Your Love Is Scaring Me-

part one because it exceeded the character limit

Thank youuu for the ghostbur response. It read my mind (or my notesapp, rather)! I anonymized myself because I didn't know how ghostbur criticism would be received (since he is VICIOUSLY defended sometimes) but you share my opinion!!!I  think that Ghostbur kind of facilitated the polarization of Wilbur Soot after his death, especially for Tommy. In truth, L’manbur was no saint and Pogbur was no villain, but it’s hard for Tommy to view it that way after Wilbur’s down spiral and death. He would have already deified L’manbur because he’s already associated with much more positive memories, and Wilbur's drastic change in Pogtopia* would have left him a little traumatized at how different his family member/close friend had become, leading him to shift his focus more on happier times (and try to reclaim them, through trying to win back L’manburg and the version of Wilbur he seemed to have lost). Compared to Pogbur, L’manbur seemed like a saint. L’manbur began to symbolize that safety, that kindness that had suddenly “vanished” from Pogtopia Wilbur. And then, of course, that “new” version of Wilbur blows up L’Manburg and any hopes of reclaiming that stability. Tommy would not easily accept that the Wilbur who did all of this is the same as the beloved President Soot. *Pogtopia WIlbur’s change wasn’t that drastic, actually.  Wilbur was canonically a little unstable/stressed during the presidential era, but never opened up to anyone– especially not Tommy, who looked up to him. So to an outsider, Wilbur’s descent looked like an almost sudden collapse. But then Ghostbur is added to the mix. He isn’t L’manbur, not at all, because even L’manbur had suffered and grown as a result (Eret’s betrayal, etc etc), but he’s the closest thing to the Wilbur from the happier memories. He isn’t Wilbur BEFORE the suffering, but he’s Wilbur if the suffering never happened. And Tommy, having just lost a brother figure and been exiled a second time, isn’t going to try to make that distinction. When he or anyone else asks Ghostbur why Alivebur did what he did and Ghostbur can’t answer, Tommy relents– and at that point, Ghostbur no longer is a way to heal from Wilbur's death, he becomes a means for escapism. It’s not Ghostbur’s fault, he doesn’t mean to have this effect on anyone, but it doesn’t mean that he didn’t cause it. You hear this polarization in what Tommy tells Tubbo when they’re going to attack Dream for the last time (in the Final Waltz SAD-ist animatic): “ You know the OLD Wilbur? Let’s make him proud.” ...But there really isn’t an OLD or NEW Wilbur at all. Wilbur has always been Wilbur, yet everyone seems to subconsciously separate “L’manbur” and “Pogbur” into two completely different people. The Saint and the Devil. When Revivebur comes back, he isn’t L’Manbur OR Ghostbur. Revivebur is different, different from what Tommy remembers L’Manbur to be, and Ghostbur is gone because of his return.  

this is such a good analysis

i will say i dont think ghostbur ruined c!crimeboys, i think he was more of a symbol of one of my favorite themes in c!crimeboys which is change:

c!tommy as you mentioned does not like change, so much of his arc is surrounded by this air of things changing before he can really process them, and being forced to pick up the pieces, even though he wasnt the one who caused the change in the first place (this is where a lot of the parallels between him and jesse from breaking bad come in for me, because while he is not an innocent, he suffers the consequences of other people’s actions far too often, with barely anyone actually recognizing that he’s allowed to be upset over how unfair it is)

meanwhile c!wilbur wants change, but only change he can control. control is such a big thing for c!wilbur, and he wants to have control over as much as he can in order to protect those he loves, and often he has to change things to do this. however, change does not listen to someone in charge, which is the major struggle c!wilbur has, and often he creates consequences that tommy has to deal with (especially in the case of when he blew up l’manburg) and in the end, its not something he can learn to accept, and thats why its his downfall (this is a big part of why he blew up l’manburg. he wanted the change, he wanted the control over what he created, but the change wasnt the change he wanted and controlled

so this is the constant strife with c!crimeboys: they are always moving in different directions. c!wilbur embraces change that he controls while c!tommy tries to deny change because its how he feels in control. neither of them really have control over anything, but tommy is the only one who can really accept this, even if he doesnt want to.

so to me, this is what ghostbur symbolizes. he symbolizes the opposite of what c!wilbur is because he can never change, and he cant feel in control of anything. so c!tommy gets a very altered view of c!wilbur because of ghostbur and the way he allows him to cling onto a past that doesnt actually exist, and it largely symbolizes this constant fight they have. they’re brothers, but they’re destined to be each other’s downfall if they actually remain with each other

… No, What Tommy Did Factually Was COMPLETELY Insignificant Compared To Dream

Tommy:

Caused chaos when he joined the server, but non maliciously. He wasn’t the only one to do so, however, and was often joined by other characters. He also wasn’t the first- Ponk’s tree had gotten attacked at one point before he even joined.

Killed Dream… along with Sapnap, which resulted in Tommy getting punished and Sapnap not even getting a slap on the wrist. Dream doesn’t even mention that Tommy didn’t do this alone, placing all the blame on Tommy when he wasn’t all to blame.

Engaged in the disc war.

Sold drugs with Wilbur- namely, these drugs were potions (so, not anything addictive or harmful), however he DID try and scam people with them, which is probably the greater crime here.

Helped found L’Manberg, out of a genuine belief in its peaceful nature and words over weapons and because he trusted Wilbur. Regardless of your thoughts on L’Manberg, at worst Tommy was naive here, not malicious. That doesn’t mean that Dream’s feelings over this are invalid, obviously, but it does mean absolutely no serious harm was intended.

Continued to engage in conflicts with Dream after L’Manberg was founded, though again this was clearly non-malicious- he and Dream genuinely were friends, and hung out together, and Tommy seemed to think they were in good fun.

Stole Spirit’s leather during one of these conflicts.

Accidentally burnt down George’s house trying to grief it with Ranboo. While he was technically VP, he had tried to turn down the role to avoid this exact situation.

Tried to use Spirit’s leather in an attempt to get Dream to leave him alone.

Tried to keep items in hidden chests in Exile- keep in mind, the fact there was a rule against this wasn’t communicated to Tommy until after he broke it, and most of what was in there was shit like pictures of Tubbo.

Left Exile- however, Tommy wasn’t even breaking the rules here, he wasn’t barred from Techno’s house.

Tried to fight back against Doomsday, though this amounted to nothing.

Killed him in the Disc Finale - something Dream had staged, so it’s unclear if this was even a slight or something Dream wanted.

Upon visiting him in prison, killing Pussboi (the prison cat- yes, that’s technically her name, Tommy calls her that and while Dream says he named her he never explicitly says what he did name her. It’s funny call her that more).

Doubting the Revive Book worked.

Indirectly being the one of the causes of his torture- however, this was because Dream murdered him, and Tommy was horrified visibly when Dream told him at Logstedshire, meaning this would be something ridiculously unfair to assign blame onto Tommy for.

Broke into his house with Wilbur, though Tommy didn’t realise that Dream lived there until much later and wanted to leave as soon as Dream showed up.

Trying and failing to kill Dream.

Trying and failing to kill Dream again. Well, technically he succeeded for like ten minutes, but still.

Committing murder suicide with Dream- this was out of a genuine belief it was the only way to save his friends.

Dream:

Stole Tommy’s discs as a punishment for Tommy stealing his stuff.

Engaged in the disc war, escalating much faster than Tommy did in a lot of ways, including downright stalking.

Built tunnels under Tommy’s base, something he was uncomfortable and surprised with.

Attacked L’Manberg, which regardless of whether it was right or not was incredibly distressing to Tommy.

Blew up Tommy’s house specifically.

Killed Tommy in the Final Control Room- this is canonically the event that gave Tommy PTSD. This was a war crime.

Killed Tommy again in a duel- one Tommy lost fair and square, and one suggested by Tommy. This, unlike the previous death, wasn’t a war crime as well.

Continued to engage in conflict with Tommy after L’Manberg was founded. Again, the two of them remained friends during this time, so this also was presumably not intended as anything specifically harmful.

Gave Wilbur TNT on his self destructive path, though it’s likely this didn’t end up affecting too much.

Betraying Pogtopia for the revive book, when Tommy trusted him and thought of him as a friend.

Framed Tommy for griefings he didn’t do in the weeks leading up to Exile, and while the exact reasoning is obviously unclear in hindsight it seems likely that it was to get Tommy exiled no matter what- he had plans for it explicitly after all.

Built walls around L’Manberg and threatened Tommy and Tubbo. He also said he didn’t care about anything but control over Tommy (and then by proxy the server), and regardless of whether Dream was telling the truth that doesn’t change the mental impact it might have.

While Tubbo obviously was the one who got Tommy exiled, Dream deliberately pushed him into it and later would tell Tommy that he was the one who did that.

What he did do was himself exile Tommy from the Greater Dream SMP, leaving him stuck only in the wilderness.

Blew up Tommy’s summer house and made him watch.

Forced Tommy to give up and destroy his items.

Hit Tommy with weaponry until he cooperated. This nearly killed him on several occasions, and Tommy explicitly called it very painful.

Would constantly insist that Tommy’s feelings that he expressed weren’t real, and he was just exaggerating (for instance, insisting that he was just messing around when he said he hated him).

Insulted and berated Tommy on several occasions, to the point of distress.

Insisted he and Tommy were friends, despite Tommy being uncomfortable with it, and conditioning Tommy into believing it through love-bombing and isolation.

Deliberately lying about how his friends didn’t care about him to keep him isolated and dependant, and making him feel like any visitors were just there to gawp at him.

Hit Tommy with his fists whenever he displeased him, to the point Tommy stopped reacting to it at all (Tommy in later streams would confirm this was almost certainly intended to be physical abuse, and not just general Minecraft body language).

Kept the rules Tommy had to follow inconsistent and didn’t ever fully explain them to Tommy, leading to him getting punished for things he didn’t even realise he wasn’t meant to do (or was).

Forced Tommy to hear his friends having fun in the Greater Dream SMP seeing the Christmas tree while he was forbidden from even looking under pain of death.

Showed no concern to Tommy self harming or barely eating, and only seemed to be upset by him attempting suicide because it’d interrupt his conditioning.

Gave Tommy meaningless gifts often in an attempt to lovebomb him, something  that has lead to Tommy interpreting gifts as a sign of aggression later on.

Forced Tommy to destroy his own stuff on occasion, under threat of further physical abuse.

Conditioned Tommy into seeing a lack of abusive behaviours as something deserving of thanks.

Let Tommy throw a party, then deliberately sabotaged the invites so Tommy would think he was alone, and spent the evening alternating between lovebombing him and telling him no one cared about him (except, implicitly, himself).

Killed Mexican Dream in front of Tommy for seemingly no reason other than him interrupting his manipulation and abuse.

Tried to gaslight Tommy into believing Mexican Dream died of an overdose, and tried to convince Drista that Tommy murdered him.

Conditioned Tommy into seeing certain parts of the abuse as bonding rituals he should be thankful for.

Did all of the above in an attempt to force Tommy to help him in some way- in hindsight, it seems likely that this involved the experiments with the revive book some way.

When finding Tommy had hidden chests, threatening to leave him alone despite him being Tommy’s only human source of contact at this point and banning him from the Nether, something he had no authority over.

Refused to let Tommy apologise and try and fix things in favour of punishing him.

Destroyed everything Tommy had built, leaving him with little food and nowhere to sleep, and making him watch.

Killing Mushroom Henry, the only other living being Tommy had with him, and making him watch.

Forcing Tommy to give up everything- including innocent items such as his pictures of Tubbo- and blowing them up, making him watch.

Repeatedly hunting down and watching Tommy after he left to Techno’s, despite the fact Tommy wasn’t breaking the rules of exile nor was Dream actually in charge of enforcing them.

Mocking Tommy at the community house and using him as a scapegoat.

Blowing up Tommy’s home, which he’d explicitly tell Tommy was because it entertained him (again, regardless of whether this was true it has the same effect on Tommy’s psyche).

The whole Disc Finale, regardless of being staged, was intentionally intensely traumatic and distressing for Tommy. He was threatened with a return to the same abuse he was under before, and forced to say goodbye to his friend in Tubbo’s mock execution.

Had Tommy trapped in the prison with him, something that caused him intense distress, and declared it was going to be like exile- essentially, threatening to abuse him again.

Murdering him for a third time because he questioned the Revive Book, despite Tommy begging for him to stop, in his own words to prove a point.

Leaving Tommy in Limbo- something he knows from personal experience is distressing- for the equivalent of two months. (This, effectively, means that Dream used it as another punishment method in his abuse!)

Needled Tommy on information he already knew, seemingly just to distress him further, and asked Tommy to basically become his personal experiment- regardless of whether this was a genuine attempt to get Tommy to join the revival experiments and become essentially a God with him or not, it still greatly distressed Tommy.

Revived Wilbur, something he knew deeply distressed and would be torture for Tommy regardless of whether the intentions were to do so or it was just a byproduct.

Almost immediately after breaking out of prison, going to physically and psychologically torment a terrified Tommy.

Threatening Tommy with not only repeated killing and revival- something Tommy feared more than anything- but also with making him immortal SOLELY to torture for eternity, leading to Tommy to feel like (and I directly quote) his toy, puppet, and plaything.

Psychologically torturing Tommy by putting a disc of his torment under his house and trapping him there, along with leaving threatening signs.

Destroying his discs- they were fake, but Dream didn’t know that. This was, however, to prevent Wilbur from committing suicide again.

“Sparing” Clingyduo only because they desperately begged only to force them into a twisted experiment where one of them had to sacrifice themselves. While this only resulted in the destruction of the discs, Dream couldn’t know that.

Threatened to kill everyone on the server- it’s unclear if this was true or not, since this contradicts what he says later on (which I’ll get to), but this broke Tommy completely and left him suicidal again.

Laughed at Tommy talking about his attempted suicide.

Continued to torture Tommy even during the final stream- killing and reviving him, and then downright dismissing his agony immediately after.

Continued to blame Tommy for everything up until his very last moments, and never actually apologising once.

Potentially completely lied about his motive and plans to change. Making the server immortal like he suggested in this stream contradicts what he said in the previous one, where that would destroy the End and the server itself so he needed to kill everyone to balance it out, so in one stream or the other he had to be lying.

(The only things listed here is what effected each other, but I think it’d be unfair to bring in anything else. What Tommy and Dream did to, like, Jack Manifold or someone doesn’t effect the other’s feelings on them)

Dream’s list also has a lot of ““probably’s”” just because on most cases we haven’t gotten a direct explanation of why they did it like in Tommy’s case, or they’re in an unreliable circumstance, which unfortunately makes his exact motives unclear. We know broad strokes, but not every reasoning like we do with Tommy in a lot of cases. This isn’t something I can fix without even more wild speculation, sorry!

As you can see, while Tommy isn’t perfect, what Dream did to him is the equivalent of hitting someone who slaps you in the face with a hammer, and then insisting it was their fault and continuing to hit them with said hammer while they try to apologise. Dream is an unreliable narrator himself, and needs a scapegoat to explain how him driving away all his friends couldn’t possibly be his fault (I might make something expanding on this later).

The tragedy isn’t that Tommy and Dream were equally bad for each other. The tragedy is that Dream is so lost at this point he can’t see the difference. His attempts at making the server closer lead to him losing sight of what was okay, leading to him seeing torture as equivalent to being a troublemaker, and this means his plans were ultimately futile because who would want to be friends with someone like that?

The closure Tommy got wasn’t that he was bad too, or that Dream was misunderstood. Hell, it wasn’t even that Dream wasn’t a villain, not exactly. It’s that he was a pathetic man instead of a God. One with immature and childish goals who blamed others for his own faults. Dream was a human, a fucked up one, and not some sort of unstoppable force that would haunt him forever.

And, most importantly, it was proof that he didn’t deserve what happened to him. Because, y’know, doing all this in the name of not wanting to be alone is completely insane and unjustifiable. Hell, it’s proof that makes his exile and the repeated threats of immortality worse, because if that was the exact intention behind them, it fully means that Dream didn’t even do this out of hatred, despite his claims to the contrary, and how could any pain caused be justified then?

Tommy and Dream are not equal in terms of suffering. Not even close. But they’re human, and time and again Tommy has tried to appeal to the part of him that doesn’t deny it. He can acknowledge where he fucked up and try to fix it… and that’s the difference between him and Dream. That’s why his list is so much smaller. And that’s why it was always too late.

Happy Daedalus Day :D

My complicated thoughts on c!Wilbur's ending (I tried to make this short)

For me, there are things about Wilbur's ending I still don't vibe with because they'd need to be more expanded on to be effective

The whole last arc still feels like a big flop because in the end Wilbur just kinda got stomped all over until in the end he followed Phil's worst advice for the worst moment and went away with that idea of "If they don't forgive me I have to go", and Phil's erroneous message was just kinda never really defied by the narrative

I still wish he would've had a moment to yell at someone and be rightfully mad because holy shit he should've, a scene to parallel Ghostbur's rightful anger at phil during Doomsday that felt to be so easily set up with Wilbur being reminded a few times that Phil, Techno and Dream did doomsday and the crater wasn't from the 16th, and with him having to confront and be pretty disappointed in it just being "his grave" when he had no grave, lighting up at the idea that L'manburg was worth enough to rebuild after he was gone in his conversation with Tubbo on the 3rd of August 2021 stream

The book for Eret and half of what was said in it regarding Eret is still shit in the context of my own Judas being a thing, with Eret only chastising Wilbur for "not apologizing well enough" when Wilbur never did anything to Eret aside from rightfully not trusting them once Eret murdered everyone for their own selfish gain and continued to do shit to the L'manburgians after (which is all in lost VODs and this isn't Eret crit centric, so I won't go too far into this, but the towers to make them feel watched, something like covering the sun on their territory to make mobs spawn, etc). Eret never apologized for real, Eret admitted to wanting Wilbur to be a sort of puppet leader in a new country to essentially make Eret a dictator, as she later said that democracy wasn't good, the only reason why she told Wilbur not to jump off the bridge was because "think of all the resources I wasted trying to revive you", she made the empty gesture of throwing away the crown for like the third time while losing no real power or status, etc

And I don't like that in defending the ending so much in the most literal sense some people have just disregarded what in my opinion makes the ending more interesting, which is that the Utah desert can be seen as a metaphor for the afterlife, but an afterlife in which Wilbur went to his imagined desert instead of the limbo he thought he deserved to suffer in, because that possible interpretation was clearly done intentionally with the Eret book, the Ozimandias callback, the "I never did forgive myself", and we know that Wilbur wants us to analyze the ending as he himself said it

So I understand those who didn't like it, had some problems with it or were dissatisfied, because I myself could never be satisfied by it, because to have that I would need everyone else who isn't Wilbur to own up to their own shit and make it explicit that Wilbur isn't and wasn't at fault for everything

Have Eret actually say a real sorry for killing him and all L'manburgians and it to have weight for real, have Niki own up to the fact that she was never abandoned, but she did betray the L'manburgians multiple times, have Fundy and Wilbur have a talk about the Pogtopia buttons and Fundy disowning Wilbur as a father, have Phil own up to and suffer consequences for Doomsday, let Wilbur actually confront the reality of Doomsday with Phil there, have them talk about the 16th, have Wilbur come closer to an understanding with Ghostbur from that going further than just sending Friend to him, get some deeper understanding of Ghostbur as a part of himself, have Wilbur see that self-love isn't letting yourself be beaten down and stepped over for the comfort of those who wronged you, have him see and others confront that he isn't just a scapegoat and he isn't the source of all evil, have that mythical reddit post that put this all so clearly guide the steps to this

But I get that it all would hinge on all these characters with pretty bad writing in general getting their shit together and actually being written well for longer than just one stream, things should've started changing with them all from hitting on 16 onwards and that just wouldn't happen, so in the context of what cc!Wilbur could do by himself, it's pretty good, and the open ended-ness and little more metaphorical pieces such as the nice afterlife in the desert, the bandage being gone without us ever getting a proper explanation of it, Ghostbur getting Friend sent to him by Wilbur even if Wilbur will forever separate himself from the idea of Ghostbur makes it all feel like at least c!Wilbur himself is... Ok. He isn't doing incredibly good, he still doesn't forgive himself, but hell, he's ok, be it at peace in a literal place or the afterlife, in the end he went off with a smile, he made his decision and got at least Tommy to talk with him one last time on ok-ish terms, in the end at least he knows that Tommy cares, even if it would've been much better to have more

More people involved, more explained and shown, more time, but alas this is it

new home

🪑

Spruced up an old unfinished drawing because the instagram algorithm demands it pog

Window wings, fragile panes

Shield me from the dark

Warm me with your spark

~~~

Full resolution images and painting videos on Patreon

Part of my glass wings series

Master List for my own sanity (I will try to update it regularly):

Stream analysis:

Overly Long Analysis of c!Tommy and c!Dream dynamic in season 1

A Comprehensive Analysis of the Exile arc Part 1 -  Part 2 -  Part 3 -  Part 4 -  Part 5 -  Part 6 - Part 7 [completed]

Analysis of the Nether portal scene

A rant about Season 2 Finale

Overly Long Analysis of Tommy’s first prison visit

Overly Long Analysis of Tommy’s second prison visit (quotes with an Addition and another Addition)

Overly Long Analysis of the death and revival streams

An analysis of “Tommy’s plan to kill Dream” Part 1 and Part 2

Analysis of Foolish first death stream

Analisys of Wilbur’s and Tommy’s streams from the 05/05/21

An analysis of Foolish’s and Tommy’s conversation

Comprehensive analysis of the Custody Battle stream

Overly long analysis of Wilbur and Ranboo build the burger van

Overly long analysis of Wilbur’s stream of the 1 year anniversary of L'Manburg

Overly long analysis of Dream’s jailbreak Sunday Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

Extra analysis:

A rant about Freedom in the smp (c!Techno critical)

An analysis of c!Wilbur (this one is quite critical)

A rant on how c!Dream assigns c!Tommy added value

A theory on the reason for c!Dream’s obsession for c!Tommy

A random collection of handy Dream SMP Quotes

Did Tommy betray Techno? a rant

Not Comprehensive List of c!Dream’s Obsessive Behaviour

Headcanons and aus:

Tailor!Tommy headcanons (fluff)

Bench Trio Headcanons (angst)

Possible scenarios of Wilbur coming back (crack)

Dream smp bad end au (angst)

Dream smp Fantasy au (fluff)

God!Tommy and God!Wilbur AU (crack)

Superhero AU and Alternate Superhero AU (crack)

Undertale AU (angst? fluff? both??)

Protective Ranboo hc (angst)

Protective Tubbo HCs (fluff? Kinda?)

Alternate AUs meet up? Sort of?  (crack)

Flowerboy!Tommy HCs (fluff)

Citizen’s Newspaper AU part 1 -  part 2

God!Tommy and God!Tubbo AU (made with @ladycatland)

Platonic Soulmates AU (Bee Duo’s case - Crime Boys’ case - Part 2) (angst)

Tommy gets all the mobs! (crack/fluff)

Protege AU (angst)

Immortal Tommy + Superhero AU (angst/crack)

Dsmp x DLsmp AU (mostly angst)

Stray AU

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LINK with all the informations on the tags I use