#anti l'manberg

[kay-then-i-guess]

The Updated Quackity design! Original is the image below.

Quackity is, by far, one of the most fun characters to draw (except at a full-body, front-facing angle, as I found drawing this). He's always been one of the most expressive and high-movement characters. Even back in the beginning, he was just so much fun to draw. He was always bouncing one way or another with big arms and expressions. That said, once shit hits the fan, you guys better get ready for a shift.

Spoilers (kind of) aside, Quackity in the role of Tubbo was one of those things that made me kick my feet and giggle (maniacally). It's so good. I'll get more into this once it actually comes up in the comic, but in the Canon dsmp, I wholeheartedly believe that if Quackity was let into L'Manberg in the first place, he would have easily become a Tubbo figure. Perhaps a more competent leader than Tubbo, too. The only reason C!Quackity became power-hungry is because Wilbur refused to give him any. And, one could argue, he was envious of how much power Wilbur had despite his blatant failings as a leader. So, in Roleshuffle, I essentially play out a version of Quackity where he wasn't forced into this serious, anti-hero, power-hungry character. Instead, he stays relatively lighthearted for much longer (not forever, of course).

I think Quackity was what made me realize how much I enjoyed a more cartoon-y style as opposed to an anime style. I don't think I ever really had an anime style for an extended period of time, and certainly not when I started drawing the original character sheets, but you can still definitely see the anime influences. And as much as love that, I think the more cartoon style has really helped me develop my skills. As contradictory as this sounds, I'd argue it helped me with my more realistic drawings, as I'd be able to sketch out a silly expression/pose in a cartoon style for practice, and then translate it into a (mildly) more realistic style.

Oh, also, he's based off of a Cayuga duck.

[blockgamepirate]

(that post was so banger it finally made me register an alt) Honestly, you are so correct about L'Manberg

I remember regularly lurking around mcytblr and reading analysis and I think I only saw coherent L'Manberg nationalism analysis from, like, Xephyr and a c!Dream blogger/fan. Which is crazy in retrospect, because the ease with which most of the fandom leaned into fictional country hardcore patriotism was/is kinda insane

And the ensuing anti Doomsday stance -- like we all know that terrorism is bad and shit, but absolute refusal to acknowledge that maybe Doomsday trio and co were not punished by the narrative for having done that was because they were right was. sure something!

omg that's very flattering thank you :D

By Xephyr I assume you mean @considermygenderminecrafted ? Because yes, xe has some of the best L'Manburg critique out there, as well as some of the best c!Wilbur critique, everybody should absolutely check it out immediately (altho frustratingly, I just tried to find some of their posts as an example but Tumblr's search function is still absolute garbage (Xeph, do you have some of your great posts at hand and if so, can you just link some of them in the reblogs or something?))

And yes. There are valid criticisms that can be made of the Doomsday Trio's tactics (which even Techno himself sort of acknowledged later), but at the end of the day, they were on the right side of history

(Well Dream's character less so, but I can't even be bothered to try to analyse him at this point because none of his plans make sense to me)

Also nobody ever seems to acknowledge that Doomsday Trio were acting in self-defence, since L'Manburg had already gone after both Techno and Phil, and was at the time trying to kill Dream as well, although he kinda beat them to the punch (possibly because he already knew they were planning to kill him? idk, I'm not sure if that was ever confirmed or not)

But yeah, the argument about them needing to be punished by the narrative was always absurd to me, and it just betrays the fandom's belief that L'Manburg was supposed to be objectively good, despite all the evidence that it very much was not, not even to its own citizens! And possibly also the unquestioned assumption of "state good, anarchy bad"

Meanwhile the actual narrative repeatedly shows that L'Manburg always ends up becoming toxic, corrupt and ultimately oppressive, even under the Good President, while on the other hand the anarchist commune eventually turns into a sanctuary for all sorts of people who need a safe place to stay (even arguably the aforementioned former Good President when he needs somewhere to hide his son from kidnappers)

And yeah, this is why I did get pretty heated about some of the debates at the time, and I kinda still do, because in the process of assuming that L'Manburg was always the good guys, they ended up repeatedly justifying just absolutely horrific state violence as well as excusing early L'Manburg's xenophobia (as comedic as it initially was), which unfortunately mirrors a lot of real world authoritarianism and xenophobia

To be fair a lot of this was probably also protagonist-centric morality, since most of these people also saw the L'Manburg side as the main characters, but then again what is nationalism if not a form of protagonist-centric morality where you see your own country as the protagonist of the world lol

I might actually need to make a proper post now since multiple people have shown interest, unfortunately I'm also very lazy and kinda made my main points in that low effort post already

Which would mean that it would actually have to be a high effort post to justify its existence

[honeyblockm]

Things you can name superhero Wilbur that's not siren or songbird:

-mr lmanberg

-lmanguy

-lmanberg man?

-L'Man (tommy is his sidekick, The Man)

-...L'Man Man?

-Captain L'Manberg

-The Music Man (he's a theater major)

-Soot (for a very specific genre)

-Evil L'Manberg (if he's a villain)

-the Anti Syndicate (if he's a villain who isn't in the Syndicate)

-the blood god (mom said it's MY turn on the blood god) (weird twinsduo au idk)

-my little pogchamp (au equivalent of pogtopia arc)

-The President (he is not the president in this au)

[cdroloisms]

If you're not already burnt out from analysis, do you have any thoughts on the Mexican L'Manberg debates?

hmm i have to rewatch the vod tbh it's been a bit--not many thoughts that haven't been regurgitated a million times though.

something that has always interested me is the whole dethronement debacle/mexican lmanburg debates in relation to how leadership has worked for the greater smp faction, largely because the dsmp was never meant to be a faction and the creation of the official kingship for c!Eret was very much in response to L'manburg at the time. and there is honestly quite a bit of conflict that rises from the fact that the greater dsmp faction was never really meant to have a king in the first place, and the confusion that would arise about what the role of the king even was supposed to be (especially as the idea of c!Dream having any kind of legitimacy was worn away over time.) it'd be an interesting meta to write if i could think of a way to word it all--but it's always fascinated me, in this conflict, how the progression of "he's in charge of the server, i'm in charge of the land" to c!Dream's no-mans-land position of leadership in the dsmp faction progresses as the server goes on is utilized in c!Quackity's favor to effectively block c!Dream out of the conversation (even with so much of this being quite directly an attack on dream in the first place.) something something being king of the dsmp comes with a level of restriction, yes, but also a level of protection--and while c!dream, viewed nebulously as a leader, was also subject to a certain level of restriction to a certain extent (see: his asserting that he couldn't publicly stand against schlatt because of the peace treaty between their two nations), the fact that his leadership was more de facto early on (because the dsmp faction wasn't yet a faction) as compared to the kingship, this conflict is a clear demonstration of how he doesn't have the same political sway as the dsmp king to be able to ask for quite the same level of protection (and hence, how his request for an apology in the peace treaty goes unheeded and how he ends up as a trading piece in the negotiations.)

otherwise, mexican lmanburg definitely has a lot in terms of echoes of c!wilbur and the lmanburg narrative, particularly regarding c!dream's view on factions, which is interesting--c!dream has never actually been "anti-people doing what they want in a group," but of course that's how things ended up being popularly seen because. gestures. and of course, there's the whole idea that every single conflict on the server ever was initiated by c!dream which...again, lmao. along those lines:

[thinks abt lmanburg. a lot] yeah.

and lastly...this isn't really just a mexican lmanburg thing, but c!dream around this time was kinda known to reacting to threats by basically doing the thing where he would make like, a laundry list of threats, right, just really over-the-top stuff that would freak people out like hell, right? we see it in exile negotiations, we see it in mexican lmanburg debates--

and you know, they've regularly been pointed to as you know, look how crazy evil he is an how he overreacts to shit and etc, whatever. and it does interest me how these speeches are quite similar in pattern to moments post-prison as well:

specifically being quite consistent with moments where he's feeling, well, a bit unstable. it's an intimidation tactic that c!dream has long used, of course (white flags speech is a well-known example) but it's interesting to see it often in context of c!dream being to some degree, scared (or paranoid)--even in white flags, that was obviously a conflict that c!dream treated seriously that was quite a bit different in character from conflicts that preceded it on the server and therefore demanded a greater level of wariness and caution from him. always interesting, to me, the ways that certain actions for c!Dream are so deeply related to fear, feeling attacked (compared to, say, c!sam who would do the whole I Am The Warden power play against anyone that he felt challenged his authority)

very very scattered thoughts, but um--yeah! i really should rewatch this stream especially bc the transcript is incomplete, but alas

[asktheyellowsweaterclub]

🍂Intro Post/DNI/Content Summary🍂

- Hello, and welcome to the Yellow Sweater Club! This is a side blog made specifically for Wilbur Soot, William Gold, and Bursona introjects!

Our main system - the Crow/Coffee Collective (@coffteablogs)- has absolutely far too many Burs and collectively we've decided to have our own blog!

•.+°⭐click read more if our blog interest you⭐°+.•

(scroll to bottom for DNI and Interact Lists)

Club Members!!

Factives/IRL based Sonas - 💫

- CC!Wilbur • [🗺️🍁] - (He/Him)

- CC!Willow • [🌍🌱] - (She/Her)

- Lovejoy!Bur/Castor/Will • [🎸🎤] - (He/It)

- Teen!Bur/Will/Smoke • [🩹☁️] - (He/Him)

- Trans!Bur/Orca/Will • [🏳️‍⚧️🐋] - (He/They/Sea/Orca/🌊)

- YLYL!Bur/Pidge • [🎬] - (He/It/Stream)

Fictives/Character based Sonas - 👾

- SoftBoy!Bur/Fyn • [🌀] - (He/Soft/It)

- Sorry!Bur/Ashe • [🔥⏰] - (he/flame/burn/it)

Rev!Bur/Rev/Crow • [🍷🌹] - (He/She)

C!Wilbur • [🧨] - (He/Boom)

Rev!Bur/Will • [🍒] - (He/She/Zomb)

L'Man!Bur • [🇬🇧💣] - (He/L'manberg/It)

Ghost!Bur/Ghost • [🌀🫐] - (Blue/He/Ghost/They/Memory)

Friend • [💙🐑] - (Any Pronouns + Ghost/Spirit)

Simpbur/Crimson • [💕🪓] - (She/He/It/Yandare)

Q!Will • [🧣🌻] - (He/Him)

Zomb!Bur/Saturn • [🪐] - (It/He/Zomb/Rot)

ARG!Bur/Rain • [❄️] - (It/They/Xey/Cold/Snow)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Content Summary

Answering general question people have for any particular Bur!

This may include a ...

Doodle/Drawing or Graphic

A large amount of infodumping/silly

Poll

Rules for asks:

If you have an NSFW ask, please give a warning!

Ex of warning: CW:NSFW, ⚠️NSFW⚠️ ASK IS NSFW ect

Regarding the NSFW asks: nothing extremely explicit. ie:

Asking us to draw NSFW/P0rn, asking Abt NSFW habits and the like.

(side note: Simpbur, both Rev!Burs and ARG!Bur are the only comfortable alters when it comes to NSFW asks. Everyone else is STRICTLY OFF LIMITS)

You may ask about relationships, info Abt alters, source memories ECT!

DNI LIST

(NO)MAP, Radqueers, Zoos, Anti-Endos, Anti-Fictive/Factive, LGBTQIAA+ Phobic, anti-Semitism, Racism, IRL Gore blogs, Kink blogs, anti-therian, anti-fictionkin, anti-otherkin, crosstaggers, Thin-Spo, Pro-Ana, Pro-SH, Pro-ED, Ableism, incest/stepcest,pron blogs, Wilbur Supporters, zionists

Interact List

Pro-Palistine Artists, Systems, Fictives/Factives, Alters, Small and Big Content Creators, Update Blogs, Therians/Fictionkins/Otherkins, Neurodivergent ppl, Disabled ppl, LGBTQIAA+ People, Objectum people, POSIC+ people, Shubble Support Squad, and ANYONE WHO DOESN'T GO AGAINST DNI!!

[faebriel]

let’s be honest—have you thought about a c!Niki Spider-Man au

I HAVEN'T BEFORE BUT I AM NOW ANON !!!

c!niki spiderman au is so interesting.....disclaimer i'm not a comics expert so i'm just kicking around ideas. BUT FASCINATING IDEAS THEY ARE !!! i think out of every type of superhero there is, she would really like being the friendly neighbourhood variety. she's not in it for the glory but she likes being able to stick up for people and help people, and spider powers give her a really powerful opportunity to do that.

on the flipside, though......i feel like c!niki is the type of character who would be hit very hard by the loss and hardship that comes with being a superhero. niki thrives when she's in a safe, supportive environment, but when she's isolated and put through shit, it gets harder for her to keep her integrity - very key to the story of a superhero! especially if a la the new spider movie tragedy is seen as something embedded in her story. i don't really see her bouncing back from her "uncle ben moment" easily at all - everything is fine, everything is great, until it isn't. and she's spiderman (spiderwoman, i guess?), everything was fine, why isn't it still fine, it's not fair, it's not fair it's not fair. and so on. the part of me that loooves a messy c!niki character study is very much reaching for that kind of loss of heroism in her.........being a hero is hard. being spiderwoman is hard. and what does niki get out of it? some people love her, sure. but others hate her. maybe something really bad happens - it's pretty much the nature of any spiderman to be framed for something awful - and a lot of people hate her.

it's easier to lash out. and to not be a hero at all - whether that's a matter of going full villain/anti-hero, or just hanging up the suit and Refusing to put it back on for months on end. maybe she moves away. maybe she tries to throw her friend's little brother off of a building. shit happens.

and maybe she makes some good friends and finds herself her team and she feels better about herself and eventually spiderwoman makes her grand re-debut. that can happen too.

some assorted thoughts:

not sure if this is a "spiderniki is the only superhero" universe or there are more of them out there.....much to consider.

niki has a sweet-to-fraught relationship with local knight-esque figure puffy (whether she's a For Real superhero or a civilian with a strong moral compass, that's up to you) that increasingly gets more and more strained as spiderniki struggles to stay on the hero path. as if going through a villain arc wasn't stressful enough

i think the OG l'manberg crowd would really look up to superheroes. i think they'd find spiderniki super cool. they're not in the know but whenever they rave about the local superheroine niki gets quietly very pleased with herself :]

i'm trying so fucking hard not to be the c!rainduo guy about this but: imagine, if you will, trying-to-make-himself-a-villain-but-it's-just-not-sticking wilbur against trying-to-be-a-hero-but-it's-all-so-much niki. imagine it please

niki makes her own suit :]

thinking about niki's ravine....not sure how that would shape in. something like niki hangs up the suit (or..cough....rebrands to something less-than-heroic) and empties out whatever little shed she was keeping her stuff in. but people don't stop needing help, even when spiderniki doesn't feel like helping anymore. and instead of being where niki operates as a superhero, she learns how to just operate as a good person, a person who can help people and receive help in turn.............somewhere where she can learn how to bake again.

okay unrelated to that last point i'm still thinking about c!rainduo now sorry

[werenotacoupleyesyouare]

I'm grateful for how much fun I've had with all of you here :)) I've met some amazing people (even irl, hi randy :D) through this fandom, and it truly means so much to me. <3 here's to the pre-stream insanities, the Starting Soon screens, the good and bad lore reactions, the dash takeovers and the lore predictions, the hanging L'Manberg flags in your room, the anti/enjoyer/apologist discourse, the rewatching hundreds of hours of vods just to confirm one specific headcanon, the catching a lore stream live, the waiting for a lore stream at 2 am, but most importantly

@sootings fuck you

o7 everyone, we were patriots :)

[miriclebunny]

Hey, I have not been in this fandom in a hot minute, but I decided to wrint an SBI superhero AU inspired by DC.

Feel free to give it a read.

Symmary:

Why do the bad guys always pick the scary abandoned buildings?” A young British voice whines mockingly from the rooftops. “I mean, who do they always pick the abandoned amusement parks, or like old warehouses that a ghost would definitely live in. Why not pick like, I don’t know, a flower shop, or like a building that still has heating and electricity.”

A new villain threatens the City of L'manberg. Anti-heroes Cardinal and Red Watcher investigate what they think is his base of operations when they make a discovery about their allies Crowfather and Bluejay who have also been investigsting the new villain. Who is the new villain, and will their allies make it out of this unscathed?

https://archiveofourown.org/works/49487200

[pixi1314]

And so the stupidity and yet braveness have save Ender and Nuke from their almost capture from the heroes. Just like the old version of the fic. I highly admire the braveness of the protesters and yet felt worried for their stupidity and irrational decisions. I know i sound harsh on them, but you got to understand from my perspective. That helping the vigilantes could land you in jail possibly. Like that's extremely dangerous. And the move they made is very irrational, since they are run by high emotions and possibly a few speck of logic there. This is also gonna cause more rift and division between the people on the Pogtopia and upper class of L'manberg. Like i hope it doesn't do an domino effect of the people from Pogtopia to Logstedshire be discriminated by the actions of the few. Of the upper class of L'manberg, like they gonna be wary, distrustful and very suspicious on from people of Pogtopia to Logstedshire since from their perspective, these people are pro-vigilantes sympathizer anti heroes. But then again upper class of L'manberg only cares about money, power and law & order. Since they are cahoots with the heroes. And have the heroes on their pocket with their "donations" money. Since you know money hold all power. But enough of me talking about the difference between the upper and middle to lower classes on city. I like how you explain the difference between Technoblade and Tommy since you know both are born from different zones and classes. For Techno he see the protesters as distractive and a nuisance since he was from L'manberg. I'm glad Tommy point out the things and explain things to him from his perspective about the heroes stance on the former vigilante Mellohi and why it cause a protest and public outcry from the Pogtopia to Logstedshire. And yeah if Techno say this to other cafes, there's a high chance that the people who might hear him begun to gang up on him and beat him to pulp. And we don't want that. So yeah be careful on who you share with. Anyway an very well written and satisfying chapter for me Pixi, keep it up.

Honestly just reading through this put a big smile on my face!

Thank you for the ask, and yes I can definitely see where your coming from when it came to the peoples actions which- while brave- had certainly put them in some sort of risk.

Though just as you said, these people are also running on high emotion so I doubt they really care anymore. Mellohi's death was pretty much the last straw for a lot of people and showed them how unreliable heroes were when his innocence was eventually revealed. Overall, they're just tired and want change to happen.

Tommy and Techno's conversation is also one of my favourite parts of the chapter, mainly because I am able to explain their perspectives and views. Especially since Techno is the only person in the story so far that can give us a perspective on what L’manburg is like.

Anyway, thank you for the ask! I'm happy to hear that your enjoying the story so far! 💕

[ao3feed-crimeboys]

Friends are Family

by miricle_bunny

“Why do the bad guys always pick the scary abandoned buildings?” A young British voice whines mockingly from the rooftops. “I mean, who do they always pick the abandoned amusement parks, or like old warehouses that a ghost would definitely live in. Why not pick like, I don’t know, a flower shop, or like a building that still has heating and electricity.”

 A new villain threatens the City of L'manberg. Anti-heroes Cardinal and Red Watcher investigate what they think is his base of operations when they make a discovery about their allies Crowfather and Bluejay who have also been investigsting the new villain. Who is the new villain, and will their allies make it out of this unscathed?

Or.

Its an SBI Superhero AU oneshot.

Words: 2491, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Dream SMP, Video Blogging RPF

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: Gen

Characters: TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Phil Watson | Philza, Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF)

Relationships: Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & TommyInnit & Phil Watson, TommyInnit & Technoblade, Phil Watson & Wilbur Soot, Technoblade & Phil Watson | Philza, Tommyinnit & Wilbur Soot

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Superhero Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Superhero Wilbur Soot, Anti-Hero Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Villain Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), Swearing, Superheroes, Microsoft Word My Beloved, Kinda not sorta beta read, Fluff, Winged Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Shapeshifter TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Wilbur Soot and Technoblade and TommyInnit are Siblings, Technoblade Has Powers (Video Blogging RPF), Hostage Situations, if you squint theres plot, just a hint

[tobi-smp]

"how could inniters do this" and the "this" in question is anti-l'manberg rhetoric that was passed around by dream and techno apologists alike.

not Only did I not do shit, I Was With You On Front Lines.

on god people will blame inniters for anything

truly the thing that unites all dsmp apologists is that no matter what inniters will be scapegoated, no matter who did what or which characters are involved a way will be found

like a mirror between character and fandom, the inniters are blamed for what the dream stans have done

and in the ash and dust of ruination this, still, keeps the heart of the server alive

[imsosocold]

Least Impressive Lukewarm Take:

With the capitalistic L’Manburg being ( at least initially) built on  the desire to gain material surplus over the other members of the server, it’s natural to me that Tommy would come to value his own personal items so heavily, even over people. 

[silverfox419]

hey guys! cc!michael has said before on stream that he thought it’d be cool if his character was a radio host conspiracy theorist, and since we just got the radio host part it feels safe to say that we’re also getting the conspiracy theorist part as well!! i think it’d be funny if c!michael just saw how the dream smp/l’manberg was crazy and gave him bad vibes so he was like “YEP CURSED” and got outta dodge

[cdroloisms]

The way I understand the term "The L'manberg mythos" is that it refers to like, it's legacy ig? Like, it's everything that people think of it, the pro-l'manberg stuff but also the negative and anti-l'manberg stuff and just all sides of the debates. Like to me the mythos is basically it's history and whatever it left behind and whatever people believe of it.

Idk if this makes any sense but yeah

thank u :] !

[time-is-restored]

hello! i appreciate ur response, and im glad that u found my post relevant :) i hope you don't mind if i respond with some of my personal opinions on ur arguments against c!phil, if for no other reason than so we can understand each other's pov a bit more!

[quick disclaimer, there is a brief discussion of suicide ideation, under the heading titled 'Wilbur', starting at the section numbered 'fifth,' and ending when i move on to 'sixth'. there's also lots of discussion of canon violence that has occurred on the server.]

Phil's Opinion About Tubbo v The Discs

to just get this out of the way - phil did not say what he about tubbo vs the discs unprompted. tommy came to him, already feeling guilt about this memory. he approached phil because he felt conflicted about the way he related to his attachments on the server, and wanted the advice of someone who had a very different philosophy than him on the matter.

im not gonna get into the weeds of whether phil's advice was good or not, because as we've seen over the last few days of discourse, that's a very personal matter for a lot of people, and it comes down to any matter of life experiences you've personally had! i have absolutely no beef with people who think phil's philosophy is not useful, whether that be for them, or for specifically tommy - i agree, for instance, that tommy has been forced into situations where he has to give up his things way more often than what would be fair. i will instead simply say that his advice explicitly helped tommy in that moment. he left phil's house feeling confident, self-assured, and less conflicted about things like the discs and l'manberg

moving on!

---

Doomsday

alright, this is a big one. from what i understand, the main points you brought up were as follows: 'he hurt people in retaliation to being hurt, which doesn't solve anything', 'l'manberg was important to a lot of people', 'phil didn't try to see others pov/didn't consider other people's feelings over his own/technoblade' and 'they should have tried something else first'. i won't be addressing these points in order, sorry! but i promise i do adress all of them at least once :)

so, lets get started: a key point in my rebuttal is that no one died on doomsday, and the doomsday trio didn't even try to (canonically!!) kill anyone.* this automatically makes doomsday one of the least violent conflicts since the servers inceptions - which was largely the point! they attacked the physical concept of l'manberg in order to prevent ppl from rallying behind it to commit any more acts of violence. they didn't attack the people responsible.

*of course, jack did die, but it was made canon after the fact that he died from injuries the next day. also, the duel he had with techno was unrelated to the philosophy of doomsday, and also, it was instigated by jack himself. any other deaths, as far as i understand from various cc comments, are basically equivalent to non-lethal injuries, that temporarily incapacitate the player in question.

secondly, when ppl talk about doomsday, i find that they tend to conflate l'manbergs sentimental value to its citizens at its inception with its value at the time of doomsday. a lot of people certainly cared about l'manberg - iirc fundy, tubbo, niki, tommy, and wilbur have all explicitly talked about how it used to make them happy. however, at the time of doomsday, l'manberg didn't actually have many supporters. quackity, niki, fundy, and i believe also karl, had all either ditched, or were in the process of ditching, l'manberg. the only people who lived there were ranboo, and phil himself! tubbo noted that the place had been practically deserted for a long time, and that was on the day of the green festival - before the announcement of doomsday.

(also, obligatory note that... everyone had 24 hours notice. they had time to recover and move anything important to them that was on nlm's grounds before the tnt rained down. ranboo was the only one who bothered to do so, again, because he was basically the only one who actively lived there, and therefore had anything worthwhile to recover.)

the only reason the server defended l'manberg at all was bc of ranboo + tommy's insistence that l'manberg as a concept was the only thing in the way of dreams control over the server. ofc, doomsday itself then turned into a screaming match between techno and tommy, and everyone on l'manbergs side Completely ignored dream until it was too late, so, uh, A for effort? ;;

now, obviously, yes, techno and phil both hurt ppl through doomsday.

however, i have two main responses to this fact - first of all, this is a story about the cycle of violence, and pointing at any particular character and saying 'they should have simply Not Done Violence' always feels a little pointless to me. you could make that argument about literally every character, and then what have we actually achieved? i agree, in a better server, in a better life, doomsday wouldn't have happened, because everyone on the dsmp would be well adjusted, open and compassionate people. however, whats the point of holding technoblade and philza specifically to a higher standard, compared to the rest of the server? Every act of violence on the dsmp, without exception, has had consequences, and fed into the cycle. so yes, phil and techno shouldn't have upset the people that they did. but by that logic, i can just keep pointing back, going 'well tubbo shouldn't have shot phil + tried to kill techno', at which point someone else could go 'well techno shouldn't have attacked l'manberg' 'well l'manberg shouldn't have betrayed techno' etc etc etc, all the way back to the founding of the server (or at the very least, l'manberg).

everyone should have walked away, everyone should have moved on, everyone should have chosen peace over violence, at various times in the server's history. but that's not what happened, and its not what anyone did... with the exception of techno's retirment arc, and the handful of other, self-isolation arcs characters like hbomb and jack have gone through. in techno's case, those efforts fell through because l'manberg couldn't trust that he would permanently stay away - thereby ultimately falling into a self-fulfilling prophecy, where they aggravated him to the point where he didn't leave them alone - F. regardless, i don't think its fair to say techno, specifically, didn't try anything else. he did, right up until he was Literally Murdered™.

now, my second response to the doomsday argument - doomsday was not just revenge against the people that hurt them. doomsday was a strategic attack on the physical thing that inspired the population of the server to seek out + hoard power, to be political, and to ultimately prioritise items + symbolic meaning over human life and empathy. or, in other words - they blew up the weapon in nlm's hands, rather than the people who had been holding the weapon.

a lot of people who are sympathetic towards l'manberg (which i myself am not, i must admit) often talk about how l'manberg was symbolically important to its inhabitants - that it represented not only freedom, but also safety and community.

however, i personally can't think of a single example where l'manberg has protected its citizens. they lost the war, and very nearly independence itself, until tommy gave up his disks (a citizen, sacrificing his own interests for a country). then, the system of government that wilbur had built, wherein the president has absolute power, with no formalised checks and balances, allowed schlatt to exile him + tommy, as well as abuse his power over niki + tubbo. phil killed wilbur for the sake of a country that he believed (hoped) would be as good as his son said it was. tubbo exiled tommy because he felt he had to protect l'manberg - felt that the land he was standing on was worth more than the dignity (and, admittedly unbeknownst to tubbo, the safety) of his best friend.

in each of those instances, l'manberg isn't giving its citizens anything - except, occasionally, temporary power, and a false sense of security. rather, l'manbergs citizens made sacrifices for the sake of l'manberg.

but what was the point of that investment? it maintained a status quo - the same status quo that gave dream power over l'manbergs occupants in the first place. one where, by virtue of its existence, l'manberg was Important™, and worth sacrificing things for.

people's investment in keeping l'manberg alive is what lead to the infamous house arrest - philza's freedom and dignity was judged as less important than the murdering of a theoreticallly future threat to l'manbergs safety.

then technoblade's execution itself - no trial, no discussion, no negotiation. an unwavering death sentence. whatever ur opinions on c!techno are, there's a reason that's not standard protocol in criminal law.

and that's not even talking about how close ranboo came to being executed himself the day of the green festival - his life was judged less important than the 'security' of nlm (what did he even do? talked to technoblade sometimes? gave back his wrongfully seized items? Had Friends? that's punishable by death now? and lets not even get into the fact that ranboo not wanting his skin getting burned off in the rain was also a punishable offense in the eyes of the cabinet).

in all of that, there's not one instance of l'manberg doing something, anything practical to help the l'manbergians quality of life. or, for that matter to protect them literally at all from dreams machinations! expectations of pacifism don't mean much neither you, nor the guy you're fighting, agree to uphold said expectations! in fact, what actually seems to have happened, is l'manbergs citizens have continuously sacrificed everything for a country that has done literally nothing for them!!

yes, the buildings, and the sense of community, made (some) people (occasionally) happy. but you can't kill people over cool real estate. you just can't! especially when you can build anywhere, and you can hang out with friends anywhere - there was no practical justification for the continuation of l'manberg's non-legacy to be judged as more important than Multiple Peoples Lives (including its own citizens!!) this is basically why i don't find doomsday morally reprehensible, or anything even close to that. techno and philza* did not chose to murder their attackers, nor did they choose to torment them/traumatise them for no reason. they attacked the foundation through which their attackers felt emboldened enough to commit these acts of violence + corruption.

*i can't speak for dream, since his motives are pretty much between him and prime at this point (and the chosen few who called staged finale being canon, i presume)

the excessiveness of the attack, similarly, did not come down to cruelty (which i would like to compare to the butcher army's dehumanising treatment of phil and techno, which they did purely because they could, and because it made them feel powerful). they spawned those withers, and used that tnt, because it was 3 against like the whole server. they did it to win (and not die lol), not to kick anyone while they were down.

again, im not saying anyone needs to be happy about doomsday. however, i like to think doomsday as a metaphorical tourniquet. l'manberg, and the resulting struggles over who should control it (and what they should do with said control) was a consistent, bloody source of conflict all throughout seasons 1 and 2. i don't think its insignificant to mention that, for a long time, the two people on the server who had canonically died were l'manbergs presidents! they both needed control over l'manberg so badly that they were willing to both kill and die for it - which, incidentally, is not a pattern that bodes well for tubbo, if l'manberg had survived through to the next elections. by eliminating l'manberg from the equation, techno + phil effectively stopped the server from hemoaraghing blood.

of course, they couldn't stop the server going off and creating more factions,, but you can't deny there was a pretty steep drop in the amount of conflict on the server post l'manbergs demise. like, the main drive of conflict for a while was literally mind control. that was the only thing motivating ppl on the server to hurt each other even close to as bad as they did when fighting over l'manberg

now, there's more i have to say on the matter of phil's relationship with l'manberg, and how he justifies doomsday, but to get into all that, first we have to talk about...

---

Wilbur

"Even if he claims it was for those people's benefits because the government hurt people— guess what? You just hurt a lot of people too. Techno also hurt people. You murdered your son.'"

hoo boy. first of all, i have to level with you. i really, genuinely hate comparing phil killing wilbur to other conflicts on the server - such as the butchers army, or doomsday - because, in my opinion, it reeks of 'if i was in a tragedy, i would simply live' vibes.

like. sure, yes, it is theoretically possible that phil could've gotten through that interaction without wilbur being hurt, and that wilbur could've then stayed safe into the future. but acting as if phil's decision was as simple as 'well, u did a No No, time to die' is incredibly reductive.

like, let's recap what happened on the 16th:

- first of all, phil is coming into almost this entire interaction completely blind - all he knows about the server is what wilbur has told him, and we now know that wilbur was lying abt a lot of things! phil had no idea there was a conflict between l'manberg and Anyone, or that wilbur had been kicked out, or really about any of the many many things that contributed to wilbur's breakdown on the 16th. he is flying by the seat of his pants, trying to scrape together context from what he is seeing right now, in this incredibly stressful and traumatic moment

- second of all, phil just watched wilbur detonate several stacks of tnt, right under the feet of his friends, family, and citizens (ppl he was responsible for), with absolutely zero remorse. in fact, he was (apparently) overjoyed that he had managed to do such a dangerous, terrifying thing. he shows absolutely no regret for having done this for the rest of this encounter

- third of all, it is canon that phil severely damaged his wings protecting wilbur from said tnt blast, to the point where he can no longer fly. while there's no 1:1 analogy to what that equals on a human body, i think 'sudden, traumatic loss of limb' is a pretty close approximation. he's basically just had an impromptu amputation, so even beyond the physical pain of that injury, he would also be severely distressed, and incapable of thinking 100% logically.

- fourthly, wilbur swears to phil that 'everyone' wants phil to kill wilbur. again, there is no reason for phil to think this isn't true - from phil's pov, he just blew up a Universally Beloved country for no reason, and apparently attempted to murder all of his friends in the process. the implication here is clear - either phil kills wilbur, or someone else will. once again i have to emphasise - phil has nothing. he just arrived on the server, knows nothing and no one. it is quite literally impossible for him to safely escort wilbur out of l'manberg and away from harm, esp if he has people chasing after him. this is the point, in my opinion, where this encounter officially becomes a lose-lose scenario.

- fifth, and i apologise in advance for the heaviness. at this point in the story, c!wilbur is actively suicidal. he has reached the peak of his self destruction with the detonation of l'manberg - destroyed his legacy, the only thing that might have survived his death - and now wants to complete it by dying. he wants phil to do it. he is screaming at phil - a severely injured, traumatised, utterly out of his depth phil - to do it. phil utterly refuses multiple times, and wilbur doesn't remotely let up. again, the implications are clear - either phil kills wilbur, or wilbur will find another way (which, from what phil knows, is likely going to be running head first towards the angry mob on the other side of that crater)

- sixth, phil did not know that wilbur was on his last canon life (this was confirmed by cc!phil)! he had no way to know that wilbur wasn't going to respawn somewhere safer, after which phil could have approached him again, in a safer + calmer environment, and hopefully made more progress with talking him down

- seventh, the fact that phil regrets killing wilbur is literally the basis for his entire character arc. he spent the entirety of the story, up to wilbur's revival, actively researching methods of revival, actively attempting revival, and trying and failing to understand what brought his son to such an awful low.

wilbur's death did not happen in a vaccuum. it was a tragedy precisely because we, from the outside, know that it could've been prevented, but the people inside the story, who only know the things that they can physically see in that moment, can't concieve of that.

a lot of people look at phil killing wilbur over l'manberg, and proceed to claim that this is a betrayal of phil's ideals (people over items), and an example of his hypocrisy. however, phil killing wilbur was in fact an example of the very thing that many people seem to think phil has never done - considering other people's feelings over an 'item' (in this case, a place) over his own.

phil tried to believe in new l'manberg! for a hardl insignificant amount of time - he was responsible for a lot of its architectural development! when you say that phil should've tried a 'different way', i immediately think of him spending those nov-dec streams with tubbo, attempting to give his advice on l'manbergs policies, and trying his best to mediate the relationship between nlm and techno. if that doesn't count as 'trying a different way' im not sure what does!

he took wilbur + the other citizens of new l'manberg at their word when they swore that l'manberg was a beautiful, wonderful, free place, worth protecting. that belief is what motivated wilbur's murder - phil believed the version of wilbur that he saw in the letters, that raved about the place and its occupants, over the version of wil he saw on the 16th, that was obsessing about, and overjoyed by, its destruction. he chose to protect 'the rest of the server' over the person he cared more about.

and it was the worst mistake of his life! he was never able to recover from it! he made the ultimate sacrifice for a country that proceeded to cannibalise itself (exiling tommy), actively try and kill his best friend (butchers army), and in which he felt afraid for his life (phil, in the aftermath of the butcher's army, explicitly stated that he felt he was going to be 'next' in nlm's line of executions)! once he realised that the way l'manberg's government concieved of + prioritised power was directly responsible for his son's spiral, he was furious! it directly motivated his participation in doomsday!

that is the 'lesson' phil was trying to get across by destroying l'manberg. he was saying, definitively, that absolutely no physical attachments, no matter how symbolic, or personally comforting, are worth the value of a human life. l'manberg was not worth tommy, tubbo, technoblade, philza, ranboo, wilbur, or heck, even schlatt's life! and through its destruction, phil hoped to prevent the server for seeing it as a place worth dying or killing for.

---

Breaking Dream Out

hoo boy, we're almost out of the woods here now. ive been typing for a While™ here, huh? haha, anyway.

again, i totally understand why seeing dream get broken out, and then effectively set loose on the server, was upsetting. however:

1. as seen in niki's stream, neither niki nor phil felt that, through their actions the other day, they were helping dream break out of prison. they were both pretty explicit in saying that they didn't trust dream, and were worried that conflict would kick off once he was out. however, they both chose to follow techno because they were watching his back. they were not making a political or personal statement about whether dream should be out of prison or not. they were SOLELY there to make sure their friend got through breaking dream out of the prison in one piece. again, you can have whatever opinions you'd like about that, i just want to be clear about that distinction.

2. "and philza knew!!! he knew to an extent what happened to Tommy in exile!!!" this actually isn't true! the things that phil knows about exile, at date of writing, are as follows:

- tubbo exiled tommy in order to avoid a conflict with dream, after tommy was caught (accidentally) burning george's house.

- tommy was in exile, and several people visited him, including dream. it was a bad time for tommy, and he was negatively affected by the experience.

- dream interfered with ghostbur, who was supposed to send out invitations to a party hosted by tommy on exile.

that's it! he doesn't know anything else! again, i totally sympathise with all the people who had a negative reaction to phil burning that apple - im pretty sure everyone had some level of knee-jerk 'oh shit' response. but the fact that his demonstration paralleled dreams abuse was 100% an accident, and not something that phil could've known was going to be anything other than mildly annoying for tommy.

---

Conclusion

oh gosh, i really did not mean to type this much its been like four hours LMAO. in case anyone is worried, this is 100% /nm towards anyone who holds the views that i described/disagreed with throughout this. one of my favourite things about the dsmp is how personal its interpretation is, and how much variety there is in how different people can react to the same pieces of roleplay!

i personally adore c!phil, and understand + empathise with his actions p much the most out everyone else on the server. i understand this isn't true for everyone, and i don't think it should be! everyones individual opinions is, ultimately, what makes this fandom so interesting, if a little stressful ^^''

still, in my opinion, some of your arguments were inconsistent with the facts of c!phil's storyline, and i hope that even if you disagree with my subjective assessments of said storyline, you can maybe come away from this accidental essay understanding his motivations a little bit more! thank you for your time!

clarifying one thing about the recent tommy and phil lore:

phil's philosophy, often simplified to 'people over items,' has never been used to argue that people shouldn't have possessions, or that physical items have absolutely no value.

phil's philosophy is explicitly that when compared to human lives, items are not important. this is why he made said argument after tommy approached him explicitly feeling doubt about a memory where he couldn't choose between the discs and tubbo.

when phil says 'people over items' he is saying that conflict of any kind, over things like physical places, items, or abitrary factions, is not worth the damage that it inflicts on the people involved.

so yes, phil has possessions. he has a house built next to a friend that he cares about, and an enderchest filled with trinkets. but he has never used any of those things as justification to hurt another person, or to allow another person to be hurt.

and one final point: tommy approached phil because he wanted to change the way he thought about physical attachments. after hearing some of phil's philosophy last week, it made him reconsider some of his priorities, so he went to phil to hear more. phil's talk wasn't unsolicited, and it wasn't supposed to be emotional support. it was supposed to be advice - advice which tommy clearly appreciated, and took to heart (he's so confident and reassured walking back from phil's house!)

you're allowed to have things. as phil said himself, things are neat, and its cool to have particularly shiny or powerful items. his problem is not with the Concept Of Material Attachments, but rather using material attachments to justify the endangerment of human life.

[bugflies00]

god and we’ve got confirmation that yeah. yeah lmanberg was about ctommy. he was the heart of that goddamn nation, at least to cwilbur, and since he’s the founder isnt that what matters most? and for other people it meant different things, but at the end of the day it was community and it was friendship and it was love. god fucking dammit it was a drug van but it was love