#Wilbur: what do you mean you don’t have ptsd? What have you been doing in therapy??

[nomsfaultau]

With enough determination, Techno can probably ignore that too!

From chapter 6 of Mandatory Family Reunion

[dreamsclock]

What happens if c!Wilbur/Alivebur finds snowchester and decides to take over or maybe he finds out about the nukes and uses it to get c!Dream out-

Ah, let chaos run the server :)

someone: h—

me: YOU WANT ME TO WRITE C!WILBUR AND C!TUBBO INTERACTING ?? THAT’S WHAT YOU WANT ME TO DO ?? YOU’RE DEMANDING I WRITE THEM TALKING ????? OKAY LOL UR CRAZY 😇

/lh omg tysm for giving me the chance to write c!wilbur do you know how much i love him? anyway have this :D

warnings: toxic relationship, manipulation, trauma, PTSD, trauma response, smoking, threats, dark themes / content, dark c!wilbur portrayal

“Oh, this is a familiar sight!” 

Tubbo jerks round at the sound of a stranger’s voice, mouth running dry at how much the voice reminds him of debris and a too-big suit and a lean, mean knowing smile that had watched its own world blow up before destroying everyone else’s too. “Wilbur,” he greets uneasily, wiping his sweaty palms on his coat and turning properly to face him, “aren’t you supposed to be...”

He trails off, because yeah, Wilbur is. He’s supposed to be with Phil and Techno, on house arrest (or as close as one can get to house arrest when it comes to Wilbur Soot), permanently, until they can figure out how much of a threat he is and how seriously they should hide anything explosive from him. But Wilbur only smiles, serenely, stepping further into the room, and Tubbo hates how fluid and natural he makes everything look, even walking in a world that’s outgrown him, because Tubbo can try and try and he will never feel as at home in this place as Wilbur looks now.

He isn’t bred for explosives and nukes. 

Wilbur is, and he’s never looked more at ease.

“I just came round to say hi,” Wilbur tells him, nonchalant despite how obviously uncomfortable Tubbo is, “it’s been over a decade since I’ve had proper conversation, you know? Schlatt and Mexican Dream and Tommy didn’t exactly count: the first two pretended they didn’t know English to avoid talking to me after the first year, and Tommy was too preoccupied doing his whole shaky breath traumatised teen act to actually have meaningful conversation, so I’m here!” He spreads his hands, cracks a wider smile. His eyes are black, black swirling void and oblivion. “And I’m glad I stopped by. This a little secret passion project you’re working on, eh?”

Wilbur’s gaze sweeps from Tubbo, shifts from making him feel as small as an ant to gazing with delight at the singular nuke on the table between them like he’s struck gold. Before he can think straight, Tubbo is snatching it from the table, shoving it into his inventory and backing up as casually as he can, because he’s a lot of things, but stupid isn’t one of them, no matter what anyone thinks, and he doesn’t want Wilbur Soot of all people getting his hands on this nuke, not when they’re one down already. 

If anything, this only entertains Wilbur. His smile grows more serene, more placid, but there’s steel and iron behind his expression, steel and iron knives that dig into Tubbo’s skin the more Wilbur stays here. “Don’t worry,” Wilbur tells him with a chuckle, “I know you know what I’m like, but I have no plans as of now to blow anything up, least of all this place. Not when you’ve worked so hard on it!”

I worked hard on L’Manburg too, Tubbo wants to snap, but the words feel stuck in his mouth, cling to his tongue and drip down his throat like blood, I worked hard on L’Manburg and Manberg and New L’Manberg and you destroyed all of them, you and the shadow of who you became and the memory of your handiwork, you blew up my everything and left me stumbling blind in the dust-

He doesn’t say any of this, of course, because he’s not Tommy, because he’s got what Tommy calls “thicker skin” but Tubbo prefers to call cowardice. In one graceful, slow movement, Wilbur ends up closer than ever, on Tubbo’s side of the table, leaning against it casually and fiddling with a lighter. Tubbo can only watch, a rabbit trapped in the headlights, as Wilbur lights a cigarette, takes a long drag, his eyes never leaving Tubbo’s, before he speaks again.

“Does it call you?” He asks curiously. “The nuke? Does it sing in your head at night? Can you hear it, Tubbo?”

Tubbo swallows bile. “No,” he says, “’cause I’m not out of my mind, Wilbur. Not like you were. The nuke doesn’t speak.”

But he’s lying, and Wilbur’s eyes glitter like he’s hit the jackpot (he has), arching one eyebrow idly. 

“There’s a dead man’s switch on that nuke.” He points out, and he almost sounds detached - he’s been there, done this before, Tubbo supposes half-hysterically, why should he sound interested? He’s not talking to Tommy, he’s not talking to Dream: Tubbo knows he’s always been somewhat of a pawn to Wilbur, knows it in the same way he knows Tommy had been right to want Dream dead before he brought Wilbur back, and in the same way he knows now that Wilbur’s sudden interest in him again is a bad, bad sign. “Taking a leaf out of my book, Tubso?”

The nickname that usually comes from Tommy makes Tubbo feel nauseous. 

“Sometimes you have to do what’s necessary to defend your nation,” he forces out, and, behind his back, slips out his communicator, types Ranboo’s name as discreetly as he can, gets ready to message him with a simple and desperate help, “I want Snowchester to stay in one piece. I want the people living here to be happy. If I have to use a nuke to make sure people stay that way, then I won’t hesitate.”

Something wistful and mean flickers in the light of Wilbur’s cigarette. “Such wise words from our former President,” he muses, driving a dagger into Tubbo’s heart and twisting it with his next words, “you almost sound exactly like how I used to think. Isn’t that funny?”

Tubbo’s mouth runs dry.

Wilbur pulls out five blocks.

Tubbo is too busy reeling backwards in preparation for a blow or threat to realise what’s happening until his back hits a wall and he finds himself boxed in by Wilbur’s quick block work, two blocks on either side of him and one in front and oh fuck fuck fuck this is just like Schlatt all over again and his vision blurs for a moment and he can’t remember where he is but there’s fireworks exploding all around him and a pain shattering fragments into his chest and he’s screaming out for Schlatt to stop and Wilbur to save him and he’s staring down Techno begging pleading with his eyes not to hurt him and it hurts and he’s so so scared Tommy please

“Tubbo in a box,” Wilbur says cheerfully, before breaking the front block. Tubbo’s legs shake, quiver, but he keeps himself standing anyway, because he’s got thicker skin, or because he’s too much of a coward to be honest about how fucking scared he is right now, “just like old times, right? Boxed in back then, and...” His eyes trail around the enclosure of the nuke holding site, dark, cutting, and Tubbo has never been more claustrophobic. “...And boxed in a slightly bigger box now.”

The blocks are broken. Tubbo doesn’t speak. He doesn’t think he can. Wilbur is still smiling, but it feels expectant, like he’s waiting for a chess move from an opponent, like Tubbo has somehow upgraded himself from pawn to player all by showing his trauma. 

“What’s going on?”

He wants to cry at the sound of Ranboo’s voice. Instead, Tubbo latches onto it, uses the sound to soothe himself enough to force words out. “Nothing,” he says, chokes, “Wilbur was just popping in to say hi.”

“I like reacquainting myself with old faces,” Wilbur agrees, as composed and unruffled as ever, and for a moment, Tubbo wants to set off the nuke there and then, wants to kill him and Wilbur, wants them both to die just so he can see Wilbur’s expression of surprise, “it’s nice, after so long being stuck in that Void.”

He turns, then, and Tubbo catches sight of Ranboo standing there, sword in hand, armour and shield out, expression unyielding and tight. There’s a flicker of protectiveness when they lock eyes, and Tubbo is suddenly reminded of the half formed message on his communicator he’d never quite got to finish - an unfinished symphony, he tries to joke, but it’s wild, frantic in his mind, a hummingbird trapped inside that throws itself hysterically against his skull. 

“It’s nice to see new faces too,” Wilbur tells Ranboo, cocking his head, “I’m sure we’ll see a lot of each other! I want to pick your brain every now and then - I’m a big fan of the whole Enderman thing, by the way, that’s well cool.”

Ranboo smiles, but it’s hard. “Can I borrow Tubbo for a bit? I really wanna talk to him about something, if that’s okay.”

Wilbur raises his hands good-naturedly, expression falling into something less genuine, falsified, almost, if not for the fact Tubbo knows Wilbur is being as sincere as ever. “Of course! I’m done here, anyway. I just saw my chance to catch him and speak to him: it’s just been so long. You know what they say about reminiscing too much, Lesson 27 and all that, but I’ve never been able to help myself, you know?”

“Yeah,” Tubbo says uncertainly, feeling like he’s missing something when Ranboo goes still like he’s been shot, “yeah, we know.”

Wilbur turns back to him, taking another drag from his cigarette and clapping Tubbo on the back warmly.

“I’ll see you soon, probably,” he says, and there’s no probably about it, “I’ll tell Philza you said hi!”

He heads for the exit, unbothered entirely by Ranboo’s excessive armour and weaponry, putting out his cigarette on the wall as he passes him. Tubbo waits very calmly until he knows Wilbur is gone, and then does the rational thing: he grabs hold of the table when his legs buckle from underneath him, and tries very hard not to start hyperventilating.

Ranboo is by his side in an instant, shaken, worried. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” Tubbo struggles to compose himself, gulps in a lungful of air and focuses on something positive, like the fact Wilbur hadn’t taken the nuke or killed him or hurt him, but all he can focus on is how hard it is to breathe in this little space and how Wilbur had stubbed out his cigarette on his wall, almost staking a claim over it, leaving a permanent mark that screams this is mine, Tubbo is mine, that nuke is mine, this is all mine and I won’t let anyone forget it. Ranboo’s hand on his shoulder is a comfort, and Tubbo turns, burying his head in Ranboo’s chest and hugging him tightly. “Thanks for coming.”

“Yeah, course,” Ranboo says gently, holding up his communicator and hugging him back, “you didn’t reply to my response to your half sent help, so I had to come. I was worried.”

And for good reason, neither of them need to add, because Tubbo’s shaky breaths and Wilbur’s presence that still hovers over them thickly is proof enough of that, so Tubbo tries for a smile, tries for a light laugh as he pulls his husband from the nuke room and locks the door very tightly shut behind him, because he will be fine, eventually, he doesn’t need to worry Ranboo more. 

“No need to be worried about me, boss man,” he tells him playfully, “I have a totem now. I’m all safe. Besides- Wilbur wouldn’t hurt me. He’s an awful, awful person, but he wouldn’t hurt me.”

He doesn’t need to.

Because even outside, Tubbo still can’t breathe; because even in the company of Ranboo, his mind is fixated on the nuke; because, even in the vast expanse of open area that makes up Snowchester, Tubbo feels claustrophobic, choked like he’s still stuck in a box after all this time.

[bellfort3]

SBI Fanfics of the Week (week 66)

Baby Steps by SilverWing15

3/3

“Don’t tell me you’re scared of your own prisoner,” the piglin says, and there’s a mocking laugh in his voice and Tommy hates it, hates it, hates it! The humans always laughed at him and said he was scared. He’s not scared!

“I’m not scared!” He yelps, glaring at the piglin from around the tree. He’s not scared, but he’s not stupid either.

The piglin stares at him, his eyes wide, his mouth open a little bit and it shows even more of his big teeth. Tommy goes back behind the tree.

“I’m not scared!” he says again, “so you better not laugh at me!”

“I--I’m sorry?” the piglin says, and he sounds weird, kind of high pitched. “Come back here.”

A month (or three) in the life of Tom Simons by Drhair76

2/?

"Come over," Wilbur says.

"Brighton nightlife is out on the prowl, Wilbur," Tommy points out. "They're gonna scoop me up and spit me out."

or, this is Tommy's life now - he, for one, adores it.

spilling out unnecessary secrets by plantform

1/1

Tommy’s keeping something from him, Wilbur knows. He knows because Tommy’s bad at lying in general, but especially to him—he is infinitely smug at the fact. So, Wilbur knows Tommy wants to tell him something—he even knows what that something is; Tommy’s going to America. For whatever reason, the boy hasn’t told him, and is now actively keeping it from him.

It only hurts because it seems like everyone knows except for Wilbur.

Or: Tommy's going to the U.S. and he hasn't told Wilbur.

Getting The Most Extensive Grounding Of Your Life The Day Of The Full Moon Is Not A Good Idea by WistfulWriter

2/?

Tommy Danger Careful Kraken Innit -ok, well, maybe that wasn't his legal name, but he didn't remember his birth family, and there was no way he was going to accept that Simons was the latter half of his legal name. No, no, he was much too cool for that.- had always considered himself to be a careful boy. I mean, he had been in the system since he could remember, and seeing as none of the homes he'd ever been in had discovered his secret, he felt he'd earned the title.

But back to the main point. Tommy Innit considered himself a very careful boy. Considered. Right now, he really. fucking. didn't. Because he fucked it up. So now, here he was, everyone scared fucking shitless, as he pressed himself as hard as he could into the recently shit-ily painted frosted emerald walls -the paint that he could still clearly see in Wilbur's hair no matter how many times he told him there was still more- with his tail tucked between his legs, ears pinned back, and going between whining in fear and discomfort, and growling and snapping at his- his fucking pack for the same fucking reasons.

So to anyone still confused, getting the most extensive grounding of your life the day of the full moon is not a good idea.

hold me like a fire (hold me like a river) by Anonymous

2/2

Wilbur would not let go of Phil’s hand. His sword hand, an angry and guilty part of his mind provided. The hand he'd slayed his son with now clutched within that very son's grip.

"Wil," Phil said, just wanting to break the silence. Wilbur didn't react, not a flicker of light in his eyes. "What can I do to help?"

He wasn't expecting an answer, but that didn't make the lack of one hurt any less. He put his fingers against his son's pulse point to feel the delicate flutter of Wil's heartbeat, anything to remind him that they were alive and together.

Or PTSD's a bitch, huh? Too bad all these fellows have that problem! They'll get each other through it.

my heart in your hands (and still i breathe) by rinredacted

1/1

"Fuck you,” Tommy all but cries out, chest exploding into fireworks of seething red. “Fuck you, Techno, you pretentious bitch, you fucking asshole. You come in here and— and start trying to tell me who I can and can’t be friends with? After fucking ignoring me for six months? You controlling fucking— I can talk to whoever I want!” A beat, a break, a bated breath. His voice does not waver. “And if it’s not you, that’s not my problem!”

It backfires.

or: Tommy and Techno have been talking less and less since Techno started college. In a subconscious attempt to fill the void, Tommy unwittingly makes good friends with one (1) Wilbur Soot— to which his actual brother does not take kindly.

[tobi-smp]

Regarding your tags on the post about the misuse of trauma-dumping--I don't disagree with you, but what are your thoughts about the accusation of abuse apologism--or worse, threats of abuse itself--sent to people who do like Dream, including other abuse survivors? Isn't that also silencing, just in the other direction? It just seems like a messy situation overall, with shit behavior on all sides.

context: [Link]

I'm gonna be real with you anon, these two things are not comparable for very important reasons.

the situation with dream and tommy is what it is because they presented an abusive relationship with enough authenticity and nuance that people who've experienced these things in real life have been able to see their experiences reflected back and represented in a way that they haven't seen before in popular media. I've seen my c-ptsd in tommy in ways that I just Haven't seen in movies or tv.

[Links that go into more detail: Link 1, Link 2, Link 3, Link 4 and summaries of dream's treatment and affect on tommy in all of the exile streams under "A Comprehensive Analysis of the Exile arc": Link]

"trauma dumping" as a term isn't exactly rigidly defined, but it's essentially the practice of suddenly oversharing about trauma at random in a way that can be toxic to the people around you. this means going into detail about something horrific that you've experienced without giving someone time or space to consent to seeing that information, which can be triggering or draining. it seems more appropriate (to me) to define it as a pattern of behavior, rather than a one-off, but it can be useful in talking about isolated interactions anyhow.

what people are accusing of being "trauma dumping" is what I've already done in this post, mentioning the fact that you have trauma at all and how it affects your relationship with this piece of media. this is blatantly misusing the term specifically to shame people out of speaking up about why it can be harmful to other fans who are survivors to make light of the canonical abuse (or worse, which I won't get into).

it's a silencing tactic because it's essentially weaponizing someone's trauma against them through what's more or less a lie so that the accuser doesn't Have to acknowledge what's already in the text of the story they're consuming and talking about.

the problem with abuse apologia in the fandom can't be summed up with "people have started blatantly misusing a term seemingly at random to try to get what they want."

this is going to sound harsh but anyone can spread abuse apologia whether they mean to or not, whether they themselves are a trauma survivor or not. in the same way that being lgbt+ doesn't stop people from being able to spread queerphobia or ideas that contribute or stem from queerphobia.

the problem is not in that people Like dream, it's that there are people who actively excuse his actions or actively try to blame those actions on tommy. people who say and Believe that tommy "got what he deserved," people who try to argue that tommy Provoked dream, who say that dream was only doing what he had to because tommy was Clearly the cause of everyone's problems on the server (which is, of course, the logic that dream used to justify his own abuse and attempted murder), etc.

these are all real things that I see Frequently and Have Seen for months. not just in fringe sections of the fandom but front and center on twitter, youtube, reddit, and of course floating around here on tumblr. and I've personally seen much worse, but I won't be getting into that right now.

of course people should make the distinction between apologia spread for a fictional character and apologia spread about real people (or people you personally know) because it Is absolutely different. but it's important to point out regardless of whether it's fictional or not because it's being posted publicly where people who Do see themselves and their trauma in tommy can see it and be hurt by it.

tommy provoked dream by being annoying and argumentative in the prison? and what if someone has a loud personality and has been punished for it by their abuser? how do you think They'd feel if someone looks at behavior that reflects them and say that the person who got hurt deserved to be because of that?

it's not the same because it's true. a Lot of the things said about tommy and his experiences are extremely uncomfortable and hurtful to read from the perspective of someone who can relate to his situation. which is problematic when his "situation" is canonical trauma and abuse. and its important to point out that the things being said mirror real life abuse apologia because the things being said are reaching and hurting real life abuse survivors.

pointing out that your words can have an impact on traumatized people because the subject matter you're talking about already deals with themes of trauma and abuse is not a silencing tactic Because It Is The Truth. if someone pointing out the reality of a situation makes your argument fall apart (to the point that you have to try to deflect through lying) then maybe there's something wrong with your argument.

there's nothing wrong with Liking dream, I like dream's character, the problem is when you try to paint him as justified or in the right when it comes to tommy (or tubbo, or ranboo, or wilbur, or-). I don't think people are right when they try to call people outright abusers over blockman discourse, but I can also say that that's just something that I haven't seen. I absolutely believe that it happens (discourse just is that way) but I mean that I don't think that it's common in the same way that the abuse apologia is, or even the misuse of the term "trauma dumping."

so comparing the two situations and calling them The Same just feels, Gross.

[anawkwardshit]

Defending C!Tommy

I would like to preface this by saying that much of this rant consists of pasted pieces from my previous Dream SMP posts, so be aware of that. I would also like to mention that I base many of my ideas off of not just lore but also introspection into the less detailed pieces of lore or the realities that come with stuff that happens in the lore even if not explicitly mentioned in canon (i.e. Tommy’s PTSD from being a child soldier and his other trauma).

Before we begin, keep in mind that Tommy had to suffer through multiple wars, deal with his brother who was suffering from a manic down spiral and another sibling/friend (depending on what you take as canon) who killed his best friend in front of him and then fought him to the death in a pit. He then proceeded to watch his father/father figure (whatever you take as canon, since Wilbur and Phil have submitted different versions, though Tommy has admitted to Phil being a father figure to him regardless) kill his brother after being witness to the entire nation he’d built, bled, and fought for be blown up, and mere seconds later had his other brother/friend (Techno) turn on him and attempt to kill him and the rest of his friends with massive beings of death and destruction. That’s gonna instill some PTSD.

Let’s address what we can accuse Tommy for, starting with the reason for his exile. Why excuse Tommy burning down George’s house and breaking rules? Easy: Tommy didn’t do anything more than what others have, and nobody else ever received punishment for it. People have repeatedly stolen from each other and griefed without repercussions, let alone one as harsh as exile and the isolation and abuse that came from it. Hell, Tommy’s house has been griefed and stolen from multiple times without anyone batting an eye or bothering to defend him (Connor even moved in and claimed it as his own later without permission, essentially kicking Tommy out with little to no remorse). Next to that, the burning of George’s house was a complete accident to begin with; the stealing was just supposed to be a prank, a harmless one. Don’t forget that Ranboo was involved, something he later admitted, and was never punished for it. This basically proves that Tommy’s exile wasn’t a punishment or justice, it was just Dream using it as an excuse to hurt him. In fact, Dream’s argument during the trial that Tommy has continued his destruction across the SMP and continues to be a danger and destroy the peace is false, since it was Dream and even Puffy who were the ones to blow up the other builds (meaning Dream is not doing this out of any professional/political lens, he’s just framing Tommy for his own self gain).

When it comes to Jack, I have multiple arguments I could make. Tommy’s mindset when it comes to pain is skewed (read the section in this comment about Fundy’s torture and Connor’s hostage situation to get a more in-depth detail about how it’s skewed). Hell, this happened during the exile, where Tommy considered Dream a good friend, and the man had been the one to take away his first two lives; for all it’s worth in Tommy’s mind, what’s a little killing between friends? In other scenarios, Tommy didn’t even intend to hurt or kill Jack. He got startled, rightly so as he was not only being abused and constantly nervous when Dream would show up but also suicidal and lost to a relatively consistent state of disassociation. I’m not saying he doesn’t owe the man an apology, but Tommy likely doesn’t even realize the wrongs of what he did; pain and death to him is so normalized that it likely doesn’t even register (like with Dream being his friend and killing him before, even Phil killing Wilbur (assisted suicide) and still claiming to love him). And even if we ignore all that, we’re all aware of the hallucinations Tommy experienced in exile, not to mention Dream’s gaslighting. He saw Tubbo everywhere, talked to an imaginary figure he called Clara and a girlfriend he built out of wood like they were real, and Dream even managed to gaslight him into thinking that MD (Mexican Dream) died of an overdose even after he killed him right in front of Tommy as the boy watched. For all Tommy was aware with his state of mind, Jack very well could have been another person/situation his mind created in an attempt to combat the isolation and loneliness.

One can also argue that Tommy messed up siding with Techno, the enemy of L’manberg. But what else was there for Tommy to do? He was running from his abuser, his friends had turned their backs on him for all he was aware—he was forced to fend for himself, even if that resorted to stealing, and he took the companionship and help where he could. Techno gave that to him.

If we were to address Tommy’s betrayal of Techno himself at the Green Festival, I would argue that it wasn’t truly betrayal at all. Techno literally offered to give Tommy to Dream for the favor while Tommy was right there next to him (how was Tommy supposed to trust him after that?), continued to insist their relationship was only a business transaction until the very end where he admitted that maybe he “might” consider Tommy something of a friend, only let Tommy stay with him and hide as long as Tommy was useful to him in his own goals (ergo, they used each other, and his insisting that Tommy only treated him like a weapon was a hypocritical argument to make when he didn’t treat Tommy much differently from a tool; he could at least respect the fact that they used each other equally), and while Techno insists he made his intentions clear from the start, that is untrue—Tommy’s the one who made his intentions clear, saying he didn’t want to blow up or hurt L’manberg, and Techno simply brushed that aside and insisted they’d talk about that later (Tommy only agreed to “minor terrorism” which we see he doesn’t back out on when he lets Techno spawn a Wither, take Connor hostage, etc). He even deleted the “Destroy L’manberg” item on the To-Do List before giving it to Tommy to look at, intentionally deceiving him of his intentions. He teamed up with Tommy’s abuser after even seeing the effect he’d had on Tommy after exile and then calling what Tommy did “betrayal” even though it could be more realistically considered a conflict of interests.

Let’s also talk about the “torture” of Fundy when he and Techno infiltrated L’manberg and the taking Connor hostage. Tommy was going along with what Techno wanted to do, for the most part. He was trying to prove he was useful and worthy of the refuge and companionship Techno offered. Remember, even after escaping Dream, Tommy was still struggling to recognize the abuse he’d endured (when he ran from the Final Control Room in the sewers, he was asking for Dream, his “friend”, to help him). Tommy still had yet to recognize that the hurt he’d suffered wasn’t justified. To him, torturing Fundy for information probably didn’t even register in his head as malicious. He wasn’t hurting Fundy just to hurt him, he was doing it for the good of his discs and L’manberg (as Tommy said). The pain he’d brought Fundy was a means to an end for him, and since a lot of the hurt Tommy has been through, not only by Dream, has been the same kind of pain, pain brought to further others’ goals and even teach “lessons”, it likely didn’t register in his head as wrong. I’m not saying Tommy doesn’t have to apologize, but it’s not as though the kid did it for the sole enjoyment of inflicting pain; his mindset was skewed due to his own experiences. In this instance, Connor’s situation is similar. They took him hostage to negotiate and further their own goals; I don’t think they even really hurt Connor. Hell, Tommy himself has been used by Wilbur, Techno, Dream, and probably others I can’t recall in the same manner, even in similarity that they didn’t inflict physical pain onto him either. Again, we’re back to Tommy not recognizing the mental stress and hurt he’s inflicting on people because he doesn’t register it; it’s normal to him, something he himself has been subjected to and then been told to suck it up.

In all honesty, I believe a lot of the stuff Tommy does that makes some people find it hard to sympathize with him is an attempt that Tommy makes to relax and have fun like he’s always done before everything went to crap (before the wars and betrayal and hate). Tommy’s character is naturally an angry kid (another reason why some dislike him), possibly a partial effect from growing up in the midst of fighting and war, or even an effect of his trauma and PTSD (mental health isn’t always pretty or as romanticized as people like to make it out to be). He’s all for a good spat and scuffle, but that’s familiar and lighthearted; he’s as tired of all the bloodshed and war just like anyone else is. He always seems to be raring for a fight, but like with his idea to fight Dream instead of taking punishment, he’s nowhere near willing to lose his home again, making fighting reasonable. When Sam Nook asked him to destroy the Egg, Tommy decided not to in fear of starting another war since it wasn’t really hurting anything at the time. Beyond that, Tommy’s character knows very little beyond fighting and violence; it’s the most familiar to him. Coping with peacetimes must be such a hard thing for him to grasp as a child soldier. Dealing with that and his recent grief over Wilbur through some harmless theft (no worse than what anybody else does) shouldn’t have gotten him so harshly punished, if punished at all.

[darealsaltysam]

I WATCHED THE ELECTION RESULTS STREAM (once more, wilbur’s pov) AND OH GOD THIS IS PAIN

1. HOLY SHIT SCHLATT’S LAUGH NEVER FAILS TO DISSAPOINT 

2. god the banishment.... wilbur and tommy running into the woods through the night... niki being the only one to speak up against schlatt... tubbo being pulled into it all... GOD ITS SO GOOD WHY IS IT SO GOOD

3. techno’s tweet sounds like something that would be posted together with a promotional poster for a movie where a beloved character comes back, absolutely brilliant mr. blade

4. GOD THE WHOLE WALL SECTION. WILBUR SINGING, TALKING ABOUT HIS SON, NIKI SEEING HIM FROM THE DISTANCE AND HIM WALKING AWAY, GOD IT WAS ALL SO PERFECT ???????????

5. wilbur has trust issues aimed specifically at americans (and eret) because of everything that happened now, this poor boy cant even trust the blade 

6. “I’m gonna make schlatt pay for this”

7.  THEM PLANNING TO TAKE OFF THE UNIFORMS IS SO SAD BUT ITS ALSO SO IMPORTANT TO EVERYTHING GOD IM SCREAMING (also “i can’t go back to my old skin wilbur, it has schlatt’s suit and it HURTS”)

8. TECHNOBLADE IS GONNA TRAIN THE BOYS !!!!!!!!!!

9. wilbur trusting tommy with his diamond armor just shows how far theyve come... and... “i trust you, youre the best right hand man i could have ever asked for”, AAAAAAAAAAA

10. technoblade cant roleplay and hes just there with his monotone voice... i mean go off king, we stan a man whos done with all this shit and just wants to stab some people. and this quote of them talking about their past on the earthsmp specifically shows it;

tommy, all emotional: good talking to you again big man

techno:

techno: 

techno: didn’t we just talk yesterday?

11. EVERYONE’S REACTION TO TECHNO LOGGING ON IS GOLD, LIKE NIKI THERE IN CHAT GETTING ALL EXCITED KNOWING THERE’S A CHANCE FOR L’MANBURG I LOVE HER-

12. wilbur breaking down over the destruction of l’manburg while schlatt wanders below, with tommy pulling techno away and telling him to give wilbur space- god why is all of this so CINEMATIC? ITS JUST MINECRAFT-

13. SCHLATT SAYING HE’LL CHANGE THE NAME OF THE COUNTRY AND NIKI TELLING HIM HE CANT DO IT AND SCREAMING AND HIM TELLING HER TO SHUT UP IS AN ACTUAL MOVIE SCENE THIS IS A MOVIE THIS ISNT MINECRAFT ANYMORE THIS IS-

14. “you’re going to pay for this” - why did niki sound so menacing when she said that what the fuck?????????? i didnt know this pure little sunshine could do that????????????

15. manburg??? MANBURG????? 

MANBURG??????

16. “TECHNOBLADE STOP LOOKING AT THE FUCKING DOG”

17. just...

Wilbur: Tubbo, can you be my Hercules Mulligan?

Tubbo: I can get the information and then smuggle it! :D

Tubbo: I got that reference! :DDDD

18. the first time wilbur said something mean/aggressive to tommy in this stream was when he mentioned talking to schlatt.... like im sorry if that doesnt tell you everything you need to know about the relationships of these three i dont know what will

19. TECHNO POTATO FARM BOTTOM TEXT

20. quackity broke nihachu out of prison?????? are they on the same side???? could it be quackity realized that being by schlatt’s side is a bit more than he bargained for?????? the intrigue....

21. “this is what i listened to with jschlatt on what should have been his only night on this server” okay tommy COMING ON A LITTLE STONG THERE-

22. another gold quote...

Techno: If I see an opportunity to assassinate the president, do I take it?

Tommy: Yes!

Wilbur: No! Absolutely not!

Tommy: Right, of course not!

23. TYLER “NINJA” BLEVINS???? THE TYLER “NINJA” BLEVINS???? ON DA DREAMSMP IN A WEEK?????? 

24. wilbur calling the country manburg and immediately throwing up is about what i expected from this “peace talk” 

25. wilbur i know you have trust issues now but if you don’t risk techno on your side you will literally die there is no other outcome to this honey please let yourself be helped jfc

26. the gang desperately trying to come up with a name while low-key getting sad over loosing l’manburg and techno just in the background going “if that’s our name im switching sides” and “my standards are low but not that low” has energy i cant quite place but i love it

27. pogtopia it is i guess????

28. tommy and wilbur getting straight up dreamsmp war ptsd when they found the bunker they hid in is some, once more, movie-tier stuff. i mean, what else to do when the heroes are already down than to beat them down further?

29. “go potato boy go!!!” 

30. god this whole stream was.... such a ride... holy shit... and this is only the START of this new arc??????? BOY I AM HYPED. like, MORE HYPED THAN IVE EVER BEEN FOR ANY SMP BEFORE

on another note... the new guy, huh? that must have been a wild ride for your first day on the smp.... hope you stick around, hbomb

[hamphobicbasil]

Could u elaborate about the dsmp story being bad? Not a rabid/brain dead fan, just genuinely curious and I enjoy reading people's rants lolol

oh you dont know the floodgates you just opened

a few things:

1. despite not liking the creators of the dsmp anymore, I don't actually hate most of them. [the ones that are particularly unsavory fall outside of this of course] so all that I'm saying i truly mean in a critical sense towards the story, its also just all purely my opinion as someone who enjoys fictional and fantasy stories and who like criticizing works to see what it does well and what it doesn't do well

2. for clarification I'm going to use the c![name] to indicate when I'm talking about the characters. Don't get me wrong, I think its annoying too but its the only way I'm gonna be able to write this thing without getting something across the wrong way yknow?

3. I stopped watching the streams after November 16th, [save for one Techno one but I closed out after a particularly bad story beat lol] and so all information coming afterward is all second hand from either me seeing people on twt talk abt it or people dming me. All i really know is up to dream's imprisonment and some stuff past that.

4. This is mostly aimed towards the "main" story, so stuff abt the badlands, eggpire, and whatnot are briefly mentioned.

anyways uh, i'll try to be brief but also include enough information to get why i feel the way i do on some stuff across

A. Performances Alright obviously these people are all streamers, so obviously they might not be the best actors, and hell no one is even asking that of them. However, when you're telling a story that's based on the audio with the visuals kinda coming to a second, it's gotta be pretty strong. I will say, some of the best actors in my opinion are Wilbur, Tommy, and Tubbo. I would include Ranboo but I never watched any of his story bits or story streams so I can't say much. Wilbur and Tommy are excellent in selling their character's emotions and feelings, when I watch the stream I don't feel like I'm watching an rp but an actual thought-out story yknow? And one of my favorite Tubbo examples was in the Hog Hunt video whenever Techno attacked him, he sounded genuinely afraid and I believed everything his character was feeling.

However, unfortunately, not everyone is gonna be that good. And I'm gonna say it; Dream and Techno have to be the worst out of the entire cast. I understand Techno's whole character is this monotoned badass, however, when really emotional moments hit I feel like he never lets that fall, and a lot of intense moments just ring hollow. And I'm sorry but Dream's attempts at being intimidating leave me laughing whenever I watch them. It feels like he watched that one scene from The Marriage with Adam Driver and Scarlett Johannson and said "Oh this is what good acting looks like! Just yelling." His whole "I don't give a FUCK about Spirit!" speech isn't as great as people keep making it out to be. And whenever he tries to act coy when being a villain it feels like a guy reading the script for the first time, a bit like he's trying too hard. I have more problems with his character but his portrayal certainly doesn't help.

Everyone else is fine, and I don't feel strongly either way about a lot of them.

B. The "Lore" Okay first off, I can't be the only one who thinks it's silly that people are calling the dsmp's story "lore" when it's not, it's the fucking story. Lore indicates backstory to either the world or the characters, which a lot of the streams don't really pertain to. This is a really petty section but god it's a weird pet peeve of mine.

Other than the misusage of "lore" vs "story", the actual lore and world-building of the world are so lackluster that new elements can be introduced whenever and it often feels cluttered or not well thought out at all. And here's the thing, I feel like if the writers sat down just for a few minutes to establish world rules and general history, a lot of this could be solved! but so much is made up on the spot that it starts to feel like they're grabbing at straws to keep people invested, trying to reach that next high and intense story beat without actually earning it.

C. The Egg / Eggpire This is a pretty minor note since I was only invested in the Egg storyline for a little bit, but god it's so underused that it's almost embarrassing. Bad has provided this super interesting antagonistic force that's infecting the SMP, can control people, and who one of our main character is immune to, and it's just never used or even talked about again? Now I understand if he wanted to keep it to a side storyline only, however, to introduce this borderline eldritch creature and force within the world and then never have it dealt with is so weird.

D. The Writing Oh boy this is. kinda a big one. Now I'm not gonna lie, it's pretty obvious I have a bias for the Wilbur writing over the current team [that consisting of Dream, Quackity, and Tommy mostly]. I don't this his writing is perfect by any means, the characters constantly bringing up traitors got obnoxious after a while, and writing Hamilton but in Minecraft really isn't the modern Shakespeare or anything. However, I think his exploration of characters and plot progression was a lot more thought out and well planned, like he actually had two brain cells behind the story yknow? The current team I think fails to be as emotional or even impactful, things happened too fast and my god was everything drowned in angst for so long.

Don't get me wrong, you gotta have your characters face hardships to make them reach their goal believable, but some of the shit they put the characters through just felt like too much. From c!Tubbo's constant comparison to c!Schlatt [who btw, fucking ordered his death and kept him from his friends in a nation he felt trapped in] and on a side note, i kinda really fucking dislike the "c!Schlatt dad!!" au's or the au's where c!Tubbo inherits some of Schlatt's features, it would be like c!Tommy getting a c!Dream mask after his exile, it's feels so weird yet people eat that shit up for some reason.

But god, did c!Tommy get the brunt of it all and in retrospect after his final death, it kinda feels really fucking gross. Now obviously, I'm not trusting any of these people to write decent mental health representation, but c!Tommy's PTSD and how it was explored was just degrading. [Specifically the scene in that one Techno stream where he saw the final control room from the first war, and had a flashback / panic attack where he started calling out for c!Dream. I understand this is an actual thing people with PTSD will experience, but it felt so fucking stereotypical it got on my nerves. I actually had to close out of the stream because it made me feel sick, fiction shouldn't leave you feeling that way.] And don't get me started on how they basically reused the formula from the previous arc. [Problem introduced -> Tensions rise as things start to fall apart -> Big confrontation -> Exile -> Return from Exile -> Blowing up L'Manberg, again.]

And speaking of characters-

E. Character Arcs, or the lack of them In my genuine opinion, some of these characters' arcs are so disappointing. Especially c!Tommy's. I'm not one to believe that he was a "selfish" character or anything, however, his goals were simply set on his discs and maybe c!Tubbo, he didn't have much outside that. However, L'Manberg gave him something to care about, he gave up his discs for it and he fought for it tooth and nail, I think it taught him to open up to others and trust more. It was a great character arc for him to have, seeing him still fight even after his first exile alongside c!Wilbur, to return safely to the nation that he and his found family had built.

But then his second exile happened, and I feel like all of that was undone.

c!Tommy's exile genuinely pisses me off for so many reasons. It's not that characters can't have their low points after reaching a major change or feeling like they've "completed" their arcs or anything, but it's more of the fact that it seems like he's never going to heal that feels like a spit in the face, especially to people who might have had setbacks like that before. Progress isn't linear, sometimes things happen and you get knocked back down, it can take a while to get back up, but I don't think c!Tommy's character is ever going to be allowed to get back up. From c!Dream, who pretty much was a constant abuser in his life, killing him then reviving him, and his still fractured relationship with c!Tubbo, which by the way I have a had time believing they would still be friends after all that happened, it feels like he can never get a win and it's generally kinda a shit way to treat your characters who have been abused. Of course, not all abused characters are going to get happy endings, I'm not trying to dictate that they all should, but c!Tommy deserves one and the fact that it's so obscure feels shitty.

Side note: we still don't have a canon reason to give a shit abt the discs. Like I'm sorry but without some sorta connection to the MacGuffin why should we give a shit about him getting them other than "he wants them lol". Like hell, I would even accept the classic "they were the last gifts from his parents" or something, but we still don't have a reason.

c!Tubbo also lacks a fulfilling arc as well, from someone who started out as a yes man, he has progressed a bit into having his own interests first, but besides that sometimes his character makes me so. depressed. He's easily one of the most pushed around and hated characters within the story, all for being a kid who didn't know what to do and he's in the same vein as c!Tommy; these kids can't get a break. Also, his anti-violence beliefs morphing into the "lets kill c!Techno lol!" bit was so out of place and without proper build-up it was like. what. And now he's building nukes?? god c!Tubbo makes me so sad because he's kicked around constantly and never given a chance to grow.

Another small note, I also don't really enjoy c!Techno at all. Besides the previously stated reasons of lack of emotions when they're really needed, I find his character to be weirdly pretentious. He talks as if he's constantly been betrayed and hurt but I personally, don't see it? Like, I think one of the main examples was the Pogtopia vs. Manberg war, yknow he wanted to end the government but they just reinstated it after they won = c!Techno upset. But this doesn't make sense to me because why did he think otherwise? The entire time c!Tommy had talked about taking back their nation and starting again, so the fact that c!Techno suddenly thought there would be a sudden change is, to put it bluntly, kinda fucking stupid. I don't want to say that he "plays the victim" or anything because that feels a bit harsh, but his character feels so far up his own ass that I can't enjoy him.

I have a major grip with c!Dream as well, but that's getting it's own fucking section.

F. L'Manberg This is a quick note before we get into the, forgive me for this, endgame, of this entire rant, since the next two sections are tied together. But god, L'Manberg makes me upset because it feels like they gave up on it.

Don't get me wrong, I understand that it is supposed to be c!Wilbur's "unfinished symphony", the thing that destroyed a once charismatic and widely loved man, his attempt at power that utterly ruined him. But the fact that it just got blown up in the end after everything and left to rot felt like such a waste of time. From the first war, to Pogtopia, to even c!Tommy's exile, it all felt fucking worthless in the end, and the story is actively closer to how it was when it started now more than ever. I wished it was actually allowed to exist and continue to be a peaceful place in what is a chaotic world, but no it was just snuffed out because why dedicate to this concept of finding others you can band together with and feel safe. fuck that noise apparently?

G. The Villains Now villain-wise, I'm only talking about c!Dream [during the first war], c!Schlatt, and c!Wilbur. And believe it or not, this is actually mostly positive.

Now I'm not gonna lie, c!Dream as a staring antagonist wasn't bad actually, he posed a genuine and threatening opposition to L'Manberg, even if we didn't know his real intentions or motivations as to why he was against it. He's lucky in this sense because he didn't have to be good, he had to be passable. If anything, he felt more like an anti-hero than a tyrant or traditional villain, and my god do I wish he kept this theme going forward.

Now quick disclaimer, I don't like JSchlatt as much as the next guy, he's an adult man who should know better than to joke about some sensitive topics and act the way that he does. But the one thing I'll ever give him is that damn, was he a good actor for his character.

Now here's the thing, c!Schlatt wasn't particularly deep at all. He had no real motivations behind his exile of c!Wilbur and c!Tommy other than getting competition out of the way, had no reason to act the way that he did and yknow? that's fine. The reason why he worked was from his performance alone, he was actually intimidating. When he came onto the stream and was doing his typical bad guy stuff, it was actually intense to see what he would do. Whenever he would almost catch c!Tommy back in Manberg, whenever he would begin to pressure c!Tubbo, it put you on the edge of your seat and it felt like everything would change at the drop of a pen. He's a villain to be a villain, and this works out because he's just charismatic and well put together enough to make it interesting, even without the backstory or motives.

c!Wilbur however, is much more tragic, and the best villain of the story. He essentially was the "mentor turned evil" trope and it felt terrible watching him descend into madness, unable to trust barely anyone except for c!Techno and c!Tommy. Hell, in the end I think he still cared about them both, despite losing everything. Sure, he blew up L'Manberg, but there was still a smidge of the old c!Wilbur in there made everything he did feel melancholic. His death at the hands of his father after achieving his final wish was chilling, and something I still think about.

Until yknow, Ghostbur came back way too soon to let people feel his loss as a character within that world. And then he got revived, pretty much-undoing everything that moment meant for his character lol.

And then there's the worst one:

H. Dream. I'm going to be completely honest, c!Dream is one of the main reasons why I dislike the current dsmp stuff so much. Outside of his actions as a person, the way Dream decided to write his character as this overpowered madman of the dsmp really just. destroyed any intrigue that he could've had. Perhaps this is from my growing dislike towards him, manifesting into a bias towards his character, but god I cannot fathom why people try to insist he's interesting when he has as much depth as a fucking puddle.

And here's the thing, I'm not even entirely against c!Dream being a villain, hell I think he would've been great as an anti-hero if anything. Make him sympathetic but not through c!George to get your precious "DNF" points or anything, but show him actually caring about the people within the dsmp, including c!Tommy and c!Tubbo. This would make his rival status with them just a bit more complicated, sure they're enemies, however, he doesn't want to hurt or kill them, and there's still a level of friendship there that keeps them bonded when things get super bad. This could've been super interesting to see, the first villain of the story receiving a sorta redemption arc then descending into madness as he started to fixate on being a god. This is all how I feel personally, but god do I feel like it would've been better than his current character, and hell would've worked with how he was during the Pogtopia arc, before the war that is. I'm not trying to tell Dream how to write his own character, but there are so many other ways he could've done the madman seeking to become god rather then. whatever the hell we got.

Because instead, we got this power-mad asshole who does things... because he can? And that's one of my major issues: he tries to surround his character in mystery to make him "intriguing" but it's kinda like c!Techno, it comes off as pretentious. Not only that, but you cannot keep waving around this mystery of a backstory without ever actually revealing it. I know the story isn't over, but c!Dream is effectively at his lowest point, now would be the time to reveal his backstory. But no just keep it in the dark and keep everyone guessing, that's totally fun and not at all tiring and annoying. (sarcasm, if anyone needs it)

And back to his performance, he doesn't sell this aloof, cynical and strategic warrior that has perfected the blade or some shit, he comes off as some angry guy yelling on reddit. which i don't need to tell you, isn't intimidating. It feels like he's trying to have c!Schlatt's intimidation combined with c!Wilbur's depth, but instead he's like a little brother who's trying to hard to mimic his older brother and is kinda embarrassing himself.

but other then that i dont feel too strongly abt the dsmp lol

but seriously, these are the main complaints I have abt the story tbh, I could probably talk about more but I wont because man. this is probably gonna get me in trouble if any of the hyper-dsmp fans actually read it.

[cregla]

/rp I can see the appeal with the "Dreamon" storyline, the one where it has possessed Dream since at least Manberg vs Pogtopia. I really see it. Because Dream, even when he was against Tommy and Wilbur, was still... Dream. Their dynamic is wonderful. Fun and amazing. You can still see it in Exile when Dream is faking a friendship with Tommy in order to manipulate him more - and that's because while they're still acting, CC!Dream is friend with CC!Tommy and THEIR dynamic is wonderful. It automatically translate in us having a good time whenever they're on screen together (well... we didn't have a good time during exile or the prison, but you know what I mean). People want it back. They want Dream to be able to roleplay alongside the other like he did before, and I undertstand it! Dreamon!Dream is the easy way out of it. And I can totally see it in fanfictions and fanworks. In canon, however? It would be so harmful.

A very long post, please follow me.

C!Dream is an abuser. It's a completly different character from what his CC actually is (duh), in a way no other characters are in this SMP. C!Dream is an abuser, a murderer, and someone who did REALLY bad things and still thinks he was right all along. A person like this NEEDS to be punished (and I'm not entering in the "prison" discourse. Regardless of the prison conditions, Dream still deserves to be imprisoned) and the story NEEDS to give him consequences for his actions. People need to know that he's the bad guy and what he did was wrong, regardless of our own appreciation of the character (appreciation, not apologism). And the character especially work because he's a REALISTIC representation of abusers. Sure, he as an axe and potions and there's the whole PVP and Minecraft gaming system to take on, but in the end? Dream is just a guy. When Dream abused Tommy he did it with isolations, gaslighting, threats of death and beatings and actually beating him, lies. It's something any abuser in the real world, even without potions, could do. It's something abusers do.

To say that Dream was "possessed", to give every fault to a "Dreamon", is to erase this. Because it's not a person anymore, it was a demon controlling that person! And demons don't actually exist in real life. It's not Dream's fault anymore, guys! ("But Nate, stories shouldn't only educate people! We can have bad things in our stories if it makes them good!" While that is true, DSMP is a medium followed by very young teen and even children and the CCs themselves said that they had researched about real life abuse to be more accurate possible, therefore it's not the same as, I don't know, a fanfiction or another media that wasn't made with this intent)

And what about Tommy? He already feels guilty for things that are not his fault. Putting a possessed, innocent Dream in prison? That would break him. Knowing his personality he would totally, 100%, believe himself to be at fault because he "had" to realize what was really going on. He would feel so guilty near Dream while it should be the exact opposite. And then what? He couldn't, of course, blame Dream anymore. But he would still be fighting his own PTSD - do you believe he would be able to start a friendship again with Dream? No, no he wouldn't. And both characters and viewers, who are so critical of Tommy for ANYTHING, would give him hell for this, not realizing how PTSD works.

One of my favourite fanfiction in this fandom, if not my favourite one, has Dreamon!Dream. And yet, let me show you a paragraph of one of the last chapter (here is the link to the story, btw.)

Then he shakes his head and Sam asks the question he’s been dying to know since he first saw Dream in his little museum, “is that why you destroyed your family? Why you turned on all of us?”

And suddenly, Dream is laughing that horrible, broken laugh, one of pain and malice. It hurts Sam’s heart and he wonders if he can go back to his mother, if her arms will warm the ice spilling down his neck.

“No, Sam,” Dream says and the voice is harsh, hoarse. “No, that was all me.”

The story explain Dream's motivations. It gives him a backstory and an explanation on why he ended up like this and why he did so many bad things. But it never justifies him. And, above all, specifies that even if Dream may have a "redemption arc", it will be something personal, or connected to his friends. Tommy, Tubbo and all those he has harmed are not forced to accept his apology, whether it is sincere or not.

That's the only way I could see a Dreamon storyline in canon, honestly. Handled with care and never used as a way out of Dream's actions. And even there, we know how most of the viewers are. We know how Dream's apologists are, how everyone's prone to victim blaming in this goddamn fandom. The CCs may handle it PERFECTLY. And yet people would still misuranderstand it. I'm 100% on with Dreamon in fanfiction and fanworks. Even if you're using it to have Season1!Dream back, even if you want to completly excuse Dream like this. But in canon? No thanks no. I dread the day we might discover that's the storyline. Please, no.

[square-blunt]

I love my friends, they make me feel alive again, or at least they remind me that I'm not even dead

I am kicking and screaming i must put this one and another Esmp fic out before tomorrow and I am very Nyoom rn so I'm sorry if this one isn't as good, I really liked the way it turned out so here have some clingyduo fluff bc yeah I can writing things that aren't angst?? What? no one dies and their best friend holds them in their arms this time?? fuckin crazy. /lh

TW- Abandonment anxiety, ptsd WC: 2530 words Ao3: :3

It was Tubbo's birthday today. Tommy had been planning something for weeks- grinding, mining, stealing, going through ax after ax getting wood. He even asked Foolish for some help, and after those weeks, he had finally built a perfect replica of the L'manberg bee house. It wasn't in L'manberg, of course, but Tommy was sure Tubbo wouldn't care.

He didn't fill the basement with wolves, but he did get two or three bees in there- he named them. Beeinnit, Ranbee, and Tubbee. Tubbo and his two best friends, but bee form. Tommy was still Tubbo's best friend, right? He knew that Ranboo was more than a friend to Tubbo, the two were married, Ranboo couldn't technically hold both titles, and Ranboo was too dumb- he needs to stop blaming Ranboo. Sitting in the bee dome, planting a few last flowers- cornflowers, poppies, sunflowers, and white tulips, Tommy realizes that he needs to stop blaming Ranboo. He needs to. Because Ranboo was a good… enderguy. And he was good for Tubbo. He had asked Tubbo if Ranboo made him happy- Tubbo nodded, and that was good enough for him. He needs to stop blaming Ranboo, and start looking at himself. Because if he and Tubbo aren't talking as much, of course, he's gonna find someone else to talk to. And he's learning to not blame himself for everything, he does blame Dream for that, but this isn't Ranboo's fault and it isn't Tubbo's. And Tommy knows that he and Tubbo are still gonna be friends. It's been him and Tubbo since the beginning, that's what he said before fighting Dream. And Tommy knows that he and Tubbo will have each other's back. He's just overthinking this, but he is still gonna try and give Tubbo everything he wants or needs. And try to give him the world that he deserves. He's gonna try and make the world a better place for him. And a bee dome is a nice, easy start. It was more tedious than anything- thank prime for Eret stealing the blueprints before Doomsday. They had the plans for every building ever created- they let Tommy have the one for the bee dome. They even brought over the bee that would become Tubbee. Tommy… wanted to forgive Eret. And he would. Eventually. Tommy kind of did that before going off to fight Dream- Eret was the last person he talked to. And Eret looked so relieved when Tommy said that he thought they were the true king. They had been there for him and Tubbo. That was good enough for him. He did think that Tubbo, Ranboo, and Eret, even, were his best friends. He knew that Puffy was his friend, and her griefing his house was just some friendly pranks, and he enjoyed having something to do. Shit was getting too buddy-buddy around here. Wilbur… he wanted to be Wilbur's friend- brother. He wanted the Wilbur who started L'manberg, he wanted the Wilbur who would sit down and play a song. He knew that Wilbur was still there. Somewhere. He stops to touch the petal of a cornflower next to him. Blue and yellow are on opposite ends of the color wheel, but they mean the same thing to Tommy. He loves, and misses, his best friends. They make him a better person. He doesn't have to be the bad guy.

Tommy shields his face, the sun setting and glaring into his eyes through a window. It's almost night, shit. He had put enough lanterns and shroomlights in the dome that mobs wouldn't spawn, but he wasn't so sure about outside. There was some pathing, courtesy of Foolish, and there was some light around, but he wasn't sure. Because mobs weren't the only thing that darkness hid.

Tubbo whispers to you: I'm here boss man

Tommy smiles. He had asked Tubbo to meet him at the community house, after his birthday party in the mansion- Tommy had left early to put the flowers in and told tubbo to meet him there whenever he was ready.

/msg Tubbo: k I gotta do one last thing

/msg Tubbo: be there in a sec

He's almost happier it's night, it'll look a lot cooler from a distance. He plants one more cornflower next to a hive. He brushes his hands off on his pants, and then brushes his pants off, and checks his reflection in the window. It wasn't too far of a run back to the community house, the dome was just to the side of Eret's castle.

"Tubbzo!" Tommy runs up behind his friend, who, unfortunately, had his back turned.

"Tommy!! You scared the shit out of me, fuck you-" Tubbo said, Tommy laughing.

"You fucking jumped, like, 30 feet in the air," Tommy says, a shit-eating grin on his face.

"Fuck you," Tubbo repeats, lightly hitting Tommy in the arm, beginning to giggle as well.

"Come on, I spent so fucking long on this so you'd better like it," Tommy says, beginning to drag Tubbo out by his forearm.

"Yeah, is Ranboo already there?" Tubbo says, walking at pace with the other.

"What? I haven't seen Ranboo since the party." Tommy says, a pit in his stomach opening up.

"Huh, he said he was going to go help you with my birthday gift. You never saw him at all?" Tubbo says, voice laced with worry.

"No, was he going anywhere before coming to me? And- and I never told him where this was- only Foolish knew. So I don't even know how he'd find me." Tommy says, his grip loosening on Tubbo's forearm so he could pull away if he wanted. Tubbo didn't.

"No, he did that weird thing though, he calls me Tubbo and talks to me like you or Foolish would." Tubbo walks a little closer to Tommy.

"What's off about that?"

"Ranboo usually calls me beloved or snow angel, and he'd talk to me like a husband would, yknow?"

"He calls you 'snow angel?'" Tommy screws up his nose.

"Oh, piss off," Tubbo smiles a little.

"But still, we can look for him on our way? Unless you wanna look for him now, the be-irthday gift can wait."

"A beirthday gift, you say?" Tubbo says, smiling.

"Oh, piss off," Tommy mimics Tubbo, "but seriously, if you wanna look for him we can." Tommy stops and turns to face Tubbo, giving a reassuring squeeze.

"No, no, it's- you made it, whatever it is, I'm sure he's fine, and I'm sure he'd want me to go ahead," Tubbo says, looking up and smiling slightly.

"If you're sure. Because fucking Prime, this shit took so fucking long and I had to practically beg Foolish to help…" Tommy continues to talk to Tubbo, trying to distract him from his currently missing husband. Eventually, the moon high in the clouds, they get to the start of the path.

"There's no way you did this." Tubbo laughs.

"I didn't- Foolish did the path but I built the actual thing," Tommy says, letting go of Tubbo's arm, "I'll race you!" and off he sprints.

"NO FAIR YOU KNOW WHERE IT IS!" Tubbo laughs from behind him.

"BYE-BYE BEE- boy-" Tommy skids to a stop, not long after rounding a corner of trees. He can see flames, high over the tree line, the light eating away and the surrounding stars, in the back of his mind he hears explosions- there aren't any explosions, Tommy, it's just a forest fire, there isn't any TNT, there isn't any TNT-

"Oh, is that… supposed to be on fire-" Tubbo stops next to him, Tubbo's hand on Tommy's forearm this time.

"No- no it-" Tommy straightens up, and he catches a glimpse of someone running away- a figure behind the trees, he blinks, and it's gone-

"Tommy?" Tubbo turns to look where Tommy was looking- where the figure was just moments before.

"N- nothing- Tubbo get- get behind me-" Tubbo's grip tightens on Tommy's arm as he pulls Drista's dagger out of his inventory, holding it in his other hand. Together, they creep up the path, until what's left of the bee house comes into view. It’s engulfed in flames, and all of Tommy’s hard work is being eaten away before his eyes. Tommy curses, puts the dagger away, and pulls out his water bucket.

"You've got-" Tommy motions at the bucket

"Yeah- and c'mere," Tubbo says, pulling on Tommy’s arm, throwing a fire res pot up. Tubbo lets go of Tommy’s arm as the shield washes over them, Tommy's skin feeling tingly. Together, they manage to put out the fire and put out a few trees that had caught before it spread anywhere else. They end in the dome, the roof all but gone, one of five beehives on the top floor remain.

"Oh, Tommy-" Tubbo begins to say, sadness heavy in his voice.

"Yeah, yeah, I spent fucking ages on it. Can't have shit- the gods must hate-" Tommy begins bitterly, collecting the last of the water, and putting it back in his hot bar. At least before his knees buckle under an unanticipated pile of weight. He hears Tubbo laughing from right behind him- he jumped on Tommy’s back, “Fuckin- Get off of me-” Tommy laughs, too. He doesn't mean anything by it, there's no malicious tone to anything he says to Tubbo- and Tubbo's one of the few people who actually understand that.

"I know exactly what this is-" Tubbo says, standing straight, a hand on his hip.

"What it was supposed to be." Tommy, out of habit, mirrors Tubbo. "See, why can't we have nice things? Fuckin, everyone else gets cool buildings and kingdoms and shit why the fuck can't we have a bee dome in the middle of the woods- what, why are you laughing" Tommy gestures vaguely at the rubble before raising a quizzical eyebrow at Tubbo's silent giggles.

"What it was supposed to bee," Tubbo says, cackling, and Tommy groans.

"Augh Tubbo, now is not the time-" Tommy rolls his eyes

"It was never meant to bee-" Tubbo laughs harder, clutching his stomach, leaning on Tommy for support. Tommy finds himself laughing a little bit,

"Ok, yeah, that was a good one- you wanna bee a hero, Tommy?" Tommy mimics Techno in a high-pitched voice- sending Tubbo into hysterics.

"We- We-hehehe- We would rather die than give into you and joi- join your SMBee-" Tubbo says between fits of laughter, making Tommy bark out a wheeze, "That was- was beeasier than I thought-"

"My unfinished symphobee-"

"TOMMY-"

"You can't control who lives who dies who-"

"-tells your storbee?"

"Yeah-hahaha! F- for Tommy to bee exiled-"

"That was so fucking stupid why'd I do that-" Tubbo shakes his head, his laughter subsiding.

"Because that's what you thought was best, you had no way of knowing what he was gonna- what he was gonna do to me-" Tommy says, the tone becoming solemnly serious.

"-If I had known I never would have done it, I would have told Dream to shove it up his ass, you know that right?" Tubbo says, reaching for Tommy's hand.

"Of course. We're best friends, I know you'd never do that to me." Tommy squeezes his hand. Tubbo lets out a breath, and he looks like a massive weight has been lifted off his shoulders. As much as he feels guilty admitting it, Tommy's glad Tubbo's been worrying about that. It means that he cares.

"Should he go in there and see what we can rebuild?" Tubbo says, rocking back and forth on his feet.

"If any, but- the bees!" Tommy breaks into a sprint, tugging Tubbo along with him with a yelp.

"Bees?" Tubbo easily gets his footing as they fly down the stairs, and all of Tommy's breath leaves in a sigh of relief. He can see three balls of yellow and black in a patch of flowers.

"Oh, thank prime," Tommy says.

"Oh, the flowers are L'manburg colors!" Tubbo reaches down to pick a poppy.

"Yeah… I tried to think of as many things as possible because I know how much L'manberg meant to you-" Tommy flails his arms out- Tubbo launching himself at Tommy- into a familiar hug, their laughter bouncing off the walls.

"It's fine, Tommy," Tubbo says, his voice bright- and Tommy becomes coldly aware of a memory- the last time Tubbo had roughly tangled him into a hug.

What am I without you?

Yourself?

"Tommy?" Tubbo's pulled back, a- at this point- very familiar concern on his face.

"I'm alright- just, bad memories. I'll be alright-" Tommy shakes his head, pulling Tubbo back into the hug.

"Are you sure? We can stop for a second- sit and talk?" Tubbo says softly from Tommy's shoulder.

"No- not on your birthday, I promise- I promise I'll be alright, this is nothing I haven't done- we haven't done before," Tommy says back, tucking his head into Tubbo's shoulder, trying to chase the pit in his stomach away.

"You sure?" Tommy can feel Tubbo's hand smooth down his hair. Tommy just hmms in response. "Do you think they- the bee's are asleep?"

"What do you mean?" Tommy looks up, he can't see the bees, but he doesn't want to leave the hug.

"The smoke, you think it put them to sleep?" Tubbo muses.

"Maybe," Tommy mutters. "Fuckin- I spent days on this." it was more of an inconvenience than anything at this point. "Do you wanna rebuild it?"

"Not right now, I'm tired, boss man." Tubbo sighs. Tommy realizes how tired he is, too, the familiar ache in his bones.

"Me too, Tubbzo, me too. Let's go home?" He says, making no move to back out of the hug. Tubbo just hums. And so they stand there, until they figure out they can shuffle together- at least to the stairs. Tommy laughs at the image this must make. Two boys, one half-cow, one half-dead, who would rather tear up the ground and trample flowers than break their hug. By the time they do eventually get to the stairs, they both are laughing. Tommy notices that he laughs a lot more whenever he's with Tubbo. He also notices he gets tired a lot quicker. Puffy would say something about Tommy feeling safe around Tubbo, enough so that he shows emotion and lets his guard down, but Tommy knows that. He yawns, he is actually really tired. Tubbo yawns too, and they help each other up the stairs and out of what's left of glass and wood. About halfway down the path, Tommy stops and looks over his shoulder, at the space between trees, where he saw-

"Whacha lookin at, big man?" Tubbo asks from beside him.

"Nothing- I thought I saw someone running away from the fire when we first got here- I think maybe they were the one that did it, but I didn't catch their face." Tommy says, half lying. It was true, he didn't catch their face, but he'd know those two glowing eyes anywhere. He knew who it was. No way he was gonna tell Tubbo about it.

Because he was almost sure it was Ranboo.

[ruby-whistler]

Hi, I just found to your blog and I noticed you are a dream apologist but also like tommy, which is rare to see, and even tho I dont agree with alot of your posts about dream it's still interesting to hear other people's perspectives anyways the reason I bring up Tommy it was because I was wondering what you think dreams see Tommy as?

Like does he hate him ?does he like him ?does he see him as a toy a pet ? I'm very interested to see what your perspective is

absolutely! i am so happy to see someone who isn't a full-on dream apologist stumble upon my takes, hello there :] always refreshing to see different kinds of people around!

i actually know quite a,,, couple who also like c!tommy! dream apologists don't inherently hate him, they dislike a lot of his fans more than anything because of,, personal experience, let's say, but most of them are quite neutral or sympathize w/ the character!

i myself really do like the character from a writing perspective! i don't like him personally despite relating to him (ptsd go woooo) because of his quite insensitive and extroverted personality (not saying that's bad! he's flawed and that's very cool of him!) but he's a good protagonist for his own story, albeit a bit stuck in bad mindsets.

as for the disc duo,, man, i am so sad every time i think about the two. during season one i used to be such a discduo stan, like their interactions gave me life, dream reminded me of myself back when i was willing to reach out to people like tommy.

and then uhh,,, stuff happened, as we all know

but from the beginning, i do believe the two were very rivalsduo-like. they'd tease each other but in reality they really were friends even if they didn't admit it. before l'manberg, after l'manberg, it really didn't matter that much, even through the initial disc wars it really was just a way to fight each other but it was not all that serious. they were being immature over a couple of worthless items. they were hanging out. and then war and trauma and revolution came, and everything went downhill at a 90 degree incline.

their relationship had just,, such a twist for the worse and it freaking hurt because now i had to choose between the two and i for the love of god couldn't. everything light about them turned dark.

of course, this is c!dream's fault. the reasons he did what he did are debatable to being a product of the environment, the effect others had on him and the situations he was put into, but he absolutely wrecked it and he made it awful in every way.

the thing is, dream when interacting with tommy - much like tommy had often said about people like dream, wilbur and techno - makes him somewhat the worst version of himself.

and i'm not even making this up, the way he interacts with literally anyone else is so much different from how he acts in front of tommy.

and it's??? so strange?? green man you ok????

like, contrary to popular belief, c!dream doesn't like to see people suffer, or play with them, or making them hurt.

the only times when he says stuff like this is in front of tommy.

my theory for this is what i think is the most supported by actual canon - he's falling into the villain-hero narrative.

the fact that c!dream is not mentally healthy and has been shoved into terrible mindsets is evident especially from the finale stream, and i think the whole vault scene definitely leans towards my theory about this. he keeps going on about sidekicks and pawns and - not only is he treating everyone else as a game, he also does it to himself.

it's important to note his actions have always been both outwardly and inwardly destructive, many being unhealthy coping mechanisms.

what i think is, he's purposefully playing a role. i think this might sound like a stretch but... it really is not if you consider everything?

it makes sense; dream is trying to make tommy (and tubbo, by extension) terrified, to view him as a monster, something less than human, someone to fight, someone to defeat, to bring down. he's taking every opportunity to make himself out as someone totally cruel, while actually acting completely different with other people.

so, as to answer your question? that's what i think dream sees tommy as. i think he sees him as the hero; or rather, someone who wants to play the hero. he wants to challenge him, wants to get tommy to play his game because it's the only thing c!dream knows how to play anymore and he's,, secretly scared, because he's forgotten how to be anyone but a villain, and on top of that doesn't see any other way for himself to achieve his goals and get back what he cares about.

like, dream cares, that much is obvious. he cares about people. i don't think he hates tommy and i don't think he likes him. he says they're friends, and in some twisted sense, i think he means it, and he thinks tommy is simply in denial. he's wrong.

the way he acts makes me think that he genuinely considers him and tommy the same at their core, and that if the roles were switched, tommy would do the same as dream and dream would do the same as tommy. this is untrue, of course, but dream believes things like this because his worldview is utterly shattered, much like his mental stability. i think he thinks the only difference between them is their role in the story. i think he buys into the narrative to the point when he fails to see it's,, incorrect, about him, tommy - about everyone.

but that's just my opinion! sorry for rambling, c!dream is such an enigma sometimes, and although i claim a lot of things in good faith, there are some i don't usually touch upon because they genuinely confuse me. the way c!dream acts around c!tommy is one of them.

[mashbits]

I thought of this at 2 am it was my peak

✨theory time✨

/roleplay

in the smp, we’re currently going through what I’ve been calling the theseus arc- the hero is exiled after defeating the nations biggest threat, he’s thought to have died by his closest friend, when in actuality he’s been hiding in a new terrain only to be killed by the ruler who took him in. we all know where the story is going, we all know that dream is trying to push this myth onto tommy.

“it’s not your time to die yet.”

dream knows that soon, technoblade would kill tommy. dream would be rid of his biggest threat. tubbo would be gone as well, if the story continued as the myth is.

dream is expecting it. we, the audience, are expecting it. I mean, technoblade is the main writer in this arc, ofc he’d follow the myth through and through, since he’s the one who brought it up in the first place.

right?

however, i don’t think that’ll happen. while yes, this is the theseus arc, I’d like to believe it’s following another theme- history repeats itself.

tommy is exiled by the president, someone he once trusted. he’s teaming up with techno. he thought dream was an ally, but he was just a pawn. wilbur.

tubbo exiled tommy. he keeps saying everything is for the sake of his nation, despite most citizens unhappy. he’s hosting a festival. schlatt.

it was set up in the beginning.

“if I can’t be the next schlatt, you can’t be the next wilbur.”

but they are.

with the theseus arc, it’s literal greek myth history repeating itself. again, we’re all expecting it. but techno is smart, he knows what we assume and what we think is gonna happen. which is why, I feel like he’s going to refuse finishing this arc.

technoblade, while consistently saying he doesn’t care for tommy or is only in it for the destruction of the government, it’s extremely clear that he shows immense care for tommy. hiding him from dream, getting defensive when dream is looking, distracts him when he’s trying to get the truth out- when tommy was in panic from his ptsd of logstedshire, techno subtly attempted to distract him from the memories. he looked for tommy and grounded his feelings. techno, while his morals are far from tommy’s own, is genuinely trying to help save tommy.

when dream comes back, demanding that the arc is followed through, I believe techno is going to refute him. he’s going to deny history. history repeats itself only if you allow it to, and techno is done letting everything circle back in one endless loop of bad decisions. techno is going to protect tommy. and that will be the end of the arc, a denial of how history believed it to be.

tubbo, still in belief that tommy is dead, will still be in danger of the myth. of jumping to be with tommy once again. this could go one of two ways- he succeeds, being the one to allow history to repeat itself, and the curse of the presidency mixed in will end his last life. or, as suspected above, the theme will be denied. tommy will get there, just in time, he’ll save tubbo against all the odds.

with technoblade the main writer for this plot, I genuinely do believe this narrative twist will happen- or at least a version of it, not the exact scenario above lmao.

[firefly464]

The Real World - Chapter 9

:insert eyes emoji here because shits about to get real:

@i-have-this-now​ wrote the last part because she’s great and amazing and wonderful :D

Master Post

First - Previous - Next

~~~

Wilbur sat in his office, staring at his computer screen in dismay. It had been roughly a week since him and Tubbo had gone and visited Tommy. Roughly a week since his friend's panic attack. A week since Tommy had started acting differently. His friend had been acting secretive all week, almost terrified in a strange way. He acted as if no one could see the way he flinched at loud noises, or the fearful look in his eyes whenever someone came too close. He had fumbled around with the phone, as if not even knowing how to use it. He had talked to Dream in an almost pleading tone, begging for… something, and Will didn’t know what it was. He had never seen his friend acting like that before. 

His hand traced over the long scar on his arm that Tommy had given him during his panic attack. He didn’t blame his friend at all for the wound, in fact it was mostly his own fault for trying to comfort him. At that moment, it had been clear that Tommy hadn’t actually been seeing him. He had seen someone, or something else. In Wilbur’s concern for his friend, he had reached out to comfort him, despite the fact that he knew it was a bad idea. 

His stupidity had earned him a long, jagged cut down the side of his forearm from the pencil that Tommy had been wielding as a weapon. He had jerked back with a hiss of pain. “Get the fuck away from me! I won’t let you hurt anyone else!” Tommy had screamed. 

Tubbo took a small step forward, his hands out in front of him comfortingly “Tommy, you’re ok, I promise. No one is going to hurt you.” His voice was soft and calm, as if he was talking to a wild animal. Based on the look in Tommy’s eyes, it wasn’t too far off from the truth. 

Tommy’s blue eyes had snapped over to Tubbo, as if trying to figure out what he was supposed to do. “Tubbo? Tubbo you need to run! He’s going to kill you, he’s going to fucking kill you and burn our home to the ground!” 

“Hey, it's all right. I’m fine, see? No one is going to kill me.”

Desperately, Tommy grabbed his friend's shoulders, trying to get it through Tubbo’s head that he needed to run. “You don’t get it. H-He’s going to kill all of you. You need to find the others and warn them. I can’t… I can’t fucking lose you.”

“Tommy, take a deep breath. You’re safe. I promise that we’re both safe.”

“But Dream-” he shuttered, a wave of sobs running through him, “God this is my fault. Why the fuck did I listen to him? Now you’re all going to fucking die because of me!” 

Wilbur stared intently at the scar on his arm, trying to figure out what the hell Tommy had meant. Clearly, Dream had done something to him. But what? What had he done that was so terrible, it had caused the boy to collapse over a simple video clip? Will had rewatched the clip several times, trying to pinpoint exactly what could have possibly triggered the terrible PTSD. He had found nothing.

After WIlbur and Tubbo had left Tommy’s house, it had seemed like things were slowly but surely returning back to normal. Tommy had quickly gone from acting as if he knew nothing about the world around him or how to do anything, to slowly but surely returning to his old, chipper self. Even so, it didn’t feel right. Something was still wrong. His jokes all felt forced, his smiles all fake. Whenever they were in a call together, his words all felt carefully planned out, as if he were scared of saying something wrong. No one brought up his outburst, but it was clear that they were all thinking about it. 

At one point, Tubbo had hesitantly suggested that Tommy get on the DreamSMP, clearly scared of triggering another panic attack. 

However, Tommy had just gone silent, before very quietly saying, “What…?” His voice had been filled with a hesitant hope. Hope for what, Will didn’t know. But it was something that he hadn’t heard in his friend's voice all week, and he wasn’t going to question it. 

“The SMP? The server?” “How do I… How do I do that?” He had asked quietly.

Tubbo had ended up walking his friend through the entire process of getting online, never once asking why or sounding annoyed. It was clear how important this was to Tommy, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to ruin it by teasing. 

As Tommy had logged onto the server, the discord call was silent. No one spoke as he spun in a slow circle, taking in everything around him. Not a word was muttered as he cautiously moved around. The only sound that could be heard were the quiet sobs being picked up by his mic.

“Home…” He had whispered quietly, the sound just barely loud enough to be picked up over discord. 

God, none of it made any sense. None of it made any damn sense, and just thinking about it made Wilbur’s head hurt. Tommy acted as though he was an entirely different person. At first, Will had just attributed his strange behavior to PTSD. A strange way of coping after whatever hell he had gone through. But now… Now he wasn’t so sure. Tommy was recovering far too quickly for it to be merely PTSD. So what the hell was going on? He needed to talk to Tubbo. They needed answers.

~~~

The next day, Tommy was sitting in front of his computer, staring at the walls of L’manberg. Looking at it made his chest hurt with homesickness, but it was his only connection to his old life. It may not have been as impressive as the real thing, but it was still beautiful in its own right. Ever since the others had shown him the server, he had spent most of his time on it. He hadn’t exactly done anything, but simply walking around the familiar lands of his home felt calming. 

A ring sounded from his computer, making him jump. It took him a couple seconds to calm down enough to register that it was only an incoming call, and not any sort of attack. With a slightly trembling hand, he answered. 

Silence. “Hello?” he asked, trying to see what was going on. 

“Hey Tommy.” Tubbo’s voice was reserved, almost nervous in a way. Tommy could feel his muscles tense. The last time he had heard his friend speak like this was during the war. Something had happened. Something must have happened.

“What's wrong? Are you ok? Did something bad happen?” he asked, trying to figure out what was going on. 

“What? No, no. We just uh… We just wanted to ask you something.”

“I mean, go for it…? Are you sure everything is alright?” 

“We’re fine. Tommy, I want you to answer me honestly, got it?” Wilbur’s voice cut interrupted his rampaging thoughts. Thoughts of how his friends were hurt. Thoughts of what had gone wrong. Thoughts of how Dream might have gotten to them… “Tommy, what happened to you?”

“I told you already. I don’t remember,” he replied half heartedly, his mind elsewhere. 

“I think we all know that isn’t true. Tommy, what did Dream do?”

That brought his train of thought to a screeching halt. What did they know? How did they figure it out? What had he done wrong? “W-what? What do you mean?” 

“Alright, I’ll let you in on a little secret. Tommyinit wasn’t this shit of a liar. He was bad at it, yeah, but at least he could lie without sounding like a moron. I’m going to ask this once, and I expect a straight answer. Who the hell are you?” 

Tommy felt like his blood had frozen in his veins. They knew, they fucking knew. Dream was going to kill him. Dream was going to follow through with his threat. “I uh, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Wilbur ran a hand through his hair. “Alright. If you aren’t going to give us a straight answer, I might as well ask Dream himself.”

“NO!” He screamed. If Will went and asked Dream, then Dream would think that Tommy had snitched. Then, who knows what would happen. “Please don’t talk to Dream about it. Please.” 

Will had already left the call.

~~~

“Yeah, you’re right, chat. Hold on let me check if he’s online,” Eret said, switching browsers from Minecraft to Discord. “Yep, he’s in VC 3 with Tubbo.” 

Eret clicked on the voice chat. He tried to talk yet Tubbo cut him off. “Oh fuck, we aren’t in a private VC.”

“Sorry, a wha-”

“Er… Hello?” Eret said. The two of them suddenly stopped talking. “So, what’re you two up to?”

“...Eret?” Tommy said, it sounded more like a statement than a question.

“Am I intruding on something? I can go if you’d like.” Eret replied, hoping to lighten the tension on the situation. Eret’s twitch chat was going insane, spamming questions and shouting. Eret wasn’t really focused on the chat.

“Hold on, I think we should go to a privat-” Tubbo spoke but was cut off.

“No, that- that’s not right- I- you fucking-” Tommy started, and was immediately removed from the VC. Tubbo also exited the VC seconds after.

“It is actually getting a bit late here so I guess it’s time to end the stream.” Eret tried to make an excuse to end the stream. “I’ll see you later guys. I love you all so much, thank you for all the support this stream. I think I’m gonna be streaming tomorrow? Still not sure. Anyways, I’ll see you guys later. Peace.” 

He quickly exited Twitch and stopped streaming. Tommy sounded… mad? Upset? Scared? Eret didn’t know. He opened Discord and sent a message to Tommy. 

TheEret Today at 8:52 pm

You alright? 

He instantly got a Discord notification back, but it wasn’t from Tommy. 

Tubbo_ Today at 8:52 pm

can we private VC?

TheEret Today at 8:53 pm

sure

The second he sent the message, he got a call from Tubbo. “Hey, Eret.” Tubbo said. “I… I don’t think Tommy’s feeling too well. I’m really not sure what happened.”

“Oh god. Is he okay?” Eret asked, concern creeping into his voice. 

“I- hold on, I’ll dm him and see if he wants to talk.” 

“Alright.”

A few seconds passed. “Oh. Oh no.” Tubbo said.

“Wait, did something happen? What’d he say?” 

“He’s very… mad at you. I- Oh jeez, that’s a lot of messages- I don’t know what he’s talking about.”

“Do you think it’s because of the SMP? I- you know it was just a bit, right?” Eret asked. Surely, Tommy can’t be mad at him because of a video game right?

“Yeah, yeah, but he’s… he sounds pissed, man. I don’t know wha- Oh. Shit, hold on, he wants to be added in the call. You okay with that?”

Honestly, Eret wasn’t sure. “Uh- yes?”

“Eret.” Tommy’s voice rang through the call. His voice was quiet and stable, unlike his usual self. “What the fuck.”

“I- I’m sorry? I don’t know what I did wrong. Was it the SMP? You know that was a-”

“You could’ve been on the right side of history, Eret. You could’ve-” 

“Tommy, calm-”

“Instead, you chose to loot us and leave us for dead. You chose power. You chose to be with Dream.”

Wait, were they supposed to be in character? Eret just ended his stream, so was Tubbo streaming? Or was it something else?

He immediately switched into character, hoping it was the right move. “Well, it wasn’t hard for me to choose. You were fighting for something futile, something you didn’t guarantee. I chose Dream because you were fighting a losing battle, and I didn’t want to get the short end of the stick.”

Whilst he was talking, Eret sent Tubbo a Discord message.

TheEret Today at 9:12 pm Are you and tommy streaming?

Tubbo_ Today at 9:12 pm no?

TheEret Today at 9:12 pm so i’m not supposed to be in character?

Tubbo_ Today at 9:12 pm uhh yeah

Before Eret could wrap his head around the situation, another person joined the call. It was Wilbur. “Dream said you have 48 hours, Tommy wh- wait, why is Eret here?”

Before Eret could respond, he was kicked from the call. He stared at his monitor in stunned silence, not entirely sure of what had just happened. Tommy had seemed so mad at him for his “betrayal,” even though none of them were supposed to be in character. Why was he so upset? And why did Wilbur react to Eret being there in the way that he did? Had he said something wrong? Was there some sort of planned stream that Eret wasn’t told about?

Eret turned off his computer with a sigh. His mind was racing with possibilities of what had just happened and why, but he wouldn’t be able to act on his thoughts until tomorrow. All he could do now was sleep.

~~~ On the other side of the country, a man sat in front of his computer. A sadistic grin sat upon his face as his green eyes pierced through the dim light. “I warned you not to tell them Tommy. Now, it's time to face the consequences of your actions.”

~~~

Master Post

First - Previous - Next

[hermits-that-craft]

Staying With The Traitor - Chapter Two

Hope

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26695042/chapters/65201827

“Eret where did you go?” Nikki’s voice echoes through the large, empty castle. Sunlight filters through the rainbow stained glass, casting beautiful patterns onto the floor. 

She knows it’s dangerous to be walking so close to the glass, so close to where the Manburgians could see her, but she doesn’t care. Eret is missing, and she needs to find him. “Eret?”

“I’m here!” Eret’s voice calls out. “Sorry for worrying you Nikki.”

“I heard the Manburgians last night.” Nikki says, her pace quickening as she runs towards where Eret’s voice came from. “I thought they attacked us.”

“Not us, another hunting party.”

“Did they find the boys?” She asks, her hair flowing behind her as she runs into the throne room.

Where Tommy and Wilbur stand, bandages covering any exposed limbs and outfits soaked through with water, soot and blood. They both look like shit, dirt and blood indistinguishable besides the fresh stuff, and bags under Wilbur’s eyes practically giving him another inventory of space. Tommy has a new cut on his cheek, unbandaged and bleeding. Tommy has a blanket around his shoulders and a thousand yard stare that looks through Nikki and out the other side. Wilbur’s eyes are empty, hollow and tired.

“You’re okay.” Nikki mumbles, walking towards them slowly. She raises her hand, brushing a stray tear from Wilbur’s cheek before pulling him into a hug. “You’re okay.”

“I’ll prepare some food for everyone.” Eret says softly. “How does pancakes sound?”

“That would be nice.” Wilbur says softly and Tommy nods, a small smile on his face. A sad one.

“I’ll throw in some chocolate chips.” Eret nods, walking out of the room. 

“When did you guys arrive?” Nikki asks, pulling the two men onto some seats. They’ll move to the dining hall later.

“About five minutes ago.” Wilbur says, pulling off his beanie. He holds it in his hands, gently passing the saturated material between his hands. “We’ve been walking all night.”

“You should have messaged me, I would have brought some horses.”

“Didn’t want to wake you up.” Tommy mumbles, his voice almost as hollow as Wilbur’s eyes.

What happened to them, out there? Nikki wonders to herself, half ready to whisper to Tubbo or Fundy to ask them the question.

But she can’t ask them.

Then Schlatt will know that she’s with them.

“I wouldn’t have minded.” Nikki says, placing her hand on Tommy’s. She tried to ignore the small flinch from the teen. Months of working on his PTSD from the war, and it looks like it’s all gone again. Unless something else happened to them. “Do you guys need any health potions?”

“We can handle it.” Wilbur says immediately, before guilt flashes across his face. “Sorry, Nikki, it’s just-”

“We’re under Dream’s rule again.” Tommy spits, glaring at the floor. There’s an emotion that Nikki can deal with, can help the teen with. Anger. “We fought and died and lost everything for L’manburg and we’re back the same place we fucking started!”

“I know.” Nikki says sympathetically. “But you need to be safe, and this is the safest place for you both and-”

“You don’t understand, Nikki. We’re citizens of the fucking place again!” Tommy yells. “We fought, and we died, and it was all for nothing.” His voice cracks on the last word, tears streaming down his face. “It was for nothing. We lost.”

“Tommy-”

“Tommy, do you want the first pancake?” Eret’s voice cuts through what Nikki was about to say, and Tommy gets up, walking out of the room.

“Does he know where the kitchen or the dining hall is?” Nikki asks Wilbur softly, and the man shakes his head.

“He’ll find it. He’s a teen, he’ll just follow the scent until he gets to the food.” Wilbur laughs, though it doesn’t reach his eyes. “I failed him, didn’t I? I promised freedom and the world to him, and now he’s back where we started. I might as well goddamn lied to him.”

“You didn’t fail him.” Nikki reaches out to Wilbur, though he doesn’t look at her. His eyes, though empty, harden like stone before her eyes. “You did what you had to do to survive.”

“I promised him freedom. I promised him safety.” Wilbur glares at the ground. “This is all my fault. If I hadn't held the election none of this would have happened.”

“Do you really think Schlatt would have sat back and let you have power?” Nikki asks softly. “You know him, you remember what he’s done, what he did. You know him better than the rest of us. He wouldn’t of let you have power, let you run your country. You did the right think.”

“And now Tommy is homeless, stuck in a country that he died to escape, a country that leader killed him, and now we have to play the role of ‘good, upstanding citizens’ while our country burns.” Nikki holds back a finch at Wilbur’s words, though she can’t help but agree with him. They’re citizens of L’manburg, they shouldn’t be here. In Eret’s court. They aren’t Dreamers, they are not his citizens. L’manburgians through and through.

“If we don’t play that role we won't have a safe place to stay.” Nikki mumbles. “We need their allyship. We can’t afford to lose L’manburg.”

“We already have.”

“Only with that attitude.” Nikki jokes, and Wilbur finally cracks a smile. It’s small, but it reaches his eyes.

“I guess.” Wilbur smiles, tilting his back. “I guess we haven’t lost yet, why else would Schlatt be hunting us?”

“Besides how we are the good looking members of L’manburg?” Nikki teases, and Wilbur laughs, punching her shoulder. “We’re going to have to play the part, Wil. We have to make Eret trust us. We need his help.”

“I don’t trust him. I won’t trust him.” Wilbur says, his voice barely above a whisper.

“I don’t either. But we have protection here. We’ll need their allyship if we want to get L’manburg back.”

“Techno and Phil are coming.” Wilbur says, and Nikki feels hope spark in her chest, a small yet warm fire, dancing brightly. “We won’t need Dream, or Eret, not once they arrive.”

“Only as a back up.” Nikki smiles. “We can let Tommy flip them off when we leave. When are they arriving?”

“In a month or two.” Wilbur smiles. “Not too long, all things considered.”

“We’ll need to set up a base, and get armour ready.” Nikki says. “We could use Eret and the Dreamer’s to get the supplies for it.”

---

“Where are they?” Jschlatt yells, slamming his hands down on the table. Tubbo flinches in the corner, his eyes wide as he watches the room argue. “We can’t afford for them to start a rebellion against us.”

“Really, you shouldn’t have exiled them.” Fundy says, waving his hand. “We could have thrown them in prison or something like that, you know? Kept a close eye on them.”

“Nikki didn’t stay in prison, what makes you think that those two bastards would have?” George rolls his eyes at the fox hybrid, who just glares back to him. 

“You don’t think that Nikki’s with them, do you?” Jack asks Tubbo, staring into Tubbo’s soul. His throat goes dry, feeling the room’s eyes on him.

“I think Nikki is hiding nearby.” Tubbo mumbles, trying to avoid everyone’s eyes.

“Where would you suggest that place be, Tubbo?” Schlatt asks him, his voice kind and dark, the threat not needing to be spoken for Tubbo to understand what will happen to him if he lies again.

“Eret. With Eret.” Tubbo says softly. “I think that she’s hiding with Eret.”

“They always were close, weren’t they?” Jack nods to himself. “It makes sense that she’d hide with Eret.”

“And Eret knows where Wilbur and Tommy are hiding as well, he told me so last night.” Schlatt smiles. “I think it’s time we pay the king a visit.”

“Not yet.” Tubbo blurts out before he can stop himself.

“And why not?” Schlatt glares at the teen, who tries his hardest not to cower.

“Because there’s a ball coming up, we’re all invited.” Tubbo says softly. “Better to show up invited and burn the place down than to declare war. We can always blame Wilbur or Nikki for that. Not if we all show up now.”

“Tubbo i didn’t realise that you were so good at planning.” George whistles under his breath, and the men in the room give Tubbo a nod that turns his insides to ice.

He’s just betrayed them all.

---

Tommy sits on the roof of the castle, his hair blowing in the wind as he reads through Techno’s letter for the second time that day. Below him, Wilbur and Nikki are discussing a deal with Eret so that they can get help with getting equipment for the rebellion. Tommy wasn’t invited, Wilbur saying something about him ‘not being the calmest’.

As though Tommy didn’t make most of the trade deals between L’manburg and Dream SMP when Wilbur was too mad with Dream or Eret to meet with them.

So Tommy sits on the roof, a music disk playing softly over the air. Far, he thinks, wondering where Eret got the disk. It's peaceful, at the very least, playing softly as the sun sets. The sky lights up in golds and ambers, birds flying in the distance. He wonders about Manburg, about Tubbo and Jack and Fundy. Are they alright? Are they actually working for Jschlatt, or are they going to double cross the man?

He doesn’t know. Doesn’t want to know. Does he have to know, if it means that he will lose more of his family? Knowledge is a curse.

Maybe thats the real reason that Wilbur and Nikki didn’t want him there, in that meeting. Maybe they didn’t want him to lose more hope, to lose more family and friends. Would it hurt more to find out loyalties now, or later? Would it hurt more now, to find out if Tubbo is fully with Schlatt, then to find out if Tubbo was fully with Schlatt after weeks of trusting him? What would be worse?

A bee flies idly by, trying to find its hive before dark. Tommy doesn’t know why the bee would be here, there are no gardens in Eret’s castle, no flowers to be found. Maybe he could plant some, for this bee. For any other bees nearby. That's something he can do, that’s something that won’t hurt anyone. It’s not training, but it isn’t running either.

He’ll have to check with Wilbur and Eret, and see if they approve. 

---

Tubbo watches the sun set over the water, turning the ocean into a deep orange. Inside Nikki’s bakery, Schlatt, George, Fundy, Jack and Quackity drink. They took all the yeast from the bakery when Nikki left, turning it into beer. Tubbo has been put in charge of finding more, trading for it with his villagers. It could be worse, Tubbo thinks to himself, They could have banned me from baking bread like they banned Nikki from it.

Of course, Schlatt banned him from gardening, but at least he can bake. They haven’t taken that away from him. Sure, it’s his duty, and when the men leave, stumbling and drunk and angry, Tubbo will work until midnight preparing tomorrow's bread. 

So Tubbo watches the sunset, longing to find Tommy. He could leave, right now. The Manburgian’s are drunk, always drunk at this hour of the night. Though normally one doesn’t drink, keeping an eye on Tubbo to make sure he doesn’t run. 

He’s been caught trying to run before, on the night of the inauguration. George caught him, and he slept in the prison instead of in his bed, down with Nikki. It was nicer in the prison than in his room, with two guards outside his door to ‘protect’ him. In any case, he wouldn’t be able to run far tonight, shackles around his ankles keeping him from taking too large of a step, let alone running.

He shouldn’t have disagreed with Schlatt.

Glass breaks in the bakery, and Tubbo strains to hear anything other than the fighting from inside the building. He can almost imagine Far playing on the breeze, and a stray tear falls down his cheek. Tonight won’t be good.

Taglist:

@octosghost @firefly464 @surohsopsisofclouds @chromations @magpies-and-glitter @wwwwwelcomegays @asmoljay @ribineran @hawheckin @violet--majesty @violets-arepurple @marzycielskagwiazda

[generallyunskilled]

Why I sympathize with or apologize for these Dream SMP characters

Since I’m very unwell and watch just about every perspective on the Dream SMP, I’m a sympathizer or apologist for just about every character. I figured I’d share my thoughts on that. This is probably gonna be long.

Before I get started, here’s who I’m not a sympathizer or apologist for

c!Dream: fuck this guy. You’re not supposed to sympathize with him. He’s just all around evil, man. He’s an abuser, manipulator and he preys on those weaker than him. I still enjoy his character however, he’s just so delightfully hateable and I love when villains are hateable.

c!Sam: I get Sam. I really do. I understand where he’s coming from. But good god, it’s just not working! His little system keeps fucking up and he doesn’t really seem to get that it’s the system itself and not the people fucking it up. He’s too damn lawful for his own good. The prison is eating at him and you can see how he’s becoming more and more a bastardized version of the man he used to be. I want to be able to sympathize with him, and I’m not going to excuse the shitty things he’s done, but I understand him. As he is right now he’s gone off the deep end and doesn’t even know it yet. However I do think he can change. There’s still a chance for it.

Any other character not listed I simply just do not have an opinion on them. Maybe I don’t watch them often, there’s just not much to their character, or they simply haven’t done much for them to need apologists or sympathizers.

Now onto the list

c!Tommy: this kid has been through so much and received so little support. Like yeah, he’s done some wrong things, but he’s been so disproportionately punished for them. Like almost everyone else does the things he does without any repercussions. He’s also stopped doing most of the things people had issues with, or is at least trying. I feel like people don’t realize half the reason Tommy did any of his ‘bad’ things is he’s simply never been taught better. Everyone wants him to learn his lesson but never actually teach him anything but violence and pain. Also, half the things the fandom calls him an asshole for are literally mental illness symptoms. Stop that. Kids got some things messed up in his head. I’m not one to diagnose but he gets pretty damn close to the criteria for C-PTSD. You know, from the near constant trauma in his life. Kid needs a break. And a doctor.

c!Techno: I’m really flip floppy with him. His motives are understandable but his morals are wack as hell. I get wanting something against people who’ve wronged you. I get disliking government. What I don’t get, is the absolute disproportionate retribution he delivers. I also don’t get his moral high ground. He has his reasons for distrusting government. He has his reasons for disliking L’Manburg (o7). And I think it’s perfectly valid to want to air his grievances. He’s got a very admirable combination of “do unto others” and “an eye for an eye”. Mans just bungles the execution of these ideas. He’s got a lot of problems, but however, I feel like he’s got something coming to him. cc!Techno’s a better writer than this. And now with it seeming like a lot of miscommunication is getting cleared up, some of Technos past transgressions might come back to him. I think he’s headed in an interesting direction.

c!Phil: a lot of what I said for Techno applies to him as well. In addition, we know he also blames the government for his son’s spiral and death. It makes sense based on what he knows. I had something completely different here in the drafts but now we know that Wilbur didn’t tell him the truth about what happened in Manburg-Pogtopia era of the SMP. He’s been completely misinformed and you can TELL this has shaken his world up. He’s gaining a lot of new knowledge really fast. It’s becoming clear that maybe he’s beginning to regret some of what he’s done. But beyond the misinformation, he also just never got much time to actually grieve for his son and heal before the plot moved on. I feel like Phil is one of those guys who sorta just stuffs all his emotions away, but now it’s getting to be too much. He has a lot of hidden depth and I think he’s definitely on the way to a different role than what he’s played.

c!Wilbur: before his death, Wilbur needed help. No one realized anything was wrong until it was too late to pull him out of his spiral. We now know he started falling after Eret’s betrayal. He was paranoid and growing to hate what he had created. It seems like Eret was the catalyst, but the election was the straw that broke the camels back. Everyone just kind of sat around and hoped he’d change his mind. The only one willing to try was Tommy, and Tommy was just a kid. Something could have been done for him. He wasn’t a villain. He was just someone who went down a dark path that could have been pulled away if someone who wasn’t a 16 year old boy tried to reach out to him. Post-resurrection, he seems to be happy to be alive again. I’m not saying he’s completely out of the spiral but clearly something changed in limbo. And yeah him saying Dream is his hero is hella sketch but I mean, he doesn’t have the full story yet. I need to see more of revivedbur to make an opinion on him entirely.

c!Tubbo: this kid has had so little agency for so much of the plot. Most of the bad things he’s done were under duress or because he was practically being used. He really was a pawn in other peoples games, unfortunately. Any action of his that wasn’t like this was something he did out of pure reaction. He’s a very reactionary guy. He doesn’t start shit but he’ll try to finish it if he can. Tubbo is mostly just trying to get by. He’s been a soldier, a spy, a president and whatever else he needed to be or what others needed him to be. His time as president had him being pushed around and put under pressure he should never been put under. He was backed into corner after corner and expected to make the right decision with different people telling him what that was. Now he’s just trying to have some peace for himself and his family. He made the nukes for defense and defense only. It’s extreme but he’s been taught that extremism is the only thing that works.

c!Ranboo: dude literally doesn’t know what, when, or how he did any of the bad things he did. He’s not himself for most of the wrongdoings he’s done. Hell, we don’t even know if he actually did do some of the things or if it’s Dream manipulating him. Dream is literally taking advantage of Ranboo having the Enderwalk state. This makes him one of the most dangerous people on the server as Dream puppet, but also one of the most victimized. Now this doesn’t absolve him completely because harm was still done but it’s a reasonable cause behind his actions. Like I mentioned he’s also a victim of Dream in this way. Even he’s scared of what could happen and the possibility that he could be a danger to the people he loves. Granted his moral code used to be pretty wack but he’s getting better at that. I really like his “choose people” stance bc at first it was just him making his own side but now he’s genuinely picking and choosing people and being with them because he likes them as people rather than their stance on things. He and Tubbo were already friends before they got married, he’s not an official part of Snowchester though, iirc, and the only reason he joined The Syndicate was to make sure they don’t go after Tubbo.

c!Fundy, c!Niki, and c!Jack all go in the “seek some healthy coping mechanisms for the love of god” pile. Niki has already started on this as she’s baking again. c!Fundy honestly hasn’t done much wrong afaik, but he still needs to go to therapy that poor fox boy has so much daddy issues and sadness. c!Jack literally just needs to work through his issues with Tommy bc dude only knows murder as an answer to his problems. There’s other ones and he should learn them. These three are just traumatized and don’t know what to do with themselves.

[rainecreatesstuff]

Chapters: 2/4 Fandom: Minecraft (Video Game) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Ranboo & Toby Smith | Tubbo, Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit, TommyInnit & Ranboo, No Romantic Relationship(s) Characters: Toby Smith | Tubbo, Ranboo (Video Blogging RPF), TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF) Additional Tags: Goat Hybrid Toby Smith | Tubbo, Platonically Married Ranboo and Toby Smith | Tubbo, Ranboo and Toby Smith | Tubbo Have a Child Named Michael, Ranboo Tubbo and Tommy run away from the SMP, Kind of like a fix-it fic but not really, sorry I’m not great with tags aha, Fluff, Family Fluff, just so so much fluff, Queerplatonic Ranboo and Tubbo, bee duo, Bench trio, Technoblade is a softie, TommyInnit Needs a Hug (Video Blogging RPF), Toby Smith | Tubbo Needs a Hug, TommyInnit Gets a Hug (Video Blogging RPF), Toby Smith | Tubbo Gets a Hug, Traumatized TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Traumatized Toby Smith | Tubbo, lots of hugs and cuddles, Phil Watson is Called Philza (Video Blogging RPF), I don’t think I need any trigger warnings, but If I do please let me know and I’ll add them :), Snowchester on Dream Team SMP (Video Blogging RPF), Platonic Relationships, Platonic Cuddling, TommyInnit Has PTSD (Video Blogging RPF), Toby Smith | Tubbo Has Horns, Toby Smith | Tubbo Has Mental Health Issues, Ranboo Has a Tail (Video Blogging RPF), Ranboo Has Mental Health Issues, god i hate tagging things, no beta we die like tommy- wait- shit no, no beta we die like Wilbur- FUCK-, NO BETA WE DIE LIKE UHHHHH MEXICAN DREAM, Rated T for Tommyinnit Swearing, and tubbo swearing, and maybe phil i don’t remember, point is, Swearing, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort Series: Part 1 of Runaways AU

Takes place between Tommy’s revival and Wilbur’s. ALL names in this story are referring to the CHARACTERS of the Dream SMP, NOT the CCs. If any ccs state that this fic makes them uncomfortable, or it crosses boundaries, it will immediately be taken down. Please be respectful in the comments. :)

Chapter 2 under the cut! :)

Tubbo was shaking with excitement.

Finally, after months and months of shoving the thought away, it was happening. They were leaving.

Tubbo rushed around his basement, grabbing as many resources as he could and shoving them into his inventory haphazardly. Not much thought went into it, if he saw something he thought he might need he’d toss it in. If he forgot anything he could just ask Ranboo for it anyways.

With his stuff packed, he headed upstairs to check on Michael quickly before leaving. The toddler was still sound asleep, clinging to his chicken plush fiercely. Tubbo gently kissed his forehead, tucking him in tightly, before making his way back to the ladder.

He locked the hatch behind him, just in case. You could never be too careful when you were married to a main character and best friends with a protagonist. He shrugged on his coat and slipped on his combat boots, exiting the house and locking the door behind him. He ran to the hyper-tunnel, tridenting through and flying out the other side.

He made his way to Tommy’s land, where he found the blond sitting on his bench and staring at the horizon.

“Tommy!” Tommy’s head shot in his direction as he yelled his name.

He ran onto the property, practically throwing himself at Tommy and head-butting his chest.

“Fuckin- Ow man, what the fuck’s gotten into you?”

Tubbo grinned up at him, springing up from the bench and flapping his hands back and forth.

“Okay, okay, okay. So. Um, basically, you know how everything’s pretty much gone to shit on this server? And how we’re like, constantly in danger of someone trying to kill us?”

Tommy raised an eyebrow.

“I’d say I’m well aware of it, yeah. Didn’t expect you to be so excited about it though. Seriously big man, I haven’t seen you this excited since the bee farm you built way back before L’Manburg.”

Tubbo faltered for a moment. This was going to be difficult.

“No, I’m not excited about that.” He took a deep breath and calmed himself down, falling back onto the bench.

“So, I’ve been thinking about it for a while, a long time, actually, and I was talking to Ranboo and he kind of just asked me why not, and now we’re doing it, so.”

Tommy laughed nervously.

“You still haven’t told me what ‘it’ is, Tubs.”

“I’m getting there. You’re just. You’re probably not gonna be too happy about it at first, but I want you to take some time and actually think about it because I do genuinely think it’s the best option for us.”

Tommy looked at him warily.

“Alright. I’ll think about whatever you say, promise.”

Tubbo nodded.

“Okay, good, so…”

He looked over to Tommy, sucked in a deep breath, and blurted it out.

“What if we left?”

Tommy froze.

He stood from the bench and made his way back towards his house, and Tubbo ran after him.

“Tommy, I know it’s scary, and weird, but honestly-“

“No.”

Tubbo froze as well.

“You promised you’d think about it.”

“Yeah, I did think about it, and now I’m fucking shaking, so sorry, Tubbo, but it’s a fucking no from me.” Tommy finally turned to look at Tubbo, and tears were pooling in his eyes.

Tubbo swallowed.

“We can’t keep living like this, Tommy. I can’t keep going week by week not knowing if my best friend, or my kid, or my husband, or myself are gonna make it to the next one.” Tubbo reached for Tommy’s hand, but the taller boy yanked it away.

“Then leave. Fuck off with your perfect little family. See if I care.” Tommy growled.

Tears threatened to spring to Tubbo’s eyes, but he held them back. Tommy didn’t mean any of this. He was scared, and he felt threatened, and he was responding with anger. Tubbo had seen him do it time and time again. This was nothing new.

Didn’t exactly make it hurt much less though.

“I’m not leaving without you. You are my family.” Tubbo reminded him gently.

Tommy practically snarled at him.

“Remember- remember what Puffy was saying? About using anger as a coping mechanism for fear? You’re doing it again, Toms.” Tubbo did his best to keep his voice from shaking.

He hated it when Tommy got like this with him. It’d happened far too many times and ended far too horribly each time. He wondered if it was his fault.

Tommy’s eyes widened for a moment, and he seemed to shake himself off, taking a deep breath before stepping backwards.

“Just- just give me a minute.” He turned and ran into his house.

Tubbo watched his retreat, and began shaking. He’d known Tommy wouldn’t take well to the idea, but he didn’t think it’d upset him this much. Was it worth it to try to convince him? Even if it would spare them both a lot of grief and suffering in the long run, he couldn’t bear to make Tommy feel that anxious.

He took a deep breath, and thought it all over again. He had wanted to leave because he wanted to feel safe. He wanted his loved ones safe. That was okay, it was good.

It was… a good option, all things considered. He knew if Wilbur were here, he’d scold him for running away from his problems. But Wilbur wasn’t here, and Tubbo wasn’t running away. He was escaping.

Tommy finally emerged from the house, looking a bit more confident with himself than he had before. He looked up at Tubbo with his hands busying themselves with his sleeves. Tubbo opened his arms, and Tommy slid into a hug.

“I know you’re not keen on the idea. And I know it’s stressful, and new, and I know you don’t like new. But please just let me explain. Because I don’t know how much longer we can go like this before something happens.” Tubbo spoke in a hushed tone.

Tommy pulled away, nodding and leading Tubbo back to the bench.

They sat down, and Tubbo took a deep breath and began.

“Okay. So, I’ve had this plan, kind of sitting in the back of my mind for a while. Wasn’t even really a plan at first, just a daydream.”

Tommy caught his eye, and nodded for him to continue.

“It must’ve been a few days after you got out of the prison. I just remember seeing you trip and fall, and god, Tommy, you looked the same way you did the day of the festival, in that goddamn pit…”

Tubbo looked away from Tommy, who reached over and grabbed his hand, holding it in his own gently.

“You were shaking like a leaf, and your breathing was all funny, and all I could think about was how none of this would’ve happened if we’d ran off that day, when we were talking about it.”

Silence hung in the air for a moment. Tommy stared out at the twilight growing sky, eyes tracing the newly revealed stars.

“Thought we’d agreed that was dumb. We still had stuff we had to do.”

“We did,” Tubbo bit his lip, “We did agree. Back then. But, I don’t know, I started letting myself think about it, and like… I just want to live. Like actually live. I don’t wanna be so scared out of my mind that I have to build fucking nukes to keep my family safe. I don’t wanna wake up every morning and not be sure if my best friend is still around until I see you.”

A tear ran down Tommy’s face, and he pulled Tubo into another tight hug.

“I can’t leave. I have so much work to do.”

Tubbo huffed, squeezing Tommy back.

“Like what?”

Tommy let his head rest on Tubbo’s shoulder, and his arms went slack against Tubbo’s back.

“I have so many people I have to apologize and make it up to. And I’ve got a reputation to fix. And I have to kill Dream.”

Tubbo pulled away, staring Tommy down.

“Ignoring that other stuff for a moment, you don’t have to kill Dream.”

Tommy frowned.

“Yeah, I do. He’s too dangerous to be left alive. If he brings Wilbur back he’s gonna hurt so many people. I don’t- I don’t wanna kill him, I don’t wanna kill anyone, but I have to, because nobody else will.” Tommy spoke it like it was a mantra he’d been taught.

Tubbo felt like he’d been taught it as well.

“But it’s not your job. It’s not your responsibility.”

“Tubbo-“

“No.” Tubbo stood from the bench.

“No, it’s not, and you’re not getting me to agree with that. Dream is fucking insane, and he’s hurt a lot of people, and you don’t have to deal with him. It’s not your responsibility to save everyone, Tommy. I know we’ve had it drilled into our heads from the moment we joined that goddamned revolution that we should aspire to be martyrs, but we shouldn’t.”

Tommy stared at him with something sad, and something akin to awe.

“We have every right to live and be safe, Tommy. We’ve done our part. We’ve fought wars we shouldn’t’ve had to. We get to be free from it all.” Tubbo paused for a moment, sitting back down.

“Dream isn’t your responsibility. Maybe he’s Sam’s, or his own, who knows. But he’s not yours. You don’t have to be the one to prevent his actions.”

Tommy breathed in shakily, and nodded.

“I hear you,” He spoke quietly, “Not sure if I quite get it yet, but. I do hear you.”

“That’s all I ask for.”

Tommy took a deep breath.

“So, you’re suggesting we just disappear into the night?”

Tubbo smiled sheepishly.

“I mean… essentially, yeah.”

“And you’ve been planning this for how long?”

“What time is it?”

“How the fuck would I know? Probably around nine or something?”

“Alright, then like… forty five minutes.”

Tommy stared at him.

Tubbo stared back.

“I’m gonna kill your husband.”

“Wha- it’s not like it’s his fault, I’m the one that brought it up-“

Tommy groaned.

“No no no, this has Ranboob written all over it. He probably made you get all nostalgic and shit and then proposed this and now we’re leaving.”

Tubbo’s ears pricked up, and a small smile wormed its way onto his face.

“So you’re coming then?”

Tommy groaned again, leaning back against the bench.

“I don’t fucking know Tubbo. You’re sure this is what you want? Like 100% sure?”

Tubbo ran a hand through his hair.

“Pretty sure it’s all I’ve wanted for a while, boss man.”

Tommy pulled his knees up to his chest.

“So you’re really okay just leaving all this behind? L’manburg, and the bench, and Snowchester?”

“Honestly? As long as I have you, Michael, and Ranboo, I couldn’t give two fucks about any of this. But… I understand if it’s harder for you.” Tubbo spoke gently, as if Tommy might startle.

Tommy hummed, and let his eyes fall on the horizon again.

“It’s weird to think about. And it makes me feel scared. Like, there’s all these places here that have so many memories, and one day we might come back and they’ll look completely different.”

Tubbo watched his friend quietly for a moment. He probably should have come prepared for a deep conversation. Tommy was having those a lot more often with him. And he was proud of Tommy, god, he was so proud of him. But it served as a bit of a reminder that things would never go back to the way they were before. There’d always be something weighing them down.

… If Tubbo got his way tonight, he hoped it would take a bit of that weight off.

“Isn’t there kind of beauty in that, though? New people will show up, and walk the same ground as us, and make new memories in the places we made ours. Someone else will sit on this bench one day and it could be the best day of their life, and they’ll watch the sunset and celebrate, just like we did, and never even know it.”

Tommy caught his eye again, a look of contemplation in his gaze.

“And like, nothing’s ever permanent, Toms. You and I of all people know that. If you decide you want to come back, I’ll come with you. It’s me and you ‘til the end, right?” Tubbo held up his arm, hand fisted, and smiled as Tommy did the same and bumped their arms together.

“Always.”

Tommy sighed.

“Guess I better get packing then, huh?”

Tubbo grinned.

“I’ll meet you at my place in, let’s say, an hour?”

“Sure big man.”

The two hugged once more, then separated. Tubbo nearly had to stop himself from skipping down the prime path.

Tommy did have a point, it was weird to think he might never walk this path again. That sickly fear of being forgotten crawled it’s way into his chest, and he decided to get rid of it as soon as possible. He’d made his mark well enough, if he said so himself.

There was an entire crater that people would tell stories of for decades that he’d had a huge part in. Couples would settle down in Snowchester years from now and see his name etched into the stone, and know him as their founder. Teenagers would dare each other to walk through a button-filled ravine and the nerds among them would tell the story of Pogtopia, of the president that went mad, and the legendary warrior, and the determined hero, and maybe, hopefully, even the crafty spy. He’d made several farms and trading posts that would be used for generations should they be upkept. And he’d never upkept them, so he didn’t see them falling into disarray the moment he left.

Tubbo had left his mark on the land. On the history of the server. Still, the tightness wouldn’t leave his throat.

He grabbed a knife from his pocket and stared at the prime path for a moment before kneeling down. In sharp, clean letters, he etched “TUBBO_BELOVED WALKED HERE.” It was simple, so utterly stupid compared to the other things he had done to mark up the server. But it made him laugh, and it made the tendrils of fear loosen from his lungs, for whatever reason. And so he decided to be proud of it.

He made his way back home and practically flung open the door, making his way to his bedroom and closet. The moon was well underway on its journey through the sky, the silver light illuminating his room through the windows. He grabbed an assortment of clothes and piled them into a backpack. Several green shirts, some hoodies, a t-shirt that definitely had belonged to Ranboo at some point, jeans. He threw in everything he could. His hand brushed on a coat, and he pushed the rest of the clothes to the side.

His presidential jacket hung neatly in the corner of his closet. That’s right, he’d stored it away before Doomsday. Hadn’t been sure when he’d need it again. He slipped it off its hanger and shrugged it on. He looked at himself in the mirror.

It still looked too big.

“Tubbo?”

Tubbo glanced to the corner of the mirror, where Ranboo now stood in his line of sight.

“Hey boss man.”

Ranboo strode up to him, and hugged him gently from behind, his elbows resting on Tubbo’s shoulders.

“You ready to get going?”

“Just about. Gotta get Michael’s stuff together still.”

“Mm.”

They stood like that for a few moments, until Ranboo gently head butted Tubbo’s head, and moved away, gently slipping the coat off of Tubbo. He put it back on its hanger and slid it back into its place in the closet.

“I vote we leave this one behind.”

Tubbo hummed, a smile making its way onto his face.

“Can't say I disagree.”

Ranboo grabbed a few more things from Tubbo’s closet and threw them to Tubbo, who caught them and folded them, placing them carefully into his bag.

“Guess you don’t like me in a suit then. I’ll make note of that.”

Ranboo froze for a moment, then flustered, slapping Tubbo gently on the back of the head. Tubbo giggled, zipping up his bag and slinging it onto his shoulder.

They made their way out into the living room, where a duffel bag already sat on the floor beside the couch. Tubbo threw his bag down next to Ranboo’s, and jumped when the duffel moved.

“Hey, Boo?” Tubbo whisper-yelled.

“Yeah?”

“Care to explain why your bag is shaking and purring?”

They stared at each other, Ranboo freezing like a deer in headlights.

“… I couldn’t just leave Enderchest.”

Tubbo laughed fondly. He knelt down and scratched the cat’s ears, which earned him a louder purr.

“Guess I understand. Cats have got to stick together after all.” Tubbo grinned.

Ranboo groaned across the room.

“Catboy, little meow meow, my meow meow catboy, little baby man.” Tubbo strode across the room, smooshing Ranboo’s cheeks with his hands.

“You are a menace to society.”

Tubbo cackled evilly, and moved one of his hands up to scratch around Ranboo’s ears, laughing again when a soft rumble came from his husband’s chest.

“This is not funny.” Ranboo could barely stop himself from purring long enough to say it.

“Mhm.” Tubbo rubbed Ranboo’s ears and the purring grew louder.

“I hate this.”

“Tell me to stop then.”

Ranboo flushed, and Tubbo laughed triumphantly, bonking his forehead with Ranboo’s and leaving him be. He made his way up to Michael’s room, followed closely by Ranboo, who held another backpack in his hands and was yet to stop purring.

They moved in tandem, grabbing and folding their toddler’s clothes and placing them in the backpack. They also brought an assortment of books and little trinkets they’d collected for Michael over the past few months. Finally, they grabbed some blankets and folded them neatly, stuffing them into the backpack and zipping it up. Ranboo swung the backpack over his shoulder and shimmied back down the ladder.

Tubbo sighed, and sat on Michael’s bed, gently carding his fingers through his son’s short mane. Ranboo came back up, and sat beside him.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this.” Tubbo mumbled, half to himself.

“Can’t believe in a bad way, or can’t believe in a good way?”

“The good way.”

Ranboo leaned against Tubbo, resting his cheek on Tubbo’s head, careful to avoid the horns.

“Should we wake him up now and get him out to a boat, or should we wait for Tommy?” Ranboo swung an arm around Tubbo’s waist lazily.

Tubbo leaned into the gesture. It was quite bizarre. Ever since his execution, physical affection had left him uneasy and anxious, but for some reason it was different with Ranboo. Maybe it was how unsure of it he’d seemed himself, or maybe that he hadn’t known Tubbo before the scars. It made Tommy jealous, Tubbo was well aware of that. But at the moment, Tommy was only just getting back to being able to handle hugs, so Tubbo wasn’t sure cuddling would do either of them any good at this point.

“Bo?”

Tubbo snapped back.

“Right, sorry, yeah, let’s uh, let’s wait for Tommy to get here. He’ll probably wake Michael up with his knocking anyway.”

Ranboo hummed amusedly, and Tubbo smiled. He glanced out the window, and watched the waves for a moment.

“You wanna go for a quick stroll before Tommy gets here?” Tubbo stood, offering Ranboo a hand up.

“Sure.”

Ranboo took it, and they made their way to the doors, Tubbo slipping on his coat as they left. They wandered around for a bit, chatting idly, reminiscing on stupid and funny moments that had happened in the little town of Snowchester. They eventually ended up on the docks, and Tubbo sat down, swinging his legs over the side. Ranboo sat beside him, his tail wrapping around towards Tubbo.

Tubbo shivered, and leaned into Ranboo, who held him.

“So this is it then. Anywhere you wanna visit before we leave? L’manhole, maybe?”

Tubbo smiled.

“Nah. I’ve said my goodbyes to that place. I’m all good to go.”

Ranboo laughed quietly.

“Not to question you, but for someone who spent several nights awake making layouts for his builds, you don’t seem all too sad about leaving them.”

“Well, I mean, yeah. It kinda sucks, but at their core, they’re just builds. I’ll think back on them one day and cringe at how I styled them. You and Michael and Tommy being safe is far more important than whatever project I’m focused on at the minute.” Tubbo said quietly.

Ranboo hummed.

“And you know you’re the same for me, right? You’re always gonna be one of my top priorities.”

It felt a little uncomfortable to hear, but Tubbo knew that was just his messed up brain doing its messed up little thing. And so, pushing down the feeling of twisting in his stomach, he leaned closer to Ranboo.

“Thanks, boss man. I’m glad.”

They sat for a moment in silence, listening to the waves lap at the sides of the docks. Tubbo checked his communicator for the time. Tommy should be getting here soon. Thank god, he was getting a bit anxious to actually get on the road. He was, of course, still grateful that the universe had decided to give them a moment of peace before the inescapable chaos that would be travelling a long distance with a toddler and Tommy- so, basically two toddlers- for several days. Hell, maybe even several weeks.

So, of course, Ranboo had to ruin the peace.

“You’re actually talking about your feelings. A big win for the Tubbo_Beloved community.”

Tubbo huffed out a laugh, gently slapping Ranboo’s chest.

“Oh, shut up.”

Ranboo giggled, his tail wagging happily and hitting the stone.

“OI TUBBO! BOOB BOY! I’M HERE!”

Tubbo let out a sigh and turned to see Tommy standing on his porch, waving his arms around like a madman. Ranboo laughed, bonking their foreheads together. Tubbo groaned, letting his head fall onto Ranboo’s chest for a minute.

“Ready to spend several days on end with the one and only Tommyinnit?” Ranboo’s voice was light, lighter than he’d heard it in a while.

Tubbo smiled.

“Gods help our souls.”

Ranboo laughed, loud and clear, and Tubbo grinned. He pulled back, and Ranboo stood, helping Tubbo up as well. They made their way back to the cabin, Tommy tapping his foot impatiently like a cartoon character. Tubbo walked up the steps and made eye contact with Tommy, asking a silent question.

Are you okay?

Yes.

Are you sure you wanna do this?

Yeah, I’m good.

Tommy swung an arm around Tubbo’s neck, pulling him in quickly for a side-hug, then relaxing and dragging him inside.

“Your gremlin’s awake by the way. Couldn’t handle the might and power of the great Tommyinnit.” Tommy grinned as he tossed his bag next to Tubbo’s beside the couch.

Tubbo rolled his eyes, and motioned for Ranboo to go get Michael with a nod. Ranboo laughed quietly, and went upstairs. Tommy released Tubbo from his hold, and plopped down beside the bags, petting Enderchest, who seemed somewhat apprehensive of the new person.

“So did you say goodbye to everything?” Tommy scratched behind Enderchest’s ears and the cat immediately warmed up to him.

“Nah. I’ve made my peace with this place. Just waiting to leave now.” Tubbo sat down beside him, taking a few locks of Tommy’s hair and beginning to twist them into a braid.

“Saw your message on the Prime Path.”

“Yeah?”

“Made one beside it. Now it says ‘TUBBO_BELOVED and BIG MAN TOMMYINNIT WALKED HERE.’”

“Pffft- I’m glad, now everyone will know the true owners of the Prime Path for generations to come.” Tubbo tied the braid together loosely, then sat back.

“Fuck yeah they will. Big Man Tommy’s legacy is going nowhere.”

Tubbo laughed, and Tommy smiled gently.

Tubbo’s ear flicked as the hatch to Michael’s room opened, and he looked over to see Ranboo carrying a very sleepy Michael down the ladder. The toddler was wrapped in his favourite blanket, one he’d been given by Foolish, and was clutching his chicken plush against his chest with one hand. His other hand gripped Ranboo’s shirt, rumpling the thin fabric, and not assisting in keeping the toddler in Ranboo’s arms in any way, shape, or form. Tubbo stood, making his way over and taking Michael from Ranboo’s arms. Michael gently headbutted his chest, and Tubbo did the same to Michael’s forehead.

“Did you tell him what’s happening yet?” Tubbo asked as Ranboo made his way down the ladder.

“Not yet, figured we should tell him together.”  

“Mm. Fairs. Mikey?”

Michael gazed up at his dads sleepily. Tubbo’s heart clenched at the sight.

“You awake there, buddy?” Ranboo asked, running a hand through the toddler’s mane.

Michael grunted and hid his face in Tubbo’s shoulder, causing a soft laugh from Ranboo. Tommy snorted from across the room.

“Can we talk for a minute Michael?” Tubbo placed a kiss on his son’s forehead, and Michael looked up at him, then Ranboo, and nodded.

“Alright.” Tubbo carried Michael over to where Tommy sat, and returned to his place on the floor with Michael in his lap.

Michael’s eyes shot open when he saw Tommy, his mouth gaping in surprise. He squirmed out of Tubbo’s grasp and walked right up to Tommy, placing his tiny, hoof-like hands on Tommy’s cheeks.

“Mimi.” Michael stated with a seriousness that bordered that of a commander’s.

Tubbo burst out laughing, and as Ranboo slid onto the floor beside him, he could feel his husband shaking trying to hold his own laughter back. Tommy sighed dramatically, but smiled.

“Yes, it is me, your saviour, Mimi. I’ve arrived to make sure those two don’t bore you to death.” Tommy nodded in Tubbo and Ranboo’s direction.

Well, he tried to. He did what he could with toddler hands holding his head in place. Michael followed his gaze, and looked between his dads like he was contemplating something very important. He looked back to Tommy and nodded. Tubbo gasped.

“Have we been betrayed?” Tubbo looked back at Ranboo, who grinned.

“I think so, I think so.”

“We’ve been betrayed by our only heir. Oh woe is me.” Tubbo fell back dramatically into Ranboo’s arms, and Michael giggled.

Tubbo reached his arms out in Michael’s direction, and Michael waddled back over to him, sitting squarely in his lap, and looking up at him expectedly.

“Alright. Serious talk time,” Tubbo squeezed his son, and Ranboo nodded in agreement, “I’m gonna tell you straight up, because I know you’re a big kid and you’re gonna be okay. But it’s okay if you feel upset at what I tell you, okay?”

“You’re allowed to feel however you do, I promise your Bee and I won’t ever get mad at you for that, alright?” Ranboo gently squeezed Tubbo’s shoulder as he spoke.

Michael looked between the two quizzically, and then looked back down at his lap. After a moment, he looked back up, and nodded seriously.

“Alright. So, we’re going to be moving houses, and it’s probably gonna be really far away.”

“And we probably won’t be back for a very long time.” Ranboo added.

Michael’s eyebrows furrowed, and Tubbo would have cooed if he wasn’t worried that Michael was upset. The toddler jutted his thumb out in the direction of the mansion, and Tubbo is quite proud of himself, because he at least had the decency to look sheepish at it. Tommy had to suppress a laugh, hiding it behind a cough. Tubbo glared at him. Ranboo snorted from behind him.

“No, Mikey, we’re gonna travel for a while and then build a new house, far away from here.”

Michael frowned, and took his chicken plush back in his hands, placing it in his lap. He squeezed it gently a couple times as Tubbo ran his hand through the toddler’s mane. Michael eventually looked back up at him, and signed something that Tubbo recognized as “Mimi come?”

“Yeah, bud, Mimi’s coming too.” Ranboo smiled patiently.

Michael squeezed his chicken plush again, then stood, pointing to the ladder.

“You need back up, Mikey? What’s up?” Tubbo asked.

“Need clothes and books and toys.”

“Oh, we’ve already got your stuff packed! Come look!” Ranboo reached around Tubbo and grabbed Michael’s backpack, a yellow one with a bee embroidered on the front.

Ranboo unzipped it, and Michael ran back over, gripping the backpack and looking inside. Ranboo helped him push the blankets aside, and Michael looked at all the clothes and toys they’d packed. He tapped his chin, and Tubbo had to hold back another laugh, because where had he even learned that from? After a couple moments, Michael zipped up the bag himself, and nodded firmly at Ranboo.

“You’re ready to go?” Tubbo asked.

Michael reached for his chicken plush, and Tubbo handed it to him. The toddler nodded.

“Alright. Are you feeling okay about it?” Ranboo placed the backpack beside the other bags as he spoke.

Michael frowned again.

“I don’t know.”

“That’s alright, bud. Do you feel sad?”

Michael shook his head almost immediately.

“Do you feel angry?”

“…No.”

Tubbo watched the interaction with a certain fondness. Ranboo was always so careful with explaining emotions to Michael, and trying to help Michael understand his own. It was sweet to watch.

Tommy obviously didn’t share the same sentiment. He didn’t say anything, but Tubbo noticed his fingers drumming anxiously against the floorboards. His other hand pet Enderchest with a fervour that the cat probably didn’t appreciate. Tubbo would have to thank him later for being so patient with Michael. Or, at least trying to.

“Do you feel nervous?”

Michael stopped for a minute, clutching his chicken close to his chest and mulling it over. Eventually he nodded, and Ranboo smiled gently, the way he always did when he spoke to Michael.

“That’s okay. Your Bee and I are gonna be right beside you the entire time, okay? And if you’re ever feeling nervous, you can tell one of us, and we’ll try to help. Is that okay?”

Michael nodded, and opened his arms for a hug, his chicken falling into Ranboo’s lap. Ranboo pulled him into a hug, not letting go until Michael did. The toddler then turned to Tubbo and did the same. Tubbo held him close to his chest, rocking them from side to side gently. Michael pulled away, and Tubbo did too, gently bonking their foreheads together before completely pulling away.

“You’re very brave, Michael. It’s not easy to do things you’re nervous about. We’re proud of you.” Tubbo ruffled the kid’s mane as Michael grinned.

“Alright. We’re gonna leave now, and you can sleep on the way, okay?”

Michael smiled and nodded, grabbing his blanket from Tubbo’s lap and wrapping it around himself haphazardly. Tubbo stood, followed by Ranboo, who picked up Michael and carried him over to the door. Tommy scratched Enderchest’s chin, then gently zipped up the duffel a bit more. He stood, grabbing his own bag and slinging it over his shoulder.

Tubbo grabbed his backpack and did the same as Ranboo buttoned Michael into his coat. Tubbo grabbed Michael’s hat and slid it on the toddler’s head before helping him with his boots. Tubbo slid on his own boots, tying them tightly. Ranboo grabbed Michael’s backpack, slinging it over his shoulder, then grabbed his duffel bag carefully. Tubbo picked Michael up, and they left the house.

They made it to the front yard, and Tubbo turned around one last time.

“You wanna say bye to the house, Michael?” He murmured.

“Bye bye house.” Michael’s words slurred together with tiredness, and Tubbo awed quietly.

He turned and began to walk away, but Michael grabbed a fistful of his hair and pulled it gently, just enough to sting.

“Ow- what the-“ Tubbo took a deep breath, “What’s up, Michael?”

Michael pointed at the house.

“Picture.”

Ah. Of course. Ranboo had shown him their camera a few days ago, and the toddler had loved it. Of course he’d want a picture of the house. Tubbo turned to look at Ranboo, who shrugged, then slid Michael’s backpack off and grabbed a camera from inside. Tubbo sighed. One more quick detour wouldn’t hurt.

“Alright. Let’s go stand by the door.” He carried the toddler back up the front steps, and turned to face Ranboo and Tommy.

Ranboo readied the camera, before being slapped gently in the back of the head by Tommy. He looked back at Tommy with confusion, and Tommy rolled his eyes.

“Go stand with your family, dumbass.” Tommy held his hand open for the camera, looking everywhere but at Ranboo.

Tubbo laughed to himself as Ranboo visibly softened, handing Tommy the camera and making his way up the steps. He stood behind Tubbo, gently placing a hand on Tubbo’s shoulder.

They smiled, and the camera flashed a few times. Tommy pulled back, inspecting the photos for a minute, then gave them the thumbs up. They walked back over, and Michael poked Tommy, pointing at the camera.

“There you go. These pictures up to your standards Big M?” Tommy asked, showing them the camera.

Michael looked at the pictures, then nodded seriously.

“Good, wouldn’t want to disappoint.” Tommy ruffled Michael’s mane, then handed Ranboo the camera.

Ranboo carefully slid it back into Michael’s bag, and the four made their way to the docks.

Two boats were already tied to the docking points, and Ranboo must have set them up when Tubbo wasn’t looking, because Tubbo definitely hadn’t. Ranboo carefully made his way down the ladder and into the first boat, standing with his feet wide. Tubbo bit his lip.

This probably wouldn’t be a fun time for Ranboo, he wasn’t exactly great around water, for good reason. With any luck, they’d only need to travel by boat for a few hours, then they would find land and borrow (read: steal) some horses and travel horseback from there.

Ranboo gently placed his duffel bag in the bottom of the boat, sliding off Michael’s backpack and placing it beside the duffel. He then reached up towards Tubbo, and Tubbo carefully handed him Michael. The moment Tubbo let go, Ranboo sat down, clearly not trusting himself enough to hold their kid above water.

Tommy made his way into the second boat, tossing his bag on the floor as well. Tubbo climbed into Ranboo’s boat, but passed his backpack to Tommy, who put it beside his own. Tubbo sat down, then reached for Michael again. Ranboo handed the toddler over, then stood, untying the boat from the dock. Tommy did the same in the boat next to them.

Michael made himself comfortable in Tubbo’s lap, and, almost instantly, fell back asleep. Tubbo laughed gently and looked up to Ranboo, who was watching them with a look of fondness clear on his face.

“Alright, you guys can make doe eyes at each other once we get there, c’mon.” Tommy grinned as Ranboo spluttered, then began rowing.

Ranboo huffed, but followed suit. They began travelling Northeast.

“Our arms are gonna hurt so bad tomorrow.” Tommy stated tiredly.

“Worth it.” Ranboo smiled.

And they were off.

They’d done it. They’d escaped.

[enderspawn]

🎼 (I can’t find the correct emoji lol) exile arc tommy?

Oh boy! (opens up breakdown playlist) /hj

Montreal – Penelope Scott

Sleep with a Baseball Bat – Cosmic Johnny

Brother – Gerard Way

breakdown under cut, tw for suicidal ideation on the first song esp

1.       Montreal – heehee hoohoo suicidal/depression thoughts baby!!

I mean in short this is tommy saying he wont Survive exile. The intro of the song lists when the singer would be home from college/school and that “another 90 day summers gonna take [their] fucking life” which is rlly just. Tommy not gonna live THAT long in exile.

“And I would rather die And let me make it clear It's nobody's fault But I think we all know That I won't make it to Montreal”

So the thing here is that its “nobody’s fault” bc on one hand it is that he doesn’t blame tubbo but worse he doesn’t blame DREAM. Its just meant to happen, its not bc of anybody, yknow?

“And I would rather die I'll jump before I'll fall And I'm having lots of fun But I won't make it Montreal”

Mans tried to jump to his death before he “fell” whether bc of dream or an accident, hes makin the active CHOICE to end it rather than just waiting. Even w the fun he’s having w dream, he’s miserable and he knows he wont make it to see lmanberg again

“You like to talk about the future As if it's real And when you tell me that you love me I can almost feel it”

Dream keeps promising him stuff for the future. Maybe he can visit to see the tree, maybe he can get another visit, maybe he wont be alone. But tommy doesn’t care, its all fake to him (which like, it is so good for him but fjkdlsjf)

“It's not that it's a bad plan No, the plan fucking slapped I was so excited you don't know how bad I wanted all of it The coffee shop, the weather, the apartment But I don't want anything anymore I don't know, I guess I just got bored”

Okay so. Tommy kept trying to get shit together to leave, right? He wanted to go back so bad and have this domestic life w his friends but in the end he just got so downtrodden that after his shit got blown up he was so ready to just GIVE UP.

“And I don't wanna die I don't wanna get left behind But it's better half than none I hope to god you have some fun”

He doesn’t want to be in this situation, he still CARES abt the lmanberg crew but in the end hes been told that they’re happy WIHTOUT him. He’s not angry at them, not anymore, he just wants them to be happy bc he isn’t.

2.       Sleep with a Baseball Bat – tommy and dream relationship baby!!

“And every time you wake up Thinking this could be the day Well something, something just”

Every day in exile he had no real plans. He just had to exist out there alone and hope someone else came. This IS the day he can do…. Something. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t have a goal.

“And when your love is an anxiety attack Don’t settle for that, don’t settle for that And when you wake and find the claw marks in your back Sleep with a baseball bat, sleep with a baseball bat”

Hes been manipulated into thinkin dream is his friend, that dream “loves” him but it makes him miserable! Hes paranoid and stressed and falling apart!! Boy!!! Fjdsklfj

“Siena says you’re getting used But something’s broken in your head And you can’t run away when you need to”

The other ppl who visited him, like ranboo, KNEW something was happening and that he was in a bad place but tommy had been manipulated by dream so much that he couldn’t process it. No, dream couldn’t be bad, dream was his friend, right? He couldn’t leave exile, dream would be upset. Its all what DREAM wants, not tommy.

“Hey, space cadet Are you still floating round the rock That you spent so much of your life trying to get away from? And does it at least look different from up there?”

OKAY SO ONE. SPACE CADET? THAT’S CLARA BABY!! TWO: he spent ALL his time on this server fucking fighting dream, trying to “get away from” him. But now hes stuck “floating around” with him as his “friend”. The last line feels sarcastic and bitter but like. FUCK it hits, yknow??

“It might take a couple tries till you believe it But love is real, you’ll figure it out, you’ll live to see it But you still have to take a couple of falls And you can’t make an omelet without breaking your balls So batter up Is your bed made? Is your helmet on?”

HAPPY ENDING POG!! HE STARTS HEALING!!!! HE STARTS REALIZING DREAM WASN’T HIS FRIEND!!! He still “falls” and relapses into wanting dream w him but hes so much better!!! Also,,,,, “is your helmet on” w the turtle shell helmet (eyes emoji)

3.       Brother – IF TECHNO AND TOMMY NOT BROTHERS WHY THIS SON—(gunshot rings out)

Okay so on a serious note this song is abt addiction and while I don’t want to take away from that Serious Topic, it Does relate but w tommy dealing w his ptsd of dream

“And brother, if you have the chance to pick me up And can I sleep on your couch To the pound of the ache and pain? Oh, in my head 'Cause I'm awake all night long To the drums of the city rain”

Hhrhnrng staying at technos place to hide from dream and get better a lil JFKDLSJK. Also “the drums of the city rain” is referenced a LOT in this song but like. It keeps him up so,,,,,, dream JFKDLSJF. Mans barely ever slept in exile so it WORKS okay jfkdlsjf

“The lights we chase The nights we steal The things that we take to make us feel this (To the drums of the city rain)”

This is him and techno livin together!! Like in the first chorus you could see lights we chase being tommy finding techno’s place, then later it’s the lights of lmanberg as they sneak in. the nights they steal is both just time spent together and also straight up the times they stole shit JFKDSLJ. “the things that we take to make us feel” is the gapples tommy always eats so that he can feel safe (also, bc in the og song this is PROBABLY abt drugs and potions are drugs in universe so. Arguably getting a potion effect from the apple means it is Also Drugs? Fjdkslfj)

“I can't go back I don't think I will I won't sleep tonight as long as I still Hear the drums of the city rain”

Go back to logstedshire or lmanberg you ask?? The answer is yes. Both. He feels like he doesn’t belong in lmanberg and logstedshire is too traumatizing for him to return at this point. As long as he “hears the drums of the city rain”, or is thinking of dream, he Cant Sleep:tm:

“Does anyone have the guts to shut me up? 'Cause I believe that every night There's a chance we can walk away So hold on tight Because I won't wait too long In the drums of the beating rain”

Okay so hear me out but. This is just tommy and dream. “I believe that every night theres a chance we can walk away” is tommy hoping desperately for dream to let him go home, to walk away from logstedshire. He never will be permitted, not really, but theres a chance that tommy clings to. He wont “wait too long” while out in exile and stuck w dream bc hes desperate and miserable (also fun fact these analysis is basically me just pmv’ing shit in my head and rambling vaguely abt it but like. Listen,,,, flashback verse jfkdsljf) ALSO. The line “does anyone have the guts to shut me up” in relation to exile!tommy is just VERY important to me. Mans was so quiet and afraid to speak up when in exile.

“'Cause the nights don't last And we leave alone Will you drive me back? Can you take me home? (To the drums of the city rain)”

Following up that last paragraph, this is still in flashback. The days end and dream leaves again, making tommy alone. He asks if he can go back, if he can see home and lmanberg and everyone. But echoing the “to the drums of the city rain” after home CAN imply that “home” has become logstedshire WITH DREAM even tho it keeps him up and aaAAAAAHHHH

I swear this ends up okay and techno + tommy focused fjkdsljf

“Faces I don't know I am tired in the glow”

He feels isolated from everyone during his exile and lashes out at those who visit, to the point he feels like they’re all more or less strangers and “faces he doesn’t know”. Being tired in the glow is, imo, him over the lava.

“Of the freezing club Keep me breathing Don't make the lights come back Can you take me home? We all need this When we leave alone”

Hhhngg okay so tommy breakdown time! Hes in techno’s house (the freezing club) and is just pleading for techno to help. Don’t let “the lights come back” (lava again maybe? He doesn’t want to be Like This?) and just wants to feel like hes at home because hes just left exile and hes Messed Up Over It

“Remember when you and I would make things up? So many nights, just take me down To the place we can hear them play I miss that sound 'Cause now we don't sing so loud To the drums of the city rain”

OKAY SO THEY MAY NOT BE CANON FAMILY BUT WILBUR REMEMBERS SPARRING W TECHNO AS A KID AND PHIL IS HIS CLOSE FRIEND SO THEY STILL KNEW EACH OTHER AS KIDS SO SHUSH FJSDKL. Tommy just wants things to go back to how they were, before everything. When things were easy and they were kids just having fun. He misses it. Before exile, before lmanberg, before dream. But it doesn’t matter, because they’re stuck in this now. With his brother dead and his closest friend being the man who killed his best friend and helped blow up his country. Again, the drums of the city rain is dream. Because of his influence, its all different.

Hhhngngngn this is too long so I wont go into the last outro bc you can interpret it a LOT of ways, esp depending on how you want to Pace this song w the exile arc. But like. The analysis is THERE if you really wanna push it/animatic it babeyyy