What Foolish, Purpled, Fundy (and Charlie) unintentionally represent for Quackity:
Foolish (a shark-totem demigod) = Karl (a time traveler), both are supernatural characters who likes building structures
Purpled (a teen mercenary) = Sapnap (a young fierce warrior), both are the best pvper other than Dream & Techno
Fundy (member of the cabinet) = George (political partner), both have somewhat prophetic dreams, who sometimes unintentionally cause huge conflicts, Dream’s lover-*GUNSHOTS*
Charlie = season 1 Quackity, both naive and funny, but are more than they seems, not to be underestimated.
Since Quackity originally built Nevadas for him & his fiancés but then they abandoned him (in Q’s pov), he is finding replacement to fill the positions, which is quite sad to see him risking his life to recruit some of them.
so the dsmp is a homonormative society right, that’s been established, and i was talking w @a-firefly-faerie about this and we realized the possibility of heterophobia is very much there and also the funniest fucking concept ever. like. c!karl’s time traveling and ends up at c!phil and c!techno’s house and assumes they’re together and is corrected when he makes this assumption and the interaction goes smth like
karl: so how have you two been? how’s married life treating you guys?
phil: what
techno: what
karl: well, you guys are married arent you? yknow, two guys, secluded in the wild, alone
phil: i have a wife mate lmao
karl: a wif- uh. oh. i didn’t know you lived THAT kind of lifestyle, haha...
like the concept of heterophobic c!karl is THE funniest shit to me.
ALSO WE WERE TALKING ABOUT THE CONCEPT OF PEOPLE HATING C!TOMMY NOT BECAUSE HES LOUD OR ANNOYING BUT BECAUSE HES UNAPOLOGETICALLY AND OPENLY IN LOVE WITH WOMEN
tommy: man i love women
dream: oh so you’re one of THOSE people :/
or like
dream: yknow i thought tubbo would be a good influence on you, he married a nice young boy like any other normal boy should. why couldn’t you?
wait can i add more this is funny but also really interesting to think about:
jack manifold is an out and proud straight; people don't touch him because he accidentally called himself gay too many times. this frustrates him and is part of people not taking him seriously. his anger and murderous intent against tommy includes internalized heterophobia
callahan, the so-called "haver of all the bitches", is a background straight and equivalent to what the server calls a "stereotypical straight." there is a reason we rarely see him on the server
techno (contrary to popular belief, as he lives with philza and are believed to be married by the populace), purpled, foolish, and hannah are aspec which is why, besides being powerful, no one dares to touch them
one can argue that the server aspecs tend to be more powerful than the average person, with the bi characters on the server being their equals in strength, explaining eret, niki, and puffy's influence on the server and its history
the boomers are also bg straights--everyone assumes they're an old married couple that don't leave their house and worship their foreign gods (YouTube) so they aren't touched either and are rarely on the server as well
"the boomers are also bg straights--everyone assumes they're an old married couple that don't leave their house and worship their foreign gods (YouTube) so they aren't touched either and are rarely on the server as well."
Adding this sentence to the list of things that would/could have killed Prince Phillip.
/rp This is a bit heavy, but what do you think of the take that Wilbur's actions toward Tommy could be considered abusive? Like obviously it was a negative impact on his mental health but also nowhere near Dream's level so could it be called that? Both in Pogtopia and in the afterlife it feels like his jabs at things Tommy's sensitive about are purposeful. Even if he's lashing out, he knows it'll get to him and utilizes that against him. I've seen people strongly refute the idea but others bring up some good points... I don't wanna excuse his actions, you know? Like there's no abusive cycle like there is with Dream. Tommy sticks around because he thinks Wilbur can be persuaded, not because of any manipulation, and while Wilbur believes Tommy won't betray him, he never really takes any steps to ensure that Tommy won't leave him, he just thinks he won't. Like abuse feels like a very specific term and I don't just want to throw it around.
Anon, I very much feel you on not wanting to excuse Wilbur's actions. Wilbur has done some bad shit, and I agree with you that there have been points where he's said things seemingly to be purposefully cruel. He's been an asshole. But abusive? I agree with you that that's a term I hesitate to use. It carries a unique weight, and I don't want to conflate being an asshole or having a toxic or unhealthy friendship with something as heavy as "abuse." But it's also not a very simple or clear-cut topic. So all I can do is offer my own perspective.
Under the cut is my perspective on the situation.
Disclaimers and Warnings:
As always, this is about the characters and not the content creators.
I state this later, but I want to make it clear: I am not an expert in abuse. I have a degree in Biology, not Psychology. I have personal experience, yes, and I have secondhand experience through discussions with others. But I am no expert, and I'm not touting my views as the End All Be All or 100% Correct Way to Think.
This isn't what I'd call c!Wilbur critical, but I will be acknowledging his flaws. He was an asshole during Pogtopia, and I don't want to minimize the harm he's done. I will do my best to handle this subject and his character with the care they deserve. But if you're sensitive to discussion of his flaws, this is a post to avoid.
Please stay safe!
First, let's address this: Dream's abuse is very blatant and textbook, but I wouldn't say that something has to meet that standard to be considered “True Abuse.” And just because something isn't as bad as Dream's abuse doesn't disqualify it from being abuse. Abuse and what qualifies as abuse is a complex topic filled with debate. There are all sorts of arguments over how actions and behavior can be abusive while the relationship and person behind it may not be aptly described as abusive, or how abuse can be both intentional and unintentional. I am not an expert in this particular field, and I am not qualified to be able to tell you with certainty what is and is not abuse. As far as I can tell, there is an element of subjectivity to it, and the term overall is treated differently in different contexts-- what a psychologist might define as abuse may differ from what a layman considers to be abuse, much like how a "theory" as defined by scientists is very different compared to the layman's view of the meaning of "theory." My perspective on abuse is colored by my own experiences and what I've gleaned secondhand from folks with their own different life experiences (both from just talking with friends to interacting with others in a group counseling environment). I am not coming at this from the perspective of a professional in the field of abuse.
That being said, the approach I take towards what qualifies as abuse hinges on concepts of Power and Control. To me, abuse is the act of repeatedly harming someone to gain self benefit primarily in the form of control of the victim and maintaining a power imbalance skewed in favor of the abuser, intentionally or unintentionally. If your friendship with someone is abusive, to me that implies a certain element of power imbalance. And without that imbalance, without the role of control featuring heavily, where your friend is just a piece of shit but on an equal level… that's more of a toxic friendship than an abusive one.
And in this sense, I don't classify Wilbur as abusive. Was his relationship with Tommy unhealthy and toxic? Absolutely. Did he say cruel things sometimes knowing that they would hurt Tommy? Yes. Was he an asshole? Fuck yeah. But as I've stated before, while Wilbur did say that Tommy "wasn't in charge," he never really positioned himself as an authority either. He wanted to have Tommy on his side, yes, and he tried to persuade him to agree with his own negative mindset through fucked up rhetoric. But he did not try to put Tommy in a subordinate position, he did not strive for control of Tommy, and he did not enforce a disparity in power between them.
From the beginning, Tommy had always had the independence to live his life unimpeded by Wilbur. In the early days, though he asked Tommy to make L'manberg his permanent residence, Tommy did no such thing and, in fact, kept permanently residing in his normal home on the smp, which was really only ever the "embassy" he said it would be in name alone. It was his house. And Wilbur was fine with that. On the topic of Tommy's discs, Wilbur saw their value to him and did not dissuade him from pursuing them. At times, Wilbur called Tommy out on recklessness or stirring conflict or murder or arson, and he ordered him to stop. But Tommy was always proactive-- he made his own decisions and got involved in what he wanted. He was not bound by Wilbur's desires, and his life didn't revolve around Wilbur even during Pogtopia.
Tommy often took action without Wilbur's input or guidance, and he didn't put his actions through a filter of "would Wilbur like this." Wilbur's spiral scared him, but not because there was any fear of punishment or even necessarily fear of Wilbur himself (I am not addressing Tommy and Void Wilbur because we still have so little info on what went down, and when people discuss Wilbur and potential abuse, the focus is most often on Alivebur). Tommy seemed more scared of Wilbur's fall in the abstract, of what it meant that his brother figure and role model was having such an ideological breakdown. Tommy felt confident and comfortable enough to point a crossbow at Wilbur and very vocally argue with him multiple times, and while he tried to persuade Tommy and sometimes insulted him, Wilbur did not force the issue. Tommy had the freedom to make his own choices and have his own opinion, and Wilbur never tried to have it any other way.
Tommy stayed by Wilbur's side despite their disagreements not out of fear of punishment or because he couldn't function without Wilbur's guidance or any sense of subservience, but because they were friends. During the Red Festival, he says:
"I'm his right-hand man, whether-- whether I like it or not, and he's my right-hand man… And we can't screw him over."
And out of context, the first part sounds bad-- being Wilbur's right-hand man "whether he likes it or not." But this is immediately followed by the sentiment "and he's my right-hand man." Making it clear that Tommy isn't saying that he feels subordinate to Wilbur or as if Wilbur is of higher status, they are both on equal grounds. They are both each others' right hands, despite their disagreements, despite the toxicity. Here, the implication isn't that Tommy feels forced to support Wilbur, but he feels the standard obligations of friendship-- to stick by your friend's side even when they fuck up or act like an asshole. And that's not something inherently insidious. How many times have we all maintained a friendship, felt the need to stick with a person, even when they were being a dick or made some really bad choices? Does that mean those relationships were inherently abusive? I'd argue no!
Was their friendship unhealthy? Was it causing Tommy stress? Was Wilbur's language sometimes cruel? Yes! And that's bad! But Tommy didn't stay because he was caught in an abusive relationship, Tommy didn't stay because Wilbur was controlling him, Tommy didn't stay because he'd been conditioned or manipulated. He stayed because he saw Wilbur as an equal and a friend. At any point he could've left, and he recognized this. Despite the language of that quote, he knew that this wasn't something out of his control-- he knew that staying was a choice. It's why he spent so long deliberating it. This isn't a situation where a person was being abused and technically could've left but stayed due to manipulations and conditioning and a lack of support system outside the relationship and a lack of self autonomy due to the abuser's control-- Tommy had a support system in Tubbo and the other L'manbergians, and Tommy had always been in full control of his life. Tommy made the unambiguous choice to stay, and he doesn't compromise his own ideals for Wilbur's sake. He continues to argue his perspective.
So no, I'd argue that Wilbur and Tommy's relationship was not abusive. It lacked the power dynamics and aspects of control that I believe to be central to abuse. But this does not excuse Wilbur's actions. During Pogtopia, his language was often cruel and sometimes pointed specifically to insult or hurt Tommy. And though Tommy chose to stay by Wilbur's side out of friendship, it clearly brought him pain. At that time, Wilbur was largely a negative influence on Tommy, both in instances where he intended to be hurtful and during the majority of the time when he was merely trying to explain his warped mindset. It was unhealthy, toxic, but not abusive. And it doesn't have to be abusive to still matter. If/When Wilbur is revived, Tommy would be perfectly within his rights to cut off that relationship, and it's perfectly reasonable for that relationship to have caused him lasting harm. A relationship doesn't have to be full on abuse to have hurt you, and it doesn't have to be full on abuse for you to be justified in ending it.
Wilbur and Tommy's relationship doesn't have to be abusive to make the harm Wilbur did matter. And I hope that's something everyone can remember in terms of their own friendships.
one headcanon i have that i really like is that since eret’s museum is dedicated to remembering the history of the server, there should be a sort of portrait room or several picture albums, dedicated to members of the server as well as footnotes of notable events put under some of the pictures.
like the large group photo of the original l’manburg citizens is a given, but also dated polaroids of the original members of the server. pictures of server members when they first joined. a hastily taken photo of tommy holding up his discs when he first got them. still photos of the elections, the debates. political comics of swag2020 and pog2020. shaky journalist photos of the panic and running when the first exile was announced. old photos of wilbur, a blurry woman, and a young fundy. a stolen picture of a younger dream grooming spirit.
dark paintings depicting the walls being torn down or of the l’manburg crater. nikki’s mugshot. wilbur’s, schlatt’s, and tubbo’s presidential portraits. a far off photo of tubbo and tommy sitting on the bench. heavyhanded sketches of a dark and brooding wilbur in pogtopia. salvaged propaganda posters. a grainy photo of sapnap holding leashes and collars of all the pets he killed like a hunter showing off antlers. several photos of each server member to show growth over the years. a beautiful colored photograph of new l’manburg. tommy’s self portrait in exile. dream’s self portrait in prison. eret’s royal portrait of his crowning. pictures of finished builds with the owner and/or builder in front of it. a very delicately restored photograph of dream and george standing on the land of what would be the community house.
it should also list the dates and causes of each canon death.
like a picture of the final control room right next to two people back to back at a bow duel and the dates and the cause of death underneath are exactly the same only like a few hours apart. or a picture of a bloodstained fenced up cement box surrounded by ash and festival decorations. or a butcher already half faded, trying in vain to stop the bleeding coming from his face. or a father holding his son in an embrace while piercing a sword through him.
can you imagine? what you’d feel when you walk through that museum wing of ghosts?
where the very first thing you see is the monster, the tyrant, he who is locked in the inescapable vault, in a photograph depicting his youth. the colors are faded, but his freckles are plentiful on his tanned cheeks, his smile is genuine and his eyes sparkle. this is the first time you’ve seen his face.
you walk a little further into the room and there are walls of photographs of soldiers with coats too big for their bodies. most of them are children. all if them have smiles on their faces that fade the more recent the pictures get.
among those photos you recognise the baker and her kind face. she looks like a friend, but this is juxtaposed by the fact that you saw her earlier, quiet and withdrawn. it does not help that across the room you see her again, scowling and defiant in a mugshot. beside that is a portrait of her with bubblegum pink hair that is scotched at the ends by her bitter eyes.
there is a professional photograph of a young president, uncomfortable in his suit, next to the leader of the greater smp. it is placed hesitantly beside a wrinkled sketch of a worn out teen on the beach with his ‘friend’. you try to ignore the other sketches of him dangling near lava pits or standing on towers above the clouds.
there is a shaky pencil drawn depiction of a pigman on one of the walls. the footnote underneath it says ‘police sketch of wanted anarchist’. you recognise him from the grand hallway filled to the brim with old archived propaganda posters.
you turn the corner and find yourself in a gigantic room that is covered wall to wall with dozens of pictures connected together by delicate strings. on the topmost part of the wall facing the doorway, are the words ‘Server Family Tree’ written in cursive. you decide that this is too much for you and you leave the museum.
obsessed with the idea of heterophobia on the dream smp. after schlatt exiles tommy and wilbur, he gets a lot of bad press. someone puts him under investigation for discrimination against his citizens and it ends up being a major factor of his reputation being damaged bc half the server thinks he's about to commit a hate crime. that's the real reason why he invited connor, it was damage control, man just didn't come fast enough. the festival was supposed to be a straight pride parade
In Tubbo's latest stream Tommy basically said he regrets taking Connor hostage, while also directly admitting that he was under Techno's influence at the time. (Send the direct quote if you heard it, too)
I said it before and I will say it again, Tommy didn't side with Techno during the Green Festival because he didn't care about him, or because he forgave Tubbo (at least not fully), but because it was AGAINST HIS MORALS.
The terrorism, Connor hostage situation, torturing Fundy, Tommy came to realization that this isn't him, and he wasn't going down that path. ("I am worse than everyone I hated")
Seeing people get mad at Tommy for choosing NOT to be a criminal/terrorist/basically villain made me so frustrated at the time.
Honestly, Tommy choosing the healthiest option for his mental health because he realized that Techno was not a good influence on him (just like with Wilbur and Dream) and seeing people genuinely get piss at Tommy is a big ???
what gets me the most about this is So Many people attacked tommy’s “lack of growth” because they saw him bending to techno as growth and anything contrary to that as regression when this was the most mature thing he could’ve done.
technoblade was guaranteed safety, he was guaranteed to help tommy get his discs, and at this point any potential ally he could’ve had in l’manberg had been gutted by both dream And technoblade. tommy Only lost by choosing to side with l’manberg, he didn’t even think that any of them Liked him by this point and that they were right not to (again, through dream and techno’s influence). he didn’t do Anything that night for self gain, he put himself in the crossfire knowing full well that there was no guarantee that any of the people he was doing it for would accept him (and many of them didn’t).
tommy recruiting sapnap through kindness and through their connections was the direct lead up into the emotional payoff of the disc war finale, while also being the direct result of the lesson he’d learned at the green festival. tubbo Did hurt him, but tommy never wanted to respond to that by hurting him back, with revenge, with technoblade’s philosophy. sapnap Did hurt him through henry and he Did start it, but tommy realized he didn’t want to hurt sapnap back, that he never should have in the first place.
tommy could’ve easily tried to use mars as a bargaining chip to get sapnap to fight with them on doomsday, it’s what plenty of people on the server would’ve done, but he didn’t. he freely Gave mars back, apologized because he realized that it wasn’t right of him to hurt someone out of revenge (even if sapnap had agreed at the time) and then Asked sapnap if he’d join them.
and I think it’s telling that in 4 months I haven’t seen a Single animatic that covers tommy returning mars. his growth as a character and a person is secondary to whether he stands in Specifically technoblade’s way here and that’s frustrating.
tommy Choosing to be a better person is painted as him being selfish, boiled down to “the discs” or “the government” or “pretending to be a hero,” when he’s Objectively giving up guaranteed safety and his best chance at getting the disc (at the time) to do what he thought was right.
the green festival Was growth for tommy, and it’s unfair that he had to learn that lesson in the way that he did for the reasons that he did.
I have many issues with Doomsday and the main ones are
1. Why did it feel like it was a punishment for c!Tommy trying to better himself by leaving c!Techno? Why couldn't it have focused on Techno vs The Butcher Army? Why did c!Tommy have to suffer more to extreme amounts for doing what he thought was right?
2. It was SO painful to watch as a long time viewer. I watched L'Manberg be created. I've watched every POV since. I knew pretty much every little thing that's been built in and around L'Manberg ranging from little tunnels to rooms underground to graves to books, all little bits of history just Erased
3. It wasnt fun to watch. Not like November 16th. L'Manberg didnt stand a chance and Techno Philza and Dream just eradicated everything. It was a bloodbath and not a fun one
4. The characters learned Nothing other than how much they need to protect and defend their homes and just So Much More Trauma for everyone involved. If they learned to not make governments it's not bc Techno spread the good word of anarchy its because they want to not have their homes destroyed, their pets slaughtered and more trauma
5. c!Tubbo deserved better what the Fuck was that
6. How the treatment of Ghostbur was just ... brushed off? Ghostbur was hurt and suffering and was in so much pain and it was reduced down to "he's sad over a sheep lol" or "he wouldve forgotten anyway". This event alone made me a Ghostbur apologist
7. The fact that c!Techno and c!Philza got 0 consequences for this and the fact that they sided with c!Dream in the first place is so incredibly uncomfortable
8. What was the point in c!Techno and c!Tommy supposedly bonding if that bond was going to be shattered and never fixed or even brought up much again
9. The real tyrant is c!Dream and the fact that we're supposed to believe c!Techno is an actual anarchist despite him completely ignoring c!Dream is. Well.
10. L'Manberg being destroyed down to bedrock by 3 people who were never apart of it rather than it idk. Being peacefully abandoned or dismantled or something of the sort was definitely a story choice :)
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