#it’s like no wilbur isn’t at fault. especially if we’re talking about cc wilbur. but fuck man of course she’s gonna feel like this
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I just think Tallulah gets to be upset about this. “It’s not Wilbur’s fault” “He’s not a bad dad” “He loves his daughter so much” yes! These are all true! And it’s not his fault! But he’s still not there. And Tallulah has gone through so much and still hasn’t seen him, the one time he was around was the one time she wasn’t, and all she has are letters and “I’m thinking of you always” and things that used to be theirs together, but he’s still not there. She’s waited and she’s been patient and she’s loved him all the same, and he’s still not there. Like yesterday, and the day before, and the day before, from the happy milestones to the traumatic events, he’s still not there.
She knows that it’s not his fault, but it doesn’t change the fact that he’s absent. That in and of itself just adds to the sorrow, because she knows why he’s gone, and she’s been told time and time again it doesn’t mean he doesn’t care, she knows this - it doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting, that it doesn’t hurt, that she doesn’t yearn for her father to be there more than anything in the world, and he’s just not there.
So yes, she gets to be upset, and be caustic, and stomp her feet and write bitter messages, and be angry and vitriolic, because she’s a little girl missing her father, who feels things with her whole heart and soul - and that means she gets to feel the ugly parts of it, too.
#it’s like no wilbur isn’t at fault. especially if we’re talking about cc wilbur. but fuck man of course she’s gonna feel like this#this doesn’t make wilbur a bad person! he’s just a missing one. and Tallulah feels all the misery and bitterness as a daughter left behind#where is her father kissing her injuries and reassuring her? where is her father protecting her? hugging her at the end of the day?#Wil isn’t around to do this and she wants him back and he’s not going to be back. not for a while. and it’s not his fault but it doesn’t#stop it from being upsetting. she’s a little girl#and at least she has phil. her dad. who’s there time and time again. and it doesn’t make him somehow morally better or wtevr. he’s there an#Wil is not. and he’s going to continue to be there as a solid figure in tallulahs life that she needs#idk man like. fuck#lmao relating my own experiences from here below in the tags ✌️#as someone who’s been in that position? a parent absent for reasons outside of control? yeah it’s sucks. and I love them and they love me#*with a parent I mean I wasn’t the parent lmao#and it will never be the same. and when they were gone and missing things I was furious at them#that resentment grows and then it fades and sometimes bitterness strikes again and it’s how it goes. love is still there#and it’s no one’s fault. it just is. and what is is messy#anyways#mcyt#qsmp#q!tallulah#q!wilbur#z speaks
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ok so firesnap made this very good post earlier today about the problems with niki and wilbur’s dynamic, and I have so much brain rot over it it’s getting it’s own separate post.
my general thesis for it is that I don’t mind niki having less going on as a character in s1, it’s that it’s not expanded on in s2 that’s the kicker.
In s1, even pre election, we get a lot more for Niki than is generally credited. Her relationship with Wilbur is central to her character, but that makes sense, because that’s her hook into the story: Wilbur wants her to join because they are friends. Cool! While it’s initially a bit awkward, their cc dynamic immediately gives a sense of warmth and closeness to their relationship that Wilbur doesn’t really have anywhere else. He’s close with Tommy, sure, but in a more mentor/sibling way, and it fleshes him out a bit more to see him bond with someone else. Leading up to the election, we also get more key traits of Niki’s character
1. She’s kind and compassionate, shown through her general demeanor, but also through the creation of her bakery and her deep care for Fungi.
2. She’s very independent, and doesn’t rely on others to form her opinions. We can see Wilbur is probably her closest friend, but she befriends Eret and basically demands that Wilbur be ok with it because it’s her choice, and literally runs against him in the election. It’s an interesting depth to her character that doesn’t really get brought up, and while it is related to Wilbur, it’s still individual development and characterization
3. She’s very vocal about her beliefs, even at a cost to her safety. She is the one to make the giant flag showing her alliegance, she is the one to be most vocal and aggressive towards Sapnap during the pet wars, she’s vocally against Schlatt before nearly anyone else.
None of this stuff is dependent on Wilbur, or is weakened without it. Wilbur is the catalyst for her joining, but her character is still well established without him and enriched with him. This isn’t your typical “woman only exists in the context of a man” to me, because, well, Niki is a strongly characterized firecracker of a character who has strong individual moments and arcs (in s1 at least...).
Throughout Pogtopia, while there’s definitely room for her to do more, especially post festival, I’m not mad about her character then, either. We see strain placed on both Niki and Wilbur as he’s forced to leave her behind, her anger with her treatment under Schlatt, and her stress upon seeing Wilbur’s deterioration. We’re reminded that she’s close to Wilbur, and Wilbur’s kindness to her serves the narrative purpose of reminding us that he is very much still the same person from before, and maybe could be again. It’s not the show stopping arc that other characters have, but it isn’t trying to be. s1 is very much Wilbur’s story with other arcs added in, and Niki being less “important” doesn’t bother me.
What s1 is for Niki is good setup. It’s quite common in media for side characters to be introduced earlier in relation to main characters, and to be more strongly developed later. The best example I can think of is Nico Di Angelo from the Percy Jackson series, or Jaime Lannister from asoiaf. If you left Nico after the third/fourth book, or Jaime Lannister after the first, they would come off as incomplete and a bit one dimensional, but when they start to shine, they really start to shine. Jaime in particular comes off as a plain villain until we get his pov in the third book, and suddenly he’s getting development galore.
s1 sets Niki up perfectly for that: she’s got a strong personality, a set of beliefs and distinct worldview, and a close relationship to a key player who just died, not to mention the beginning of her building her Secret City to keep refugees safe. It could’ve included her more, for sure, but what’s there is a solid base.
In the beginning of s2, we have a Niki forming new relationships (Puffy, namely), navigating the world without her narrative crutch (Wilbur), and generally being in the perfect spot to begin coming into her own as a character, espeically with the Secret City stuff. I’ve talked extensively about the opportunities for her character: being part of the egg arc, getting involved with Eret, being in the new l’manburg cabinet, actually exploring a spiral arc.
But instead, it’s all just... dropped. Call it cc!niki being busy, not being communicated with, etc etc, the fact of the matter is there. Niki as a character completely drops off, and has been kind of fumbling since to find her footing as a character. Unfortunately, that leaves her relationships with Wilbur as the only throughline of consistency, and suddenly Niki goes from a character who started off Wilbur-centric but was veering off in her own direction... back to Wilbur-centric again.
I don’t hate what’s shown! I think it could really work, but the issue is that Niki and Wilbur’s s1 relationship was never built up to carry Niki through three seasons, it was a catalyst for the existence of her character and a nice grounding bond for both of them to have. It’s not that the s1 stuff is bad, it’s that the follow up offered was never carried out, so instead of:
s1: Wilbur heavy with relationship to Niki in the background and s2: Niki heavy with relationship to Wilbur in the background
we get:
s1: Wilbur heavy with relationship to Niki in the background and s2: Niki’s barely there and it’s mostly central to Wilbur.
There’s something very sweet about the Wilbur Niki dynamic that really appeals to me. I like the way Niki’s confidence contrasts with Wilbur’s insecurity, the idea of loyalty to a place through a person, the intimacy of being the last person someone trusts and of course the concept wearing each other’s clothes. The festival scene alone is one of my favorites ever (just like the brain rot over Niki defending Wilbur on inauguration day vs him defending her at the festival... chefs kiss). It’s a good relationship that sets up Niki to be a strong solo character, as well as s1 lore in general setting her up.
But that relationship never should have been the entirety of her character, and that’s why it feels lopsided. It all comes back to s2 failing to deliver on Niki as a character, but I don’t think it’s the fault of the Wilbur Niki interactions or dynamic
tl;dr: s1 Niki, and Wilbur and Niki’s relationship is good and should be kept, we just needed to add more solo Niki in later seasons
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Okay, I wasn’t gonna say anything more, but while we’re all still kind of on the subject I want to talk about the creator-fandom divide and mental health.
New media (streamers and the like) are in a unique position. Not quite celebrities, not quite ordinary people - it’s been really interesting to see how different creators navigate their fanbase. MCYTs especially have a smaller gap between the two parties, and this may be an unpopular opinion, but I don’t think those connections are inherently bad. I think recognizing both ends of the spectrum as more than formless entities - the cc as a person and the fans as individuals in turn - humanizes all of us.
Where it comes to be a problem is when either side steps over this wobbly line in the sand. And I don’t think this is a “creators need to be more firm with their fanbase” or “dumb kids being indoctrinated” scenario. There’s a lot more nuance than that. This is a culture-wide shift that needs to be adjusted at the root. I’m not sure if that’s actually possible, but my point is that no single person is at fault, nor can they fix this.
Ranboo, the other day, said that he’s not a therapist. And he’s not. He only graduated high school last week (which isn’t a bad thing, it just speaks to his qualifications) and yet people’s responses to that disclaimer were “yes you are.” And I am aware that they don’t mean that literally - they don’t think he has a therapy license and they don’t expect him to cut them off at 55 minutes and tell them to check in at the front desk - but it’s the same kind of concept as when a person donates to a streamer and tells them “you saved my life.”
Here’s the thing: I understand that feeling. I do. However I may sound, I’m not some jaded anti-fandom. I don’t think it’s something that we talk about often for a variety of reasons, but there has been media that saved my life. Hell, there’s been content creators that saved my life. There was a point where I watched an insane amount of Good Mythical Morning because every single thing I did triggered me except for their videos. During that time, their channel was pretty much all that kept me going.
The difference is that I didn’t tell them that. It never even crossed my mind to. After reading A Little Life, I didn’t call up Hanya Yanigahara to tell her that her novel changed the way I see the world. I haven’t ever told Wilbur that his album spoke to me in a way no other has. I don’t plan to ever do those things and I don’t think anyone should. I think the impact of content on a consumer ultimately does not and should not have anything to do with its creator.
I understand the temptation. It’s like a thank-you, almost. A measure of how much they’ve done for you. In a way, on a smaller scale, it’s the same thing with calling a cc a “comfort creator.” I have those. We all have those, even the creators themselves. But telling them about it places some kind of mantle of responsibility on them. Instead of being able to do what they love and having it leave a positive impact on the world, now they are forced to be aware of the lives supposedly hinging on everything they do when they have their own life to live.
For the fan, this leads to stuff like unrealistic expectations. That demand for the creator to be aware of the same things you are and have the same opinions you do because they are that important to you. I get it, I do, but that’s just not sustainable. If someone like Schlatt, for example, bothers you enough that it upsets you to see your favorite ccs interacting with him, you need to decide whether the content out-values his presence. And if you can’t, you have reached an issue that needs to be resolved.
Existence is made better by good media. For people with limited resources, emotional outlets, etc, it can even be vital. And while you do need to find other things in your life that are important to you, sometimes all you can do is keep moving forward, and that’s (again, in my opinion), fine. But people in this fandom (and other fandoms, I’m sure) need to learn to appreciate the wall that exists between them and the people they look up to. However small the gap, it’s there. It will always be there. And that’s a good thing for everyone involved.
I’m not here to pull a Ludwig and tell you that the people you watch are not your friends. I think we all know that. But there’s more layers to a connection than friendship and not-friendship. There’s a trend of succumbing to investment in a creator on a personal level that is only going to hurt you. It’s a fine line to walk, for sure, because I’m not one of those people who spouts off the word “parasocial” at any opportunity and like I said, I think some amount of human understanding is a good thing.
The problems lie in this grey area of what “too-personal” means, and while I can’t dictate your life, nor is it my place to, I think that’s something important to keep in mind.
#long post#hopefully i explained myself correctly#i just really wanted to emphasize that the issue isnt the connection it is the depth of it#mcyt#critical#fandom critical#this is based on the tmmy stuff but i dont mention him so I won't tag h#discourse#saved !!!
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c!niki and c!wilbur enjoyers. pspspspspspsps
alright guys so last night i rewatched pretty much all of the pogtopia arc. and this isn’t meant to be a big, important analysis post (it’s kind of incomprehensible), because my brain is fried from, you know. rewatching pretty much all of pogtopia. but i do have some stuff i’d like to say.
(this also just became a niki meta sorry i love her. i really just got emo about her during the second half of this and it got long. i have a lot of feelings about her and wilbur’s friendship.)
it’s a pretty general conclusion that wilbur’s real “downfall” began on october 8th, during the stream “who are you go away”. of course, his spiral and the process of him losing faith had begun much earlier, more around the end of the first war or during the election. but the big switch, so to say, was definitely here, when as wilbur walks back from schlatt’s announcement, he asks tommy if they’re the bad guys.
this entire scene was so interesting to me. wilbur here is a man who has lost hope, someone who is backed into a corner morally and has nothing left. he points out that they can never really reclaim l’manburg without forever tainting it, and that schlatt knows this. the entire half an hour or so before, schlatt has been taunting wilbur about losing that power. the emphasis of the festival on “democracy” is so clearly a barb thrown at wilbur, and it works.
wilbur’s “nothing left to lose” in this vod is a mirror to niki’s “you know what they say about a woman who has nothing left to lose”. this will not be the first time they mirror each other.
basically, wilbur’s angry. when schlatt announced the festival, wilbur realized that maybe it wasn’t a terrible thing. so once he worked around into the mindset of “we’re the bad guys”, he was able to justify saying he was going to blow up the nation with no remorse. he wants chaos! he wants no survivors!
does he do it? god no.
during the streams leading up to november 16th, wilbur is consistently scared. he goes back and forth on it, and makes multiple “conditions” that determine whether he’s going to do it or not, almost begging someone to stop him. he whispers to himself that he’s scared, that his hands are shaking, that he’s not sure if it’s the right thing to do. because despite what he says about “not caring about any of them”, the instant niki is threatened after tubbo’s death, wilbur walks up to schlatt and tells him that if he’s going to kill anyone it should be him. later, when quackity and tommy talk him down from pressing the button, he can’t press it because they’re there and he can’t bring himself to kill them as well.
but he has no problems with putting his own life at risk. he refuses to wear armor half the time, and actively places himself in harm’s way to save others. he still cares about everyone else, as much as he says he doesn’t. even when he does cause harm to others, during november 16th, he immediately begs phil to kill him. “look, they all want you to.” he can’t live with what he’s done, and how he’s hurt people, but he couldn’t allow manburg to continue.
the man is terrified and angry and he can’t win. and even as he tries to stuff himself into the mind of someone who doesn’t care, he cannot. when he finally does, he cannot live with being that person.
but the reason i rewatched this arc was to see niki’s point of view, especially after her statements during her last stream. i genuinely think that wilbur’s only betrayal of her was pressing the button, because he betrayed everyone. they might have known he was going to do it, but they had faith he wouldn’t.
wilbur cared a lot about niki. her life under schlatt was awful, wilbur hated that she was suffering, and the scene where wilbur plants himself directly in the center of the festival and tells schlatt to kill him instead hits pretty hard. he has the argument with schlatt, and then turns to niki and tells her to run. he then hits people and sprints away, trying to give her time to escape.
this is also when he asks her to join pogtopia, because now that schlatt has said he’d kill her, it’s a safer place for her.
so the man did care about her. niki is angry at the memory of him that she has. it’s been twisted by time and her own grief and paranoia.
in rewatching pogtopia, i realized that a lot of people hate the memory of wilbur. not him, and what he did. they think he didn’t care. and to quote hamilton (apologies):
“history obliteratesit paints me in all my mistakes”
does niki have a right to be mad at him? absolutely. he caused direct harm to her by blowing up l’manburg, once it was reclaimed. but she’s wrong that he never cared.
(an interesting note: wilbur only blows it up after techno starts fighting people outside. he hears it, and says “look, they’re fighting”. he didn’t re-initiate the conflict of the country. the fact that even after peace was won people were fighting just gave evidence to his belief that the entire country was corrupted.)
niki has been hurt a lot, and wilbur has things to answer for. but we as the audience know that her statements are just her perception. she is a character who acts on perceptions. the entire stream was in black and white. during doomsday, upon seeing wilbur log on (as ghostbur), niki has a panic attack and destroys her bakery, trying to rid herself of the pain of the memories. her lines during this stream are chilling, whispered repetitions that are a mirror of wilbur’s end.
(paraphrased, it was long and confusing but there are a few bits and this was the essence of it)
“wilbur is gone. this isn’t happening. he is dead. l’manburg is gone.”“it is real, i am real, he is real and he is dead.”“l’manburg is gone, i am real, i am l’manburg”.
(god. dude i could spend Months analyzing this one stream alone. there’s so much here.)
doesn’t that sound a bit like “my unfinished symphony”? wilbur and niki both attach their own self to the nation they fought for, and can see it as an extension of themself. they both destroy parts of it in acts of fear, attempting to save everyone else from what they’ve made.
what i pulled away from niki’s stream is that she’s not healing. i remember the chamber she locks herself in at night. i remember her refusal to eat. i remember how she was so angry at tommy, and she later realized that anger was misguided. niki genuinely believes that wilbur did not care about her, and that’s not surprising: when he died, she denied the fact that he was gone. she represses the things that she can’t handle, same as lots of other people. it is easier for her to pin her hurt on wilbur, because she needs somewhere to pin it. people feel more in control if they’re angry, not sad.
the song cc!niki said was for her character really emphasizes this. it’s a coping mechanism.
but even condemning wilbur won’t help, because she will still never get closure. niki cares about what others think of her, and so she can’t move on from someone hurting her. she can’t move on because she thinks he hated her. she is angry that he is back, but it is an opportunity for her to heal. she couldn’t heal when he was gone. she’s not the only one with a negative perception of wilbur, after all. he has one too. the two of them really need to talk.
i want niki to be healthy and safe. i want to see her heal so badly, and i do think it will happen. after wilbur died, his betrayal of her stayed with her, and it eventually became her memory of the betrayal that she hated, not the thing itself. it’s been months since it happened. niki wants to find an outlet for her hurt, because she wants to feel better. there’s a pattern i noticed: she only gets mad at people once she hasn’t seen the person themself for a while. and once she sees them and talks to them, and realizes that they care about her and don’t want to hurt her, she stops blaming them for it. she only hates her perception of them. example one? tommy.
man was in exile for a long time, and when he came back he “brought” fighting. that’s how niki saw it. but the fact that after she spent time with tommy (trying to kill him but. details, details) she forgave him because she saw it wasn’t his fault is a really good sign.
i genuinely think that speaking to wilbur will help niki, and it will also help wilbur. after all, they both hate wilbur. the entire perception of wilbur as some heartless, crazy manipulator needs to be shattered for both of their sakes. they both buy into it.
i want niki to know that others care about her, and that she has places she can feel safe. she hates that wilbur is invading the syndicate, because she’s scared of his memory hurting her. i don’t think wilbur will hurt her on purpose, because even though he sees himself as awful, he doesn’t hate her. he never did.
usually, with people who have hurt someone else, i want them as far away from the person they hurt as possible. if wilbur does hurt niki i’ll probably cry. but again, it’s not him that hated her, or really him that hurt her in the way she thinks he did. when wilbur was dead, niki didn’t get any better. her memory of him festered and made her feel worse. that’s also why niki killing wilbur or hurting him somehow wouldn’t help her heal. i want wilbur to explain that he didn’t hate her. is wilbur even close to self aware enough to help niki? nah. this is going to take a Long time, and it’s going to hurt.
last thing i swear lol
during niki’s stream, she says that wilbur manipulated her. again, i watched pogtopia last night, and i’ve watched the rest of season one recently as well. i genuinely don’t see it. but i do think i know why she said it.
during season one, wilbur doesn’t manipulate niki. he doesn’t have a chance to later, he’s dead. so then, what is she talking about? of course it’s a perception, same as a lot of her other claims. i think she’s talking about how she cared for l’manburg.
niki joined the server as wilbur’s friend, to join his nation. she grew to care for l’manburg. she devoted herself to it, same as he did. but doomsday showed us that she hates that. in niki’s eyes, l’manburg only brought pain for people, and because she ties herself to it, she hates that she ever cared about it. she can’t allow herself to care for it, because it was used to hurt. so how does she cope with knowing that she once did? she pretends she didn’t.
if she can convince herself that it was wilbur who convinced her to care about l’manburg, she can avoid blaming herself for her own pain. and yeah, she shouldn’t blame herself for it. it’s not her fault. the entire situation is tragic and a little hopeless and once again really makes me hope that she recovers. l’manburg was ruined for her by others. schlatt, techno, dream, wilbur. again another place where she and wilbur are similar: they convince themselves they never cared about l’manburg because of the hurt it caused.
to summarize: wilbur’s going to get a shock soon. don’t know when, but probably the prison visit. something is going to shake his perception, the story is hurtling towards that. once he is able to take responsibility for what he did, and feel safe (because a lot of what he does now is out of fear of being alone or useless), then he and niki need to talk. niki needs something to get her out of her own head. she’s spiraling too. they are essential to each other’s recovery because of how much they meant (and mean) to each other.
anyways i miss early season one niki i liked it when she was happy :(
~ Lad 2
#wilbur#c!wilbur#niki#c!niki#dreamsmp#dsmp#mcyt#rp#long post#dreamsmp analysis#dsmp analysis#revivedbur#pogtopia#lad speaks
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