#c!tubbo critical

[ranboo5]

The Beeduo Meta

So, c!beeduo is unimaginably hard to analyse for the same reason the entire SMP is hard to analyse, especially in post-Doomsday DSMP when a lot more Offscreen Time became relevant: there are different backfilling assumptions. This is also complicated by the fact that it’s, well, a dynamic, and this fandom has an unimaginably hard time dealing with dynamics, because of “show me the clip” analysis being the norm. This kind of emphasis can be unsuited to dynamic analysis, because individual interactions cannot be taken as by themselves definitive of a dynamic without examining the framework they exist within. 

My aim with this post is to establish the patterns we see in c!Ranboo and c!Tubbo’s interactions, to examine each successive one with the context of established precedent in mind, and to assert the thing I have known since February 2021: the framework assumed by the fandom and the framework that actually exists and makes sense to exist (regardless of authorial intent!) are incongruous, to put it lightly. 

Will be dropping character tags from now on, but obviously all c! and /rp

Disclaimer also that this is very much coming from a c!Ranboo main – I am trying to do c!Tubbo as much justice as I can but being a boober is going to influence how I come at this, pretty obviously

Ranboo will be referred to with it/its pronouns in a couple places throughout, a) for clarity and b) because I want to

Under a readmore because it’s unimaginably fucking long there is a TL;DR at the bottom

Beeduo starts with imbalanced expectations because of the situation Ranboo shows up into and how Ranboo interacts w/ situations he considers high risk. In New L’Manberg, Ranboo quickly becomes functionally the only one in Tubbo's corner in several important respects. They are genuine friends, dgmw, and at this point it hasn't quite spiraled, but from the start the established dynamic is Ranboo thinking he has to care for Tubbo bc no one else will, and Tubbo ending up with Ranboo being the only one who really appears to respect him as president and stand by his side. Even before the cabinet actually has tensions in it, this is a suspected thing, which is evidenced in the manner in which the cabinet’s dynamics deteriorate as New L’Manberg wears on 

Even before this deterioration, this setup is immediately extremely high stakes for Ranboo. One of their first interactions, while Ranboo is still calling Tubbo honorifics uncertainly (which Ranboo doesn't even do generally man is still throwing spaghetti at the wall in terms of how to interact with him), is Ranboo having to talk a tripping-balls Tubbo off a cliff edge while he's standing there high and rambling. Stakes of this kind are not immediately damning, but they can be something that complicates matters if handled poorly. They will be handled poorly. 

This precariousness is also immediately dangerous for Tubbo, because Ranboo is a yes man. It knows it needs to comply, or appear to, to maintain its safety and autonomy. In other words, this is a tendency to partial duplicity and disingeniety in the interest of one’s own safety. Ranboo’s apparent alignment with anyone or anything cannot be assumed to be exclusive or even genuine. At this point he genuinely does think the best of Tubbo and his decision making, but this does not last, bc Ranboo takes ppl on good faith and gets disappointed.

As Ranboo befriends like 30 enemies of the state and is also repeatedly reminded of the danger he faces (the Butcher Army, the armor thing, "be loyal"), the stakes only get higher, especially as Tubbo gets more and more unpopular. This culminates in Ranboo’s statement on Doomsday about how he's literally expecting to be executed. This Is Indicative of the stakes he has been and continues to be living under. 

Tubbo, meanwhile, has had it told to his face with receipts that Ranboo is a traitor... and immediately enters copium central, blaming it on Ranboo's memory issues. This is setting out a pattern that will continue all the way to Tubbo absolutely refusing to implicate Ranboo in Tommy’s death and beyond – Tubbo cannot consider Ranboo to have the capacity to be a threat. This will be bad for both of them.

For now we go into Snowchester. It is important to note Ranboo is actively afraid of Tubbo at this point. The urgency in his mind ebbs some by the time they get married, but at this point he is actively considering Tubbo a more-than-latent threat. The tower scene happens, which is a continuation of Tubbo being ableist to Ranboo, this time to the point of trying to experimentally cure its memory issues against its wishes – people will say Ranboo said yes technically, and it did, but again remember: Ranboo is a yes man, and it is residually afraid of what Tubbo might do to himself or to Ranboo if it missteps. Consent given under threat is not consent, and it is extremely indicative of what Ranboo actually feels about this happening from his initial resistance, his attempts to weasel out of the procedure/leave early throughout, and his reaction after. In true fashion of a yes man who is trying not to set off alarm bells while keeping his head, he is resistant without openly refusing throughout. To be clear: this is not Tubbo intentionally violating Ranboo's consent (nor are any of the other ensuing experiments and/or proposals). This is their heldover power dynamic. Tubbo is not evil or malicious or anything – the two of them just have a fucked set of expectations, and that set of expectations is not going to improve, because neither of them have the framework to challenge it. Even if Ranboo recognizes something is wrong on a conscious level (which he refuses to as part of the strat), he will not acknowledge it, because of aforementioned tendencies, and Tubbo will not recognize something is wrong, because Tubbo does not have the healthiest ideas abt individual consent and personhood in general, because when in any of DSMP history has anyone shown Tubbo that as a priority? In fact, What Tubbo Thinks about a situation has been repeatedly dismissed, and at this point he has long learned this. To the Joker Tubbo this is just a normal interaction, and he continues to see Ranboo as someone who is at least mostly reliably in his corner, and at least mostly reliably his friend (especially after Exile fucked up his relationship with Tommy), so he has no reason to believe this would be a problem. Bringing this up as an issue is a threat to the stability of their relationship and the surrounding circumstances, which is not tenable; Tubbo has been looking for stability this whole time and is not interested in losing it again, and Ranboo is staking a lot of self-convinced morality on the fact that he's being good to Tubbo technically, and also is still extremely afraid of what Tubbo might do if he isn't there to catch him.

(Literally catch him! There is a scene where Tubbo jumps off a roof shouting for Ranboo to catch him, which idk if cc!Tubbo thought he was in character for, but cc!Ranboo definitely was. You do not react with off-trailing closed-off genuine fear and worry to your friend maybe doing a clown in video games. I know my little guy’s voice that was c!Ranboo I know it was.)

In the absence of being able to unpack the problem, they go for the next best solution to this threat of losing stability, which is to codify that stability by getting married. Michael is part of this. We never got a deeply in character discussion for why they decided to adopt Michael, which leaves us with the interaction where Tubbo is (jokingly?) threatening to “commit adultery,” and Ranboo replies that he can’t because “Michael is our son, Michael is our adopted son." This is evidently news to Tubbo – unsurprisingly, because this is the first time Michael is referred to as anything more than a pet.

Again, absolutely do not get me wrong – both of beeduo are genuinely affectionate for and extremely attached to Michael (Ranboo has so much sentiment and love and kindness in his hearts). The aforementioned scene is also dubiously canon at best – I only mention it at all because the essence of it is consistent with the previous established dynamic and with how it keeps going. They care, and it’s absolutely ridiculous to pretend they don’t, but Michael’s ultimate importance outside the (again, very extant) sentimental aspect is as a prop in the game of house these morons are playing because they are so so so afraid of losing everything – in Tubbo's case, of losing everything again, and in Ranboo's case, of failing to be there for Tubbo and prevent whatever Tubbo does.

Including with the nukes! I didn’t forget about the nuke scene! We’re talking about the nuke scene!! 

For those who do not remember the nuke scene, a summary: it takes place shortly after the silo’s inception, before the marriage. Tubbo, obviously jumpy and nervous, asks a visiting Ranboo out of the blue if he wants to see smth secret, and  says he’ll just stress Ranboo out to make him forget it afterward. Ranboo, to this offer, says no, he would rather not be intentionally triggered into situational memory loss. This was, however, not an actual offer, as Tubbo ignores him and leads him into the silo anyway.

Tubbo’s literal world destroying weapons bolster the stakes I’ve mentioned earlier that Ranboo perceives in this dynamic; Ranboo, trying to hang on to what could become an extremely dangerous complicating factor, goes to write it down and Tubbo tells him to put the book away. When Ranboo hesitates, Tubbo threatens him. Tubbo is counting on Ranboo’s memory loss here to be able to trust him, after all, as he has before and as he will again.

In fact, this is relevant in the literal next arc beeduo have relevance, which is outpost arc. 

I've gone off abt Ranboo's ideology 40 million times and I'll go off abt it more; for Ranboo to function safely he needs an environment where he does not feel surveilled/scrutinized, where he is not subject to others' whims, and where he is not expected to be specifically and exclusively allegiant. See earlier discussion of his yes-man tendencies – he doesn’t want to be that way! These are character flaws and he knows it! But he must keep yes-manning for the sake of surviving in a society that will not give him the ability to breathe!! Ranboo is a mf anarchist for a reason he needs his agency!!! 

And you will notice this is not raising green flags for his dynamic w/ Tubbo. Outside of the implicit coercion elements, Ranboo has actual positive motivations to align with Tubbo: he shares Tubbo's desire for peace and stability, and he feels genuinely sentimental and affectionate to Tubbo. Both of them want the same things, because wanting to have a peaceful happy life is a generally appealing goal, and they want to have it together, because they’re friends and care about each other. Unfortunately, they have a radically different understanding of most everything about how to get there, including in regards to personhood. Including what it means to value someone. What it means to be happy. What it means to love someone. 

Ranboo does not want to confront this, but outpost-burger arc beeduo is where this conflict makes him. This is the arc where it is made absolutely unambiguous that Ranboo and Tubbo have a dynamic where neither can love the other like the other loves him, because they have fundamentally philosophically different understandings of what that even means. "Maybe he built those walls to protect me" KILLING ME WOULD HURT LESS, RANBOOLIVE 

(While we are here, and I am getting a glass of water to calm down, re: the love point: the romanticity, platonicity, queerplatonicity, etc. of it is not the relevant part the point is that it's philosophically in com fucking patible. Are we clear. Are we clear this is not relevant discourse. Good. Okay)

Ranboo is suffering increasing confusion and confabulation and stress as the arc goes on, almost certainly bc he is again in a political situation; he makes explicit that this is another instance of it "happening again", like he did at the worst parts of his spirals irt his situation in New L’Manberg. Tubbo is not the only factor in this; Ranboo has complicated dynamics w/ Quackity and the cookieduo (Ranboo and Slime) arc is also relevant, but Tubbo is Ranboo's first priority and Ranboo is putting his brain thru the blender for him! We do not see him in a comparable consistent state like this at any point except New L’Manberg! Ranboo is fucked up in outpost arc!! And Tubbo obviously is too; the entire arc is about his lash-out and he is obviously paranoid doing it. And both of these only make it clear that the unbalanced expectations the whole dynamic was built on, of reliance on Ranboo as specially in Tubbo’s corner, are still fucking there

Ranboo’s behavior is extremely worth scrutinizing here. When Q sends Fundy and I am pretty sure Foolish? to go check out the outpost and they trash it on the way there, Ranboo cleans it up (and leaves threats, which is not a Hinged Action and is something he knows is self-compromising, which goes to show his state of mind) w/ the explicit motivation of keeping it from Tubbo. Ranboo talks to Quackity abt Tubbo and repeatedly makes excuses abt how Tubbo is neurodivergent and a minor, and sure, it says the same thing about itself, but then it continues saying similar shit to rationalize Tubbo's behavior on its own. Ranboo has very expressed interest in portraying Tubbo, both to any audience it has AND to itself, as someone who is not responsible for his actions, because he’s Going Through A Lot, and it has been doing that since the mention of the experiments/tower scene in character.

Tubbo has to cling to the idea that Ranboo's treasonous tendencies are tied to his memory loss. Ranboo has to cling to the idea that Tubbo’s erratic and violent behavior all doesn't really matter bc Tubbo is ~ twaumatized ~, because he “has a lot of problems,” and they both have to cling to their ableist copium, because if they don’t, then each has to admit that his husband would hurt him, and in fact has.

Outpost arc is also where we get "you'd tell me if I was a bad person right" "yeah I’d tell you if you step out of line" – I talk about it in connection to the things I’ve discussed earlier more in depth here, but further: it’s extra chilling when you consider 1) Ranboo does not genuinely concur with Tubbo's philosophies, is not kept safe by them and he knows that when in his right state of mind as evidenced by his active ever-present weaseling-out-of-this maneuvers; 2) that Ranboo is demonstrably extremely good at aforesaid weaseling; and 3) that he is extremely ideologically critical and fiercely independent and arrogant, all the time! And this is the evidence point for what I say in the tags of that ask: Tubbo is the closest on the server to come to ever having control over Ranboo ideologically

Ranboo is so good at 5D chess. Ranboo outmaneuvered Wilbur and Quackity and Dream. Ranboo, increasingly freely, is able to disagree and bring up concerns to Phil and Techno (not fully obv but more than everyone else he talks to lmao), whom broadly he agrees with and has seen the benefit of the philosophies of, but still doesn’t think are Fully Correct, because he doesn’t think that about anyone but himself. But with Tubbo, Ranboo conceded so much that he could have lost the game if Tubbo hadn't proceeded to fold during the burger arc. And Tubbo didn't even know! He didn't even realize anything was off!! 

That fold is the next relevant point in this torrid saga. Tubbo reaches a breaking pt with Wilbur's return; Ranboo gets even more visibly freaked out at all times bc of the complicating situation; it’s here when we get the conversation where Tubbo talks abt the outpost and having signed it over. 

This hits Ranboo in a way Tubbo is going to miss, because, again, when has anyone on the DSMP given Tubbo a precedent for caring about that? He has literally 0 example reason to consider all the work™ that any individual put into a project as far as he’s concerned that’s not going to work. Ranboo, unfortunately, not only does, but also has RSD. This already hurts. And then Tubbo makes the to-him extremely innocuous statement that yeah, now that he has a job and a faction and a direction that he isn't buckling under the weight of losing, he's finally happy

Ranboo, who is extremely dubious abt LNV's labor conditions anyway, fully hears that Tubbo never needed him. Tubbo is finally happy in service to the exact construct that Ranboo has repeated concrete evidence fucks himself and everyone around him, Tubbo included, up. Ranboo hears that he has been soundly cucked by the concept of sides, to put it a little facetiously. He has been checkmate liberals’d.

(This, understandably, does nothing for his mental state.)

And before I continue I must mention again: Ranboo and Tubbo do care about each other. They do legitimately want the best for each other. They have legitimately bonded, and are genuine friends (&c). 

But you also have to remember that Ranboo is extremely calculating, and if you’ll also recall, he is still in a high stakes and high delicacy political situation where he has to be making a lot of those calculations. Now, he's just heard that he was never needed for one of his primary goals. Yes, this hurts, but it carries an important second significance to those calculations: if keeping Tubbo stable was never Ranboo’s doing, this is a reason to deprioritize it.

And that is how we go into Hitting on Sixteen/The Wilbur Van. That is why Ranboo is able to snap at Tubbo in Ho16/TWV. The sheer contrast between the "I'll tell you if you step out of line" agreement and Ranboo dismissing and yelling at Tubbo in this is the biggest and clearest indicator – and the deciding difference is that in Ho16, Ranboo has the goddamn burger van interaction in his information bank, the one where Ranboo was told that his concerns were useless and could be deprioritized. He has been functionally dismissed from his post – he no longer has to worry about appearing good and trustworthy and respectful to Tubbo, and with greater things hanging over his head than maintaining those appearances, he goes full mask off. He prioritizes mitigating Wilbur over mitigating Tubbo in that scene, and he feels bad about it bc he likes Tubbo, and he feels bad for yelling at him, especially considering he is lying – dismissal of everyone who isn’t himself aside, Ranboo knows just fine that Wilbur is dangerous and doing something harmful! He is lying!! 

But that's the thing with Ranboo. Ranboo will lie to fucking anyone. It will lie to your motherfucking face with full confidence, and then it'll feel soooo bad about it later, it'll tear him up inside, and you will hear about none of it, and he'd do it again, because it'll be another calculated concession. Because Ranboo is a yes man and a survivor and a political agenda haver and is balancing like 478363 conflicting priorities at any given time because he has to

So it lies. It mansplains Wilbur Soot to Tubbo (and I do not use that word as a joke I use it as shorthand) and it lies and it can do this so immediately because it did not have to lose or shake a long-standing respect for Tubbo – at that point, its initial wisps of respect for Tubbo had been disintegrated and gone for months. He was never trustworthy to Tubbo – Tubbo put his trust and his reliance in a liar and a traitor, because Ranboo's lies were the only semblance of respect and understanding he got, and it was against what both of them wanted for Tubbo to realize that ever. Tubbo is married to a motherfucking stranger.

Tubbo appeals to a better person that Ranboo isn't, to a loyalty Ranboo never really had, and bc Ranboo doesn't have to pretend to respect him anymore Tubbo gets berated and condescended to, again. Like I cannot emphasize this shit enough! Ranboo was shit to Tubbo in that scene, and even if he had sacrificed himself for Tubbo, it wouldn’t have done fuck anything to address how awful he was in that moment and why it was so deeply such. And Ranboo didn’t even “sacrifice himself”! People made that up! 

Yes, Ranboo's political motivation was in large part that Tubbo, someone he cared about, was being repeatedly endangered and used as a prop from where Ranboo was standing, and Ranboo found that kind of mistreatment of a person he cared for the wellbeing of untenable. He cared about that, genuinely, because he cares about people and about their individual safeties, and even when he hurts them it’s, again, a concession. It’s something he wants to avoid. So Tubbo is in danger and Ranboo acts in the capacity of his care for Tubbo and gets Tubbo out, makes sure that materially his loved one is safe – and then, having dealt with the danger to people, turns around and deals with ideology.

It's not for Tubbo that it kills itself, because Ranboo, again, cares about people. Ranboo killing himself did nothing for Tubbo, and it fucking knows that; Ranboo’s critical eye is extremely good at seeing past the notion that benefit to some ideology is necessarily the same as benefit to some person without being able to draw a clear line to the effects that ideology has on that person. The division between effect on people and effect on system – the concept that the ideologies one live under affect people rather than breathe as them, and that they thus have to justify that effect being good rather than having symbolic gestures take priority over individuals – is the whole motherfucking point of people not sides.

Ranboo killed himself as a symbolic gesture in service to a rhetorical point he was making to Wilbur and Quackity. Ranboo killed himself to win at 5D chess. Ranboo thoughtlessly made it so his husband watched him die, because after saving Tubbo, he had bigger things to worry about.

Ranboo killing himself is, extremely intentionally both in universe and out, evocative of Wilbur doing so because in a sense it was for Wilbur, and it was thought out. Ranboo’s suicide was not nonsensical revenge; it was not emotional protectiveness; it was the callous, cruel, condescending, twisted logic of a man who has shown this flaw in its ways of thinking again and again and whose lack of sleep the night before was specifically emphasized. Ranboo reaches drastic action and violence when he finds himself when he finds himself desperate and alone in the corner he’s backed into, and left with his own mind and only his own mind, he thinks himself into the deranged awfulness of the brainspace he was in when he made the decision. Though the choice itself was likely spontaneous, it was a culminating manifestation of a thought process that had been building for this kind of opportunity the whole time.

Yes, Ranboo is emotional; yes, Ranboo is sentimental; Ranboo does, however, think with his fucking head. He does it too much, in fact, and here he thought with his head into deprioritizing Tubbo, and functionally leaving Tubbo behind while he pursued his own agenda – which is really what he had been doing all a-fucking-long; he'd just been lying about it out of worry and fear, and Tubbo had believed him out of desperation. 

The love was there, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was the need, and the desperate belief from both of them that the other could fulfill that need. 

TL;DR: - Beeduo is based on a fundamentally imbalanced dynamic where Tubbo trusts Ranboo to be in his corner in a way no one else really is - This is bad because of the expectations it places on Ranboo and because of the way that it’s not something that Tubbo can actually rely on - The second Ranboo was no longer coercively held to pretending, everything fell through - Both of them clung for the longest time to ableist copium that dismissed the other’s capability to harm him to get away from the fact that they have already hurt each other and continue to - While they care about each other, their understandings of personhood, love, relationships, agency, and happiness are fundamentally at odds

TL;DRTL;DR: Ranboo is a liar and Tubbo is an auth

#Dream SMP #Tubbo #Ranboo #beeduo #c!beeduo critical #c!Ranboo critical #c!Tubbo critical #you are not immune #for the approval of the forum #FINALLY. FINALLY AFTER ALL THIS TIME #SEVENTEEN MONTHS. 4.1K WORDS.

[sunlitmcgee]

There’s also a conversation to be made about how c!Tommy being painted as a toxic friend post revival once again reflects this fandom’s hatred towards “ugly” abuse victims. How it shows up in all the art where c!Tommy’s feelings of being left out/replaced by c!Ranboo are the butt of the joke, or theories pre-revival about how his ghost was going to haunt c!Beeduo and act all stalkery and aggressive, or how the clip of him jokingly threatening Michael(something that I should note cc!Tommy expressed visual discomfort about, because let’s be honest threatening to murder a toddler is way outta character for c!Tommy and was mostly pressured by fans in chat during the stream) has been used as a way to show why he shouldn’t be allowed around c!Beeduo’s son and why he needs to be cut from their lives for good.

There’s just this hatred.

This raw, blatant, unapologetic hatred for any victim of abuse that shows signs of trauma that aren’t pretty. That aren’t soft. That aren’t UwU-able and easy to digest. Something about how C!Tubbo’s act of premeditated murder over a mansion he doesn’t even live in anymore is a badass “about time” girlboss moment, while c!Tommy simply being sad he was left to die in a cell at his abuser’s hands while his best friends got hitched and made a happy life all without him even being informed makes him this fiendish little devil demon that deserves to be mocked, bullied, abandoned and borderline tortured everyday by having his triggers used against him for the pettiest of shit.

It’s evil, is what it is.

Never in my life have I seen an online fanbase so utterly filled with hatred for abuse victims. I’m not leaving this fandom anytime soon, but by FUCK is it hard to stay at times...

#dream smp #c!tubbo #c!tubbo critical #c!ranboo critical #i love them but #yeah #c!tommy #fandom critical #tw abuse mention #tw abuse apologism mention #tw victim blaming

[doodlebloo]

Sometimes c!Tubbo does deserve neg like he's not perfect he's fucked up a lot. But c!Tubbo neg is never like "c!Tubbo's refusal to be open and honest abt his feelings isn't only harmful to him it also hurts his relationships and causes people to hurt him unintentionally" it's always like "c!Tubbo exiled c!Tommy because he wanted power!!" or something

#doodle.txt #do u get what i mean. i encourage cTubbo crit but there are things he deserves criticism for and things he doesn't #c!tubbo crit #c!tubbo neg #c!tubbo critical #discourse

[sajdd]

the saving michael stream sucks the characterization felt so off and i get why they were mad at c!sam but everything just felt so stilted and awkward and ughhhh it was like physically annoying to watch

that stream was literally a character assassination of c!tubbo and to this day i dont understand how the tubblings enjoyed it. like hes been one of my fav characters for ages and i took Personal Offense to that stream, yet so many people were acting like it was good and i was just 😟😟

#c!tubbo critical #<- everytime i need to use this tag it pains me but. #dear god it was such a terrible mistake dude like #his character was already having some ups and downs but i was on hopium and believed in him #and then That stream happened and i was like goodbye

[raineyraven]

yknow this is a thought that has been rattling around in my head for a long while, so i figured i may as well share it.

almost everyone is very well aware that the dream smp is a very morally grey narrative. we all know that, there are no perfectly righteous or purely evil characters, etc etc.

the thing that's been grating on me of late is that the fandom reactions to significant lore events don't really.. reflect this knowledge. hear me out.

ever since the red festival i've felt acutely aware of this. one of the longest-running debates in this fandom was who was in the wrong for tubbo's execution. techno for pulling the trigger, tommy and wilbur for not helping him. i saw post after post after post debating it the rest of that year. and i heavily disliked it. seeing people watch these characters have to improvise with an unpredicted circumstance and react to it imperfectly, reacting how their characters would be expected to, and then deciding to label some as right and some as wrong. to put them on those levels of morality, rather than viewing it through the morally grey lens the narrative has pushed. again, it just grated on me. treating these characters' decisions and actions as either wrong or right instead of treating them as decisions that move the narrative in fascinating ways and give us a window into their character.

i. dislike. when characters are made to embody either good or evil and have their flaws made respectable and palatable and easily overcome instead of more.. human i guess? it doesnt work for me, thats why i love the dsmp like i do. it's so human.

my brain started revisiting this train of thought after the c!wilbur and c!eret stream in may. the fandom reaction to that was.. a lot. again, post after post i saw opinions on c!eret did worse and c!wilbur's apology didnt make sense, or c!eret was right to be angry at c!wilbur for villainizing them, or any other number of thoughts that stem from the view that one of these characters are right and the other is wrong, that some actions and words were morally justified and others weren't.

very little did i see posts stepping back to look at this conflict in its purest form: a part of the narrative. talking about how fascinating it was that wilbur decided to apologize to eret now, how eret finally admitted how his words had hurt her. every discussion i saw was riddled with the question of did eret really deserve an apology from wilbur, was eret in the wrong for forcing a better apology out of him, who hurt the other more and who really deserved an apology from the other.

i could not help but think back to tubbo's execution after that stream. morally grey characters, morally grey decisions, viewed through the lens of sorting out who's right and who's wrong. who deserves what and how much do they deserve it. what moral box can we put this character into next.

and i've seen this pattern with so many other conflicts!! tubbo's decision to exile tommy, techno betraying pogtopia, doomsday. the narrative places absolutely no blame or condemnation on either side of these conflicts, it doesnt label either as wrong or right, so i guess people just. draw their own conclusions on it? it's weird to me, this need to discuss and debate the rightness and wrongness of these known morally grey characters and their morally grey actions and decisions. which one is better than the other, which one deserves to be listened to and the other condemned, which ones deserve to fight for forgiveness for the rest of their lives and which ones get to recieve it straight away. obviously, i'm not saying people shouldn't have opinions on these topics, i suppose just the constant insistence on subjectivity rather than objectivity when discussing controversial lore events like these irritate me.

i don't particularly know what i hope to achieve with this. i'm certainly not trying to attack anyone who's done this, just expressing my not understanding. it's just a weird way to discuss a morally grey story to me. i'd like to know if anyone else shares this sentiment, or if i'm just spouting nonsense. i don't think i am. this habit in the fandom has been frustrating me since i joined it in august 2020.

#fandom critical #jeez first time ive had to use that tag #i really dislike being critical on main but i had to get my thoughts out somehow #anyway #discourse #dsmp #dream smp #dsmpblr #c!wilbur #c!techno #c!tubbo #c!tommy #c!eret #button duo #clingy duo #oh and also! this isnt just a dsmp fandom thing #i remember seeing discussions around who was at fault for vi and powder's arguement from act 1 of arcane #and that also grated on me in a similar manner

[cellberry]

Okay one more take, it is kinda fucked up to say a mentally-ill character could’ve only ever found peace upon the successful completion of their despair-induced suicide mission.

#HE DID NOT HEAL HE DIED #c!tommy finale #dream smp finale #dsmp fandom critical #dsmp finale discussion #vent #rant #discourse #tw suicide #tw ableism #ask to tw #a lot of the takes i’ve seen almost border on glamorization of suicide #better interpretation #the finale was c!tommy’s stress-induced nightmare #he woke up and decided to talk with c!tubbo about their original plan of running away

[frubboflowers]

I just blocked so many people who were calling c!Tommy stupid omg

Like, yeah, he blew up Punz’s house, it was irrational, but WHAT HOW WOULD YOU DEAL WITH THE SITUATION ON HIS PLACE??? Imagine something you loved and fought for and cherished for YEARS, no matter how simple it is, being destroyed, your best friend’s and your life are threatened, THE WHOLE WORLD IS ON THE BRISK OF DEATH.

We are all fucking Mary Sues of course, we would be so smart and cool headed, thought very straight. Mhm, mhm. No wrong movements.

Tommy has acted irrational, but it’s not stupid or not understandable in the situation. This boy and Tubbo did so much more than so many characters would’ve already. And both are holding remarkably well given the circumstances.

More, Tommy after blowing up Punz’s house and crying over the sea is showing such an incredible level of being able to hold it together and see the situation clear!

I know we as viewers can come up with so many solutions to their problem right now, but we are not inside the story, we are not influenced by time, by our abilities, just by being under this much pressure.

And ‘dying selflessly is what they want to get’. Well ding fucking ding, the options are literally giving them what they want, but taking them down at the same time or letting them have what they want anyway. Cool, yeah? They can experiment all they fucking long on the selfless death, if it means that it’ll lead them to their doom. If there’s a chance it will work. And c!Tommy understands it like nobody else.

If no other plot twists will happen that suddenly sill solve all the problems they have right now, it’s the most reliable option they have, and we should be proud of Tommy and Tubbo for taking that into their hands instead of, i dunno, using the little time they have to just fly away to the moon, letting everyone else die and saving themselves. Probably living a good life two of them with Michael.

And who knows! Maybe the Limbo after selfless death is not Limbo, but actually heaven! Nobody died like that before, it’s something nobody knows. Maybe c!Tommy will be allowed to move on and not be in torture or revived, idk, but move into another life and have his happily ever after.

#dsmp #c!tommy #c!tubbo #c!clingy duo #I AM SORRY BUT I AM ON EMOTIONS AND SO SO MAD RIGHT NOW #Please if you feel like arguing with me - don’t #just block me #I don’t accept any criticism #I feel like we are all too used to op characters and power moves that solve any fucking problem no matter what #well not all the stories can work like that! #the best about c!clingy duo is that they are so human #and so… simple #not in the fucking derogatory way Punz called them #but in a /pos way because we need people like that for the world to be at least manageable place #we need kindness #and simplicity #not all these glorified mad scientist

[tobi-smp]

the thing with wilbur’s apology arc is that it was meant to reassure him that he was wanted.

when wilbur planned the elections it wasn’t to Gain something tangible that he didn’t have. he was the president and tommy was his vice president and there’s nothing that having an election would’ve done for him that he couldn’t have done another way.

but what it Would’ve meant that people had to Choose him. it’d mean that when he doubted whether he was good enough, doubted whether or not his friends wanted him, he could have that Tangible Proof. that’s what it was for, that’s what it would’ve given him (what it Didn’t give him when everything fell apart).

wilbur making rote apologies that’s exactly what everyone wants to hear is exactly the same as him originally trying to rig the elections. it’s about guaranteeing that he gets that reassurance. it’s about guaranteeing that he gets told that he’s a good person that has the ability to heal and that there Is somewhere for him to go. that he’s capable of growth and he’s capable of having a future.

and the thing is, the way it Should have gone is a push towards Real communication. because there Are things that wilbur needs to make up for, actions that he took and the choices that he made with agency. and there are complicated Painful conversations that need to be had about the things that were out of his control in order for the relationships with the people that are important to him to heal.

he needed to be able to Build That Foundation and recognize that he has to put in the work for Real change. to Feel Like He’s Capable Of Change, Capable of being a good person, Capable of having people truly love him.

but what’s happening is him bowing and taking responsibility for things that were Out Of His Control. taking responsibility for being traumatized, taking responsibility for committing suicide.

he Doesn’t Need unjust guilt over his own death Or over things he genuinely did not do. wilbur Did Not target technoblade or eret during pogtopia, he didn’t take anything away from them, he didn’t directly hurt them. to have eret tell him that he hasn’t done Enough to earn forgiveness for, again, His Own Death, Isn’t pushing his character towards building that emotional stability that he needs to actually improve as a person.

tubbo refusing to accept wilbur’s apology was important because it put wilbur in a position where he had to recognize his own Actions. the things that he Consciously Did and had control over. while tubbo death specifically wasn’t on his hands (Technoblade), wilbur Did knowingly endanger him and had several moments where he said ugly things to and about him.

and this is important because wilbur Does care about him, and he Did still actively worry about tubbo’s safety and wellbeing throughout pogtopia. this was something that they could’ve talked over and worked through. something that could’ve lead to Real Inner Forgiveness for things that he was already upset with himself for. it could’ve opened the door for Closure.

and then they just kinda. Didn’t. tubbo forgot all about dying because he Had to in order to forgive techno. any hang ups they had were swept under the rug.

and so we’re here. with wilbur being held accountable for his suicide from someone who hurt him more than he ever hurt them.

#dream smp #wilbur soot #eret #tubbo #c!eret critical

[nell-pointer]

okay im gonna say something maybe a little controversial real quick:

I want to preface this by saying that ive never really liked michael b as a plot point or really just in general (this is mostly because i really dislike teenage parents in media, i also hated the beeduo marriage for similar reasons)

but another reason ive started to dislike michael b is because of the really gross 'energy' that surrounded discussion of him recently.

im not sure how purposeful this is but recently ive noticed a lot of people almost trying to force cc!tubbo to interact with cc!ranboo USING michael. like they will make comments ranging from passive aggressive to straight up aggressive (ive seen this both on twitter and tumblr) about how shitty c!tubbo is for not caring enough about micheal and about c!ranboo, and they usually hide these comments behind /rp but its pretty clear the resentment leaks over to cc!tubbo as well.

and thats just..... really gross to me. cc!tubbo doesnt OWE you c!beeduo. If he feels uncomfortable with that plotline (which he clearly does) yall just need to let it go.

and DO NOT try to argue with me about the beeduo drama im not speculating i just have a brain.

i dont think theres anything wrong with being sad that c!beeduo didnt get a happy ending, its normal to get emotionally invested in things like that. but some of you guys gotta stop being weird to cc!tubbo because of it.

this fandom cares so much about "respecting boundaries" so start respecting his boundaries and STOP using minecraft rp to try and shame him into interacting with cc!ranboo again. Okay??

#dsmp #dream smp #c!tubbo #tubbo #beeduo #c!beeduo #dsmp fandom critical #discourse #nobody argue with me just stop being gross thank you

[faerygardens]

I think some of you people need to realize that c!clingy duo are teenaged boys with canonical access to twitter and not 8 years old

#fae.txt #mcyt #dsmp #clingy duo #tommyinnit #tubbo #sorry needed to get that off my chest #dsmp fans infantilize c!clingy so much and it gets infuriating #fandom critical

[hopalongfairywren]

Well, this panel >>>>> the vidcon one because at least here we didn't waste time asking about guy we already know fate of (ghostbur) and fanons otp. Also c!dream neg ccs we win this.

#dream smp #dsmp #the wren hops #dsmp lore #c!dream #c!wilbur #c!tommy #c!tubbo #c!niki #c!jack #c!ranboo #c!dream neg #dsmp fandom critical #mcyt

[sunlitmcgee]

Some tubblings will use “the discs were more than you ever were” as a reason for ctubbo ditching tommy and not think that they actually make him look like an insufferably petty person and NOT an UWU baby victim of the Dastardly Chommy

#c!tubbo critical #c!tubbo apologist critical #fandom critical #you guys really think you're making him look good #you aren't #you make him look toxic AF and it's not even funny

[doodlebloo]

Something that gets me is when Ranboo gets mad (I don’t have a better word for it, I’m sorry) with Tubbo for choosing Quackity over Wilbur. Like Ranboo can remember Tubbo talking about his execution, but not him sobbing his eyes out about talking about how Wilbur could of saved him but he didn’t? Like, talk to his husband about maybe keeping tabs on Wilbur? Like he can do that and give him a second chance.

I dunno, it frustrates me. If feels like he just picks when his morals happen. Tubbo wasn’t “truely” happy with Quackity, but he probably felt a shit ton safer being on his good side then his bad side, moreso then being with Wilbur again. Tubbo while happy to be married pretty much just felt like a house husband a lot, Tubbo likes doing things and Wuackity gave him something to do.

SEE THATS WHAT I LOVE SO MUCH because that's not entirely c!Ranboo's fault! When c!Tubbo talked about the execution, he painted c!Quackity in a really bad light... But c!Ranboo watched c!Wilbur be apologetic towards c!Tubbo and admit he was wrong to not help him, which he has never seen c!Quackity do.

So it makes sense that he'd think that because (and this makes for awesome storytelling /gen) c!Tubbo doesn't tell him anything! c!Ranboo is constantly making educated guesses about what's best for c!Tubbo, how to best protect him and make him happy and what he would/wouldn't be upset by, because c!Tubbo rarely ever communicates any of these things to him. c!Ranboo doesn't push c!Tubbo for information because he knows he's physically incapable of telling c!Tubbo his own secrets (his mouth shuts itself if he tries to talk abt what he's done while Enderwalking) and he thinks that's unfair.

So it creates a super interesting relationship because even though we as viewers can very clearly see mistakes that c!Ranboo makes I'm his relationship with c!Tubbo, he has so much less context and information than we do as the audience, that it's a lot easier for him to misread situations and a lot more frustrating for him to get things wrong when he's essentially having to take a shot in the dark. He doesn't know c!Tubbo as well as he thinks he does and that's equal parts his own fault and c!Tubbo's :(((

#asks #anon #c!ranboo critical #c!tubbo critical

[nootdraws]

DreamSMP lore spoilers and discussion! This will be talking about c!Tommy and c!Dream, specifically their final moments in the prison in the finale stream. This will talk about child abuse, so pls be warned, keep urself safe <3 and it is c!Dream critical.

Ok I’m not very happy w the way that c!Tommy’s lore ended up panning out. (Not getting into that apology bc i wanna see if cc!Tommy is gonna say anything on that first. I personally am thinking that c!Tommy saying “I’m sorry” was intended in a diff way than it came across.)

I think that there were some very good elements in this lore (hopefully if I get some time soon I’ll be making some art based on those good elements) but the one I wanna talk abt rn is c!Tommy’s limbo sequence.

I’m gonna say, I really liked c!Dream being humanised there. I am genuinely really happy he was turned into something other than just a villain in c!Tommy’s eyes, even if the execution was a little clunky. I can’t help but feel let down though by the extreme nothing they do with this character revelation (obviously they didn’t have much time left after that but still! There could’ve been some confrontation!). I think that c!Dream should be humanised, not because he deserves redemption or deserves c!Tommy to empathise with or forgive him, but rather because I think it makes him so much worse.

Because c!Dream should not be mythologised into a Villain With A Capital Vee. He is just a man. He is just a human being. He’s a human being with a lot of cruelty and a magic book. And I think that in this context seeing that c!Dream was once happy and kind and good is important bc it shows that he was not made that way, he was not ‘forced’ to be a villain.

(Yes, there was a war and yes, c!Tommy burned down a house that one time but c!Dream’s response was wildly disproportionate to those actions, and thus I do not think he was forced into abusing c!Tommy in exile bc he clearly and obviously chose to do that of his own volition.)

He very actively and deliberately chose to hurt those around him bc he WANTED to. And he didn’t have a tragic story that pushed him over the edge! He was happy at the beginning of the server and then he became cruel. There is no plot twist backstory that paints him into shades of grey or justifies what he did. He was a man who was happy and lived a good life and made the active decision to be cruel anyway.

And for that, I think the limbo sequence was good. Sadly it wasn’t utilised as such and rather just seems as canon fodder for those who wish to defend c!Dream’s actions as if he did not abuse a child for months on end.

Thank u for coming to my TEDtalk, I have very mixed feelings abt this finale 😇🙏

#not art #text #c!dream critical #tommy lore spoilers #dsmp finale spoilers #tw discussion of child abuse #tw child abuse #tw referenced child abuse #dream smp #dsmp spoilers #dream smp spoilers #i liked Tubbo’s ending btw I’m glad he got to have agency even if it was In The Worst Way Possible #i cld write a dissertation of the relationship between Tubbo and power #every time he gets it he is immediately put in a position where he has to make an impossible decision #poor poor boy #hope he gets to go batshit in s2 #rejecting the dsmp s2 concept where it’s a memory wipe tho ! #holding out hope that it’s set in the future #even if it’s impossible considering everything went kaboom

[sajdd]

what did s4 tubbo do? /genq

saving michael aka the revengers stream

#c!tubbo critical

[cupcraft]

idk why there's ctubbo meta all over the dash but imma add some cbeeduo meta myself bc ya'll have inspired me! I think whenever c!Ranboo is revived, the only way for c!Bee duo to move forward is to like...communicate. Like literally. There is so much c!Tubbo has kept from c!Ranboo (not critiquing why) such as his past with c!Techno (and other points of the past) even though that's where his husband lives as well as the nuke at one point (as well as that the nuke was meant to take c!Tubbo's life too). And then there's c!Ranboo who hides the experiments/enderwalk/c!Dream partnership (if he remembers it)/why he "deserved to go to prison"/the fact he was on 1 life, etc. like the c!Bee duo relationship has rifts of distrust between them and I'd like to see the end of their story be communicating to each other, even if it doesn't end perfectly well, it would be nice to end with them on the path to doing better.

#dsmp #meta #tubbo #ranboo #not critical!! #also not a vague to any of the meta rn im just inspired and i love c!Beeduo