#which is an important flaw bc it's paralleled in Ranboo and Dream both incidentally

[ranboo5]

Good morning. You can either vague a general conception or tag me next time, good user.  

Anyway to get to this I will fully concede that I did not in fact write my entire argument out in my tags because they’re my tags on a post on my blog, not a full meta, and Wilburmeta is hard and I have other responses to write. However (under a cut because once again I cannot shut the fuck up)

1. What does that have to do with seeing Niki multiple times, getting told she was going through fucking hell, and telling her to Stay Strong UwU. Why can you not get her out of the direct area she is currently in danger in? Why can’t you invite her back to Pogtopia? Hell, why can’t you at least tell her your plans? She was abandoned 

2. It’s not a bluff when you lose the button. Wilbur was fully intending to blow the place during the Red Festival; he was conflicted on the whole, but on at least one occassion, he was ready to blow up the country and did not care about the collateral 

3. This is a misunderstanding of my point, probably because I didn’t write the tags very eloquently. What I meant here is that Wilbur offering his life for Niki means that in fact as a person, he didn’t want her dead! Surprise! I don’t think Wilbur was evil! But consider the coexistence of “didn’t want Niki dead when he was actively considering that option” and “was fully ready to accept her death as collateral” -- what that means is that when he was willing and ready to push the button he was blatantly not thinking whatsoever about Niki or anyone else he was putting at risk. Wilbur’s self centered and warped perception of the world is a product of being a very troubled and unwell man who desperately needed help, and it is not an excuse for this 

4. He may have said that, but he certainly didn’t show it when he repeatedly encouraged and enabled people to sacrifice for the country. He created a mythos of a nation and a cause that was a Glorious Revolution, even before the war, and a lot of earlier lines that were very jokey (pressuring people to sing the anthem, denying Tommy and Tubbo dual citizenship, etc.) get very sinister when you realize this was the first part in creating a nationalist mythos that encouraged people to die and sacrifice for an ideal that really never had the chance to do basically anything for them! As to “who actually forced the war on her” -- I am not going to pretend Dream didn’t escalate right back, but Wilbur absolutely instigated a conflict on purpose in the interest of a drug monopoly and the only reason he didn’t want it to escalate into armed conflict is that he knew L’Manberg would be disadvantaged in that regard. He actively wanted opposition for opposition’s sake (likely to build loyalty) and encouraged a definition of loyalty tied to sacrifice. Dream escalating raised the stakes and cemented this/locked everyone into it. Wilbur made the factions; Dream rose to the challenge and made it so that the factions were important. They both contributed heavily to locking the server into this pattern 

5. I never said she was abused. In those tags I said she was not abused and said it did not have to map to Tommy and Dream with the implication that it didn’t, because those are completely different things. HOWEVER: she was directly hurt by Wilbur because she trusted him as a friend and leader and he blatantly neglected and abandoned her in favor of furthering what he saw as his cause. She talks about how he hurt her and what she reemphasizes are empty promises -- Wilbur was a figure who put himself in a position of authority and, technically, social power over her, and used both this position and their personal friendship to convince her to invest herself in fighting for his cause for a promised payback that never came. This is not abuse, but it is definitionally something that makes Niki a victim 

The whole post these tags where attached to was in fact 

6. This point is fully correct! And here I’m going to be confusing, because again, I don’t think Wilbur’s intent was ever malicious. 

It is indisputable that Wilbur Soot deeply cared for his loved ones, and crucially, tragically, didn’t know how. I would argue Wilbur’s investment in L’Manberg during and after the war on was partially from the fact that he thought he was going to help the people he cared about through it, and as you say, he was deeply hurt, unwell, and spiraling himself. Wilbur was as much a victim of circumstance as anyone else, and he desperately needed help and support and someone who would see him as a person instead of as the leader persona he constructed -- none of which was available to him. And, again, he cared. As brought up here, he was willing to put his life and mental health on the line for those he cared about. He cared about his unfinished symphony and his glory and his legacy, yes, and at the same time that selfishness is inextricable from the selflessness of wanting the people he cared about to be safe and to care about him and each other 

This makes the fact that he hurt them, and the ways that he hurt them, all the more profound. It was by the construction that he convinced himself was going to do good for them, and it was by self destructing when he wasn’t “good enough.” Wilbur Soot is self-centered and that warps how he sees the world, and that is what caused him to hurt those he cares about as he tries to do right by them. He is a tragic, sympathetic figure motivated by love and desire to protect those he cares about, and he is a manipulative authoritarian who will sacrifice them for a cause that was supposed to protect them. These are truths that coexist. 

7. Yeah, actually! She is not fully correct in her political read on the situation, but she is actually rational in regards to the personal one! The root of her feelings is rational, as I explained above! Wilbur hurt her and it is only rational to recognize that, and to be infuriated with that!

Also, fascinated by the implication that by saying it is rational for a woman to be angry and hurt that she was abandoned and had her good faith taken for granted by a man in power, I am the one being misogynistic. 

Tl;dr:  - Yes, Wilbur cared about her and the citizens of L’Manberg  - He still hurt her, personally, intentionally or not leveraging her trust in him as a leader and a friend to take her good faith and patience for granted and leaving her to die on more than one occassion  - How is it not rational of her to recognize this as hurting and manipulating her 

Good morning Tumblr. I’m going to sub-post this (really fucking bad) take because it’s so awful I feel bad letting it rest without a counter. I’m rolling claim by claim, here.

1. Niki was told to sit tight. You know why she had to wait for rescue? Because Wilbur and Tommy had to be careful in exile since they would literally get killed if they got caught. Or don’t you remember when Wilbur fucking died?

2. Wilbur did try and claim he’d blow everyone up! That was also a huge stinkin’ bluff! Unless you forgot when he failed to press the button with people in direct danger THRICE (oct 16, oct 17, nov 2).

3. Wilbur trying to offer his life for Niki... means he wasn’t thinking about her? Really? Right, he tried to die to save her life because he didn’t care about her... as you do!

4. “Your life is worth more than the revolution” - quote from L’Manberg Wilbur. I’d argue the only life he ever wanted to risk was his own ... unless you wanna actually blame the guy who shoved the war on him.

5. She was a victim of Wilbur? How so? I can’t think of a single time he lied directly to her or abused her. Hell, right up to Nov 16 he was trying to give her something to fight for (remember how he guided her to Ant’s gift fox?)

6. The argument that Wilbur never cared about L’Manberg’s citizens is wrong on so many levels that all I need to do is point to the fact that he literally forced himself to hide his mental health until he couldn’t any more FOR THEIR SAKE.

7. Niki is rational in being mad? She’s rational in the midst of her emotional breakdown, is she? She’s VALID in being upset but she is NOT rational. Stop reducing her character to something she’s not! It’s more sexist than you think!