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cabinetduo · 2 years

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ctubbo characterization master post

Ok so I was thinking abt ctubbo and characterization and how a lot of the fandom doesn't rlly have a solid grip on him (no shade its not on here mainly) whether it's bcs of lack of interest or exaggeration and like fandom lense or whatever (he tends to kinda get fucked ovr in ensemble fics) and then I thought well we talk abt scary nuke violence tubbo vs uwu beeboy or whatever but I was thinking there's definitely more to it then that bcs sometimes when I'm writing even I'm super insecure abt my portrayl of ctubbo so ig this post is kind of like a breakdown using some of my fav ctubbo things for me that could b useful 4 others as well

(This might b a little unorganized and like unprofessional-!!i will misspell and abbreviate a lot srry!!-but it's tumblr so who cares just don't expect too much cohesiveness I am writing this to get my thoughts out mostly

[DISCLAIMER!! most of this is my personal interpretation of ctubbo seeing as that's what ctubbo is mostly, what u interpret him as, but also its a bunch of notes and common traits that I got from awesome ctubbo fans and I'm mainly making it 2 help me :) < I'm not linking canon examples and evidence bcs I'm lazy and fuck that alsooo I'll mainly b focusing on ctubbo individually and not his relationships and such

ctubbos humor

I'm gnna start w ctubbos humor and irony and that kinda stuff. So like w ctubbo and characterization a lot of times ppl will take traits or speaking habits from the streamer and apply them to the character which is common in the general mcyt fandom but w ctubbo it's esp common bcs of cctubbos whole "ctubbo is just me but if I was put into certain situations" which we've kinda moved past seeing as that thought process worked better in the earlier seasons before ctubbo was morw cctubbo and less a result of his circumstances, his experiences, and ctubblings drawing lines between things << this isn't my main focus rn tho there is a huge distinction between cc and ctubbo

To get to the point ctubbo is a pretty serious dude but also he's not, there's a fun middle ground that I like where ctubbos humor has definitely become darker as he's aged bcs of his circumstances. One of the best examples I can thing of is this line from elegy in eleven bars by ssootsprite

^^this definitely portrays ctubbos humor well imo, the dark irony and humor that often stems from taht fact that ctubbo will sometimes jsut do what he finds funny but usually those take form on a smaller scale if we want an actual cohesive character

ctubbo swiss army knife

Ive made a handful of posts abt this but one bit abt ctubbo that is often missed is the fact that he's been dehumanized throughout his story which led to him internalizing it not seeing himself as a person entirely, more like a tool for others or a means to an end. I love love dsmp au fics but something some of them miss out on is ctubbos urge to serve others which stems into two branches that I call safety and self

When in a dangerous situation or around someone that he's deemed dangerous ctubbo will instinctively shift to politeness and servitude occasionally its his follower instinct<<this is bcs of manburg specifically cschlatt though it was really instilled to him by cdream after the whitehouse fight (where he called him a follower) and the disc saga finale (called him a sidekick). This happens sometimes in canon but enough times for it to be a full blown like, thing my fav explanation of this is augustus evergreen by thatweirdguyinthebushes on ao3

The second facet "self" is more deep, it's ctubbos actual beliefs, that he's not worth anything if he's not doing something or his tendency to work as a means of avoiding emotion. He doesn't see himself as a person or a child, often forcing himself into the roll of an adult to meet a goal of serving others (his nlm presidency) < this also comes from Manburg but can also be tied to my fav quote "a good kid and a better spy" (not gnna go too into ctubbos spy mentality bcs that's a whole other essay LOL) after being repeatedly handed jobs that are not meant for kids, responsibities much larger than him, he internalized all of it and tied it to his self worth and how he sees himself

Fav FAVVVV example is this poem and art

by @/yellogazello which gets the point across by whacking u ovr the head w emotion and some ctubbo aesthetics that rlly do well 4 his character -> also I made 2 web weaves on all ^^^this if ur interested also I've got a bunch of analysis on it in #smpanalysis bcs it's my fave ctubbo is kind of naturally a follower but this isn't always a complete negative (see: the way he comfortably follows Tommy or the way he and Tommy willingly followed Wilbur- it isn't always an 100% bad thing but over the course of his life it's kind of been tainted

ctubbo logic brain

Tubbo "logic braining" something =/= him thinking logically it's him and his fucked up process that filters things through his weird logic that would make any stable person worried, his brain does flips to rationalize his own and others thought processes to make them make sense to him, it's the same kind of thinking that is responsible for his "safe people" its the same kind of thinking that makes him blame himself for things that were clearly out of his control. While ctubbo is often seen as a more "brain lead" character, most, hell, all of his core motivations are emotional >> the need to protect his loved ones, his people, the innocent, to live upto expectations, and so on. This ties into his protective sort of paranoid nature that he displays toward his loved ones that is sometimes misconstrued as controlling

A lot of ^^^^^ this can be tied to ctubbos relationship w attachments and belongings which is one of the dsmps overall themes, ctubbos logic being that attachment is irrational and only leads to being hurt but forming attachments and getting hurt against his better judgment

ctubbo and the nukes

One thing that is often lost in surface level depictions of ctubbo is the nuke plot. This is often used to characterize ctubbo as violent or immoral (which I won't deny he can be at times) but one key detail about ctubbos nukes is that they were always a last resort, no matter what he threatened or said he never ever wanted to use them, constantly emphasizing how crazy it was that he had access to so much power and how terrified he was of misusing it in the missing nuke stream w jack. ctubbo has always always been a peaceseeking character. Like w most things abt ctubbo there's a nice middle ground, though tubbo leans less towards chaotic and more towards solemn, esp when at an emotional low

The nukes hold a lot of symbolism for ctubbo and are often presented as an antithesis to the bee symbolism used for him > the nukes being him becoming more violent and straying from what is deemed moral as a defense mechanism, becoming worse than your enemies (stay soft by mitski etc) and the bees representing his innocence and the loss of it (a common theme w ctubbo and on the dsmp in general) tying to the more nature-y imagery that become professional/political in late s1 & 2 which then became technologybased and cold in s3 & 4

ctubbos emotional intelligence

Another thing that a lot of people miss about ctubbo is that he has very veryy little emotional intelligence. Post-Michael kidnapping and arguably pre-Michael kidnapping there was this (mildly popular) notion that ctubbo was together emotionally to the point where there were a lot of misunderstandings surrounding his actions but the thing is he isn't. When it comes to himself ctubbo is aware that he is effected by his trauma (he will often make references to it) but he never does anything about it, he views it as irritational and tends to compartmentalize and repress his emotions which often leads to him hurting himself and others. ctubbos responses to emotion range from pure apathy to overwhelming him to the point of tears (which we've seen once w the anniversary stream) He's also not very good with recognizing the emotions of others, while he is good at reading people and their intentions (mainly people he has close relationships with) he is generally extremely blunt sometimes to the point of hurting other people's feelings on accident which he usually apologizes for immediately afterwards. In fact, ctubbos bluntness and politeness are a fun contrast to experiment with if you're interested

With all of ^^^this stuff dissonance by shrugofgod does a rlly good job of this I'm just putting a small snippet but the entire fic is incredible w sm details and ctubbo intricacies it's so good

ctubbo survival and tragedy

ctubbo has survived a lot especially in comparison to other characters he is close to << that was badly worded, what I mean is a lot of the people in ctubbos life have died/were dead/are dead and he just isn't. Tragedy is a large part of ctubbo, if something is going right for him it will inevitably go wrong, things like stability don't exist for him, he doesn't trust it and why should he? His paranoia has consistently been proven to be justified over and over again. Dramatic irony is such a huge part of him, he's experienced so much and has survived through so much but its like he can't die and he has to live everytime.

I made a webweave abt this that pust cqs firey survival next to ctubbos cold survival, I think i do a better job explaining in the notes of that

And this post which is the best thing I've ever posted is basically a bunch of super talent tubblings who've written poetry abt this topic (and other ctubbo stuff but mainly this) if u wnna check it out

Most of these things can be heavily elaborated on (nature of the dsmp is to have incredible fleshed out characters that feel human and awesome and that make u crazy) but this is kinda a summary and I have others posts that kind of do that I just wanted to put all this in one place

More stuff ⬇️

This post is a succinct and well put ctubbo explanation/summary and a fave

And this post is wondas god tier dsmp characterism breakdown that will save ur life if ur a writer

This post is a fic recs post that has a lot of epic awesome dsmp writers but a lot of them write ctubbo bcs I'm biased

And finally here's a link to tubbo3091<3333 which a roleplay blog that has the most perfect ctubbo characterization ever in the world

#c!tubbo #dsmp #smp analysis #death ment tw #ask 2 tag lemme know if i missed n e thing

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losthomunculus · 2 years

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What's the instant hit ship that prompted your post and do you hate it?

im spoilering all the ship names so I don't show up in any of their tags but heed my warning for some (polite) criticism

hrmm ok I don't really hate it but I just cannot get into cyn*nari. ships that are created before we even meet a character tend to not land for me cause I dont really care about the character yet and I'm the type who likes to observe and psychoanalyze before I mash my metaphorical barbie doll's faces together.

I do kinda hate y*eyato tho cause when it cropped up it seemed people were using it to intentionally piss off eim*ko fans. which like I dont even have a problem with m/f yae it just seemed weirdly targeted the way some people were talking abt it. also again- we hadn't met ayato at that point. now it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth cuz of the drama.

ch*lumi is another one I really dislike but that's more into why I dislike a lot of m/f ships. I feel like there's an assumption that you can just put a man and woman next to each other and itll imply romance and it makes for very very lazy development. (that's like a big problem in shounen action I've noticed cause like obviously the romance isn't the focus but damn dude if you can develop an emotionally intimate relationship between 2 of the main guys at least give us something between who we're supposed to believe is in love.) also the fanworks I've seen for it seem.. overwhelmingly cishet.

even with my ships that are already gay I'm usually playing 4d interdimensional chess with their gender and whatnot, mostly cause I find my own gender to be something complex that I'm constantly exploring. so my assorted headcanons give me a playground to explore gender expression in a way that mirrors and contrasts to mine.

I think it can be very present when a m/f ship is queer. I've written my own m/f relationships that are palpably queer. Even if both parties are cis. Most ch*lumi content I've seen though? It's not that. which is really a shame cause even though I'm not really a traveler ship person and I really like childe and lumine as a platonic duo and I think I might like them as a ship if people made them gay as fuck. I'm more attached to other ships tho so I don't really care to get any sort of investment in that.

I can also tell when queer content is written by straight people sometimes which is just as bad lmfao. not saying straight people cant write gay romance, in fact I know many people find learn about their sexuality through writing so I fully endorse it, but you can usually tell when it's written by someone who is straight in a "I am conceptually okay with gay people but I have done nothing to unpack my beliefs that have occurred as a result of being raised in a cisheteronormative society" way. gay people are also fully capable of writing and thinking like this though so more literally I mean straight in like, a cultural/ideological way. if that makes any sense. Straight™

also definitely have seen the same thing in gender fics but I try not to be too judgemental cause like. I know half of the time their egg isn't cracked yet and they'll figure it out in a year or two. I've read several gender fics that start with the author saying "I'm not trans I just relate to their experiences" and lo and behold pronoun change in bio so like. yeah. let the chick hatch on it's own and all that.

I also dislike je*nluc for the same "people write them too cishet to have any appeal to me" reasons but also I personally headcanon diluc as gay so there's that.

also dont like b*nnett/f*schl/r*zor or any variations cuz I have my silly little siblings razor and fischl hc and then just. idk either of them with bennett doesn't really spark anything in me and it's one of those "I like them as friends so struggling to find platonic content of them has made me mildly annoyed" type deals.

no judgement to anyone who likes any of these ships of course! I think they're all perfectly fine even if they don't resonate with me on a personal level :^] except people who're into y*eyato for spite that's weird <3

I kinda got off track with that but <3 yeah

#long post #gi crockpot #askbox #anon

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