#enderwalk

[dancin-in-the-panicroom]

Wilbur is standing by river by the prison, smoking a cigarette while he waits for Ranboo. Upon seeing the enderman hybrid, he quickly drops it into the grass and crushes it under his boot.

“Hey, Ran.”

Ranboo smiles, his eyes a purple tone instead of the usual red-green combo. Definitely enderwalking, then.

“Hello Wilbur!”

[lightningonatether]

Why c!endersmile were actually friends

ALTERNATIVELY TITLED: my crazy thesis on two bad bitches with not a single moment of screentime fueled purely by my own insanity

ALTERNATIVELY alternatively titled: to all loreheads please be nice i dont usually lorepost. feel free to engage though

So my return is courtesy of litchi, who mentioned c!endersmile like once a month ago, and got me thinking about them so hard I couldn't just walk away.

Namely, litchi reminded me of a few theories I have concerning c!endersmiles relationship, that I developed back when i was watching the SMP live. This might make my recollection of some events a little fuzzy, but everything should be canon compliant cause I was thinking about all this as I watched.

I was already watching ranboo pretty regularly at the point the prison arc started, I cant resist a really weird guy with horrible debilitating anxiety. I already thought the whole hearing dreams voice in his head was really interesting, but as the prison arc evolved it became clear that ranboos relationship with dream wasnt just some hallucination inside ranboos head and actually had some substance.

My theory really started to develop into what it is now with the explosions on the prison roof which led to the lockdown and tommys death; these were confirmed to be set by ranboo in his enderwalk state. He was one of the only people online at the time, ranboo found tnt in his inventory afterwards, and I think dream also told sam he knew ranboo did it at some point, although I can't find the exact stream.

At that point it was obvious that enderwalking ranboo held a different set of beliefs, alliances, and likely more memories than the "awake" ranboo we saw most of the time on streams, and was acting against amnesiac ranboos wishes. The explosions above the prison along with the reveal that ranboo had been regularly visiting dream in prison confirmed that dream and ender!ranboo were some sort of allies.

At the time, my assumption was that ranboo had simply made an attempted prison break. It wouldnt be a stretch to assume, if ranboo had visited regularly, that he would have noticed the poor conditions and tried to break his ally out. However, after the confirmation of the staged finale, and a better look at cdreams motivations(wanting to provide protection for punz, separating himself very publicly from his only known ally to keep them safe) the idea that enderwalk ranboo, an ally of dreams, would go against dreams explicit wishes to stay locked in that prison began making less sense.

It would only make sense if either:

enderwalk never knew about the plan or

enderwalk knew about the plan but went against it anyway

1 is a very tempting explanation. c!dream rarely lets anyone close. even punz, who knew the plan intimately, wasn't aware of dreams true motivations to bring the server back to a peaceful time before conflict. but..... it didnt sit right with me.

Two reasons for this: I know some people may have stopped watching/never watched ranboo lore, but towards the end of the prison arc, ranboo began seeing flashes of "lessons" appear on screen. These lessons all had that utilitarian and paranoid feel a lot of dreams actions/reasoning have, like "dont trust anybody"(paraphrasing, thats just what i remember the core of that message being) or "never hesitate to gain a favor from someone, you can use it to get something from them later". anyone remember technos favor to dream? It was heavily implied these lessons were meant to be from dream, directed at c!enderwalk. This would mean the two spent a significant amount of time together. not only that, dream was sharing his *life philosophy* with ender!ranboo. thats not just something dream would share with anyone, and implies a close allyship at the least. its almost like he was teaching a pupil. yeah, sure, some of his lessons were a little fucked up and weird in that dream sort of way, but he was looking out for the kid. and it seems that enderwalk wasnt hesitant to act on those lessons either. he promised to keep a shulker safe for foolish, gaining a favor, and didnt sign a single one of those prison visitation waivers, on top of sam discovering they were corrupted into enderian when he checked LMAO.

This alone would be enough to persuade me enderwalk HAD to have been let in on the plan, at least so he wouldnt cause any problems (such as trying to get his ally out of prison).

but the other reason is... ranboos stated philosophy against conflict. he doesnt like sides, he wishes they wouldn't exist. I remember watching a stream and nearly jumping out of my seat when he told chat he just wished the server could just be one big happy family! because that is nearly word for word what a bunch of loreheads were saying about dreams motivations at the time(and now obviously lmao). if we keep in mind their contact for those "lessons", ranboos visits to dream in prison, AND the fact that dreams and ranboos motivations coincide on a level even Above dream and punzs(punz seemed to have been unaware of and also not particularly motivated by dreams wish for peace) i cant really imagine dream not letting this guy in on the plan.

which leaves us with 2) ranboo tried to break dream out against dreams wishes.

Maybe ranboo was just an ally and chickened out after he saw dreams mistreatment in prison and went against the plan, but... dream missed him after sam barred him from visiting. he asked sapnap to deliver a note to ranboo(just a smiley face, likely with the hopes of triggering an enderwalk) despite fearing for his ally punz enough to lock himself in prison. it feels reminicent to how dream sounds when he comments on george not visiting him once. like he missed a friend despite trying so hard to separate himself from the ones he'd had.

Maybe ranboo tried to break in because he saw a friend being mistreated, and couldn't leave the plan stand.

And that kind of makes sense doesn't it? that dream, someone whos paranoid about how peoples connection to him puts them in danger, would choose an amnesiac who spends most of their time terrified of dream, and wouldnt remember any of his plans or their friendship to use against either of them in the first place?

[sautetheshroom]

Thinking about the Enderwalk because I just think it’s neat.

I’m going off the knowledge that the enderwalk is ranboo with all his memories, and that’s like- mostly it. Funny enough I actually don’t remember much about the lore streams. My uh, my memory is ironically enough very bad. Some amount of conspiring with or at least spending time around Dream. Buh, anyway.

I know there’s a lot of interpretations of the Enderwalk, including it being more instinct-driven, it being like- mind-controlled by Dream, and it just straight up Being Evil.

I’ll be honest, purely evil characters are mostly boring to me (mostly. There are some I like), so here’s my throw-together, slap-dash headcanon based on less lore than I’d like it to be and mostly on what I think would be the most fun to write/draw (under the cut for "not pestering people" purposes):

The Enderwalk is just Ranboo with all his memories. Really he's more Ranboo than Ranboo actually is, but oh well.

He's not evil. He's a lot more jaded than Ranboo, sure. Maybe hasn't managed to maintain his, uh, counterpart's(?) same moral standpoints, but he's not evil. Since he has all of Ranboo's memories he has the same attachments as them, he just also has attachments to people Ranboo doesn't remember, and that can (or at least, has in the past) made him more standoffish towards Tubbo, Michael, Tommy, etc. out of fear or wariness of Ranboo's tendency to lose people they love.

He doesn't only speak/write Ender, he can speak Common/English/Whatever, he just has the experience of speaking/writing in Ender his whole life (experience Ranboo doesn't have as much, since he only remembers being around people who speak Common). And to be frank, the enderwalk is kinda so done with people that even with the people he likes he doesn't bother talking in a language they'll understand, which I'll get to

right now. The enderwalk seems, from an outside perspective, very instinct-driven. I'll use spending time with Tubbo as an example for obvious, cbeeduo-pilled reasons. When the enderwalk spends time around Tubbo, it usually just listens to him talk, brings him blocks, and- if it's feel particularly cuddly- will snuggle up next to him and purr like the biggest, most oddly-shaped cat. He talks to Tubbo, but only in Ender, and Tubbo just thinks he's making enderman noises, not knowing they're words.

In turn the enderwalk accepts the affection Tubbo gives him in return, since he doesn't get it often when he's fully himself. He indulges in warn touches and simple draws and urges of his instincts. Affection, haunting, safety. It's not uncommon for him to lay there and wonder if Tubbo would care for him like he does Ranboo if he knew him in his entirety. He doesn't kid himself though. Not anymore.

As for Dream, his control of the enderwalk is really just a control of Ranboo overall. Maybe it's an enderman thing, maybe just a Ranboo thing, I dunno, but he can just. Control Ranboo. The enderwalk is just what those memories are saved to, for lack of a better word. Ranboo doesn't remember just as part of his nature, so it's the enderwalk alone that has all those memories. Still, the enderwalk isn't in control, and certainly doesn't want to do bad things or hurt people.

Anyway, that's it. That's the headcanon. It's poorly put-together and sloppily done, but it's mine. My stupid little stitched-together brain child.

[0-0-michael-0-0]

FINNISHED WIP

I finnished it! The day after I posted actually- but well- I planed on colouring them digitally so I waited untill I'd done that. Soooo... Here's the results!

not the best ik ik but digitall drawing is not my thing. But colouring on paper? NUH UH! I ain't risking it!!!

[cirrusea]

I can never sleep, even in my dreams

[flaskrobonoid]

thinking about the horrible characterization of Enderwalk Ranboo back in like 2021 what the fuck was everyone doing. Why was there so much angst where it’s just “oooo they KILL. Their FAMILY oooo”

[nocinovae]

Eggza is q!Phil’s enderwalk.

[if-loki-was-a-fox]

Why do the Lovejoy/Wilbur lyrics keep reminding of this guy