#3 am word vomit about one of my faves. who could’ve seen this coming

[eriophorumcallitrix]

ok so i wanna talk about my biggest gripe with the latest reason for disliking tubbo. this ended up accidentally being a more in-depth character explanation from my/tubbos pov. and boy do I mean the compulsive overexplanation really popped off on this one

(disclaimer: you’re obviously allowed to dislike any character you want, I’m not your mom and I’m just voicing my own view + experiences lol)

one of the biggest criticisms for him im seeing as of the moment is that he’s being annoying. and I completely agree. I think he’s being inflammatory at really awful times. but what I don’t agree with is the lack of discussion about why he’s acting this way. chalking his callousness up to simple neglect or lack of care is a disservice to his character.

my interpretation of tubbos current mental state and how he got here is like this:

tension has been high strung for weeks now due to the egg island workers showing up and harassing people. they’ve killed empanada, and there really does not seem to be shit they can do about it. the federation doesn’t give a shit, the workers are OP as all hell, and tubbo has tried everything in his power to keep sunny and her siblings safe. not even his busted set of armor kept him from getting three-tapped. like tubbo said: “why try if there’s no chance of winning?”

so already, he’s depressed and frustrated with himself for not being able to do a damn thing to keep the people he loves safe.

then we get into his relationships with the people around him. in tubbos eyes, pac and fit are forming a close relationship that he feels is going to leave him behind. pac, fit and Ramon have each other now. they’re family now in a way that tubbo doesn’t seem to be a part of now. I can’t remember if he said this exactly, but it was along the lines of: well now there’s not going to be any space for me [if they’re that close.] his closest friends are moving on without him, and there’s nothing he can do about that either.

now we have a depressed barely-adult guy whose self esteem has TANKED because he feels like there’s no use for him anymore. his friends are moving on without him and the only thing he’s good for is how useful he can be to others.

except for sunny.

it barely took a week for them to get attached to each other, and now it’s them against the world. sunny is all he needs, and tubbo is all she needs. they mean everything to each other, and would burn it all down if it made the other smile. and right now? it’s looking like it’ll be just them against the world until further notice.

but sunny has her friends. she has her siblings! she loves them to death and they love her to death too. she has her accountant bad, her bodyguard fit and driver pac! (if I remember correctly xd) and they’ve got her. sunny can trust them, and has them to stick around for.

tubbo does not have this. don’t get him wrong, he’s incredibly grateful that she’s got people on her side that love her other than him! but this doesn’t come without unspoken jealousy and resentment. not resentment towards sunny, obviously, but definitely some jealousy of her relationships with the others. and possible resentment towards the others for not sparing the same kindness towards him.

this is where I tie back to my original point. the difference between sunny and her pa is mostly communication and trust of others. sunny is willing to communicate and trust others, and tubbo is not.

to start with why tubbo isn’t communicating with others right now: i believe he’s reached the point of emotional shutdown. he has tried his damndest to do what he can to resolve the situation and nothing has worked. this is already something I believe is stressing him out really badly, thus taking up a significant portion of his emotional threshold.

and now he can’t even seek solace or help in his friends because he cannot let himself trust them.

he has tried to give out cries for help in ways that aren’t necessarily straightforward. and he’s also said some seriously worrying things lately under the guise of being jokes. i don’t blame the others for not getting that, but I still can’t help but wonder why nobody’s really thought to look any deeper into it? like don’t get me wrong, tubbo says some completely inane shit sometimes. but has the frequency of these “jokes” and his inflammatory behavior not tipped anyone off at all?

regardless, tubbo feels like he’s tried. he’s not that good at communicating, and even when he is, he may not come off as treating the situation with proper sensitivity. it’s already a struggle to communicate, not even mentioning trying to ask for help. this is a whole other layer to wondering why he even tries doing things “right.”

he already thinks people only keep him around for what he can provide, so thats the only thing he thinks he’s got going for him and he’s barely hanging onto it too.

so as a result of not knowing how to cope with the situations around him and pretty much being extended past his emotional capability, he acts out. he doesn’t want fit and pac together because they’re gonna leave him behind. so he tries to ruin it. it doesn’t work, and they are continuing to move on without him. so he constantly comments on how annoying it is, and in a way, tries to get them to push him away themselves. he just wants a resolution to this hurt he’s feeling, and he wants them to just get “the move away” over already. but obviously that’s not gonna happen.

so he makes insensitive jokes, says stupid shit and does stupid shit too. he lies and blames others. he wants his friends to push him away already and give him a good reason to finally run away with sunny and completely isolate. this is beyond his capabilities, and all he needs at this point is a solid reason for him to finally hit the ground running.

but each day he comes back to spawn, doing everything he can to not completely lose it for sunny. he’s trying his best to keep it together for her, and he can’t let himself be weak. admitting his feelings in the place he’s currently in would end up coming out as a breakdown. and he cannot let the people around him see that. it would be a fatal error to open up when he cannot trust the feds nor the egg island workers not to take advantage of his weakness. and he needs to be there for sunny, to at the very least protect her if nothing else.

so essentially: tubbo is past his emotional threshold and is barely keeping it together. the facade is slipping and the harshness/what people perceive as annoying is continuously slipping out from the cracks.

(with this next bit, this is just me recognizing autistic patterns of behavior in myself + some others in tubbo’s character. i dont actually know if he’s autistic this is just me drawing parallels from my experience. and how I have seen these behaviors be treated within the qsmp fandom. don’t say I’m armchair diagnosing him or whatever for the love of god please)

so tubbo cannot cope with the situations around him, which is resulting in his mask slipping. he’s fully aware that he’s being insensitive and kind of an ass, but he is quite literally past his capability of keeping up with social niceties at this point. and i do think the unnecessary jokes in bad taste are purposefully to get people to either notice something is wrong or to get them to push him away so he doesn’t keep hurting their feelings.

and people getting onto him about communication I think simply do not get how utterly difficult it is to communicate when you have reached the point where you’re struggling to mask. not to mention the danger he could put himself in by being vulnerable to others on top of that. so ultimately, brushing off his fears and character traits as a simple “he could do this but doesn’t want to/is just stubborn and annoying for no reason/for a reason that isn’t good enough for me” is kind of ridiculous. it also reminds me of some things I’ve been told in relation to my struggles with autism, but that’s just me. not that i think people are actually being ableist but i do think some of y’all’s arguments are slipping a little too close to ableist rhetoric.

once again you’re allowed to dislike whoever you want and think they’re annoying, but i would encourage you to think a little more in depth as to why you think they’re annoying.

(and I’m not saying some people don’t like autistic traits that aren’t cute n quirky but… it’s getting a little too close for comfort >_>)