Realm Traveller by Jef Wu
Wilbur Soot has compared himself to the poem of Ozymandias countless times before. This is something us fans know.
He’s made reference to it on a handful of occasions, and has even had Fundy read the poem allowed. There was an entire animatic by Sad-ist about him as Ozymandias.
Ozymandias is this poem about this king, a supposed great ruler of a great kingdom, the king of kings. There’s a catch, and the heavy hitter of the poem. It doesn’t matter, no one remembers it. All that is left behind is a broken run down statue and a name with none of his greatness attached.
It’s easy to say that Wilbur compares himself and thinks of himself like Ozymandias, a man who may have been beloved by many, who may have had many greats, but left nothing behind that wasn’t wrecked or ruined. He has no legacy that will outlive him.
This is increasingly sad when you realize what c!Wilbur has done over the course of the last several apology streams. He is trying to make people’s last memories of him positive. Whether it’s because of their choice to never speak to him again, or his own. He keeps stating he wants to leave (whether it’s potentially him dying, or simply leaving off on his own), so he wants to leave the people he cared about and wronged the most with some positive memory of him, something that will remain of him, even if small.
He even says to Eret that he’s left behind and done one of the hardest & most important jobs of all, bringing people together.
Wilbur is still unable to see how he is the base, the one who brought everyone together in the first place, he’s the one who started it all, and the one that still manages to unite everything and everyone through one seemingly unbreakable thread that is him and his creation and belief in L’manburg.
I think then, c!Eret saying that he doesn’t want to be like Ozymandias, he wants to leave behind a legacy, something greater. He wants to leave behind some positive impact on future generations, namely through history and the telling of it and the preserving of it.
There’s some bit of bittersweet irony of Eret not knowing that Wilbur sees himself as Ozymandias, and how he speaks how he doesn’t want to do what Ozymandias had done, that he wants to be greater (doesn’t everyone?).
There’s something bittersweet about Eret often praising Wilbur for leaving behind something so great, L’manburg, and being such a large impact on everyone’s lives. Something that Wilbur can’t see himself.
like i know i talk about the c!wilbur of it all when it comes to discduo like a lot but. listen. exile might’ve been the point of no return for them that sort of made friendship no longer an option, but the exact moment they become enemies isn’t exile or the disc war or spirit speech or the duel. it’s quite fucking literally the exact moment tommy raises that crossbow at wilbur and dream steps between them.
“wilbur, hand me that tnt” “tommy, I’ll— I’ll have to step in” is the exact moment that takes discduo and defines their entire fucking story. that exact moment is why boundless sands has to exist for the discduo finale to even happen.
Thinking today about how Daedalus wasn’t c!Dream’s revenge fantasy, it was his closure fantasy.
In his heart of hearts, he was fantasizing not about destroying Sam, but about Sam understanding. Sam acknowledging what he did. Sam conceding that what he did to Dream was…
(Sam apologizing? Did a tiny, shameful piece want that, picture it, what it could look like?)