all somehow worth it. convincing yourself that you are a character on a stage and must play your part so you don’t have to admit to yourself that you’re tired and hurting and it’s easier than putting in the work to heal. just. god. c!wilbur’s story means so much to me and wilbur soot is a fucking genius

c!Dream always told himself he was objective, but he wasn't. He couldn't be. Perfect objectivity doesn't exist; there will always be biases and preconceived ideas about others, and these ideas threw Dream off more than I think he'd like to admit. He was wrong about Sam following their rules (he was wrong about Sam caring). But he was also wrong about Tommy, when he was so sure that Tommy only ever wanted to cause him harm.

// dsmp rp

I might be crazy for this, but I don't actually think that any of Dream's relationships were beyond repair, if he chose to try to fix them.

I think that a big part of how Dream processes so many losses is by leaning into that cold, logical side of himself, rather than lingering on emotions. He can rationalize his pain in a way that makes it seem normal to him, and therefore not something worth getting upset about—and, weirdly enough, he's more likely to do this with the people who have hurt him the most (e.g. Quackity), not less. (The only real pitfall is that this justification is usually used when he's talking about people, rather than to them.)

But if his friends have reasons for turning on him, then they're no different from Dream himself, right? And Dream sure as hell knows he's done plenty wrong. He doesn't seem opposed to admitting to his past, nor to apologizing for things he's genuinely sorry for (even if that, admittedly, isn't much). With that in mind, I don't think it's unreasonable that he would try to find common ground, to reach out to those he used to care about and try to understand and to reconcile.

Weirdly, I think a main obstacle here would be Punz; as long as they are together, the Plan™ is all that matters. I think another obstacle would be Dream's sheer terror of showing that kind of vulnerability around someone he no longer trusts—but that's not an uncrossable line, as Tommy demonstrates in the finale. It might just take the other person to give him that push, to let him know that he's safe here. If Dream was seeking out this kind of reconciliation himself, however, I think he would be willing to open up sooner.

The one exception is Sam. Because Dream tried to reconcile with Sam, for a long time, back when Sam was stuck in prison. And Sam refused.

// dsmp rp

The contrast in daedalus… Dream trying to manipulate Sam into doing what he wanted, but Dream also just wanting to vent his feelings; his anger. Wanting Sam to understand how badly he hurt him.

There's a definite shift somewhere along the way, where Dream transitions from that bitter, mocking side from the first stream to something more pragmatic and cold. It's not both at once; it's a conscious switch. It's as if he realized that he would never get through to Sam on any emotional level. Which was fine, he told himself; Dream was a pragmatist. He cut his losses and moved on. But abandoning all hope of an honest conversation, one of the only times he opened up—that couldn't be an easy call to make.

Okay, question for people smarter than me: What would c!Dream and c!Wilbur's interaction have been like in and after the scrapped lore? I'm wondering if it was maybe intended to be an earlier version of the c!Dream-c!Purpled alliance, but that would obviously play out very differently with c!Wilbur. Food for thought.

Thinking today about how Daedalus wasn’t c!Dream’s revenge fantasy, it was his closure fantasy.

In his heart of hearts, he was fantasizing not about destroying Sam, but about Sam understanding. Sam acknowledging what he did. Sam conceding that what he did to Dream was…

(Sam apologizing? Did a tiny, shameful piece want that, picture it, what it could look like?)

we dont talk baout ctubbo giving away the cookie outpost without telling cranboo first like we dont talk about how thye dont talk about it you know, why ctubbo is doing all this in the first place, the isolationism, how the missing nuke was meant to be single use because it was meant to kill him, and how ctubbo is still spying still investigating because thats the only way he can feel safe, how hes spending more time doing this than at the unfinished mansion that was meant to be a family home. Can we talk about how he gave it away and cranboo never knew what that meant. can we talka bout it.

A list of some bits of Dream SMP character perspective lore that I remember sometimes, and they hit me like a train:

-Both Tommy and Tubbo (as well as possibly a lot of the Pogtopia members) still believe that Wilbur placed the buttons all over the base in an act of insanity, instead of it being Fundy’s prank.

-Everyone believes that Dream blew up the community house, not Ranboo, with some of the people that weren’t in the Season 2 finale probably still thinking it was Tommy (like Fundy).

-Tommy never found out that the disc he and Tubbo nearly died fighting for was, for a while, in the possession of Ranboo, somebody he trusted.

-Schlatt died believing that Quackity placed the TNT under Manberg, and probably still thinks he did.

-Almost nobody knows the full extent of what happened to Tommy in exile

-Niki doesn’t know Ghostbur exists (she thinks he was a hallucination, or just a figment of Fundy’s imagination), and might never find out about him.

-A lot of the members that joined post-original L’manberg, like HBomb and Ranboo, have a relatively negative opinion about it because all they know about the original era was that it started from a drug van, and they don’t know about the police brutality, the independence stuff, or really any of the true reasoning for founding L’manberg.

-Judging from the fact that both Quackity and Karl were extremely surprised to find out about it and didn’t know previously, a lot of people don’t know that Tommy gave up his discs for L’manberg and therefore falsely believe that he has only ever sacrificed things FOR the discs.

-Wilbur never found out that Eret was truly sorry for betraying L’manberg and actually wanted redemption, and he also never found out that people like Fundy or Tubbo, never actually were against him or wanted to betray him.

Some of the character perspectives are really interesting. A lot of characters have completely different ideas of events that happened due to lack of information, with some of them still holding these beliefs. It’s a really interesting form of storytelling, because it makes everyone an unreliable narrator in at least some way.

worst dsmp take might be ppl comparing lmanburg to colonists

no the worst dsmp take is those same people calling a bunch of white (mainly american) people "indigenous" because they don't realize that appropriating racially charged language (using it Incorrectly) to paint their little minecraft guy as oppressed to win an argument online is, in fact, racist.

for the record:

dream, sapnap, and george where there first. they are not indigenous because they Also Traveled There. dream was not born there, there isn’t a culture that was developed over many generations that the other members of the dsmp are not a part of, because he showed up two to three months before tommy got there. he is not the “native population,” he is not Indigenous, he is a white guy that traveled to a land and then claimed all of it.

if we Were to use terms like “indigenous” in this context, then it’d be for mobs with a society, like villagers or piglins. but I’m going to hazard a guess and say that All of the discourse in the dream smp would be better off if we avoided language like that. it could not more clearly be charged language chosen specifically to demonize or valorize based entirely on the Real World History connected to those terms and not the events within the story. there is no productive conversation to be had within this framework, and everyone who’s not trying to insta-win an argument by shutting it down with scare-tactics knows that. either nobody’s a colonist or everyone’s a colonist and that’s not a conversation that I think we want to have.

and for the record Once Again, even disregarding all of that L’manberg Is Not An Example Of Colonization.

the l’manbergians Were Citizens Of The Dream Smp. they did not Invade the dream smp because they lived there. they were Meant To Be There. they were Contributing To the culture of the land that they lived In (tommy making church prime with dream, the Literal main religion of the region, and building the prime path for instance).

the l’manbergians didn’t Colonize, they Seceded. because they were Already citizens of the dream smp, but they claimed a section of land (land that had been Empty Forest, dream didn’t actually know where it was at first Because it’d been unoccupied by either mobs or other players) and declared that they were No Longer citizens of the dream smp and instead wanted to self-govern.

they did not travel to a culture that wasn’t their’s, claim it for themselves, and then either force the people that lived there Out or force them to abandon their original culture for the new one. what they took away from dream Was Their Own Citizenship. was Dream’s Ownership Over Them And Whatever They Built.

any conversation about the morality of this fact has to be made with the understanding of that. dream’s rejection of their independence wasn’t about the land, it was about maintaining ownership of the people on it. dream wasn’t trying to Stop colonization, he was trying Keep The L’manbergians Inside Of His Society (under his Rule).