#c!schlatt analysis

[bumblebeerror]

Nobody wants to hear it said but C!Schlatt was decent disabled rep. He had, from my understanding, chronic pain. He self-medicated with “alcohol”. Pain made it difficult to jump, run, or swim, and he took “protien shakes” to combat muscle atrophy, and that treatment lost effectiveness. That’s not an uncommon story when it comes to especially undiagnosed or uncontrolled chronic pain. Not to mention the dead common connotation that Schlatt was a monster, rather than a tyrant, and the way that translates to how disabled people are often treated. Fun fact, unless I’m misremembering, Techno is the only one to consistently label Schlatt a Tyrant as opposed to more dehumanizing terms.

His character was laughed at often, made fun of for not being able. Even the people who knew about his chronic pain, clearly found it funny. And I do understand that it was meant as a joke - and not even necessarily an insensitive one considering we are talking about a Minecraft political roleplay - but the theme is there.

Eventually, the only thing that gives him relief is alcohol, he drinks too heavily, and it causes a heart attack.

It’s not a happy story. It’s not a clean or pretty story.

But it is a story where a disabled character gains a position of power. He obtained it fair and square and played it lawful evil. And I feel like we do have to admit - he did some things… right. L’Manberg didn’t put the walls back up. It didn’t discriminate against any other citizens again.

Schlatt is a powerful foe, not for his physical strength, but for his mind and his silver tongue. He was more than a match for Wilbur because he has always been more than match for Wilbur - Schlatt has natural charisma, he’s got this way of speaking that’s designed to piss you off while leaving him sounding calm, collected, and rational. He makes a fool of Wilbur in the beginning with apparent ease. It’s not until his pain gets worse and he begins to drink more heavily that his skill begins to decay. But it takes until literally his last moments for Wilbur to finally be in control during a conversation between them. Sure, he’s got moments where he just sort of tells Wilbur to fuck off - but he still wins those interactions. Wilbur doesn’t talk shit to those until after Schlatt leaves the call.

I dunno, it’s 4am and I have t actually slept properly in a few days, but. I love this character and he gets a lot of flack for being the first villian.

All of this to say that while I love the “imposing figure with squared shoulders and nice hair and immaculate suit” fanarts I’m dearly wanting art that just. I just want my tired limp dishrag of a president okay. Just. Let me have this.

[cottagecoretommyinnit]

honestly i think the most interesting thing about the dream smp is that there aren’t any like villains? if that makes sense

like don’t get me wrong. there are some fucked up people who have done some fucked up things. but the unique thing about the dream smp is that even those people who have done those things, because we saw what led them to that point, they aren’t truly evil or villains. just people who’ve been down a dark path and could redeem themselves if they wanted to put in the effort (but some of them don’t want to)

i think the biggest example of this is c!wilbur. both on here and twitter people LOVE to talk about how c!wilbur spiraled and became a villain. except...he didn’t. he was a man who succumbed to his own paranoia and felt trapped in a world where it felt like no one stood by his side, even though that wasn’t true. his actions weren’t justifiable but we, as the audience, can understand them because we saw exactly what led him to that point. 

c!technoblade gets brought up a lot too and i truly don’t feel like he’s a villain like at all. he has skewed morals and sometimes slips into a very morally gray area but he is not evil and he never has been. he’s severely misunderstood, by both the fandom and the other characters. 

the two big ones are c!dream and c!schlatt. c!schlatt is probably the closest thing we would assume to be a villain on the dsmp. but the important thing to remember is that we ONLY saw his presidency from a skewed point of view (wilbur & tommy, quackity etc.). none of the characters on the dsmp are reliable narrators and because schlatt didn’t stream, we never got to see his point of view. and i can’t truly say he was evil, he did some awful things and turned people against him, but was he a villain? hard to say when looking at it from a skewed point of view. 

c!dream is, undoubtedly, the looming threat throughout the dsmp. but once again, we watched a man who wanted everyone to get along and be a family devolve and try to reach that goal through worse and worse ways. he is not a good person. he’s killed people, he’s abused people, he’s destroyed important monuments and he’s even in jail. i think that he is probably what most would consider the villain. and im somewhat inclined to agree but i also think it’s not fair to boil c!dream’s storyline down to just “he’s always been a villain and he always will be.” he is a man who wanted everyone to get along and attempted to do that through any means necessary. his power corrupted him and clouded his vision to the point of no return. but does that mean i think he couldn’t redeem himself if he tried? no. 

the question is if he’s willing to try. 

anyways, the dsmp reminds me a lot of ghibli films, in how there’s no true evil villain, just people trying to reach their goals or live life and sometimes they make mistakes. but i think you’ll find there are always subsets of this fandom where people make posts about all four of these people, either understanding their pov and sympathizing with them or analyzing their character and what led them to that point. its a very interesting storytelling medium and it gives us a new perspective about the idea of a villain in media

[bumblebeerror]

I think I’m gonna embrace my role as a c!Schlatt apologist for a second

I don’t think his presidency was really any worse than anyone else’s.

First and foremost: he was elected fair and square. He made a deal with Quackity, sure, but that’s on Quackity for taking the worse end of. He could have run alone. The deal was legit (agreed upon by both sides) and (largely) honored via the terms.

C!Schlatt’s sins according to the roleplay and the fandom:

Took down the walls around L’Manberg, and while unpopular with Tommy and Wilbur, not actually a crime or anything?

Taxed Niki specifically

Didn’t use said taxes to actually improve the country

Tried to have Tubbo killed via mercenary (succeeded)

Was a drunk and made fun of Quackity’s dump truck ass

Idk if there are more these are just the ones I’ve come across.

And sure, most of those are pretty bad. Targeting one person who didn’t commit a crime and taking their things? Why, the only thing that could be worse is also searching that person’s house without a warrant or permission, putting them on house arrest for being friends with an enemy of the state on no proof that person was actually helping the enemy of the state, and also committing assult and battery on that person! Or even sentencing someone to death without a trial! Coughc!Tubbocough

Obviously I’m being a little dramatic by calling C!Tubbo worse, because I don’t actually consider him a worse president than C!Schlatt, but I’m just saying; there was no law written down that cPhil broke by knowing where ctechno lived. You can’t arrest someone for refusing to tell you something they claim to not know.

Oh, but at least C!Wilbur didn’t destroy…uh…hmm. Well, actually I think maybe cWilbur Did do more physical damage than cschlatt actually, considering he blew the fucker sky high. And even before c!Schlatt was elected, C!wilbur wasn’t without sin. He stole, he used his allies, he convinced C!Tommy to give up the thing that meant most to him for c!wilbur’s country that he made quite clear he’d never let c!tommy help him run, and honestly? Of the three of them, C!wilbur was the most incompetent. He’s all smooth syrup tones and posturing. C!Techno’s first actions to outfit them are to secure food and resources because c!wilbur hasn’t done so! Sure, C!Schlatt and c!Tubbo didn’t have to do much work in that department, but there were several food sources available to c!wilbur (bad was giving away cooked chicken for one) and they were low on just about everything else, as well. A little organization would have had them operating in the black pretty quickly.

I’m not trying to say c!Schlatt was the best leader - I just think they were all bad leaders and that we should recognize that. C!Tubbo being sweet and cute and all doesn’t change the fact that he wasn’t necessarily a good president or person while he was leading. And of course I don’t hate the creators either - they were playing characters. I just think if you’re going to call cschlatt a bad guy that you should have to apply the same rules to your blorbos, both of whom were not democratically elected js. :3

This post brought to you by me remembering c!Technoblade saying “at least he was elected”

[schladhd]

This is 7 am Bumble ramblings special but I’ll never get over how nothing in Schlatt’s arc could have saved him. There was nothing anyone could have done. Nothing. Even if you liked Schlatt, even if you were a fan of his. Even if you supported all his choices. There was never anything that could have been done.

There’s a growing feeling of dread as you watch his decline through other people’s eyes.

Jeering eyes. People who laugh and scoff when he can’t run or speak without coughing. People who roll their eyes when he can’t swim properly or jump well. People who call him stupid for not knowing how enderchests work.

He slowly grows sicker. He starts drinking more just to sleep. He gets paranoid. Erratic. In the beginning his manipulations of Quackity and others are overt and threatening to keep his power in place but despite being someone they don’t seem scared of his air of authority keeps his cabinet in line far longer than it had any right to, really. Toward the end he’s just unpredictable and angry, constantly ill and hungover and drunk.

C!Schlatt isn’t stupid. If he doesn’t already know, he at least suspects that his entire inner circle are disloyal. He tries anyways.

I’m not saying he’s a good president. He’s not,and I have no delusions about that.

But he’s a sick man who clearly used to hold some amount of sway, who used to be friends with the entire server. And the entire server showed up to watch him die without lifting a finger.

How fucked up is that?

I know it’s for the narrative. I know. But it absolutely kills me inside, this idea that someone you had any good memory with at all, that you could plot to kill them and then watch them die without a single shred of pity for them as they gasp.

How do you spend months interacting with someone you hate and not at least care that they die with some dignity if nothing else because they’re a human you knew personally? How can you not at the very least pity them? Feel sympathy for their pain even if you don’t feel any compassion for them? Were his sins that grave?

Can you imagine being so thoroughly unloved and disliked and mocked and reviled that nobody cares when you died. Can you imagine being so bereft of any care, fuck, pity, even, that when your heart suddenly seizes in a roomful of enemies who used to be your friends and you struggle to draw a breath that the people around you still laugh before they realize it's stopped beating. Because when they do, they cheer.

What did you do to deserve this? What did you do.

Nobody even steps forward to catch you when you fall, your body already cold, nobody even bothers to make sure your fresh corpse doesn't unceremoniously crash into the dirt.

What did you do??

They cheer while the crumpled thing that used to be you lays on the floor of a dessicated old drug van, and the only thing pretty about it is the shine of the broken glass bottle that slipped from your nerveless hand.

What did you do.

You won an election.

You were coarse and rude and unkind. You were difficult, difficult to care about, but that didn’t mean that someone shouldn’t have at least cared enough to save you. To help you. To remember that you were human.

You were just human.

You were just human.

You were wrong, and you were doomed either to your own body or to die at someone else’s hand.

You were doomed.

You were doomed.

You were doomed.