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on one side you have dream, whose channel is thriving like it has never before, who wants to prove everyone that he is a skilled minecraft player so he engages in a rivalry with the most feared minecraft pvper, technoblade. and he spends time and effort in training, aspiring to beat technoblade and letting his competitivity drive him in his mission. 

saw this and made this immediately:

thoughts on this one guys? /gen

stuff like this always makes me feel mildly anxious because it makes me feel stupid for interpreting things differently, but i genuinely am open to changing my mind if you guys think this is more accurate to canon

alright, let’s start with the easy one, the second point: regardless of whether or not techno intended for his character to be a good representation of anarchy, it is still valid to criticize his writing on the basis of that representation. it doesn’t get to be “he tried, so it’s a good representation.” I’m going to be lazy here and recommend @khizuo​ ‘s c!techno critical tag, especially this post for an actually good explanation for why cc!techno’s portrayal of anarchy is flawed, because I’m not well versed enough to explain it like I’d like to.

now, onto the first one.

I will be the first person to say that I think cc!wilbur’s a ‘brilliant’ writer, as this person says. I think he’s really talented, albeit for his complex portrayal of mental health issues and the multilayered character that is c!wilbur with the complimentary character ghostbur. mans knows what he’s doing.

but first of all, what wilbur’s intentions were aren’t everything, especially when it comes to portraying political ideals. @patchwork-rambles​ replied to this post here, clarifying again that, even if cc!wilbur may have intended to portray l’manburg as always bad and evil, that… doesn’t mean it’s good writing, or how the audience will interpret it. if there’s a large portion of people who are not picking up on this, then that might be a failure of cc!wilbur’s writing as much as it’s the audience’s failure. 

however, let’s assume, for arguments sake, that the author is Alive and Well, and wilbur’s intentions were the end all be all here.

is op aware of how the original l’manburg arc was written? like, genuinely.

because the og l’manburg revolutionary war was written with tommy, by the seat of their pants, with relatively little planning. I highly doubt that cc!wilbur was writing his hamilton-kinnie character thinking “oh I’m going to tell a hard hitting story about the dangers of propaganda and nation making (?)”. this clip here, and really that whole vod in generally, really emphasize that until the election, they were very, very loosely planning. this was mostly wilbur doing hamilton roleplay because he wanted to, which obviously morphed into a more hard hitting discussion of c!wilbur’s downfall due to paranoia and trauma, etc etc. when the election arc kicked off.

now, this definitely isn’t saying that early l’manburg isn’t canon, or isn’t good, or whatever. the only thing I’m trying to say here is that saying that wilbur had all these grand intentions for them being secretly villains is… probably unrealistic.

however, let’s assume, again, that this was a good assumption that wilbur actually did have big intentions from the beginning.

let’s talk about some big flaws in this argument that wilbur’s story was actually about propaganda and wars dividing people within the story, why don’t we?

1. wilbur didn’t start the war. he declared independence, but totally intended on staying friendly with the wider smp. mans literally didn’t start the war that we’re blaming for dividing people.

2. saying propaganda was what influenced people doesn’t really stand as an argument, when, well, tommy and tubbo were already fighting dream when he joined. fundy is canonically his son, and also enthusiastic about pretty much all of their causes. jack was attempted to be paid off by dream when he joined which was actually what turned him towards l’manburg (I believe), and niki supported l’manburg because wilbur was already her friend and she cared for him.

to claim that it was propaganda influencing these characters towards l’manburg denies their agency and automony as characters, as well as reducing their own motivations to an extension of c!wilbur.

3. wilbur voicing his dislike of dream later on isn’t inherently negative lmao. if someone burns down your houses and kills you when you have a policy of nonviolence, voicing dislike for that isn’t inherently “driving people apart”. this perpetuates the notion that all conflict or disagreement is bad, regardless of the motivation behind it, which I hope op isn’t trying to say. if wilbur has complaints of dream and wants to state them, as long as he isn’t straight up lying, gaining support for them isn’t any more propaganda than someone on twitter saying “stop supporting this person because they’ve done x bad things”, y’know?

4. also, just, in canon, wilbur was very invested in the ideals he preached. I’m not gonna pull up a million references here, but if you look through his vods, his concern over “being the bad guys”, his concern over “the thing he built this place for” not being there anymore, his prioritization of the lives in l’manburg over the land itself during the revolution, etc etc, it’s clear he genuinely cares. he isn’t driven to mental health decline and eventual suicide for a country he doesn’t care for.

also, out of canon and more meta: wilbur very closely tied the early l’manburg revolution to ideas behind acab (comparing sapnap to a cop, “fuck 12″, etc). call me crazy, but I don’t think cc!wilbur, blm and acab supporter, would tie his country his to that movement if it was actually supposed to be corrupt and evil, y’know? once again, there are more reasons, but I don’t want to list forever.

NOW, LET’S ASSUME AGAIN, THAT C!WILBUR ACTUALLY DID HAVE EVIL/SELFISH INTENTIONS FOR L’MANBURG. (see how many concessions I have to make to even entertain this lmao)

wilbur clearly wasn’t the only member of l’manburg. he was a distant president swamped by work, and he basically let people do what they want beyond occasional conflict resolution.

l’manburg was more than its leader, or even its ideals. it was bakeries, and camaraderie, and docks and stage productions of macbeth and actually fighting sapnap when he killed their pets and flag building and singing and a million things that succeeded c!wilbur. it was niki, and jack, and tubbo, and fundy, just as much as it was wilbur and tommy. even if c!wilbur had less than morally pure intentions for his country, it morphed overtime into a symbol of freedom and home for so many, and to discount that because you believe the leader had bad goals that never even came to frution? it’s silly. 

l’manburg gave poor people power in a way the server had never seen before, it represented the first organized resistance against some guy who had claimed all the land for some reason, and opened up the world for new nations and societies. it was full of love, and life, and sentimentality that even the best writing of cc!wilbur could scrub out if he tried.

contrary to what c!wilbur’s spiral would have him believe, l’manburg wasn’t defined by him, it was every moment and member and blocked placed

so. yeah. bad argument dude. I don’t really know what they were thinking here.

(plus they believe wilbur was faking his mental health crisis apparently and I don’t even know where to start with that lmao)

Wanna start off by saying that being worried that you might have interpreted things wrong is, if anything, a sign that you are actually open to changing your opinion, which isn’t something everyone in this fandom can pride themselves in. I salute you for admitting to feeling unsure about your position and seeking others’ opinions to either reaffirm it or debunk it.

Discovering people talking about me in such a negative light on Tumblr has surely been a surprise, but I am not that mad at it, especially not at OP. Only issue I have is that some of my takes have been misinterpreted terribly, but I address that at the end of the post.

Here are my thoughts on it all.

Let’s start out with criticism of how Technoblade represents anarchy.

The criticism that was linked is quite good and I agree with a significant portion of it! It doesn’t criticize Technoblade’s portrayal of anarchy as much as the lack thereof, though. It’s something cc!Technoblade himself has pointed out: it’s bad anarchy rep if all the guy with the “anarchist” brand does is goes around and blows up nations, and I think the Syndicate was created exactly because he’s been trying to move onto exploring the anarchist part of his character in a more diplomatic way.

Most criticism of c!Technoblade hinges on the idea that he has done things just for the sake of anarchy which… he hasn’t really, aside from joining the Pogtopia rebellion. Everything else was mostly done for his own personal goals, but affected by his anarchist ideals, which is what OP talks about for the majority of the post.

The criticism of c!Technoblade’s anarchy that I was talking about in my original post is not the kind that was linked at all. You’d probably know what I was getting at if you’ve been a follower of mine for a while, but out of the context of my account it can definitely seem as if I don’t accept any criticism of c!Technoblade’s representation of anarchy at all. It’s just that 90% of the criticism I’ve seen is “he’s a tyrant”, “he’s a hypocrite”, “the Syndicate is a government”, it’s based on the assumption that Doomsday was done purely for the sake of anarchy, or it’s criticism of anarchy as a concept that hides under the roof of simple c!Technoblade criticism. And that’s the kind of faulty criticism I was referring to in my post.

Main point is, there isn’t much of c!Technoblade’s anarchy to criticize in the first place. The criticism that he isn’t doing ENOUGH anarchy for someone who made anarchy such a big part of his character is a valid one, though. I think that’s something Techno is planning on addresing in Season 3 with the Syndicate but… *looks at a hibernating Techno* eh, one day we’ll see it.

Now onto Wilbur Soot.

I am going to start out with what I have in mind when I say “L’Manburg loyalist” so we’re on the same page, because terminology in this fandom has been watered down to the point where there are no definitions that are widely agreed upon and that alone causes a whole lot of trouble. (e.g. c!Dream apologists getting called abuse apologists out of the assumption that an apologist must defend every single action of a character).

A loyalist (Cambridge dictionary) – a person or group that strongly supports the government or ruler in power.

A loyalist (Google) – one who is or remains loyal especially to a political cause, party, government, or sovereign.

So to me, a L’Manburg loyalist is someone who believes Wilbur’s intentions in creating L’Manburg to have been good. To me, a L’Manburg loyalist is, harshly speaking, someone who bought into Wilbur’s propaganda.

If your allegiance lies with the people of L’Manburg and their relationships, then you aren’t a L’Manburg loyalist to me, and I have no quarrel with you. It’s not the political cause of L’Manburg that you support, but its people. My issue with L’Manburg lies in its very foundation and Wilbur’s administration specifically.

It is in no way bad to like and enjoy L’Manburg. It has definitely grown beyond Wilbur’s original purpose for it (which is displayed in how it managed to live and develop even after his death) and shaped its citizens’ lives in many positive ways. It had its great moments that are deserving of attention and appreciation.

Now let’s move onto your points!

if there’s a large portion of people who are not picking up on this, then that might be a failure of cc!wilbur’s writing as much as it’s the audience’s failure. 

This fandom is full of young politically unaware people who are also used to viewing stories through traditional narrative conventions where the main POV is the POV of the hero. So as odd as it is, it’s also not all that surprising that the people who watched the Dream SMP story through L’Manburg’s POV failed to see between the lines into the true nature of the nation. Because the viewers, most of whom were likely new to this story-telling style (myself included) were under the assumption that “Well, if we’re looking at the story through their eyes and they’re speaking about experiencing oppression, then they MUST be the good guys and the ones in the right!”

If the subtext of the story isn’t obvious, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. It’s not bad writing if the viewer/reader was unable to see deeper into the story and unlock a second layer of it, because it is not the writer’s responsibility to hold the reader by the hand and make all sides of a story clear to them. If the subtext of a story is made extremely obvious, it not only violates one of the main principles of storytelling, “show don’t tell”, but also ruins the whole point of having a subtext.

So I’d say the audience’s failure to see the true nature of c!Wilbur’s character and L’Manburg is, if anything, a signifier of the brilliance of Wilbur’s writing, since the man managed to write propaganda so good that even the viewers believed it. Wilbur’s propaganda mimics irl propaganda in its shape, invisibility and effectiveness.

the og l’manburg revolutionary war was written with tommy, by the seat of their pants, with relatively little planning

The lack of a script doesn’t mean that Wilbur Soot (a very politically aware man, may I note) couldn’t have implemented heavy political themes into his roleplay story organically. Even though very early lore wasn’t scripted, it’s not like it wasn’t planned at all.

Wilbur talks about reshaping his and Tommy’s drug empire into a revolution a day before he actually does it, on Tommy’s stream. And it’s likely something he’s been pondering for a while beforehand. So it was still, to some extent, planned, and Wilbur had plenty of time to think just how he should go about directing his roleplay in a more political direction from his earlier lighthearted Breaking Bad roleplay.

I fully believe the story of L'Manburg to have been, in part, political commentary because throughout the foundation of the nation, Wilbur references real-life events of the time (judging Americans for not wearing masks, and making sly references towards Trump, for example) and employing real-world strategies used by governments to foster patriotism and convince people to commit to his cause.

cc!Wilbur has often spoken about his interest in politics. So it’s not that big a stretch that he would naturally implement political ideas when roleplaying a leader figure – and in the case of L’Manburg, Wilbur plays the role of an authoritarian.

Not to mention that cc!Wilbur seems to naturally lean into the “charismatic manipulative authoritarian” character archetype when roleplaying, considering that the moment he joined the sbi Rust server he started playing c!Wilbur: Cult Edition.

Long story short: the lack of a script =/= the lack of planning. It is not at all impossible to integrate heavy themes into a story that unfolds in real-time.

saying that wilbur had all these grand intentions for them being secretly villains is… probably unrealistic.

Well, they were never “secretly villains” exactly. They haven’t been the best from the very start, it simply went unnoticed by some of the viewers. They may not have been intended to be “villains”, but they weren’t intended to be “heroes” either.

1. Wilbur started dividing people the moment he built a wall and allowed only a certain nationality to cross it.

2. Even if the characters weren’t purely convinced to join by propaganda, it certainly influenced their decision, especially considering some of them weren’t there to witness L’Manburg’s true history, they had it relayed to them by Wilbur, who is far from a reliable narrator.

I can’t speak on Niki and Fundy since my memory of most early VODs is rather stale, but the argument that “tommy and tubbo were already fighting dream when he joined” isn’t a good one because Wilbur declaring independence wasn’t prompted by Dream’s actions. The first time Dream and Wilbur talk is when the walls are already being built. Dream had nothing to do with the preceding conflict that prompted Wilbur to secede from the server. Dream was made guilty by association for being American and being the head of the server, not for being a tyrant. He hasn’t done anything to Wilbur directly to give him an excuse to hate him.

3.

if wilbur has complaints of dream and wants to state them, as long as he isn’t straight up lying…

Well the issue with c!Wilbur is that he is indeed straight up lying a lot of the time, as exemplified above by the fact that he framed L’Manburg declaring independence as them seeking to escape c!Dream’s tyranny, even though their decision to secede wasn’t prompted by any particular action from Dream. Wilbur just wanted to have a plausible excuse to demand independence.

Even Tubbo points out how their freedoms weren’t exactly limited.

4.

also, just, in canon, wilbur was very invested in the ideals he preached.

He stuck to those ideals, yes… when it benefited him. But he also saw little problem in dropping them when convenient. He seems pretty selective about when to follow his nation’s ideals.

he isn’t driven to mental health decline and eventual suicide for a country he doesn’t care for

True. He is driven into a mental health decline by a combination of losing power, which was a source of comfort for him, and the stress of exile and war. His spiral was prompted by the realization that he can never have the L’Manburg he built because the values of freedom and democracy he implanted into L’Manburg’s image are directly against what he was doing as the leader of Pogtopia – trying to take down a legally elected, albeit terrible leader.

His “concern over “being the bad guys” isn’t only a concern, but also an admission of guilt.

I don’t think cc!wilbur, blm and acab supporter, would tie his country his to that movement if it was actually supposed to be corrupt and evil

I can see how you’d view this as a problem. One wouldn’t want to tarnish the image of such an important movement after all. But the thing is, Tubbo and Sapnap weren’t actual cops, even if they called themselves that. They weren’t part of any system, they hadn’t been assigned that position by Dream, the de-facto ruler of the Dream SMP. It’s the systemic power of the police that’s the problem, not the name, when it comes to the ACAB movement, so it doesn’t ever really apply to that situation.

Sapnap, Tubbo and Purpled weren’t policemen, they were members of a community retaliating in response to being stolen from. Members of a community retaliating in response to being stolen from is not police brutality. I don’t think you’d call a lady beating up the guy who stole her purse a case of police brutality, even if the thief calls her a cop throughout the beating.

The reason c!Wilbur was cussing out “the cops” is that both he and Tommy consistently play the victim throughout both the drug monopoly stream and the foundation of L’Manburg in the hopes of gaining sympathy for their cause from neutral parties. One way to do that is to say that the guys going against you are clearly just violent heartless cops and not direct victims of your crimes.

You saying that Wilbur tied his country to the ACAB movement is very interesting, because you are willing to draw these kinds of connections to real world issues and others see no problem with it, yet the one time I said that c!Wilbur’s actions and words parallel Trump, it was met with great outrage. Which makes me wonder what the issue was then.

And I think the issue isn’t that people are uncomfortable with parallels between Minecraft roleplay and serious real world issues being drawn, since bringing up ACAB and BLM doesn’t seem to prompt the same unhappy reaction. It would seem that the issue is that people are afraid of admitting that a character they like has connections to such a horrible real-life figure because they think it may reflect badly on their person. Which it won’t, because it’s all fiction. You can like bad people in fiction and c!Wilbur having parallels to Trump doesn’t say anything about you liking him at all.

If you think it is possible that Wilbur making references to real world movements is a clear indication of his intent for L’Manburg to be good, then you should also have no issue reading my document listing all the times Wilbur’s words and actions paralleled Trump, which suggests the opposite intent.

[L’Manburg] morphed overtime into a symbol of freedom and home for so many, and to discount that because you believe the leader had bad goals that never even came to frution? it’s silly.

I never disregarded the role L’Manburg had in other characters’ lives, and it was a very significant role. As I said earlier, my criticism of L’Manburg lies mostly with c!Wilbur’s administration and its foundation specifically. However, whatever positive effect L’Manburg has had on its citizens’ lives is downplayed by the fact that L’Manburg was also the cause of their biggest issues. Had L’Manburg never been founded to “stick it to the man”, then there would’ve never been a war with said man that has taken multiple lives. Had Wilbur never decided to rig an election to strengthen his position in power, then Schlatt never would’ve won and Wilbur and Tommy never would’ve been exiled. Had L’Manburg never been founded, the events of Season 2: exile, Techno’s execution and the subsequent Doomsday, never would’ve occured. L'manburg dragged its people into war as much as it gave them peace.

plus they believe wilbur was faking his mental health crisis apparently and I don’t even know where to start with that lmao

I’ve seen like 3 people say this so I found my tweets that convinced people that this is something that this was an opinion of mine at any point in time, and made a post clarifying what I actually meant.

In conclusion, I hope this has convinced people that it is indeed very possible that L’Manburg was intended to be corrupt and “bad” by Wilbur. And if it hasn’t, then maybe this clip of cc!Wilbur talking about his character’s intentions behind creating L’Manburg will.

I’ve deleted the OG post about doing the CCs a disservice because people are clearly misinterpreting it a bit and I don’t like the wording of the part where I talked about Wilbur. In hindsight, saying that Wilbur wrote “a story of how propaganda can be used to shape minds and lives and now nations and wars are used to divide people” is probably giving him too much credit. The heavy presence of those themes is likely an unintended consequence.

But I still stand by the fact that Wilbur didn’t implement propaganda into his story for you to buy into it, and that he intended for his character and his nation to be viewed critically and as unreliable narrators. There are a lot of things pointing to the fact that L’Manburg was never intended to be “good” aside from my aforementioned points, which I have explored in detail in my analysis of how L’Manburg was founded.

I will forever be of the opinion that L’Manburg, even though it’s grown into a community that was more than just what Wilbur put into it, was mainly created to sate c!Wilbur’s hunger for power, has caused more problems than good and should never have existed in the first place.

It took me a bit to understand where people even got that from, but I believe I’ve found the tweets that caused this opinion of me to circulate and am here to clarify what I said because I’d rather not have wrong information about me being spread around.

In these tweets, I questioned Wilbur’s spiral in Pogtopia: specifically if it was genuine madness or if Wilbur’s actions seemed so unreasonable both to the viewer and the characters that they were interpreted as such, when in reality, he was simply finally showing his true colors. I was having a hard time understanding what set him off into a spiral in the first place. Why would being “the bad guys” suddenly be such a big deal for him when he was always aware of what he was doing? It’s not like he was planning on rigging the election without realising that what he’s doing isn’t great. I was having a hard time grasping it all.

Since then, I watched Wilbur’s podcast where he says his character was “losing it” and I’ve seen a few analyses of his spiral that made me understand it a little better, so I no longer doubt that aspect of his character. One way or the other it was never a strong opinion of mine, just a possibility I considered.

But I never said or even thought that “he faked his mental illness”. I never said his intent was to fake it. Don’t put words in my mouth.

I kinda wanna redesign my human techno, make his appearance more fit into his voice. I find it hard to convince myself that his voice comes from some of my previous human techno. I might keep the old crown and cloths. Just some personal opinion, I’m curious what would you guys think?

I know we’re all VERY hyped for the upcoming Minecraft Championships, and I know that as a part of that we’re gonna want to post about it! 

Which is completely fine!! In fact, I’m very excited to see everybody liveblogging from who they’re watching, making fanart of their favorite bits and sharing clips, all that good stuff, I can’t wait to see it! :]

BUT PLEASE REMEMBER!!

Tumblr’s tagging system goes word-by-word, and so if you’re going to talk about it, please just tag it as “MCC”, “MCC 14″, “MCC S2″ or any variation of those!

We want to avoid using tags that include the word “minecraft” even if it’s attached (for instance, tagging #minecraft championships) because it will show up in the regular minecraft tag! and this will turn, flood the tag which we don’t want to do!

(this is also the same reason we use tags like “mcyt” and not “minecraft youtubers”)

A lot of people on mineblr like to share aesthetic photos, builds, and art of minecraft separate from streamers and such, and we want to make sure they can still enjoy that without having to dig through all of our content to see it!