"...there are worse things than being more upright than the people around you."

“…Sure. But just because there are worse things doesn’t mean you have to be stupid about it.”

"Some things are worth the cost."

“You know what, Jingyan, I agree with you. Not on everything, mind, I’m not going to give up on scamming people, so don’t get too comfortable. But there are things that are more important than that, things where you should pay whatever price is asked. I like to think I try, anyway.”

“Easy for you to say when you’re not offering to pay it,” Tubbo says, very very quietly. 

Like he hasn't lived that for the past thirteen years. "Tommy, you wanted to show me around L'Manberg."

“Yeah! There’s these— fuckoff high obsidian walls around it right now, because some green bastard decided to be a little bitch, but it’s not that hard to find a spot where you can go under or through them.” They can head towards L’Manberg! As promised, in the distance are tall obsidian walls encircling what looks to be a fairly small city. “Tubbo’s president, I’m vice president, Fundy and Big Q are also in the cabinet. And then there’s Niki and Phil and Ghostbur and Ranboob who live here. Maybe other people too, I dunno. Lots of stuff happening here, people moving in and out. Are you American, if you’re not American you can join. —Or maybe if you are, I think Ranboo’s American? I didn’t agree to that. He’s older than me and American, this sucks.”

Once they get past the obsidian walls, L’Manberg is a fairly cute place, if you ignore the random sky paths and the “YOU </3 LITTLE PENIS” sign. Some other notable things include:

- it’s built on stilts in a crater half-full of water

- there are shoddy WANTED signs plastered everywhere, displaying the face of a pig man and the name “Technoblade”

- there are a lot of flags hung up

- there are also a lot of festival decorations that have been partially taken down

- the aforementioned giant obsidian walls

"I have not heard of America, so presumably I'm not American?" The giant volcanic walls are Concerning. "Is there a reason that-- Dream?-- did this?"

“If I had to guess I would say it was because someone” (pointed look at Tommy) “griefed George’s house.”

“Mmmm, that doesn’t sound like something I would do! But whoever did do it was super cool and committed a super cool robbery that was not a griefing.”

“You literally— at the trial, you literally admitted to doing it.”

“Wait, did I? Naaaaaahhhh that can’t be right.”

"There's walls for one robbery?"

“…Yes? Tommy’s the Vice President, what he does reflects on our nation, and George is the King of the other nation—the Greater Dream SMP—that’s what the meeting today is going to be about, is deciding on a consequence for Tommy so that Dream agrees to take the walls down. I… have hope, that we’ll work something out peacefully. You can come if you want.”

That makes more sense. And does not make him like Dream any more than he already does.

"I am willing to help, even though I do not have the best handle on the situation here."

“I don’t have the best handle on the situation either, I’m fucking—I’m on probation, Big J.”

“Look on the bright side, if today goes well you could be off it soon.”

"We can hope so."

“It’s fucking bullshit, man, Dream’s not— he just showed up and suddenly we have to do whatever he says? The whole point of declaring independence from him was that we’re better than that. We’re not going to— to hurt each other, just because he tells us to.”

“Well what else do you suggest, then, Tommy? Fighting him? How is that, how is that not going to end with people getting hurt? We’ve barely recovered from the last war, we can’t afford to take him on right now.”

“We could do it! We’ve done it before! And this time we have— we have more people, we won’t have a traitor, we can try to get the Badlands on our side, we could have spent the past week preparing instead of forcing me to write reports—“

You don’t have two lives to throw away this time, Tubbo doesn’t say. “Tommy. We are not starting a war with Dream unless it is absolutely necessary. That’s final.”

"He should not be besieging an independent nation because of the actions of one person. --though that is much easier to say than make so."