#all three times he died in l'manberg

[lasnevadaslaborunion]

I've given this spiel on Discord already but I'm thinking about it again today so here goes

The reason Las Nevadas worked as pre-recorded, highly polished lore whereas other arcs were better served by improvisation (or, especially later, fell flat in the attempt to be more "cinematic") is because that style of presentation reflected and enhanced the themes of c!Quackity's story.

c!Quackity is a very image-conscious guy. He's performing strength, coldness, and viciousness. He's performing power, wealth, and masculinity. He wants to look respectable and frightening in the ways he's seen respectability and fearsomeness modeled by others.

But in the process, he eclipsed his emotions, his better self, and his very humanity.

Las Nevadas itself is a testament to that desire. It's grand, impressive, and entirely artificial. It's a harsh contrast to the organic awkwardness of El Rapids and the ramshackle simplicity of early L'manberg and the White House. c!Quackity intended it to be unlike any country before it - an improvement, an escalation, his unique legacy.

Even the style of the streams reflects that! They become more and more elaborate as time goes on, and yes, you could say more artificial. There's no improvisation. There's no room for silly mistakes. There's no breaking character. It's flashier, grander, more impressive. It's a bunch of bright, sterile lights, all alone in a cold desert.

...okay, now I have to talk about the face cam.

On the DSMP, there are only a few characters who never streamed from their own perspective. Of these, c!Schlatt and c!Dream are best known, and this lack of first-person perspective is often cited as a reflection of their villainy. However, I would also describe this as symbolic of emotional masking. It's vulnerability, and whether the narratives and the characters allow themselves such vulnerability.

c!Schlatt may very well be the embodiment of stereotypical toxic masculinity. He is obsessed with appearances. He lifts weights, takes steroids, drinks protein shakes, and harshly belittles anyone who doesn't live up to his standards. At the same time, he is a deeply paranoid ruler, who increasingly suspects (not without reason) even those closest to him of treason. His commitment to his "tough guy" persona in spite of his faltering health ultimately kills him, as his heart gives out - alone in a crowd.

c!Dream is also a deeply paranoid man (again, not without reason) who is so afraid of coming to terms with a changing world and his own changing relationships that he cuts himself off from all but a few other people and schemes for a near-impossible reunification. He becomes a caricature of a villain and locks himself in both a literal and metaphorical black box, in which he suffers and, yet again, ultimately dies. As with c!Schlatt, what began as a means of self-protection becomes an avenue for demonization.

(As an aside: c!Techno also never uses a facecam, although he did stream his POV. His arc proceeds in a much different way from other "antagonistic" characters; c!Techno manages to overcome his mistrust of others, refine his anarchist ideals, form a community of friends who help one another, and end his story happy. He's a wonderful foil to c!Quackity, though for slightly different reasons than the other two figures mentioned.)

These two (three with c!Techno) figures, alongside c!Wilbur (their polar opposite, insofar as his penchant for Hamlet-esque soliloquies goes), form c!Quackity's idea of what it means to be powerful.

In the first Las Nevadas episode, Quackity uses the facecam in the same way he did previously. We see every flinch, hear every doubtful thought, feel every change of expression. Where this changes, though, is the final scene: Quackity tears apart El Rapids, the last remnant of his early life and connection to his loved ones, and returns home covered in a prisoner's blood.

Las Nevadas 3 has a much different ratio of facecam to non-facecam scenes. During the confrontations with c!Foolish and c!Purpled, those in which he is at his most expressive and physically vulnerable (as both of these characters could easily defeat him in a fight, forcing him to rely on personal appeal), we see him acting through the facecam. But during his discussion with c!Sam about potential recruits, he's all business and all masked up. In c!Fundy's nightmare, in which he is more a manifestation of insecurity than a character, we only see his smiling skin and a frosty voice.

As for the prison scene... hoooooly moly I gotta talk about the details in that scene a different time. But I think it's fair to say that while c!Quackity is undoubtedly in a position of power here, he also breaks down in a way we haven't seen in this context yet. And by the end… well, he's confident. What reason is there to hide? The only person he might hide from already knows what he's capable of. This is the most honest he's ever been about his motivations for torturing c!Dream, and his straightforwardness and undisguised hatred amplifies the horror of the scene.

Las Nevadas 4, however? This is where the pattern gets really interesting.

The first segment of the stream is made without a facecam. c!Quackity walks c!Slime through lessons on how to be successful and powerful, each of which is challenged and peeled back. c!Quackity never fully removes his mask, even around this person he trusts, because he is trying to be an example for that person to emulate.

But there are two scenes in which the facecam returns. One, during the reunion with his fiances in Kinoko Kingdom, in which c!Quackity lets himself be relaxed and affectionate for the first time in months before pivoting to an outburst of all his resentment, sorrow, and anger. Two, when c!Purpled traps him and c!Slime and he is forced to fight for his life before screaming in grief at his friend's death.

And the final scene of the episode? We see not just the facecam, but full live action. The actor showing his full image, and c!Quackity being completely open and sincere. There's hope! There's a real human person still in there! Perhaps he can trust again and change before it's too late!

And guess what happens in the End of Las Nevadas?

THAT'S RIGHT, NOT A SINGLE SECOND OF FACECAM. NOT EVEN A CRUMB. HE'S GOING MAD (SCIENTIST) WITH POWER AND TERRIBLE COPING MECHANISMS FOR GRIEF. OUR MAN IS FULLY LOST IN THE MOTHERFUCKING SAUCE.

And that persona - no, not just the persona, the very person he tried to squeeze into his own image! - is the one who kills him!

And this is why I never liked the notion that Quackity's lore being so polished set the bar too high for other storylines. Because first off, imagine trying to insult someone by literally saying they're too good. Second, c!Quackity's whole arc in Las Nevadas was about how the pursuit of power and acclaim at the expense of your ability to be sincere will fucking destroy you. This way of telling a story is neither superior nor inferior to the more naturalistic style of other arcs. It all comes down to personal taste and how the medium can enhance the creator's intention.

And if Las Nevadas rings false to you?

Good. You understood.

Learn something from its fall.

#dsmp #c!quackity #c!schlatt #c!dream #analysis #tw torture #las nevadas

[honeyblockm]

The Death Poem, Part Three: Empowerment

Masterpost | Part One: L'Manberg | Part Two: New L'Manberg | Part Four: Legacy

Text:

3/1/2021: Tommyinnit dies for three days in Pandora’s Vault

The cracking sound meant you 

were gone. I knew

before I even saw your eyes &

how they relaxed & rolled 

up at nothing & where did you

go, I wonder? The darkness here for 

the darkness there. I left

your body where it

was. After all, you were still 

here. Just the two of us & the

dark & the cat & your skull &

brains crawling out onto 

the floor, dragging itself towards 

me by its elbows. All this, only

this until my knuckles began to ache.

3/23/2021: Ponk loses an arm, then a life

Love, can I just say how nice it is

to be spending time with you and Love,

you are a narrow tree and I the fell weight

of its new branches and Love, you’ve 

put holes in this glass to speak through and

Love, this is all I have to tell you but I'll 

say it again and Love, my time of day 

has always been yours if you'd asked 

it and Love, I am the ax grip and you 

are the upswing and Love, the canopy shadow 

does so little for the heat and 

Love, there are no longer hands 

on the steering wheel and Love, 

you are the blade and I am the peeling cork and 

Love, at long last this is where 

the track splits open 

4/18/2021: Badboyhalo pushes Skeppy in

nothing glitters

we have here only

phosphoric glow

softening of settled magma

to better disappear

I am now amaranth

sweetened cherry

or the walls are bleeding

through me in shades

of rhubarb stalk

my entire lifespan 

I have promised

to stay 

running on your

sempiternal time

just a few months alone

and you’re worried?

I want to hold your hand 

and pull you down

I want some quiet

or to go home

I want to solvate

into the swirling rock 

I’ve missed you but

what do these things matter

anymore

4/25/2021: Foolish and Antfrost die in the fighting at the Red Banquet

be seated at the table and let none of us leave hungry today 

meat we have an abundance of in this room packed with bodies 

like how I am an empty stomach torn open digesting its own lining 

everything crimson everything 

hot as a pulse point 

everything waiting to be fed

4/29/21: Ghostbur trades places

The secret to life: it's not

a fountain or God or magic

pills; not balance, fortune, or

kind acts. The rule of the game is

conservation, nothing in and nothing

out. The world's a closed system and

though it makes trades it collects 

no debts. That's God with his ledger, 

but nothing says we 

can't balance the books too. 

9/14/2021: Slime takes a dip in lava

The very first time someone swung a sword at me 

it stuck. Just stuck. 

And he didn't get it back. 

And once there used to be more 

of me but we got cleaved 

and I went one way and never saw them again. 

But this is new. 

Not that I think it'll stick too but also 

I am learning things like COCAINE and legacy 

and how waiting and waiting and waiting for 

people who aren't there can be pretty 

bad but at least it's lava and not 

dust that I am becoming because 

nothing ever comes back from dust. 

#yens #my writing #dsmp poetry

[faebriel]

thoughts on c!rocketduo?

i like em a lot!! they're the perfect mix of tragic melodramatic and silly

something i find really interesting about them is that they both kind of started from the same place (l'manberg, as the peacetime entries) and yet they weren't super close during that time of peace. i mean everyone was friends (and i might be remembering wrong) but i always think of niki's social circle being more centred around fundy and eret and wilbur, while jack spends more time with tommy and tubbo. it's not until the shit hits the fan that they really click with each other. not quite the same until they start burning the same way! insert that softer place quote about how you have some friends on good days and some friends on the Really Bad Days. you need both

and i like that they have this kind of testy relationship where they have that shared history but they still don't quite trust each other, even when both of them hold the keys to secrets that could ruin the other. they're both at their fucking worst but they can't quite lower their defenses enough to find comfort in each other. and........ they never do. they never quite get each other. niki gets out of that hole, but jack doesn't come with her. after all they planned together, after the hole they kept fucking digging together, wouldn't that be like having a piece of you missing? and what of jack, who sits in the hole drinking himself to a lonely death? so what if niki is in the snow now, while he's still burning? WOOO we love tense allyship and friendship (?) and resentment

this is all entirely Incidental Aspects Of Improvised Storytelling but i think their wildly diverging relationships with death on the server are really really interesting as well. like niki survived her entire story with her three lives intact, whereas jack died thrice and dragged himself back from hell... especially with their partnership really taking flight after doomsday, after jack's third death and self-imposed resurrection. and then, niki is the one who ends up saved and safe in her nether home while jack burns in the centre of the server's fiery death. that is fucking tragic. and entirely accidental. but so compelling

i would love to write them more. one day, c!jack manifold, i will be funny enough to write you accurately

#thanks anon!! :D this was a busy week so sorry for the answer delay but i do love a chance to ramble and chat :] #feel free to share ur thoughts in the inbox and such. rocketduo hot take week or what have u #asks

[bonesandthebees]

Strings of Fate Ch8!!

Oh yes, Wilbur is at the shrine! A very confused boy. Poor guy also has a headache from that fall Tommy took. Ouch.

And he remembers dying! No that's horrible. Well, I guess kind of not. It was described as just a thing that happened. I'm sure he's shocked but he doesn't seem too broken up about it.

Now when he sees L'Manberg though...that hurts. Imagine waking up one day and finding that your home and everything you hold dear is gone:(

Bee! I love the change in POVs as they find each other. I could feel the urgency. The sun setting lower and lower as they try to follow each other's voices. And when they do find each other they are still in the wrong bodies. But then it switches and ahshsjh

So smooooth Bee

And they're just so happy to finally see each other. It's crazy to think that they have never actually interacted outside of time-and-space-texting. I'm so happy! We've waited so long for this moment and it's here! So worth itt:)))

You know I never actually thought about Mitsuha getting her ribbon back the day after she gave it to Taki. I guess it's because Taki had it for most of the movie anyway, so it just felt longer? I don't know. But yeah that is weird to think about. It must feel odd for Wilbur to get his cord back all faded from three years with Tommy.

Tommy is actually pretty cool. He managed to forge a plan to get a pretty good chunk of people out of the valley. I'm not sure how many people will end up dying from the comet but yknow. They did everything they could.

Poor Tommy didn't get anything written on his palm:( I know that if Wilbur wrote his name it would probably just disappear like the messages on Tommy's phone. That's why Tommy wrote what he did instead of his name. Hopefully, it'll be enough for Wilbur to at least recognize him when they do meet again:')

I am curious though. Did Wilbur just not feel the length of what Tommy was writing on his palm? Like Tommy is a five-letter word. Tommy wrote two whole sentences and then some lol

I will never get over how well you depict emotions in your writing. You are so good at it!! When I read your fics I'm either smiling like an idiot, trying to hide frowns, or trying to ignore the burning in my eyes how are you so good at it???

oof im gonna go read the epilogue now. thank you for these two treasures bones<3

-🧭

lol yeah tommy slammed his head into the ground when he fell and wilbur has to deal with the headache. poor guy he's going through so much

oh wilbur was 100% in shock about the whole remembering that he died thing. if he actually had more than a few hours to process it he would've had much more of a breakdown. in a way the loss of memories was definitely beneficial in that sense

i'm so glad you felt the urgency!! i wanted it to feel really confusing and also a bit hopeful as they try to find each other, and then right as the sunset really sets in that's when the window between time opens up :)

finally. after so long they're finally face to face talking to each other but they only have a few minutes bc ofc things can't be that nice

yeah i know!! i didn't think about it when watching the movie either, but when I was writing that bit I realized "huh the ribbon would've been worn down from taki wearing it as a bracelet for like 2-3 years even though mitsuha only lost it the day before for her time. that must've been weird"

while not everyone in the town ended up being saved, the majority of people actually did get out in time thanks to the plan. though it wasn't even really tommy who planned most of it. as soon as techno came in he and niki both took over everything, tommy just came up with the initial idea lol

wilbur literally just was not paying attention when tommy was writing on his hand. he was looking out at the sunset and thinking about stuff so he just didn't register how long it took tommy to write out his 'name' lol

aaa thank you i'm so glad the emotions came through!! tbh I was really struggling with that in this fic so it makes me really happy to hear the emotions still transferred over to the readers

#ask #compass anon #strings of fate

[dontcryminecraft]

c!wilbur as the ship of theseus paradox

you can learn about what this paradox is here, I personally really like this philosophical debate.

Plutarch presents the idea that Theseus's ship, over time, is preserved and replaced slowly as upkeep is needed. Once every plank is replaced, is it the same ship? Or is it a different ship?

Is c!wilbur, beaten down and "repaired" as best he could until November 16th, the same person as he was before? Have all the parts that make wilbur "wilbur" been replaced? Is he who he was before pogtopia and before the elections when he died?

Hobbes, later on, added to this philosophical debate, by asking if all the old planks and pieces were assembled, and put back together into a new ship, which ship would be the True ship of Theseus? The one replaced board by board slowly over time, or the one reassembled with the original pieces?

In this comparison, is the reassembled pieces Ghostbur? The "happy" and "good" and "better" pieces are all pushed together into the Ghost who insists he isn't "Alivebur" since all those pieces were worn away in his mental decline during pogtopia. People like him, not Alivebur. Was he truly Wilbur?

This gets further complicated when Revivedbur enters the scene. With both blurry ghost memories and afterlife memories, yet not a combination of the two. Wilbur is back to being the repaired ship since he agrees with Ghostbur that the two are different entities.

Maybe there is no "real wilbur". Maybe all three (Alivebur, Ghostbur, and Revivedbur) are the "real ships". Maybe who he was isn't important, it is who is at the moment, or maybe it's who he's going to be. Maybe the idea of at what point was c!wilbur being "his true self" (pre-l'manberg, l'manberg, elections, pogtopia, etc.) and what counts (debates on if ghostbur really was separate as they say) takes away from the journey c!wilbur took that started with a drug van and ended with him returning to his home away from the smp. Maybe, just like the ships, it's the memories on the boards that count and not the actual pieces, so as long as those remain in either iteration, it's Theseus's ship.

#c wilbur changes a lot #and i think way too much #and the parallel between the ship repaired and the ship reassembled reminded me of him and ghostbur #ahyes an original post #dsmp #dsmp analysis #dsmp character analysis #ship of theseus #wilbur soot #c wilbur

[tubbostim]

have u ever, thought that most of ctubbo's life has been, passed by grieving ? its his, normality by now . he has grieved his, home . his best friend ( three times ), he has grieved everything he has, lost . he, has grieved his husband and himself . he has, grieved so much but at, the same time never learnt how to cope with, it . every person that died, came back . he never had the, time to process death . he never went, over l'manberg's falling bc he feels like, he doesn't have a purpose no more .

so when cranboo didn't, come back it broke all of his, schemes . he should come, back like the others . Instead he never did, and he tried to follow the, grieving process like a textbook . checking off phases like a, grocery list . but grief doesn't, work like that and it bothers him .

so he started, ignoring . he started brushing, off their death like he did with, every issue he ever faced . Until he exploded to, caimsey and killed star in blinded, rage and feeling of being threatened .

He felt guilty . He feels guilty . He apologised to, caimsey and opened up about his trauma . In a fashion that is, kinda unusual for him . He is, so slowly trying to heal and, be better . He admits of being, scared by other being too close to, him ; either physically or emotionally .

He is still such a, hurt child that had to, grew up too fast .

#ctubbo #dsmp lore #dsmp tubbo #death cw #dealing with grief #grieving

[thejellyfishlibrary]

Long Ao3 completed fanfics you can read pt4

A little less sixteen candles by Billywick (Eisengrave) - 33 chapters and 97,591 word count. Description = Waylon Park's got the new school blues as he enters Mount Massive High School. With students like Miles Upshur, Jeremy Blaire, and Eddie Gluskin, it's not surprising how Waylon's curiosity gets the better of him, even on his first day.

The lost and forgotten by Litcraz - 32 chapters and 272,413 word count. Description = In order to save everyone's lives, Peter is forced to give up memories - their memories of him. As a result, he is left entirely alone in a world where no one knows he exists. After finally moving on with his life, a new threat arises, bringing Peter back directly into the Avengers' path.

Tell me when you’re drowning by ThyNameNotSpoken - 34 chapters and 226,778 word count. Description = Izuku is in the Support Course, perfectly happy having given up his dream of being a Hero long ago. It’s just not possible for him with the nature of his quirk. As long as he continues to manage his quirk, life should be easy sailing. . . right? The teachers of UA think otherwise and become particularly concerned when he and Hatsume help in a training course. All his life, Izuku has kept moving foward. It's how he survived. But if he wants to keep moving forward, he will have to finally face his past.

I’ll put down my roots when I’m dead by nicholenarrates - 12 chapters and 110,938 word count. Description = L'manberg is not a place where choices are readily available. Tommy Innit does everything in his power to remedy that.

The past and present collide to form one tragic story.

All the young dudes by MsKingBean89 - 188 chapters and 526,969 word count. Description = LONG fic charting the marauders' time at Hogwarts (and beyond) from Remus' PoV - diversion from canon in that Remus's father died and he was raised in a children's home, and is a bit rough around the edges. Otherwise canon-compliant. 1971 - 1995

The tale of the fox and the dragon egg by SunnyBeeDream - 69 chapters and 314,484 word count. Description = Wei Ying finds a wounded dragon inside his woods, death already looming above. In its last moments it gifted the fox something precious. An egg, in pure Lan white. The lonely fox had no idea what this egg would bring him. Or who searched and found them both in the process.

The neighborhood by AceofNowhere - 21 chapters and 69,366 word count. Description = Lance comes out as gay to his family. Things don’t go so well from there.

Now he’s living with his best friend since the third grade Keith "Asshole" Kogane-Lee, and things now? Yeah, they’re going just great.

Thanks for asking.

The red blood that drowns the dawn by MysticalChaos - 12 chapters and 40,052 word count. Description = Tommy works at a diner, living his little life. But right now with this guy staring at him for 20 minutes straight now? He's starting to think he's about to be human trafficked

Out like a light by LovesickPrince - 24 chapters and 156,593 word count. Description = Eons ago, the Blood God and Death found their two missing pieces, and the quartet was made whole. Meant to last an eternity, it was abruptly shattered when the youngest member was brutally murdered before he had a chance to rise as a higher being.

Tommy just wants to finish highschool, move out of his shitty foster parents house, and get a lot of women. All of the women. His plans are suddenly placed on an abrupt hold when he’s kidnapped and taken to a dark organization called the Syndicate - and suddenly things are falling apart faster than he thought they possibly could as the three leaders of the Syndicate place him under their loving protection, one of his best friends is revealed to be working for potential terrorists, his religious beliefs are horribly shaken, and everyone seems to be convinced that he’s the reincarnation of some ancient martyr. The final piece of some holy quartet Wilbur cheerfully calls ‘Sleepy Bois Incorporated.’

Philza laughs at the name. Technoblade rolls his eyes.

Tommy is just trying to grit his teeth and survive this entire ordeal.

Coveted by WillowTroy - 29 chapters and 110,667 word count. Description = Alphas Chris and Peter have been happily mated for years, but have finally reached a degree of success that could make every alpha’s greatest dream come true: adopting their very own omega.

Not every alpha is so fortunate to qualify, and even fewer meet the personal standards of the omegas they apply for. Chris and Peter are prepared to pull out all the stops to get their ideal mate and breeding partner.

Unfortunately, Stiles might be too stubborn and melodramatic to be impressed, even for his own good.

The boy raised by wolves by Skargasm - 23 chapters and 43,657 word count. Description = When the Sheriff and his wife are killed as a by-product of a turf war with outside wolves, the Hales take in their young son, Stiles, and raise him as their own. Peter – the Pack’s Left Hand – eliminates anyone who dares to hurt Stiles, although he doesn’t know why.

Add the strange relationship he’s building with the hunter’s boy, Christopher Argent, and Peter is finding his life stranger than he could ever have expected.

The rule of three by DiscontinuedWinter - 35 chapters and 70,892 word count

[kateis-cakeis]

So, @heretakesomeblue and I were having a discussion about Alivebur's Dream apologism, and what memories he has from Ghostbur, and let me tell you, it all finally clicked into place like a piece in a puzzle.

So, heretakesomeblue pondered that Alivebur is missing some huge context clues, and then, well, it all made sense.

Alivebur has Ghostbur's memories, in fact we know from what Wilbur said the other day, Alivebur watched all of Ghostbur's memories flash before his eyes in real time, so he actually experienced all of it.

What does this mean in this context, how does this apply? Doomsday. Ghostbur only appeared three times after 10th Jan, and all of those times were months after the disc war finale. Why is this important? Because Ghostbur has no idea what happened in the disc war finale, he wasn't there, and so Alivebur would have no context behind any of that.

Let's review this quote for a second with this in mind:

“Dream’s not in prison for being a horrible person, Dream’s in prison because he dared to try and stop you all. He dared to try and stop you all from gaining all this power. Because the minute I was gone, there was a vacuum. There was opening. And everyone just seeked to get in there, and Dream was the only stood up to them and told them not to.” - (Wilbur’s resurrected gentleman of L'manburg: 21:40, 5th May)

Alivebur thinks Dream is in prison because he tried to stop them all from gaining power, due to him destroying L'Manberg opening a vacuum (something he mentioned all the way back on the 16th Oct by the way).

And so, because Alivebur has Ghostbur's memories, he must know of Doomsday, and since he'd have those memories, he must think Dream was put in prison for destroying New L'Manberg.

Why would Alivebur assume New L'Manberg was for power? Well, what Ghostbur saw on the 16th Dec would be a good reason, seeing Techno being executed, and Ghostbur calling the cage tyranny and not something L'Manberg would build.

Naturally, Alivebur would see that as a power grab, again, something that an original L'Manberg would never stand for. And if he sees that as power, then he'd think that New L'Manberg was being destroyed due to being corrupt, or even just because it had 'power' in the first place (even though it really didn't).

And so, he'd think Dream was getting rid of it because of that. That Doomsday was because of that.

To Alivebur? It was stopping New L'Manberg from filling the power vacuum, stopping anyone from gaining that power that had been left wide open.

Which, with all this in mind, this quote makes so much more sense too:

“Dream was the only that held my seat for me. He kept it warm, he kept my throne warm, and you guys didn’t like that, so you threw him in prison. And if Dream died instead of me, I would be in there right now.” - (Wilbur’s resurrected gentleman of L'manburg: 22:07, 5th May)

So, with all these memories, Alivebur would think Dream doing the same as he did was, you know, keeping his seat warm. And he'd think they wouldn't like that, because he knows that people don't like him/hate him for what he did, so naturally to him, that means they threw Dream in prison for Doomsday and no other reason.

Of course we know that's wrong, but Alivebur doesn't. He doesn't have the context behind the disc war finale, only Doomsday. And since he knows Dream is in prison for some reason or other, he's concluded it was for that, and not because he was a horrible person (or even the real reason, which was because of the revival book).

And in turn, he thinks he would have been put in prison instead because he did the same thing, or maybe because he would have done a Doomsday-like thing himself.

Truly, it feels we've cracked this thing wide open!

TDLR: Alivebur thinks Dream was put in prison for Doomsday because Ghostbur wasn't around for the disc war finale to know the real reason, and because of that he thinks Dream was trying to stop power from being gained, and that people didn't like him doing that, hence prison.

#dream smp #dream smp analysis #alivebur #wilbur soot #believe me this all makes sense now #so much sense oh my god #it really does feel we have like worked it out #for now with the information we have #this seems like the best bet for why he has this misconception #because he just doesn't know

[helliontherapscallion]

Why Couldn’t it Have Been Me?

Part 2

Paring: Wilbur Soot x reader (past), Ghostbur x reader

Disclaimer: This contains major spoilers for Tommyinnit’s 4/29 lore stream

Warnings: swearing, violence, death, near death, cheating, 4/29 lore stream, grief, blood, injury, panic attack

Word count: 6,737

(A/N): So in this, you’re Schlatt’s twin and Puffy’s your older sister. Also, sorry for any mistakes, I typed a good 2/3 of this on my phone

This was your own personal hell: being trapped within cement walls with your ex fiance, your asshole of a brother, and a Dream wannabe that seemed to never lose any energy. Your life was like a trope in a novel alive you would’ve liked, however being cursed to live in it made you absolutely loathe any and all mention of it. 

Alive you would’ve killed to hang out with your brother again, not the one that turned to the bottle. Alive you would’ve craved the sweet melodies that streamed from Wilbur’s mouth. You would’ve swooned and maybe, just maybe, you would’ve forgiven him. Alive you would’ve perhaps liked this ‘Mexican Dream’ guy, you would’ve perhaps become the best of friends. 

However you despised the three locked up with you with your whole heart. 

Your ex fiance was someone you adored. Hell, you even idolized him when you were alive. The Wilbur you knew was sweet, loving, attentive, and just all around someone that you swooned over. You could still remember how your heart exploded when he first asked you out under the setting sun by the ocean. You remembered every song he's written for you, every word and rhythm by heart, even after all these years. 

You remembered how you felt your heart completely shatter when you found the songs he had in his drafts for someone that wasn't you. Someone by the name of 'Sally'. After a heated argument you had broken up with him, taking the engagement ring off from your finger and throwing it deep into the ocean. You stayed on L'Manberg's side even after all that, too loyal and proud towards the country you helped forge to drop it. You wouldn't let some stupid boy or rabid tyrants prevent you from raising your beautiful nation up from the ashes.

That had been your downfall. You should've listened to Puffy and left the country behind when you had the chance, now you paid the ultimate price for your deep rooted loyalty and devotion towards independence. And your sacrifice didn't even matter in the end! Your deranged ex blew it all to smithereens. If you didn't despise him before, you absolutely did after your dumbass twin told you about his little 'escapades' while you were gone.

Every little thing Wilbur did, no matter how small it was, made you hate him even more. Every time he would shuffle those damned cards, it made you want to rip them to shreds and throw them across the train tracks. Every time he would sing or even breathe, you wanted to strangle him. You were absolutely certain that Schlatt felt the same. 

Oh, your twin was a real card. Always boasting about how his horns were bigger than yours (who even cares anymore? Yours grew in first anyways), telling the others about your shortcomings through crude jokes, even going as far as fighting you through headbutting; you could still feel the pain of being beaten to death before respawning immediately. Schlatt hadn’t known that you respawn even in the afterlife, so you knew he was serious about killing you. You just wanted Puffy, she was far more tolerable than your twin. 

The rustling of his suit jacket and his small grunts and pants resonated within the walls as he did various forms of exercising. You now knew about all of the differing variations of a pushup and you hated yourself for listening to his explanations. He would beg you, Mexican Dream, and Wilbur to stand on his back while he did his endless routines. The only one to readily take him up on that offer was Mexican Dream.

That man was arguably the only one you slightly tolerated, and you said that very lightly. He was still annoying as all hell, but he was a new face. Well, one that you didn’t know well enough to have a grudge against while you were alive. It was slightly refreshing, in a sense. When he first got here, his songs, stories, and humor gave you a nice break away from Wilbur’s depressing songs and Schlatt’s crude jokes. However when you spend eleven years trapped in a cage with one person, everything they do becomes the bane of your existence. 

You were running out of things that kept you sane in this dump. You've read the same novel, counted the same ceiling and floor tiles (32 ceiling tiles and 57 floor tiles exactly), traced the same cracks in the walls, temporarily killing the same cellmates, you've done anything and everything that this cesspool had to offer. You've done everything billions of times over, a never ending cycle of monotony. 

Tommy joining your group of miserable has-beens was perhaps the highlight of your fifteen, almost sixteen, years spent in this shithole. Though he finally dropped the brave facade and showed just how broken down he was after everything he’s been through, having him around was the saving grace to your sanity. He told you how your sister was, how your nephews were, and most importantly what you missed. You knew about all of the events leading up to Mexican Dream's death, but you were left in the dark with everything past that. Ender, you missed so much since you died; It baffled you how much you missed. 

When the train actually stopped at your cell instead of just passing by and it's doors opened, you were just expecting another poor soul to be dropped off here. You could imagine everybody's surprise when none other than Dream stepped out of those doors. The nephew that had betrayed you without a second thought, that had murdered you, that had your severed head displayed on his mantle (you weren't sure the truth of that last statement, Tommy has a habit of over exaggerating. Though, Schlatt did say that your body was found with a missing head when you first forced him to tell you what you missed). Tommy talked to you about how he died only once, so you knew just what your nephew has been up to. It infuriated you knowing that your adult nephew was manipulating and abusing this young teenager.

While you were releasing your pent up frustrations on the masked man, he merely brushed past you and drug Tommy into the train by the arm. You could remember Wilbur banging on the doors begging for Dream to return his little brother and his angered screams echoing down the railways as the train sped off back towards the land of the living. 

Lucky Tommy, he got to live out the rest of his life and actually age. You and your crew of intolerable jesters were stuck together once again. 

Everybody was silent for a few months, reeling at the newly discovered fact that Dream could actually resurrect people. During those three months, they were quiet and tolerable. In a way, the talks that came out of it was like one of those family therapy sessions your older sister would hold in the living room (you remembered how she would grab you and Schlatt by the horns if either one of you refused to go). You would kill to attend one of those therapy sessions again, and this is the closest you were going to get to it. 

You all talked about the things you regretted most while you were alive. Mexican Dream's was that he didn't protect his girlfriend Mamacita well enough. Schlatt's was choosing alcohol and power over his family (tears were especially shed over Tubbo, he really did regret abandoning him to be raised by you). Yours was that you were too loyal to a cause that would be absolutely decimated a short while after you sacrificed everything for it. Surprisingly, Wilbur's was that he had hurt you.

He had begged and groveled for forgiveness, telling you that he just didn't feel that special connection with you anymore. That didn't take away from the fact that he was seeing another while you two were still dating and that he blew up your life's work. He had stolen everything from you, and you would never forgive him for that. 

After you made your thoughts on him completely clear, he had started treating you like you treated him in the last few months. Tension was building up between you two that had laid dormant for thirteen and a half years like a rope pulled taut about to snap.

Everybody had slowly returned to their annoying selves slowly but surely. Schlatt resumed his workout routine, Mexican Dream had started loudly singing and ranting about Mamacita's everlasting beauty again, and Wilbur eventually started up his solitaire and songwriting once again.

The three of them made you want to rip off your twisting horns and shove them in your ears in hopes of muffling them, but you knew that whomever put you here would restore your hearing and make your horns regrow. You knew that first hand after you spent a couple of years alone in this hellhole; breaking your horns off by repeatedly banging your head against the dull stone walls in a manic state was never fun. The regeneration of the keratin only slightly stung, it was like you were a kid and they were growing in for the first time again. 

You felt your eye twitch as Wilbur sang about that damned train for the umpteenth time since he arrived. It’s always ‘train this' and ‘train that' and quite frankly you were sick of it. You were sick of him. 

“Shut the fuck up about that damned train,” Schlatt seethed. You never once thought you would ever agree with your twin, but here you were nodding in agreement and shooting a glare at Wilbur’s direction. The brunet merely stopped his singing and reshuffled his cards, the sound making an ugly cacophony and grating at your ears. 

“Not my fault you two don’t want to talk to me. I’m just making due with what I’ve been given.” He dealt the cards out in piles and started yet another game of solitaire. Seriously, how many games of solitaire can one play before they lose it? You supposed that you’d find out soon, Wilbur has been playing that monotonous card game nonstop for thirteen and a half years.

“Yeah, let the hombre chill! I like his music.” The masked man reached up to stroke his goatee, the scratching sound further penetrating your focus on your book. 

Everything was quiet before Mexican Dream's voice pierced it, "hey, did I ever tell you guys how beautiful my Mamacita was?"

"You told us millions of times, fuckface. You narrate entire love letters daily, so how could we not know how 'beautiful' she was?" You complained, not once looking up from your book. Schlatt snorted to himself and returned to his workout. Mexican Dream crossed his arms in anger, cursing you out under his breath. Wilbur merely glanced at you and rolled his eyes. "You know, I'm tired of your bitchy attitude. Let him talk about Mamacita, it's not his fault every time you think you love someone it fails." 

Your grip on your book tightened impossibly. If it were physically possible, the book would be crumbling to dust in your voice grip. You practically see red as you slowly dog-eared the worn page you were on and put your book down. 

"Oh shit," you heard Schlatt mumble and move away from you, Mexican Dream following suit. When you both were alive, your anger was always something you knew Schlatt feared. However, you knew that he's never seen you this angry; nobody has. The majority of what you've been holding in for almost fourteen years is about to be unleashed. 

"You know what I'm sick of, Wilbur?"

"Oh, do enlighten us."

"I'm sick of each and every single one of you. You three have been absolutely intolerable ever since you arrived. I was doing just fine alone and the universe just had to fuck everything up for me, just like it always does."

"There you go again," Wilbur laughed sardonically, "making everything about yourself." He gathered his cards and shuffled them repeatedly. 

"I make everything about myself?! Do you even hear yourself? Mr. Oh-I'm-such-a-disappointment-to-Philza, you wallow in self pity twenty-four seven! You fucking write every single song about yourself!”

"I didn't want to come here, okay?! I didn't think it was gonna be like this! God, I might as well be in hell with you here." 

"Believe me, my hell started fourteen years ago when you guys started showing up," you growled out, your ears flattening to the sides of your skull.

"Have you ever stopped to think that you're our hell? All you've done since we came here was complain and be a massive douche to all of us." He fluttered through the deck more and more as the argument escalated, the noise making you want to scream until you tasted blood.

"I'm the one that's in the wrong here? You fucked up my entire life. He," you pointed at Schlatt, "keeps beating me to death. And he," you jutted your chin towards Mexican Dream, "never shuts the hell up… Would you stop with that damn deck?! You're literally so fucking annoying." 

He narrowed his eyes, "make me."

A mixture of an animalistic growl and a guttural scream left your lips as you charged at him, your head tilted downwards so he could feel the brunt of your horns. He moved out of the way just in time, the side of your horn brushing against his arm. You crashed head first into the stone wall before you stabilized yourself and looked at the brunet with seething hatred. 

He was staring at you in shock, "how're you-" You used his shock to your advantage, throwing a right hook at his face. His head whipped to the side and his body followed, sending him to the ground in a heap.

"How am I still conscious? I'm a ram hybrid, dumbass. What'd you expect?" You huffed angrily before you pried the cards out of his hand and stalked over to the tracks. 

He scrambled up to stop you, but before he could even reach you, you held the deck over the tracks and looked down at him. You could just imagine how your horizontal pupils were blazing with fury. 

You reveled in the betrayal and animosity gleaming in his eyes as you dangled the thing he held dearest in this hell over the railroads. If you were to drop them, he'd never be able to see them again.

"We promised not to touch belongings on our first day here!" He yelled at you, his hands wrung in front of him nervously hiding the slight tremor. "Our first day here?" You scoffed, "the last time I checked, I was here for two years before any of you showed up." You gestured around the room in one angry swipe, the cards slipping slightly with how sweaty your hands were. It was then that you saw the fear in Schlatt's eyes. Good, that bastard should be scared of you. "If anything, you all are in my domain."

Wilbur flinched at the sight of the cards slowly slipping out of your hand, his breath hitching and panic stricken across his features. Mexican Dream stood up from his place and put his hands up. He was slowly approaching you like you were a cornered wild animal, making sure that you saw his every move. 

He nervously chuckled, "let's just put the cards down and have a nice talk. Doesn't that sound better than this, mi amigo?"

You shook the cards once again, taking in Wilbur's silent anguish with glee. "I'm not your friend, I'm anything but. Don't tell me what to fucking do or else that picture of Mamacita is the next to go."

"...Okay, you're in charge, man. Do what you want." He reluctantly sat back down next to Schlatt. The ram was watching in fear, yet it looked like he was entertained with what was happening. You couldn't blame him, the last interesting thing that happened was three full months ago when Tommy was taken. That and you probably looked feral at the moment.

"You understand that if you drop those, they're lost forever right?"

You threw your head back and laughed, "of course I know, why do you think I only have one sock? I already tried that shit out before you came." You hummed to yourself in thought, then grinned. Wilbur was going to love this.

While you shuffled the deck, you kept a close eye on the movement happening inside the cell. Another perk to being a ram hybrid was that you had a nearly 360 degree scope of everything around you. The only movement happening was the panicked breaths from Wilbur, good. You huffed in amusement, "alright Wilbur, let's do a card trick. I'd ask you to pick a card, any card, but I don't want to risk you fucking shit up again. So, I'm just going to draw for you." You drew a card from the middle of the deck and showed it to him. "The eight of clubs, how fitting." 

"(Y/n), I don't know what you're getting at, but if you don't give me those cards right now-"

"Shut it, I'm not done. I'm going to shuffle this back into the deck, watch the hands." You kept eye contact with him as you shuffled the cards rigorously, the card you pulled long since hidden with the slight of a hand. After a bit of shuffling and reshuffling, you had sneakily put the card between the two halves and bridged them until the cards were in one pile with the eight of clubs on top. 

You chuckled and pulled the top card, once again showing it to him. "Is this your card?"

He nodded slightly, never once taking his eyes off from the deck. "Yes, now give it back to me!" The angry and anxious undertones were like music to your ears.

You tapped your chin in thought, "hm, I don't think I will. You've taken so much from me, it's only fair that I get some revenge." Without another word, you threw the cards behind your head and smiled widely at the sound of the fluttering down to the tracks. 

Wilbur launched himself forward with a frantic yell, his hands flailing to catch all of the cards before they were lost forever. He only succeeded in catching a few. 

His breath shuddered as he stared at the three cards in his hand: the five of diamonds, the four of spades, and the seven of hearts. The fate of the universe was on your side for once, perhaps preternaturally so. 

"You- do you realize what you just did?!" He spun around to face you. If humans could froth at the mouth, a full waterfall would be streaming through his gritted teeth. His eyes held the rage of a man that had just lost everything in one singular instant, the resentment swirling in his dark brown orbs. Several veins were bulging in his face and neck, painting the skin in a red hue.

You walked over to your book and plopped yourself down. "Yeah," you said with a nonchalant shrug of your shoulders. You opened up your book and started reading it again, leaving the man to his grief. 

Everything was quiet once more much to your delight. Though you read this book from cover to cover thousands of times, enough to know most of the words by heart, you were never able to fully enjoy and immerse yourself in it with them around. You took this time to reclaim your designated corner and spend some quality time reading. 

You spent hours with your nose buried deep in your book, savoring the peace. That was until it was snatched out of your hands and ripped away from you. You looked up in slight shock at the sight of Wilbur snapping it shut and walking over to the tracks. 

No. No. Nononono he can’t. That was the only thing keeping you sane. He can't just get rid of it when he's done so much towards you when you were alive. 

A wail left your mouth as you tackled him to the ground, your arms wrapped around his midsection. He crashed to the ground with a grunt, his forehead smacking against the painted yellow stone. You straddled his back and ripped the book away from him, throwing it across the room and away from the tracks. 

You grabbed a fist full of his hair after yanking off his beanie and tossing it into oblivion with his precious cards. You pulled his head up and leaned close to his ear, "you try that shit again and your hat and cards won't be the only things lost to the void." Venom was seeping through your every word, "do you understand me?" 

He merely jerked his head to the side, colliding it with your nose and mouth. You shouted in surprise and let him go in favor of holding your aching nose. You could feel the warmth of the blood pouring from it. Through teary eyes, you looked up at Wilbur as he grabbed your book and flung it against the wall of the opposite side of the tracks. You scampered to the edge and watched in horror as it disappeared into the void. 

Without warning, you were forced to the ground, a hand holding you by a horn and a knee between your shoulder blades. You struggled before a dark chuckle was heard, "if you keep moving, you'll slip! Do you really want that?" You begrudgingly stopped, realizing that he had all the power in this situation. If he wanted to, he could just slide you off from the platform and toss you away like throwing a piece of paper into the trash.

"Good, you're not as stupid as you were earlier today." He slid you forward, holding your upper body over the tracks by the horn. You came face to face with the swirling abyss that was the void, small shapes appearing from your eyes adjusting to the sudden lack of visual stimulant. Your breathing picked up as he lowered you slightly, "you don't wanna do this." 

"No, I do. Thirteen and a half years of having to be around you was hell, but the shit you pulled today just put the icing on the cake. Do you have any last words before you go?"

You grunted as he shook your head slightly, a slight pain coming from the base of your horn. "Fuck you." 

"How appropriate, now let's see if you'll come back this time. It'll be our fun little science experiment!"

He dropped your horn without a care in the world, sending you plummeting to your demise. A terrified scream ripped it's way out of your throat and you screwed your eyes tightly shut in preparation for the void. Your body came to a jerking halt as you held your breath, preparing for… whatever awaited you. However, nothing came.

You cracked open an eye only to be met with the uncanny inkyness, the invisible mist freezing your face and its frostbitten arms opened wide for you. But you never fell into its embrace. 

Instead, you were pulled back onto the platform. You laid on your stomach with your horn supporting your head staring at the wall, tracing every single nook and cranny of the bricks. Your chest heaved as you greedily gasped for air. You never thought you'd be so relieved to see the cement walls you've been trapped in for over a decade and a half.

You were once again pulled up into a now sitting position and leaned against the wall, your back touching the cool cement. Across from you, you saw Mexican Dream pinning a struggling Wilbur down to the floor. Wilbur's crazed eyes met you, piercing through your very being. However, that didn't affect you in the slightest; you almost were just wiped from existence completely, you stared into the abyss and it stared back at you.

You felt… strange, to say the least. While icy fear and adrenaline coursed through your veins, you felt warmth blossoming in you at the same time. It was like the void was an actual person, politely giving you some form of relief from the hell you've been subjected to for over a decade and a half. It was so welcoming, not terrifying like you initially thought it was. When your fingertips grazed its surface it felt freezing to the touch, yet you felt the staticky power it was showing you. In that split moment of touching it, you had already accepted the power it held over you. 

A hand softly slapped your cheek, "c'mon, (y/n). Talk to me." Your eyes drifted lazily to your twin. He was extremely pale, his eyes frantically searching your face for any sign of responsiveness. When you looked at him, he visibly relaxed. "It was so… so beautiful, Schlatt."

"Yeah, what the actual fuck did you just say? You almost just- just died for good dumbass." He looked at you incredulously, you could just see the cogs in his brain working hard to process what the hell he was seeing. 

You looked back at Wilbur, he had stopped struggling slightly and was instead looking at you with a hint of confusion shining through the crazed daze. Mexican Dream tilted his head, the mask skewing slightly to the side of his face. "Thank you, Wilbur. You've shown me that there's… there's more to this hellhole than suffering. There's beauty in the darkness." His struggling had come to a complete halt, now staring at you with the most confusion you've ever seen from him. You also saw a very small hint of fear from deep within his irises.

A calloused hand gripped your chin and forced you to look back at your twin. "What are you on," he hissed lowly, "the stuff that's comin outta your mouth right now is actually batshit insane. He almost just permanently murked you and you're fucking thanking him." 

"I haven't felt this at ease in nearly two decades. I feel ethereal, Schlatt, and it's all thanks to him." You let your eyes drift over to Wilbur. Giving him a content smile, you nodded your thanks at him.

The next few days went by tensely for the others, eyeing your every move and keeping you away from the ledge. You had only peered over the ledge once since then, it was just so alluring to you. It was nothing, yet everything at the same time. Mexican Dream had pulled you back to the opposite end of the room by your horns. The part that disturbed the three men was that you said absolutely nothing about it. You didn't even struggle against it, you just laid limp and let it happen. 

With each passing second you spent away from the void, the feeling of utter peace was rapidly draining from your body; instead being replaced by icy fear, paranoia, and the realization that you were almost completely swallowed whole by the void. 

After coming back to your senses, you didn't allow anybody near you. Your instincts going haywire and screaming that they were going to hurt you if they came close. The last time Schlatt tried touching you, you damn near took his finger off. They didn't bother trying to approach you anymore, instead glancing at you from the corners of their eyes. Wilbur was perhaps the one you feared the most, you knew that if he didn't hesitate to toss you away the first time, he would surely do it a second time. He spent most of his time staring at you, you didn't know if he was zoned out or not.

Everybody was against you, you knew it. You just knew it. They were plotting to toss you back into the void. That thing- or was it an entity? Whatever it was held a power over you that you didn't know was possible. That trance that it put you in, the craving you felt, was something that was repeating like a broken record in your mind. You could still feel the void calling out to you, it was terrifying. 

You spent most of the time huddled in your corner staring at the fingers that had grazed the textured nothingness. You could still feel the buzzing and popping of the power on your fingertips, that inky residue staining your skin wouldn't come off. No matter how hard you scrubbed, scratched, or scraped, it would not leave your body. It was freezing.

The oncoming train screeching to a gradual stop was perhaps the only thing you fully acknowledged outside of your safety bubble in days. You watched in shock as it stopped at the platform. The doors opened with a fwoosh, fog pouring out onto the smooth stone floors. 

Out stepped Dream, the smile etched into his cracked mask sent chills to your core. Next to him was… was another Wilbur? How in the name of Ender was that even possible? 

This Wilbur was different though. This one was desaturated. This one didn't have an insane glint in his eyes, this one had grief shimmering in the tears that steamed on his cheeks. This one was broken compared to the well established man against the wall. This one was defenseless. 

Dream shoved him to the center of the room, the man falling to his hands and knees. Sobs escaped his mouth as steam left his skin and drifted along the sides of his face before dissolving into the air. 

"Got a new plaything for you guys, this one isn't as… fun as Wilbur is though." Dream's head turned towards you before it tilted. "What happened there? Did our dear little (y/n) get too close to the void?" 

"They are none of your concern, pandejo," Mexican Dream seethed at his counterpart from his position next to the train. "Why are you even here, man?"

"Oh, I'm just here to make a trade. I'm afraid that I'll have to give you guys Ghostbur here in exchange for Wilbur."

Wilbur stared at him with pure hope and glee springing up in his eye for the first time in over a decade. "Really?" 

Dream chuckled, "yes, really. What, do you really think I'd lie to you?" 

"I don't know, ya smiley freak. You've been known to fuck people over." Schlatt scoffed, his ear flicking in annoyance. 

"I'm telling the truth this time. Wilbur, come with me." 

Stars shone in his eyes as he reveled in the sight of the open train doors. He followed the masked man with a skip in his step, ecstatic giggles leaving his mouth as he boarded. 

Anger flooded you as you purse your lips together and you darted towards the train. The doors were closing already, if you could just- 

The door shut with a clank, blocking you from freedom. Your clenched fists banged against the window, glowering at the sight of Wilbur's happiness and Dream looking at you with a wave.

"You fucking bastard! Take me, he doesn't deserve it! He threw his goddamned life away, you're wasting your time with him!" Your angry shouts were ignored by the two however as the train once again started moving with a small hiss. 

A frustrated scream left your mouth as you pummeled the iron with your fists as it moved. If only you could find a train car to jump onto- 

Now. You leapt from the platform towards the junction between two of the train cars. However, your leap of faith was set to a halt midair by Schlatt holding your upper arms. You thrashed against him, desperate to get back to the land of the living, desperate to leave this godforsaken hell called the afterlife, but once again, you were torn away from what you were trying to achieve. 

You fell limp as you watched the last train car pass the platform and disappear down the tracks and into the void. The next possible time it would show it’s face would be in a few months if you were lucky. You let him take you back to your corner, your feet limply being drug against the floor. After you were plopped back down, you stared at the clone of your ex. You were pretty sure Dream said that his name was ‘Ghostbur’. What a strange name, yet you supposed that it was fitting for Wilbur’s apparition. 

“Are ya done with your little ‘moment’, (y/n)?” Schlatt was kneeling in front of you, his hands prepared to grab you if you made a run for it. Though his tone was annoyed, you could detect the very small worried undertone of his voice. 

You nodded and watched as he took a seat next to you, also staring at the newcomer. This is the closest he’s sat next to you in years. 

“...What do you think of the clone over there?” You hummed to yourself, “he looks pathetic, but I think that might be the only thing he and Wilbur share.” 

Mexican Dream took a seat next to you, slinging an arm over your shoulders. Normally, you would’ve shrugged him off, but you were too emotionally drained to do so. “Si, he does look kinda weak. But I think our new hombre here has promise.” 

“Promise for what?” Schlatt snorted. Mexican Dream hesitated, “...I don’t know. This is gonna be interesting, mis amigos.” 

“The party’s just begun, boys. Buckle up, this is gonna be a wild fucking ride.” You mused to them, unsure of what the future would hold with the newcomer. Though after a couple of years, you were sure you were going to hate him; that is if he’s nothing like his clone. Ender help you if he’s anything like Wilbur. 

As you stared at the broken man, you couldn’t help but wonder: why did he get to go back? As far as you were concerned, psychopaths like him do not deserve a second chance at life. If anything, it should be you boarding that train. It should be you getting a second chance. He was the one that so readily threw his life away while you had yours ripped away from you.

One continuous thought was circling in your mind: why couldn’t it have been me?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You wrung your hands together as you anxiously waited for Tommy, Ghostbur, and Friend outside of Pandora’s Vault. Ranboo and Tubbo sat next to you in the grass, giving you silent comfort with their presence. You were mainly worried for your boyfriend, his worst fear was Dream using the resurrection book on him. You had calmed him down from a panic attack prior to meeting up with the teenagers, begging him to let you go in his place. Of course, Ghostbur being the caring and brave soul he was, wove you off and ensured that he’d be okay. 

When you saw someone emerging from the portal, you leapt to your feet and steadied your head on your shoulders before you examined the people emerging. Except you only saw a human and a sheep, no ghost. 

Tommy looked pale and on the verge of tears as he led Friend towards you. Before he spoke, he used his sleeve to wipe at his tears. 

“Hey, Tommy! How did it- where’s Ghostbur?” The enderman hybrid stretched his usually slouched back to peer at the portal, keen eyes searching for any sign of movement. 

“I think he’s dead… He’s dead!” 

Tubbo tilted his head and looked up at the blond in confusion, “well, yeah. He’s a ghost. Of course he’s dead.” Ranboo nodded in agreement, “yeah, he can’t die again. That just isn’t possible.”

You said nothing (not like you could in the first place, your head wasn’t connected to your body), looking into Tommy’s eyes inquisitively. They were chock full of panic, grief, and fear, staring down at the lead in his clenched hands. 

“No, no you don’t understand, it’s not that he’s dead… it’s that Wilbur’s back.”

“Hold on, the Wilbur that blew up L’Manberg? That Wilbur?” Ranboo peered down at him incredulously. “Yes! C’mon, he- we gotta get to L’Manberg.” 

He spun around and led Friend towards L’Manberg, walking quickly with a purpose. You, Ranboo, and Tubbo followed. You hugged your head close to your chest, your eyes peeking over your arms. It was always something you’ve done whenever you were scared or worried about something. You heard stories about Wilbur from your nephew, if the stories of his insanity terrified you, you’d hate to see the man in person. 

“I was about to kill Dream, and- and Ghostbur died. Dream revived Wilbur… Fuck!” Tommy walked faster, L’Manberg far off in the distance. With one hand, you grabbed the blond’s attention and finger spelled, ‘are you serious? He’s actually gone?’

“Yes! How many times do I have to explain this?! Ghostbur isn’t with us anymore and Wilbur’s back. Wilbur’s back and we’re absolutely fucked.” He turned on his heel and resumed his beeline towards the crater in the wall. No, he couldn’t be gone. This was just a cruel prank they were pulling on you, right? 

Tubbo put a comforting hand on your shoulder, giving you a small sympathetic smile. You leaned into his touch slightly and carried on, stepping into the makeshift staircase behind Tommy. 

You moved your arms to cover your eyes as you stepped aside to make room for the other two teenagers. You heard a voice; it sounded exactly like Ghostbur’s voice, yet it sounded... off. You however remained hopeful and uncovered your eyes. 

The man that stood there certainly wasn’t your boyfriend. Everything about him was just so wrong. The emotion in his eyes, his clothing, his smile, his stance, his hair, everything. This was a completely different person. This was Wilbur Soot. 

“Hello again.” His eyes flicked around your group, his gaze lingering on you for longer than the rest. You noticed that he was staring at your neck, but that was okay. You were used to it; everybody did that. What you weren’t used to was the revulsion that flashed in his eyes. The eyes that once lovingly stared at you and reassured you that he’d love you even with your… condition were now filled with disgust. 

That was what broke you, the tears that you tried to hold in came streaming out like a waterfall. Stinging pain hit you as the water worked its way through the cloth of your uniform onto your arms, leaving steam floating upwards towards the cave ceiling. You phased through Ranboo’s body and made a mad dash towards your sister’s house. You needed her, you could feel a panic attack brewing inside you. Usually you would hate to be a bother to your older sister and Ghostbur would always calm you down, but now he’s…

You pushed that thought aside and focused completely on getting to Puffy’s house in the distance. You phased through the door without a thought to knock, frantically beginning your search for Puffy. 

You looked everywhere, but you couldn’t find her. Unable to cope any longer, you fell to your knees in the middle of the living room and hugged your head to your chest, your face being pushed against your uniform. Your shoulders shook with silent painful sobs, the only sound in the room being the sizzling of your skin. 

Why couldn’t it have been you? It should be Ghostbur standing there in that cavern, not Wilbur. This was completely your fault, you should’ve gone instead of him. You should’ve volunteered quicker than he did, you shouldn’t have let him talk you into it with his soothing words. Now because of your complete and utter cowardice, he was stuck in the afterlife once again. You were never going to see him any time soon. Your other half was ripped away from you because of your inaction. 

Between sobs, your lips repeatedly formed the same phrase: why couldn’t it have been me?

General taglist (comment if you want to be added):

@crybabyjabby  @izzybobizzy13  @goldenstarofthunderclan  @bunnyz-pxstel  @averytiredfanfictionwriter  @dcml04  @sparkling-gayyyy  @bbigbbrainn  @thaticecreambish  @kiinokochii  @satansphatass  @bxkubitch  @bxmentchildxx  @roxy3457  @montygator17  @feverish-dove  @the-fictionwriters-hairdo  @jichuuchaeng  @404rynnotfound  @luluwinchester  @laura--444  @the-cult-classic-bitch  @youngstarfishdinosaur  @nottheotheruser  @ohworm-writes  @localwolfanon  @realitycanbeajerk  @v10dw4lk3r  @esylwen  @seraphsema  @boiled-onionrings

GN reader taglist (comment if you want to be added):

@twitchchatvroom  @parkeepingparker

#wilbur soot x reader #ghostbur x reader #jschlatt x reader #mexican dream x reader #dream smp x reader #mcyt x reader #tw: swearing #tw: death #tw: near death #tw: blood #tw: panic attack #tw: violence #tw: injury #tw: grief

[angeloncewas]

Wilbur was always collateral damage (/rp)

I saw a post discussing how Punz killed Wilbur 2/3 times - despite them not having any canon interaction - and while that is funny, it got me thinking about the implications.

When Dream went on his tirade about Tommy being the linchpin to the server's attachment, how he needs Tommy alive and how much fun they've had together, some people pointed out Dream's declaration of war. In it, he emphatically calls out for Tommy, while Wilbur, the actual leader of L'manberg and the revolution, is mentioned almost as an afterthought. Even Dream's mocking "L'man-child-berg" speaks to a focus on Tommy (the child) above all else.

Dream and Tommy are (to each other) antagonist versus protagonist. Tommy is a normal person and doesn’t think that way (i.e. refusing to see Tubbo as a pawn), but Dream fully does. We see in retrospect that his fixation on destroying L'manberg was secondary to his ploys for control; of the server, yes, but also of Tommy himself. Tommy's life needed to be in Dream's hands and he took it three times over. (Twice in the context of L'manberg.)

So how fitting is it that Wilbur (the actual leader, the person Tommy followed) was killed twice for war, just like Tommy, but both were done by Dream's mercenary. Wilbur needed to be taken care of at times, but he was never important enough to be handled by Dream himself.

The fact that Wilbur died exclusively by Punz's hired hand (other than the final Phil death) fits perfectly. While to us he was a complex character - a struggling ex-president - to Dream he was simply a temporary roadblock. He stood right in the way of Dream's ultimate goals and his life at any given moment was just a loose end to tie up for some extra expense.

#dream smp #wilbur soot #dreamwastaken #yeah im thinking about pogtopia even though it was 5 months ago #...it was 5 months ago #head in hands #angel analyzes #death tw #two analyses in a day pog #q-ed

[balillee]

for dark, twisted and evil purposes, here's a list of all of the traumatic events c!tommy has witnessed, experienced or has been a part of:

- has had his life taken twice by dream during the war for independence, and the instance in the control room led him to having a panic attack upon his return there.

- has fought in multiple wars, including but not limited to the initial disc war, the war for independence, the manberg vs pogtopia war, and doomsday (if that's counted as a war and not just the server's version of an intentional chernobyl)

- has witnessed his best friend's death twice, once at the hands of someone he looked up to who proceeded to claim that he was peer pressured into it despite literally massacring a crowd of innocents just following that.

- was gaslit and abused by dream during his exile, and then was radicalised and never properly healed from his trauma when he was with techno.

- has watched the country he founded and died for get blown up not once, not twice, but three times.

- on the second occasion, he had to watch his older brother and role model get stabbed by his own father per his request.

- had a front row seat to techno's encouragement of wilbur's downward spiral in pogtopia, and couldn't really do anything about it. had to spend months in a ravine with someone who wasn't quite wilbur, but someone who looked like the brother he remembered fondly.

- following his very justified outburst at techno following one of the deaths of his best friend, wilbur told techno to beat tommy to death in a pit.

- has had his home exploded.

- was disrespected and not at all listened to by techno when the two lived together briefly.

- had to lead a rebellion against a tyrannical dictator, who was being backed up by the server's version of god.

- had sacrificed his most prized possessions for his friend's freedom and safety, only for him to be regarded as a violent instigator, and not someone who actually often opted to resolve things peacefully when he could.

- techno has tried to kill him on multiple occasions, most notably when he spawned withers on l'manberg the first time. also has made many threats on his life and his country.

- was exiled by his best friend who was being manipulated by an evil 'deity'.

- has almost killed himself on multiple occasions.

- has been insulted by techno multiple times for wanting to be the hero, when all he wants is to live happily and without the fear of dying or without the fear of conflict anymore.

- watched the ghost of his older brother get stabbed in a failed resurrection attempt, and when asked whether or not it's a good idea, all he could say was 'Alivebur wasn't so poggers'. was visibly and audibly uncomfortable, and when it appeared as if even ghostbur wasn't coming back, lashed out at phil and had to leave to avoid an apparent anxiety attack.

- was told that wilbur's explosion of l'manberg was his fault, despite actively working to prevent it.

- has been blamed for the trauma that wilbur dispensed onto the pogtopians like a fucking gumball machine.

- has people actively planning to either take him down or murder him because of misconceptions.

- has been abused or traumatised by most, if not all of the adult figures in his life, who seem to only be capable of 'teaching him a lesson' by killing him, threatening him, or destroying everything he has, and are then suprised when he lashes out.

- has been betrayed multiple times by dream, wilbur, phil, tubbo and techno respectively, and while he can't physically make amends with wilbur, and he shouldn't make amends with dream, nor should he he forced to reconcile with phil and techno, he still tries to protect tubbo.

- has been the subject of vitriol from most characters and has become a scapegoat for war crimes and terrorism on the server.

- as a teenager, has become a war veteran and a political puppet.

- he is afraid to speak out about his trauma that he experienced in exile to others, even tubbo.

- is in the middle of training to fight god.

- has become too tired to continue arguing whether or not he's a war criminal and a terrorist, because it's happened so often, and he's trying to renounce the power that the perceptions of others have over him.

- has lost multiple emotional support animals, most notably henry.

and despite ALL OF THAT, he's trying to be a better person. he's milder in demeanor, he's polite in that he asks for things, will apologise to people even if they may not deserve it, he gifts people things, and he refuses to take apologies from the people that have wronged him - likely because of self-loathing.

i will protect this sixteen year old with my life, and i will enjoy mutilating his stubborn adversaries.

#dream smp #dsmp #dream smp headcanon #dream smp meme #dsmp meme #tommyinnit #dsmp headcanon #dream smp theory #dsmp theory

[wasflypaw]

Like, early L'Manberg really shows they needed eachother and why exactly the nation existed

When Niki's fox died, she went to another L'Manbergian, Tommy, because she knew she probably wouldnt have been able to do anything herself. And Tommy got Tubbo, and all three planned a way to get Sapnap to apologise by taking Mars and Beckerson

When Dream played Mellohi and Tommy and Tubbo fought for the disc back, not only did Niki stand by them after telling Tommy earlier she'll help him with his disc war but Jack, who was nearby, saw Tommy and Tubbo getting killed and immediately ran over to help. Individually these people wouldnt have stood a chance against Dream but the 4 of them together managed to outsmart him into thinking he had The Real Spirit and win the war that day

(Tommy demanding an apology from Sapnap for killing Niki's fox the next day when Niki was unsure whether to ask)

Fundy and Niki during the Pet War. Niki and Fundy sticking together the entire time. Niki hiding Beelloon as Fundy tries to convince Sapnap not to kill Niki's pets. Fundy refusing to back down during the duel, giving up pretty much everything (which Sapnap later gave back) to finish the Pet War and give Niki her fish back.

Tommy and Tubbo joining later on when they thought Fundy was being attacked, Fundy telling them Kinda Lies about Punz being the one in the wrong and Punz hurt bees. (Fundy had burned Punz's bee. Punz explained this to Tommy n Tubbo after Fundy left later on) With Tommy n Tubbo saying "Dont Fuck with L'Manberg's bees!" and helping Fundy fight Punz, managing to get Punz's items which they said they'd return the next day after Punz explained the situation

Very rarely did a L'Manbergian EVER fight a fight alone.

#dream smp

[faebriel]

i’d love to hear abt that first modern au you mentioned (the Niki centric one)

link to where the au was mentioned here! going to say big content warning for suicide on this one because it is literally about c!wilbur's suicide in a modern au context

oh yeah that one is freaking tragic. okay so essentially the original l'manberg crew all lived near each other and were good friends in relative late teens-early twenties harmony (i imagined this fic being set in aust because of course i did... more on that later) and wilbur ends up working in electoral offices. unfortunately for as much as he loves politics, politics does not love him back - he has a lot of deep-seated issues with anxiety and paranoia which only exacerbate with the stress he takes on at work. after taking on some big new role he moves across the country with tommy, who manages to drag tubbo with them. niki and fundy make him promise to stay in touch and predictably he does not. the few times niki does manage to get a hold of him, he's evasive; when fundy yells at him over the phone, he does little to disparage the insults. the rest of so-called l'manberg moves apart.

and then wilbur dies.

it is extremely bad. the only friends or family to speak of that wilbur had in his new home were tommy and tubbo - tubbo is very barely keeping things together enough to sort out paperwork and funeral proceedings and the other grim administration that follows an unexpected death, and tommy is not keeping things together at all. the news rocks the far-flung members of their once-little family. wilbur had been distant, maybe down on himself - but no one expected him to kill himself. niki didn't. niki had just trusted that this was some adjustment period and he would be okay and wilbur would start replying to her texts again or maybe even move back and it would be okay. this wasn't supposed to be the end. the news absolutely wrecks her, and she can't tell how much of her is sad and how much of her is angry and how much of her is a fucked up combination of both - a seething mass of barely-held-back tears and shouting.

niki, who had moved back to their childhood city in the interim, books a flight across the state to go see tommy and tubbo for the funeral. she is alarmed and pissed off to run into phil and techno at the airport, on the very same flight as her - wilbur's dad and his uhh techno (dad's friend? brother-ish-person? acquaintance? no one could get a consistent story out of them). they're not super happy to run into her and her attitude either - wilbur had not been close with his family even while l'manberg operated as a unit, and niki had made her judgements of his family accordingly. in a very c!niki way. i.e. with stubborn vindictiveness. if wilbur was struggling so much that even she didn't realise the severity until it was too late, where was his family?

phil and techno, on the other side of the coin, had figured that wilbur's friends were nothing to be impressed with - especially given wilbur's apparent struggles with mental health that kind of blindsided them. where were his friends? i'm assuming they might have taken an incidental reputation hit in letters wilbur wrote to phil as he tried to stress that everything in his life was going Perfectly.

(niki blames phil and techno because the alternative means that she has to blame herself. she needs to lash out at something to survive! phil and techno blame wilbur's friends (not just niki, she's just the one who is standing there...) because the alternative means blaming themselves. they're all being a bit shitty and spewing these unfair takes on each other because no one can cope with the idea that it's their fault their friend/son died.)

anyway airport! they snip and bitch their way at each other through check-in until it happens that the flight is indefinitely delayed due to freak weather or something - but all three of them need to cross the country by like, early next week to make it to the funeral. they do not have time for flight delays.

so eyeing each other with suspicion - and knowing damn well they are going to the exact same place - they trundle over to the hire car service, and find a wagon available for them to hire right away.

the catch is (probably because niki is too young to hire a car on her own. sorry niki) they have to hitch a ride together.

(okay circling back to the australia setting thing! imagine niki, phil and techno living in sydney, and wilbur, tommy and tubbo moving to perth. driving from sydney to perth and vice versa is A Thing, although it's far less common now due to air fares becoming more accessible. y'know driving across the nullabor? it's like, that plus the little bit between adelaide and sydney. if you're gunning it (for example, if you have three drivers to tag-team between), you can make it from sydney to perth in 3 and a half days. now, you'd probably only want to go that fast for something really important, like if you were driving to a friend's funeral with his shitty family who you've decided that you hate.)

oh, also they find a kid in the parking lot who begs them to take him with them when they tell him that the flight was cancelled - he's in an absolute tizzy because his online friend has had something really bad happen, like really bad, and he impulsively bought a plane ticket because he needs to go see him now now now. they let ranboo in because they're so nice and also because techno peer pressures him into stealing them potato chips for the road or something idk

anyway! hence ensues three and a half days of bonding as niki, phil and techno are stuck in a car with nothing but each other and their grief (and ranboo). they talk about wilbur. they realise there are things one of them knew about wilbur that the others didn't. they watch stars stream past as they constantly drive and the sunrise spill over the sand when they pause at a rest stop to get more food and water. they share different parts of wilbur's life that they were each there for - phil has the baby stories, but niki has every stupid anecdote from uni. they bond with each other independent of wilbur. niki and techno talk about baking and try to kick each other in the sand when they stop to stretch their legs. ranboo sees a kangaroo for the first time (how?). phil reveals the absolute blowout fight he and wilbur had shortly before wilbur died and for the first time since the phone call from fundy, niki doesn't blame someone for his death

i'm just thinkin.....they've stopped for the night out in the middle of nowhere, its an endless orange dustbowl as far as the eye can see, night sky stretching up above them. they're miles away from anything but a petrol station, and the stars are brilliantly bright. and someone just says, "wilbur would have loved this"

eventually they do make it across the country - right on time, they have to take turns getting changed into their funeral blacks in the back of the car as the others guard the windows - and they're tentatively, but permanently, friends. and then they can grieve.

(and yes, the second they find tommy and tubbo in the crowd, ranboo comes out of nowhere to scoop tubbo up into a hug and ask if he's alright - because yes, the world is That Fucking Small.)

anyway. i imagine it being a very melancholic piece - very fraught tone at the beginning as everyone is grieving and can't handle that so they shove all their grief and confusion into anger and shove it at each other, picking petty fights until they realise they are literally not going to back it across if they don't pull their shit together. they try to get along, but the only thing they know they have in common is wilbur. and from there the assumptions spill out, followed by the corrections to those assumptions, then the stories, then how they're all feeling... eventually they settle on the fact that, well, wilbur's dead. they can kick around who they blame and whose fault it is (including their own) for the rest of their lives, and it's never going to bring them back. so instead, they lean on each other - knowing extremely keenly what each other is going through as they process all that cloudy confusion and anger and devastation in the direct aftermath so they can all properly grieve, and properly lay wilbur to rest.

#thank you for asking about this one nonnie <3 #honestly this is one i've gone yeah i'm never writing that because it just makes me way too sad and hits a little too close to home #but that image of all of them standing out on the red sand under the stars talking about wilburs memory is special to me #so uh coughs. no angst free modern au from me sorry #asks #tw suicide

[appleflavoredkitkats]

Notable Angsty Fundy Quotes From his Stream “My Curse”

Do you think I’m an idiot? Of course I replaced the bed, of course I did! I tried everything!

I saw Ghostbur… but… but… you know, he was different. It was not- It- I don’t know.

I wanna move, I wanna get the hell out of here, I don’t wanna be here anymore. I set up a little cart and I’m just gonna leave. I am done with this place. I AM DONE. WITH WHATEVER IS HAUNTING ME. I wanna take what matters and leave.

*looking at L'Manhole* Oh my god. Why? What has happened, man? What has happened to this place, what happened to anything? What ha- why? Why must everything have gone the way that it had?

*referencing L'Manberg* It used to be beautiful. I used to not have nightmares about this place, I had dreams, I had hopes. I was following in their footsteps trying to… be the best that I could.

Phil, can I be honest with you? There’s this thing alright? There’s this thing that has been happening to me for, I don’t know, the past six, seven days where I- I just haven’t been able to close an eye because- not because I’m bad at sleeping, but because every time I fall asleep, Phil, I- I- *sigh* I don’t know what I’m experiencing man. I need help. I’ve been seeing people, I’ve been talking to people that I don’t know- I’ve been seeing stuff that- it’s gonna sound fucking stupid but- but- I’ve been- I…

The first time it happened, I was in this wasteland. I was- I was- I saw the van, Phil, I saw the van. Like, three, four times! Every time I left, it kept appearing in front of me again. And- and, Wil- He was in the van. He was there. I SAW MYSELF, PHIL.

I saw him in the van, Phil, I saw him in the van and I passed it once, twice, three times, and then he wasn’t there. The last time, it was continuously the same van and then it was gone! He’s just always been there, then he vanished! They’re so SURREAL, Phil! I literally, just, it stressed me the FUCK out!

He died, no. No no no! No no no no, I wasn’t there, but I know what happened! Don’t fuck with me.

HOW THE FUCK DID THAT HAPPEN? WHAT HAPPENED? HOW CAN YOU JUST REVIVE? HE JUST- WHAT HAPPENED, HOW?

*slams table while sobbing* WHY? *more sobbing* He should NOT BE REVIVEd? DO YOU KNOW WHAT HE’S DONE? LOOK AT THE PLACE. HE’S BLOWN IT- HE STARTED EVERYTHING. EVERYONE WAS FRIENDLY, HE STARTED L'MANBERG, I WAS BORN THERE. I WAS BORN IN A PLACE THAT HE BLEW UP HIMSELF… why is he back? WHY? WHY?!

WHAT THE FUCK DOES DREAM HAVE TO DO WITH IT? WHY THE FUCK WOULD HE DO THAT?

*insert sobbing here, and maybe a sniffle, and another sob, another sniffle*

HE IS MY FATHER! And- *incoherent sobbing*

I’m scared, Phil.

What if he’s just completely different? What if he was not the same… dad that used to, you know, care about me? The same person that raised me on the grounds of L'Manberg when it still stood mighty and glorious. What if he’s… I don’t know what- Thirteen years… he can be completely different.

I need him to be, you know… *laughs bitterly* I don’t wanna see him but I really do! It’s… *sobbing* I want him to be gone, but at the same time, I just really just…  I want him to be there for me again…

Schlatt died. Wil… got killed. And Wil was writing you messages, uhm, but leaving out… Why would he leave them out? Why would he specific- there’s no reason to do that- why would you-

He’s the man who likes to make as much fun in life as possible, and what is more fun than lying to his own father?

Why would he leave out such a giant part in history?

Phil, listen to me, I don’t think Wil is telling you the truth at all. I’m afraid he’s leaving out HUGE parts.

I don’t know- I DON’T KNOW ANYMORE! There’s so many questions and Wil just doesn’t show up? We have like 20, 000 questions Phil, and this is not even about just you and me. This is about everything! He lied to you. Dream revived him for… whatever reason. He’s not showing up, why is he not showing up?

Phil I- I’m scared.

I don’t know what’s gonna happen when we see him. I don’t know what he’s gonna be like. I don’t know- I don’t know, I just want it to be Wil. I just want it to be the person that I remembered. The person I have good memories of. Not the… Not… Not the other… not the other person.

Thirteen years- he’s been pranking, he’s been having some fun. Maybe he’s had time to think as well, and he’s been able to write letters… Surely he’s just going to be the… good ol’ Wil… surely… right?

Well, stay strong, I guess?

Take care, Phil.

Considering my dreams, considering what I’ve seen, days ago, I saw Wil in the van, in the desert. The dreams that I’ve had on my own- they’ve been terrifying, and every single time I see him, and last time it wasn’t him, and now we have Phil telling me Wilbur’s back?

Chat, at the start of the day I wanted to say “Let’s start a new chapter!” but… I don’t think this one has ended. *shoots an arrow at TNT*

This is gonna be a fuck fest, this is gonna be insane.

#mcyt #dream smp #fundy #long post #wilbur soot #philza

[blockgamepirate]

Guys guys guys

The three lives thing can't be just about any deaths that are plot related, not even dramatic ones. The canon deaths have to actually have a plot function as a loss.

(ftr I've seen multiple people suggest all of these, I'm not just vagueblogging about anyone specific. Also I haven’t actually seen the clip of Wilbur talking about it yet, I just saw the original reddit post.)

So, Tommy and Techno fist fighting in the pit is plot relevant and dramatic but Tommy dying just signified him losing the fight. That can't be a canon death, that makes no sense. It was clearly just Techno knocking Tommy out. He didn't literally murder the kid with his fists in a fight that was mainly for letting Tommy let out some steam, Niki and Tubbo at least would have had a bigger reaction if so because that would just be super fucked up.

It also wouldn’t make sense for Techno to do since he was trying to stop the in-fighting (I say “trying” because he clearly doesn’t actually know how to do that like a reasonable person.)

Wilbur getting shot while escaping L'Manberg after being exiled happened during a dramatic, plot heavy scene but him dying wasn't plot relevant and it sure as hell wasn't dramatic enough in itself to count as a canon death. The scene was dramatic, Wilbur getting shot was dramatic, but the actual death was just treated as a temporary setback, not an actual loss of life. IIRC nobody even said Wilbur died, nobody reacted like he'd died. I'd interpret it as him getting shot and being badly wounded, which actually works really well in the scene, especially how he ends up hiding in a hole waiting for Tommy to come pick him up. That makes sense if he’s too weak from bloodloss to walk by himself.

I also think you could easily see the scene where the walls are torn down happening the next day when he's recovered a bit so he's able to walk back to L'Manberg on his own.

(This is getting long, time for a cut)

I'd even argue that Tubbo was the only one to die at the festival, everybody else was only wounded. Potentially horrifically so but still not dead. Schlatt and Quackity got hit by the rockets and maybe Techno even thought he'd killed them but I don't think he did, they didn't react to their deaths almost at all. Imagine if he'd actually killed them, you'd think they'd at least be like what the fuck Technoblade. Also Niki got shot in the crossfire too but nobody said anything about Techno killing her. I think she got hit but survived. I think the people in the audience who died were all actually just incapacitated. Otherwise there should have been consequences, people should be actually angry or grieving the fact that they’re a step closer to death.

You can tell that Tubbo's death was canonical by how it was taken so seriously, much more so than anyone else's deaths.

Similarly Tommy's death in the duel against Dream: Wilbur said to him before the duel that independence wasn't worth him losing his life or something along those lines: that made his death actually impactful, the narrative weight put on his decision to challenge Dream.

I don't know what the other canon deaths would be, besides Wilbur and Jschlatt's permanent ones obv. Eret's betrayal is a good candidate, although I don't think it necessarily has to be since the betrayal itself was the focus of the scene and was impactful enough as is even if all that happened was that they were beaten up and had their gear taken. Techno assassinating Tubbo after the revolution also could be one but doesn't necessarily have to be, it was definitely a JFK moment but the scene would still work if it was just a Reagan moment (bc Reagan was shot and severely injured but survived, you know). In any case it can't be both since Tubbo would be properly dead. (It could also be neither.)

My point is, it's kind of driving me nuts seeing people just count everything plot related or dramatic as a canon death. You can have dramatic moments where nobody dies. In fact that could even make them more dramatic in some cases:

Imagine a wounded Wilbur leaning on Tommy as they struggle through the wilderness. Imagine Tommy lying on the ground, gasping, his vision still blurry from the punches as Techno calmly climbs out of the pit to talk to a satisfied Wilbur. How would either of those scenes be more dramatic if they'd died and respawned instead? They'd just lose a sense of groundedness in my opinion. And it would just be unsatisfying because nobody reacted to the fact that a character just lost a life.

The point of canon deaths, as far as I see it, is to give an in-universe reason for why some deaths have weight to them. It gives death consequences. But for that to work, the canon deaths have to be seen by the characters as deaths, as something being irreparably lost. And it has to be rare to keep its effect.

#dream smp #dreamsmp #tommyinnit #technoblade #tubbo #wilbur soot

[embermc]

c!Jack Manifold, the things that happen to him, and his trauma are so often forgotten and that's honestly really, really sad.

To me, a large part of what makes up Jack's character is that sense of being constantly forgotten about, pushed aside, or invalidated in general. And while it's most likely not intentional or malicious from any other character's end, I feel like it's a large part of what caused his spiral, his built-up rage and frustration with the world around him, and what caused him to irrationally direct all of this rage onto c!Tommy, or other things he sees as the "cause" of his problems. He felt like he was forgotten by both Manberg and Pogtopia, despite being one of the original members of L'manberg, this belief stemming from a lot of miscommunication as he wasn't aware of the full situation. He died on November 16th because it was forgotten which side he was on. c!Dream treated him as a means to an end, burning some of his property in order to cause rising tensions in L'manberg.

Canon deaths on the server are usually very meaningful, and are treated with respect and sometimes even memorialized by other characters. But with c!Jack Manifold? All three of his canon deaths were moved past incredibly quickly by everyone around him, and weren't lingered on at all. Sometimes, they were even laughed off. (Considering two of the people who took one of his canon lives were in a terrible, awful mental state at the time, it's not entirely their fault, but in c!Jack's eyes, he doesn't know this).

But specifically, it's often not recognized that c!Jack canonically died on Doomsday, by the characters. Whenever Doomsday is brought up in lore, characters try to talk about how it was a "good thing," and how "nobody got hurt." Like in Techno's "The Favor" stream, when Doomsday was brought up, the characters tried to defend the event by saying that nobody died, or that nobody was hurt, and only property was damaged. But c!Jack did die. c!Jack was murdered trying to defend a nation that he wasn't even part of, his friends' nation, and had his third canon life taken away. He was sent to hell and had to crawl his way out, leaving him with a lot of trauma. When he gets stuck in nether portals and they glitch out to black for a second, he has panicked quite a few times, stating that he thought he had died and gone back to hell again. He's hurt, he's traumatized, he died, and yet it's never typically mentioned by anyone else or spoken about.

And then again, it's not really the fault of a lot of the characters. Because genuinely, a lot of them don't even know what happened with c!Jack, and therefore can't sympathize. In fact, it's another really interesting aspect of the Dream SMP narrative and how they work in instances of miscommunication. c!Jack's character is built off of a lot of instances of miscommunication, but unfortunately, that doesn't change the fact that, at least to him, he is still constantly forgotten about. And it leaves him in a state of hurt, of unresolved anger, and of complete loneliness because he truly feels as if nobody can understand him because nobody really knows or acknowledges what he's been through. And it's really, truly sad.

#dream smp #dsmp #jack manifold #c!jack manifold #tw death #tw trauma #tw hell mention #tw murder mention #c!dream critical (very minor but just for those who want to avoid discourse) #/rp