#dee does analysis

[rebelpeas]

the thing about sapnap being the one to kill dream (besides being able to neatly avoid the “victim kills their abuser” plotline i always find too celebratory and unnuanced for me to appreciate) is that it makes an ending so goddamn impactful, bittersweet, and satisfying for nearly everybody. sapnap is caught in a spiral of guilt, penance, and grief that makes him willing to kill his best friend no matter the cost. (he promised dream that he would. he gave his word.) the way dream’s self-fulfilling prophecy of how nobody understands him, everybody leaves him, is both true and deeply false — because in the end, it’s him and his best friend, who makes good on his word, and it’s because dream forced his hand. there was a very specific set of circumstances that would cause sapnap to turn on them, and he TOLD DREAM WHAT THEY WERE, and dream did it anyway. went even further and taunted him about it. it’s dream’s own self-destructive (and externally destructive) decisions that bring him very poetically to his own death. it’s safety for tommy, who finally has someone stand up for him and protect him, who takes his stead in front of dream so he doesn’t have to, and equally tubbo is not forced into a battle that isn’t his nor paying a price he shouldn’t have to. it is, beautifully, almost not at all about them in the end, because they SHOULD have the freedom to not have to worry about this guy. they should be allowed to heal.

it’s about dream and sapnap now. just like it started. and it’s dream’s fault, and it’s sapnap’s a little bit too, and sapnap is going to carry it forever when he buries dream alone.

[rebelpeas]

involuntary shapeshifter ctubbo is so special to me. it’s about the lack of identity that is so distinctly ctubbo — you turn into what people expect of you, not just emotionally but physically. you got your hair color from your best friend, blonde to match him because he said it made you look like twins and you wanted that closeness so bad you couldn’t breathe. your eyes used to be blue, but they’re deep brown now like somebody who died a little after your trust in him did and since you’re president now instead of him, you’ve gotta look the part. (your horns are from a different president, and you’re pretty sure it’s the fear of turning into him that put them on your head.) your hair’s going darker the longer you spend away from your best friend. your fingers are longer these days, a little spindly because they fit into the gap between ranboo’s fingers better that way, and the shape of your eyes goes squinty, which is a little easier to look into when eye contact hurts. well, one of them does anyway, because burn scars keep the other half of your face from shifting along with the rest of you like the fireworks were a reset. your death is the only thing uniquely yours.

[rebelpeas]

cookie outpost is also awesome as a ctubbo story arc because it’s. like. one of the rare ctubbo storylines where it’s About Him, not just an arc where he gets dragged along for the ride. he is the motivator here. he is the one picking fights and standing his ground and making the active decision to escalate conflict which is just SO AWESOME from ctubbo because he does Not do that. not usually. but this time, his supporting cast, quackity and ranboo, are there to illustrate him as a character. yes q and ranboo have their own takeaways from this arc but it’s tubbo who is at the heart of it. for once, tubbo is the one pushing.

and then he just stops. he joins quackity, he stops the threats, he packs it all up neatly and goes back to being responsible and well-behaved little tubbo again. it’s like measured indulgence! can you hear me it’s like he’s LETTING HIMSELF be aggressive in careful safe doses, like he knows quackity and ranboo won’t hurt him for it. and then he stops it and cleans it up and waits for the next time things blow up. it’s nuts. i feel deranged

[rebelpeas]

the difference between cabinet and vice are that q recognizes himself in both of them but he sees the part that became worse to survive in tubbo and he sees the part he wishes he could’ve protected in tommy

[rebelpeas]

cookie outpost arc slapped and i will not hear a word otherwise. it was So Good. the character tensions were so fucking good in every direction. beeduo at each others sides without a bit of real communication between them vs cabinetduo on opposite sides and Fully Understanding that the other is never gonna back down. but neither of them actually ever goes for retaliation like it’s ALL EMPTY THREATS. tubbo has nukes quackity has an entire country but the thing is they Know each other. and it’s a stalemate until they give up being on opposite sides and go back to being allies again. meanwhile beeduo are supposed to be allies (they’re married for christs sake) but they keep lying to each other the entire arc. holy fuck. camaraderie vs trust for fucking real

[rebelpeas]

idk man i just think about cquackity eating cschlatt’s heart and the fact that cquackity is a man who loves and the way he’s a little afraid of that love now. those things all tie back together, right, because he loves too much and he doesn’t get it back, or if he does it just comes back to hurt him. the lover who will never be loved enough in return. and there’s this excruciating lesson he learns that love is pain and love is temporary and love is something to tear out of your chest like the dead fucking heart of the motherfucker who loved you enough to teach you the lesson. it’s like, his heart is in you now because yours was too much of a traitor to keep. tear it out yourself with desperate fingers and sharp-grinning teeth and replace it with this rotten mockery of what it is to love, and maybe this time it will keep you safe.

[rebelpeas]

i think we should talk more about viceduo and specifically how cq interacts with ctommy. i don’t think it’s coincidental that q has, multiple times, been shown to be one of the best people for tommy to go to when he’s struggling. like, i’ll just say it: quackity’s the other canonical abuse survivor on the server. he gets it. nobody saved quackity from schlatt, and nobody saved tommy from dream, at least not during exile. they know what it’s like to be the one that saved yourself, you know? they know what it’s like to try to live with that after.

quackity helping tommy build the walls around his base even when they both knew it wouldn’t help. (quackity hates walls. he wanted to take down l’manberg’s and there aren’t any around las nevadas. but they make tommy feel safe, and that’s all that matters right now.)

quackity letting tommy run around las nevadas without stopping him (the whole trousers thing? just joking around with the kid and letting him process as he needs to and never rising to any of tommy’s more pointed, bait-y comments? that’s a level of patience q doesn’t often give people. but he gives it to tommy, every time they interact.)

even like… how q was panicked about slime being kidnapped and then as soon as he found out it was tommy, he immediately let it go. when tommy made that suicidal comment on top of the needle, quackity reacted almost before wilbur to get him away from the edge. even in the more horrifying, sharp edges that quackity has—he never needed the revive book, guys—there’s all these things that show quackity cares about tommy, and a consistent pattern of how he reacts to tommy that shows that care. he’s a really good guy. we should talk more about viceduo.

[rebelpeas]

goddd i think so much about c!cabinetduo similarities. like. they were both the funny lighthearted comic relief character! they loved the world and they wanted to make it better! they wanted to do genuine good and they tried so hard and then when shit started to go downhill they still tried to do good with what they had left. and maybe the good things stopped looking so good and they start having to make hard choices and they do worse and worse things because it’s like trying to hold on to what remnants of good you have left. and eventually it just gets to be too much and you lose fucking everything and all that’s left is this shell and this awful tired anger that burns you from the inside out til there’s nothing left at all. the person you used to be is totally gone and he’s never coming back