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5uptic · 3 years

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Hi! I moved here cause I can’t get a lick of sense from the people on bird app. Idk how to feel about this shitshow that I just witnessed. I just remembered there were more reasons as to why that person was banned. That person initially harassed a member of 5up’s community in which the mod defended. So the group disliked the mod too and continued to shit on them privately and publicly.

Next, thirst tweets can be funny to some. But others find it really uncomfortable which is understandable. They have made suggestive remarks about the pink man and even steve before (that peeps overlooked) but it’s not like the cc themselves are bothered (?). So idk even anymore.

I’m don’t know if I’m making any sense. I’m sorry for the spam ;( This is just the first time I just felt genuinely anxious seeing all the things said about 5up so I word vomited here.

oh my god. i had an entire response done and tumblr just GLITCHED in my face WHY

hey anon, don’t worry about it!!! tbf, i feel pretty much the same. i think the situation as a whole is pretty frustrating to see, especially with how it blew out of proportion in every way possible. honestly, feel free to vent in my inbox whenever you want!

with that said, though,

(because this will be kinda long, i guess)

overnight, it became clear that the nsfw part of the issue is not really an issue, besides being the recurrent meme for this situation. i read from various people that 5up explicitly said that he didn’t have a problem with the nsfw tweets when discussing this with the mods, but that he took that decision based on the harassment, which. ok another can of worms. to me, the thing is... smart fandom behavior is to always push away the things that you don’t wanna see. so nsfw jokes/tweets might be not of your liking. what should you do? the correct answer is, unfollow/mute/block the people that make them, and in general every person that you wouldn’t wanna share the fandom with. that’s to me the only way you can genuinely enjoy fandom as intended lol. but there are cases in which we do not take the smartest option. and we somehow make this our problem, which is the most typical case of twitter entitlement, that reads like “you’ve posted something i don’t like. Prepare To Die.”

when i saw the tweet pictured above in the thread, i was like ooooooooooh so this is just. typical twitter drama. which already highlights the entire issue with this... this is just twitter drama. why is twitch involved? how did the person get banned in both of 5up’s channels? if it were for twitter drama, or this person tweeted something i don’t like!, i’m sure hundreds of people would be arbitrarily banned. so that’s why it’s handled differently on twitch. now, i don’t know jasfer, like i’ve never talked to the guy, but i’m familiar with him. as someone who’s been a fan of 5up for like a year now, i know he’s been here from the start and he’s also a beloved chat member and person in the twitter portion of the fandom. it feels like insult to injury because it wasn’t that jasfer had a bad reputation in 5up’s chat or a bad relationship with most people in it. it’s just... such shitty luck on their part tbh lol

imagine if it were anybody else, like, two randoms on twitter. the best outcome to that would probably be an eventual block on both sides so they just stop talking about it all the time, right? except that this didn’t happen here because one of them happened to be a mod for a chat that the other person frequented. i think by now you know i don’t agree with the decision at all, then.

thing is, i can understand everyone’s sides and empathize with everyone. i understand why 5up stood up by his mods, i understand why the mod was anxious/felt targeted and resorted to this option, i understand jasfer’s anger/sadness from the outcome of the situation. but i’d still side with jasfer, nonetheless, because he’s the only one with no power here. the most that he can do is bring attention to what happened, but he can’t unban himself, or return in other account and expect everything to go well, etc. and it’s like, urgh. like if i was on their place i would be genuinely devastated lol.

now, i could be talking completely out of my ass, right? because i don’t know what really happened. maybe jasfer genuinely did incredibly shitty things and corralled the mod team and 5up into taking that drastic decision. but that’s just another part of the whole twitter drama of it all, isn’t it? see, when i was more active in twitter (in another fandom), if you didn’t like someone/something you’d talk shit about them in your rant. that’s how it went, and everybody did the same. in that part, i can understand how things grew out of proportion, but again, does anyone know what really happened besides the mods and jasfer? not really. and it’s hard to take a real stance because the whole thing happened on private twitter accounts. which yet again highlights how bad of a decision banning jasfer from both 5up twitch channels was, because, how are we ever gonna know if it was deserved? jasfer didn’t do anything wrong in chat, which is what should matter. and if the so called harassment (that we have to take 5up’s word for it!) happened in private rant accounts... is. is it really harassment? or like, was it just a case of people being (understandably) reactionary and doing what everyone else usually does in twitter dot com?

and the fact that the mod liked this tweet afterwards... isn’t that just incredibly petty? celebrating a personal victory after banning someone that has no say in the matter? jasfer said they tried contacting 5up through discord, and only made the thread days later because they never got a response. so it’s clear that 5up (understandably!) took their mods’ side and was loyal to them, but it came at the cost of what could’ve been a smarter, better decision for everyone involved. but now, because jasfer was left with no tools other than bring attention to his side of the story, twitter blew it out of proportion and everyone is very kindly sending dead threats to everybody involved.

sigh. it’s just... a big mix of terrible luck and bad choices. i usually agree with 5up when it comes to twitter stuff, but making it seem like he’s going against everyone is ignoring the fact that some twitter drama should’ve never made it to his twitch channel(s) anyways, and that a better decision should’ve been taken. now it’s just the worst of both worlds and no one got anything good out of it. like, arguably, the mod got what they wanted, but also got multiple death threats too. i doubt there’s any chance of jasfer ever coming back to 5up’s chat, at least not in the way it was before. because of the twitter thread including sapnap and this being a bad decision in general, a bigger audience now regards 5up badly and this will probably be a passing mention in the eventual cancelling 5up thread when twitter gets boring enough. like, meh. it’s just a mess to watch and it’s just depressing from every angle.

#answered #5up #getting banned from 5up's chat though... don't threaten me with a good time #(i keep dropping hints i hate 5up's chat)#don't show in the tag.... that's fine...... :(

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the-redeemed-anon · 3 years

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Villains vs Antagonists, what each word means because this fandom uses them as synonyms when they are not

Oh boi, who would’ve thought that this was my debut analysis post on Tumblr for this fandom? Hi, it is I, Redemption Anon from @kateis-cakeis’ blog. This isn’t the post I promised to post first, but this topic has bugged me, especially in the current events. It is time to talk about villains and antagonists, DSMPblr.

Disclaimer before I get into it: I am what would be considered an old dog in this fandom, I’ve watched in a weird way Season 1 while it was still going down, and I officially started lurking on Tumblr through anons on a couple of blogs right at the start of Season 2. It’s just that now I felt the need to make a blog where I analyse stuff. So, I feel like I have some knowledge, albeit imperfect, of characters and events, across the story. Also, I am talking about the characters here, not the CCs. If I mention a CC, their name will be labeled accordingly.

With that out of the way, let’s jump into it.

Now, you may see the words “villain” and “antagonist” being used a lot when discussing the DSMP and other media in general, but the thing is, they are not synonyms, and I feel like a lot of people fail to grasp that, because oftentimes, we have characters that are both at the same time, making the line blurry. Well, let me try to explain my take on these terms.

An antagonist is a person who opposes the protagonist, it’s the rival of the main character, the anchor of the POV that is followed in the story. This usually means that an antagonist can be paired up with the villain role, and the protagonist with the hero role, but it’s not always the case. There are stories where the protagonist is the villain, and the antagonist is the hero (for example, the Genocide Run of Undertale). And even then, there are antagonists that aren’t the villain in the grand scheme of things (for example, you wouldn’t call Gary from Pokemon a villain, would you?) Basically, antagonists are very much POV-centric. In the DSMP, the best example I can give is the BA versus Techno. From Techno’s POV, the BA was his antagonists, while from the BA POV, Techno was the antagonist. Bear in mind, neither party was a villain, or a hero.

A villain is very much a person that serves an evil purpose, the opposing force to the hero of the story, whose actions point to a good purpose. While the hero is the person you are supposed to root for, the villain is the one who is supposed to lose, to not cause a bad ending to your story. The villain and the hero depend a lot on morality. Villains can have downright evil goals, like say, destroying the planet or something repulsive enough to make most people root against them, or morally-grey goals, where they intend to do evil for what they think is the greater good. The last one works well with sympathetic villains or protagonist villains, because you get to see them from another angle. In the DSMP I think it’s safe to say we have two true villains, that being Dream and the Egg, because almost everyone agrees that if these two got their way, it would be bad. I am going to talk just about one of them, however.

Okay, now that we made those two terms clear, let me repeat: antagonists depend on the POV that is observed, while villains depend on morality. On the DSMP these two factors make saying the categories characters belong to tricky, especially when some self-assign or are assigned by other characters or even the fandom into archetypes. In this analysis I want to analyse Wilbur, Puffy (the characters that self-assigned themselves as villains at one point in their arcs) Tommy (who I saw people assigning him as a villain recently) and Dream (one of the true villains of this story, and not only that, he fits the classic combo of antagonist and villain).

The Self-Appointed

Welp, time to talk about my favorite character, Wilbur, and sympathise with Puffy fans, because they’re going right through what we, Wilbur fans, went through since “Then let’s be the bad guys” was uttered.

So, Wilbur and Puffy self-appointed themselves as villains. That makes them villains, right? Not quite. See, the thing with villains is that they are dependant on morals. The audience isn’t the only one that has a moral code, characters have one too. And, in my opinion, in this case we have to talk about the moral codes of these two.

Both Wilbur and Puffy have, or, had, moral codes that revolved around peace, not killing, and the like. Moral codes that you would generally label under “morally good”. What happened to these two, then, for them to go and call themselves villains? Well, it’s quite simple actually.

They broke their own moral codes. I’ll start with Wilbur because I am more familiar with him, and I can use the quotes provided by kateis-cakeis here (thank you my dude for your hard work collecting these!).

So, we all know that at the beginning, Wilbur had a very peace-oriented mindset, wanting to use words over weapons in conflict [“We don’t win wars with battles and with armour. We win wars with our words, Tommy. We’re starting a revolution, not a war.” - (Wilbur’s The Wall: 4:54, 29th July)], and, as such, he saw himself as a good guy [“It was Dream, he’s kinda the bad guy. Yeah, we’re the good guys, we’re the good guys here.” - (Wilbur’s Niki joins L'Manberg: 22:28, 6th Aug)]. What changed? Well, for starters, Wilbur underwent a spiral from paranoia that started from the Independence war. We can see his opinions change thanks to the flashback to the Election era [“And power isn’t gaining from diplomacy, and bureaucracy, and giant courthouses suspended in the sky, blah blah blah. It’s gained from swords, Quackity. It’s gained from blades, it’s gained from steel, iron.” - (Quackity’s Killing My Enemies: 1:06:19, 12th Apr)]. Of course, his spiral worsened after the Election, but we can assume he still thought of himself as a good guy.

That is, until the infamous scene. You know the one: [“Tommy, I’ve got a question for you, right. Because this festival, this is a good idea, this doesn’t seem like a bad like, this doesn’t seem evil. You know? This seems like a nice friendly thing Schlatt’s doing. Tommy, are we the bad guys?” - (Wilbur’s who are you go away: 1:08:14, 8th Oct)]. Oh yes, here, after about two weeks of being in a high stress situation, high paranoia and Schlatt seemingly doing a good thing for his nation, Wilbur starts to question himself. He starts to question if this is the moral thing to do, the right thing to do. And, logically, if you’re not in the right, you’re in the wrong, so the conclusion he reaches, is this: [“Tommy, am I, am I a bad, am I a villain of this story. Am I the villain in your history?” - (Wilbur’s who are you go away: 1:08:59, 8th Oct)]. He self-appoints himself as a villain, and then embraces the role, as well know. As Season 1 progresses, Wilbur doubles down more and more on this idea that he is the villain, and his story ends tragically. Even his ghost thinks of him as a villain, and compares Phil to Saint George, a hero, for killing him (I will get back to this).

So, was Wilbur an antagonist? Yes, definitely, especially from his POV, I would argue, because if he thought he was in the right, he would have never uttered the infamous “Then let’s be the bad guys.” Hell, other Wilbur analysts have pointed out that Wilbur may have wanted to be stopped from pressing the button. Even from his POV, you could argue he’s against the protagonists of the arc. The fact he had some potent self-hatred just helps cement that he was an antagonist, someone who must be stopped.

Was he a villain? I would say no. Look, I don’t see Wilbur as a villain, even if he tried to place himself into this archetype. In Season 1, I think the villain was Schlatt, followed by Dream, starting at the end of the Season. Wilbur strikes me more as a fallen hero, as a man who was okay, who would be cherished and loved and looked up to by others, but at one point took a wrong turn, didn’t find his way back, and continued down the path that doomed him, while his loved ones turned away from him, because they didn’t know how to help and he distanced himself from them by lashing out. It’s a tragic story arc.

“But Redemption Anon!” I hear you say, “CC!Wilbur’s DnD Alignment Chart classifies him as Neutral Evil, bordering on Chaotic Evil!” The DnD Alignment Chart is a chart that while it helps to get the vibe of a character, it can be often arbitrary or can be blurred because characters fit in with characteristics of more than one alignment (see the debate from around that time surrounding Techno’s assigned alignment). Plus, if we look at Wilbur from the POV of most, if not all, characters, without reading into his reasonings, yeah, he looked evil. Even to himself, we see it from quotes like these: [“Here’s the thing, I genuinely think, if it weren’t for me and you dying right, the server would be in shambles. I know for a fact that if I come back, or if I’m brought back to life in some way it’s definitely gonna just go [shit again]” - (Tommy’s am i dead?: 10:10, 4th March)], [“I know what I’m like, that’s the issue.” - (Tommy’s am i dead?: 10:29, 4th March)]. Was he evil, though? I would say not, more misguided than anything. That doesn’t mean he was a saint, nor was he the devil. Of course, he did some wrongs, and me denying that would be weird, because that’s why I say he should get a redemption arc, if he had a clean record, he wouldn’t be in need of one. He’s hurt people, intentionally or not, and he has to make up for those actions, if he is to be redeemed, but that doesn’t make him evil or a villain.

“But Redemption Anon!” I hear you say again, “Ghostbur considers him a villain and the quote from Ghostbur says he was a villain that wasn’t convinced to be a hero!” Yes, true, but we’re forgetting here two things:

1. Ghostbur is biased against Alivebur because he remembers his death as a good thing, and people don’t like him, therefore he rationalises it as Alivebur being the villain of the story and Phil being the hero, pulling out a Christian story that blatantly, hard-line shows us who is the villain and who is the hero: [“I- I- I’ve read the history books, Phil. I’ve read the history books. You- You- You slayed the dragon, you slayed Alivebur. You were the- You- You are the St George of the Dream SMP. We understand, everyone understands that, Phil.” - Wilbur’s First Time Ghostbur Live: 17:58, 6th Jan)]. Honestly, if I was in his shoes and I was everyone hating my past self and I didn’t remember my actions, I would assume I was evil too, because that is easier to comprehend than the fact that they are hating a mentally ill person that didn’t get the help, support and guidance they needed while they had a paranoia-fueled spiral.

2. Ghostbur, when he said: [“But a villain is just a- Sometimes the line’s a little blurry, you could say, a little blurry. It’s a tiny bit. It’s like, a villain, a villain is just a hero you haven’t convinced yet.” - (Tommy’s The Plan To Kill Dream: 1:01:31, 14th Mar)] he was talking to people who considered Wilbur a villain, and he tried to make them consider another side. This context matters, if he dismissed that Wilbur was a villain, there was a risk of his point being dismissed completely. Tommy and Tubbo, while they knew Alivebur from the beginning, his later actions tainted their view of him, and he has caused them hurt, and Ranboo has never met him, only knows of him from word of mouth. It’s hard to make these three consider him from the angle that he was not a villain. The line is still very good, but, again, context matters.

“But Redemption Anon!” I hear you yet again, “Wilbur is even worse in the Void and Dream will be killed to prevent him from being ressurected!” Okay so I don’t think we can speak about the Void here, in this context. You see, all we got out of the Void was a 5 minute conversation that sounded more like snippets out of a longer conversation, or even multiple conversations, that took place over what Tommy perceived as 2 months. From that conversation, all we got is that Wilbur’s self-loathing worsened, he thinks he, and by projection, Tommy, are better off dead for the good of the server, he knows when the Universe will end and he plays solitaire. The rest of the information we got about him was from Tommy, who is, sadly, an unreliable source, because he is not disclosing what Wilbur told him he’d do, beside a general “it will be bad and we have to stop it”. Tommy was also dealing with the trauma of being brought back, and let’s not forget that the Void didn’t give him peace, he was essentially tortured constantly for what he felt were 2 months. To me, it feels like it’s an intentional lack of detail and information, with a lot of discrepancies (like, if Wilbur scared Tommy so much, it’s interesting he refused to talk to MD when offered the chance, and Schlatt mentioned both Wilbur and Tommy being together at the gym) to throw us off. For all we know, Wilbur could be planning the end of the world if he is resurrected, or, he could’ve been making empty threats, or, he was rambling with no thought of it being taken seriously, or, he intentionally scared Tommy into not bringing him back, because he wants to stay dead. All of those could be what happened, and we may not know until he gets resurrected. Until then, I can’t call him a villain, or evil, even if he thinks of himself as a hazard to others, or Tommy’s motive to kill Dream.

Also, don’t be surprised Wilbur’s mental health seemingly went downhill ever since he’s been there. It’s possible the feeling of being constantly pulled apart isn’t just a Tommy thing, Wilbur may feel it too, and he’s been in there for what he may feel as being 10 to 15 years. Add the fact he’s been in Schlatt’s presence for that time, don’t act surprised he’s gotten worse. He didn’t have the conditions to plateau, let’s not even talk about getting better.

I think I defended Wilbur’s honor long enough lol, now onto Puffy.

I am not as familiar with Puffy as I am with Wilbur, but I will try to present her side as best as I can. We all know that post-Doomsday, Puffy took on the knightly goal of protecting people, especially the minors of the server. Puffy had the misfortune, however, that her closest friends and allies turned to be at least antagonists and at most villains, their actions leaving her feeling hurt and betrayed.

If she tried her best to try to help Bad and Ant, her friends, with the Egg problem, the Banquet shattered the remaining trust she had in them because they killed Foolish, and whether her belief that they killed him first to hurt her is true or not, they did hurt her. She felt betrayed, and accusing her of being the reason her son was dead didn’t help.

The moment she got the axe from Quackity Ant’s fate was sealed, because in that moment of grief and anger, Puffy sought out a retribution, a revenge that went against her moral code. We can see this clearly affect her, because once she leaves the Banquet’s hall, she mourns the death of Foolish and the fact that she killed her best friend, when she swore to protect lives. The Banquet, overall, is a highly traumatic event for her.

No wonder that the next day, her outlook on things changed. She branded herself a villain. She started making vague references to what she can do as a villain, because no one would expect it from her, even name-dropping Doomsday, one of the worst events she witnessed, and the one that turned her to her knightly arc. For me it’s clear that what she said was out of trauma, out of shock and out of desperation.

If you think about it, the world of the DSMP is very bleak, canonical minors have heavy trauma and continue to pay for wrongs they did long ago or suffer because people think they need to learn something or because they are used by others. Puffy noted it herself, Doomsday came and went and the perpetrators were never punished for it. While Techno and Phil aren’t villains per se, they are antagonists in this situation, aiding the villain, Dream, neither of them has suffered any consequence for destroying L’Manberg. No, getting locked into Pandora does not count, because Dream was imprisoned just because he had the Revive Book and he was too dangerous to let loose. It would seem that you can perform evil acts without care or consequence half the time, so why not turn to what you perceive as villainy to exact your justice on those who wronged you?

As of me writing this, all Puffy has done so far is say that she will be a villain, yet I have seen some takes that treat her as if she has been pulling the strings all along. I have seen people claim she has the Nuke, that she, for some reason, controls Ranboo’s enderwalk and even that she will break out Dream. I think this is ridiculous, not only because some of those things happened before she even considered calling herself a villain, but also because she has yet to take action. This is another “Then let’s be the bad guys” situation, because we have a character, that, after getting their moral code flipped on them, in a moment of vulnerability, they see themselves as a villain, and being the villain is the way to resolve their problems.

With that said, is Puffy an antagonist? Surprisingly, I say she was one already. If you look at the story from the Eggpire’s perspective, she is an antagonist, because she wants to stop the Egg. From other POVs, she’s not, and she hasn’t done anything to cement her as an antagonist with bad intentions so far.

Is she a villain? No, and I think that call is too soon to make, regardless of what she says. Remember, she feels herself as a villain, she is an unreliable narrator for herself in this situation. All she did was make a promise, with no action or plan. She also doesn’t seem to want to cause mass harm on the server, rather concentrating on the Eggpire. Another thing to note, she sees her killing Ant still something bad she did, even if she doesn’t regret it, because she is open to receiving consequences for the kill.

Truly it’s a matter of time to see where Puffy will go with this promise, and I hope she doesn’t go down the same path Wilbur went, not only because of story purposes, but also meta purposes.

The Fandom-Appointed

Ah, Tommy, one of the most misunderstood characters on the DSMP. So, why am I discussing Tommy here? Because I saw an influx of people calling him a villain after the last lore stream, and I want to set the record straight, because, just like how the reaction to Puffy’s “I’m a villain now” moment are ridiculous, so are the reaction to Tommy’s… especially because Tommy didn’t have an “I’m a villain now” moment.

I have to say, since Season 2 started the parallels between Tommy and Wilbur and Tubbo and Schlatt, people, at the beginning of Exile, were rooting for “VillainInnit”. People seemingly wanted him to follow Wilbur’s path, but he didn’t. He saved himself and went to Techno’s. While at Techno’s, while he was attempting to heal from Exile, due to wanting to feel accepted and gain Techno’s friendship, he started making actions of violence, that painted him in an antagonistic light. He even quoted Wilbur, which, as I remember, sent the fandom in a panic, because people found this as confirmation for Tommy turning to villainy, history repeating itself.

… But it never happened, because Tommy realised at the Green Festival that what he’s doing is wrong, and set off to make up for his actions. Yet since then people have been dogpilling him and calling him a villain, for following his moral compass, finding his way back and trying to make things better. Every mistake he makes or flaw he has is highly scrutinized to a ridiculous level. At this point blaming Tommy for all the wars is a meme.

It’s funny, actually, that Tommy gets pushed into the hero archetype by the people on the server, and the moment he makes a wrong step, by accident or because he was messing around, he’s at best an antagonist and at worse a villain, proving a point I always make when talking about the archetype of the hero, in any media: the title of hero puts the character on a tiny pedestal, and if they make the smallest misstep, they will fall into the pit of being branded evil and a villain. And that pit, story-wise, is hard to climb, because characters forget easy the good someone does, and often remember the bad they did, because it’s easier to see someone in a black-and-white perspective. They did bad? Then, they must have always been bad. Tommy doesn’t even want to be a hero or a villain, he just wants to vibe, but external forces do not let him have peace, forcing him to act, for his and the server’s sake.

Now, I have seen people condemn Tommy and already trying to push the narrative that he’s bad for wanting to kill Dream. Let’s look at Tommy’s morals: he, before he visited Dream for a second time, told Sam that he believes no one deserves to die, not even Dream. We can say that this is a core part of his moral code, not killing people.

This belief, as far as I remember, has been contradicted twice, once when he was killing Dream in the Season 2 Finale, and now, as he plans to kill Dream. Tommy himself recognises that this isn’t the right thing to do, but it’s the only thing to do. Why isn’t he a villain or an antagonist then? Because the context of why he did and does this is important.

Dream was planning to kill his best friend right in front of him, lock him up in Pandora and use the attachments of everyone on the server to control them. Tommy, and everyone on the server, realised Dream was a serious threat then, someone too dangerous to wonder around. Tommy took to killing Dream as a necessity to protect himself and everyone else. The only reason Dream was put in Pandora is because he revealed he knows how to revive the dead, thus they can’t kill him without dooming everyone to being dead, forever. Pandora was the only solution they found to keep Dream alive while keeping him powerless.

Second, Dream killed him, and brought him back, telling him he can send him back and declaring himself a God. Whatever Tommy and Wilbur spoke about in the Void clearly marked him, because he was willing to forgive Dream, if he is to not bring Wilbur back. Dream refused, and Tommy realised Dream is too dangerous for everyone on the server to be kept alive, especially to the people that came to the Vault, thus, for everyone’s safety, he must kill him.

This is not an evil, villainous or antagonistic goal, it is quite stereotypically good, protagonistic and heroic (ironically it’s what Aang was advised to do in ATLA, kill Ozai for the good of the world, even if he betrays his pacifist beliefs). Tommy has been pushed in the role of a reluctant hero, and even if he fails his goal and Dream escapes, that will not make him a villain or evil.

At the same time, as I said, antagonists are POV-centric, so, of course, Tommy is an antagonist in certain POVs. The Egg dislikes him, Jack wants him dead, Dream and Tommy at the point are sworn enemies and Techno doesn’t like him. He is an antagonist with good intentions, and that is the final nail in the coffin that I do not see him as a villain. He never saw himself as in the right doing bad things, never tried to justify them as being the right thing, and has apologised for his actions. He’s not a saint, but he’s not the devil either, and neither is he evil or a villain.

The True One (Story-Appointed)

Okay, now we are talking business. Dream, flat out, is a both an antagonist and a villain. The classic combo people think of when they think of a bad guy in a story. I’ll be honest I like him as a villain. You know you wrote and acted a good villain when you cheer as they hit rock bottom, and you love to hate them. That’s exactly what Dream is.

What in my mind separates Dream from the rest of the characters I have discussed in this analysis so far is intent and moral code. Make no mistake, all the characters I mentioned up until now know they’ve done something bad, whether they doubled down, plan to, or made up for their actions. And all of them, Dream included, started out from the same slate: characters with intentions and goals that are neutral to good on the general morality scale. Yeah, that’s right, I don’t consider Dream to have been evil from the start. At the beginning and middle of Season 1, I would have put him in the trickster category because he seemed to vibe with whoever he wanted, as long as he came on top, but without too much malice. He fanned the flames (like lavacasting Sapnap’s Eiffel Tower and giving Tommy Mars) but nothing big enough to make him a definite villain.

It was at the end of Season 1 that I could see him slowly shaping up as the definite villain we will witness from Season 2 to possibly the end of the DSMP. Allying with Schlatt over the Revive Book, telling Eret he plans to bring every faction under him, the traitor deal and him cheering for L’Manberg’s death all pointed to him becoming the next big threat. Then Season 2 happened, Exile happened, and this cemented him as the villain of the DSMP.

Doomsday came and we finally got a window to see why Dream did what he did: “You’re too fun”. People may wonder why I don’t consider Techno and Phil as villains for participating in Doomsday. This is why. While Techno and Phil had reasons that, while controversial, could be understood as valid motives to do what they did, Phil saying they were sending a message when talking to Ghostbur, Dream did all of that, all of that destruction, because he found it fun. He found it fun to torment and tear down a nation, because it was standing in his way, and it was something Tommy cared about.

The Vault scene also shows that Dream was planning to backstab everyone, by stealing their pets or their valuable items, or, in Bad’s case, cage an entire sentient being, Skeppy, in a cell smaller than an animal’s pen. Not even Techno, a guy that owes him a favor, was going to be spared. Let’s not even talk about him wanting to kill Tubbo just so he can make Tommy a hero by giving him a tragic backstory. All of these, plus killing Tommy and threatening to send him back to the Void for more info and declaring himself a God, point to Dream being a villain.

And then we have the morality side. In the last visit, Dream told Tommy that everyone thinks they are in the right from their perspective, which Tommy immediately denied. Both Dream’s line and the reply he got are very important. Dream’s line establishes that, as far as we know, Dream sees himself as in the right. Everything he did, Exile, abusing Tommy to the point of the latter considering ending his life, Doomsday, the Vault, almost killing Tubbo? All of that seems to have been not bad or evil actions in his mind. He sees himself as in the right, and that makes him a great villain. Tommy’s reply, well, him denying it, I always saw it with double meaning. On a surface level, Tommy’s obviously talking about himself, he has said time and time again that he’s done wrong and he needs to right it. On a deeper level, however, I saw him referring to Wilbur with this line, too. Because, as established before, Wilbur chose to do bad, even if he knew it was bad. He wouldn’t have said “Then let’s be the bad guys” if he thought they were in the right, and that is the fundamental difference between Wilbur, Puffy, Tommy and Dream. The former three, as shown in the previous sections, know that they did bad things, even from their moral perspectives, while Dream thinks he is in the right.

This is why Dream is the villain, while the others are antagonists at best and conflicted, broken and forced to walk a certain path, at worst.

#dream smp #dsmp #wilbur soot #dsmp wilbur #captain puffy #dsmp puffy #tommyinnit #dsmp tommy #dreamwastaken #dsmp dream #dream smp analysis #dsmp analysis

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moved-attre · 4 years

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Here is my review of Cyberpunk 2077! It is a bullet point list of what I liked, and did not like about the game. I mean no offense in my writing, and am, of course, willing to be educated if I am wrong about anything! But please do not send me anonymous hate. I know many fans and haters of this game can be very, uh... So take it all with a grain of salt, and form your own opinions.

This is very long and likely boring so if you manage to make it to the end, I will be very impressed! Also, I may ramble or repeat myself, sorry. There’s more bad points than good, since the game is very glitchy and I couldn’t not mention the glitches I have experienced.

Obviously, this contains major spoilers! 👁👄👁

I’ll start off by saying, this is a game where you will likely not get what you expected. If you expected Cyberpunk 2077 to be a game filled with features that were never before seen, to revolutionise the gaming industry as we know it and become the most iconic video game ever made... You will not get that. If you expected it to be the worst, most irredeemable video game ever created that you’ll hate... You will not get that, either. If you expected a game that is a fairly standard RPG with some impressive graphics when played on a high spec PC, albeit with some bad glitches and a wonky story with lots of potential, then you’ve got it!

Pros:

The majority of the voice acting, such as in V, Johnny and Viktor, was very good and emotional. Viktor in particular made me tear up! And the way V manages to sound almost like Johnny with the subtle accent change was amazing!

The character’s such as Takemura, Jackie, the LIs, Johnny, Viktor, Misty (I could go on) and even many random NPCs were interesting! I wanted to know them and loved their relevant missions. The best ones were unromanceable, of course, but that’s what imagination is for.

THE ALDECALDOS! I love them! A found family, and I wish there was more to do with them other than Panam’s missions and a few side missions. I love found family, and I’m disappointed V couldn’t form their own, so I’ll take what I can get and love the Aldecaldos, even if V can’t join them until the very end. Panam had the best missions of all the LI’s, even if the last one felt very abrupt. (At least, on her friendship route.)

Night City felt alive. There was always plenty going on, it felt like a real city, and it could be beautiful.

Jackie and Corpo V’s friendship was lovely. I loved their “To this!” inside joke, and I loved how Jackie roasted V but would jump to their defence in a second. It didn’t feel forced at all.

There’s lots of environmental storytelling. The atmosphere of a city choking to death under it’s own pollution/corruption was very apparent in the areas not lived in by the rich. Lots of homeless characters, violence, drugs, absolute poverty, trash (The dump! I felt sick just looking at it, and I couldn’t even smell it! Poor V, though.) and general apathy from a lot of the residents really sold the concept.

Johnny and V’s dynamic was the best part of the story! I hated him at first, but slowly came to enjoy his commentary and advice. His interactions with V were very funny at times, and thoughtful at other times. He was an interesting perspective for the player to consider, while still being an asshole you could dislike for much of the story. He has some really emotional scenes and I played a V that viewed him as a friend, so it was really nice hearing him call V the closest person he’d ever had. They became so devoted to each other! CDPR did good with this element, but I can’t help wishing for more. The dynamic had so much more to give, and a romance/happy ending could have worked.

And to add on, the mission where Johnny takes over V’s body to go on a bender was great! I loved all the moments to play as Johnny in V’s body. All the symbolism between them was so good. Every mission matters, and you can replay to look closer at details! He also comments on other side missions with no personal relevance to him, which was neat.

All the enemies had unique names. A minor detail, but it made me feel some guilt over killing them. 🤣 I think all character’s had unique names, which is such a nice detail.

The soundtrack was incredible, I loved every original piece and radio song. I have several saved on Spotify, which is big praise coming from me! I very rarely listen to video game soundtracks.

V can adopt a cat! 🐈‍⬛ It was adorable, and Johnny’s interaction with it made me tear up!

The size of the map was good, not too big or too small. I got about 100 hours of play in by exploring, which is pretty good to me! I got lost a few times, but always found something interesting to do in the meanwhile. I loved the Badlands especially.

Some of the side missions, particularly the more mysterious ones involving investigating deaths and the cyberpsychos, were very enjoyable! I’m a big slut for mystery, and there were some interesting cases to figure out. I wish we could’ve done missions like that with River, though, especially once he becomes a PI.

I was complaining about the lack of aliens in CP2077, but I suppose we did get a couple space themed missions which was pretty fun. I still want to go experience going into orbit, though. 👽 Or the moon!

Separating voice and body in the CC was a good idea, even if it was handled a little strangely. I’ll talk about this more in the ‘Cons’ section below!

Act 2 was my favorite part of the game, but it blended weirdly with Act 3 and that put me off. I am nostalgic for Act 1, but not eager to replay it because it felt so slow... I’m not sure on this point! I liked Act 2 because the story picked up and I was excited for more, but the more I got wasn’t as I expected. So, yes, Act 2 was good.

The scenery is very beautiful, and sometimes the outside lighting is absolutely perfect. The Arasaka parade mission was lovely to look at. I always stop the car and watch the sunrise/sunset, and I like going out to the Badlands to look at the stars!

An addition to that, is the lighting in some main quest missions. Very noir! It made for some beautiful screenshots. (Of which I sadly can’t share because my game doesn’t record well on medium settings. 😳)

The motorcycles are fun to drive! Mainly because I can zoom in between cars and Jackie’s motorcycle has a lot of sentimental value, as well as other vehicles like Johnny’s Porsche and Jake’s car. You can open the trunk to dump bodies in, which was a cool detail., and each one drives differently!

There could be amazing attention to detail, such as making Jackie look like his mother. I expected his mother to be a randomly generated NPC, but she was completely unique. It’s the minor things like that which stood out to me the most.

The scanner was a fun tool and very useful! I liked being able to find alternative ways to do a mission, it felt more realistic than the standard “massacre everybody, pick up an item and get out” fetch quests normally seen in RPGs. I could sneak in a tunnel or a side door! Perhaps irritating and unnecessary to some, but I liked it. I love utilising every possible option.

The interface color changes if you have Johnny controlling V’s body. Another small but good detail! The game is good with the minor details.

The sex scenes were not... awful. I expected much, much worse! I expected fully animated first person porn. Instead, I thought they were fairly realistic and intended to be romantic. Still very awkward, though, and unnecessary.

When they didn’t glitch, the animations were very good. Not as impressive as I hoped, probably because of glitches, but in line with other AAA games like Horizon Zero Dawn, I suppose? I noticed Judy’s animations in particular as being good, and Johnny had lots of unique ones too!

The clothing options are very fun, I like the holographic items and “Bitch” clothes, hehe. Also including Hijabs! 🧕 Great idea, and more games should do that.

The diversity of the NPCs was welcome. I enjoyed seeing Native American, Asian, Black and Latinx NPCs who weren’t there just to suffer! They would occupy important roles in the story, such as Fixers or friends/romance options for V, so they were pretty much unavoidable! It felt very natural, and they helped Night City feel more realistic.

Adding to that, the different cultures included were interesting too! I liked the Haitian characters in Pacifica.

The photo mode is pretty good. Not as good as I expected, the camera angle presets were useful but the filters weren’t very good. I liked that the photo mode could be used in cutscenes, though! It was standard, and I hope more bits will be added in for it.

A lot of the glitches are hilarious, but I recognise not all will share that opinion so I’m just adding this down here. The T-Posing NPCs are a highlight for me. Call that the Skyrim effect.

Cons:

No NB gender options/No pronoun options. Would they/them have been so difficult to implement?

No body or height sliders. There’s so many fat character’s in the game! Why can I not make my V fat? Or muscular?

Gender restrictive hairstyles and clothes. Come on, guys, it’s 2020/2077! Aren’t we beyond gender restrictive appearance options?

No tattoo parlours, no plastic surgeons and no hairstylists for V to change their appearance. I don’t understand why a CC was included at all, since we spent the majority of the game in first person. It reminded me of Far Cry.

The main story started off strong, albeit slow, picked up in Act 2, then felt very rushed in Act 3. The point of no return was very abrupt!

The celebrity cameos felt very gimmicky. The one exception to this is Keanu Reeves, who did a very good job as Johnny. Genuinely brought tears to my eyes at times... but Grimes was just embarrassing! Why was she there! A talented VA could have done Lizzy Wizzy much better, giving her actual emotions instead of just monotone “boredom”.

I don’t know what the point of owning apartments is. You can only sleep in V’s bed, what is the point of looking in the mirror? V has no use for their terminal in their apartment, they never get any messages after the first time they meet Johnny. It was so unnecessary, especially when there’s several across the map. I can access the stash of weapons and clothes from my car! Why would I ever need to go home? Judy gives me her apartment and I’m like, girl, I’m never visiting unless you have a mission to give me.

Also, there are no penalties for not showering or sleeping. I wanted character’s to comment on that! Call me stinky or tell me I look exhausted!

V doing side missions makes no sense, and no explanation is given for why we can do them. Why would V, who is dying and has precious few days left to live, be driving for hours on end to deliver packages and shoot random criminals? When they could be figuring out how to survive the biochip! Who the hell would care about a some extra money or buying every available car for sale, when they’re dying of something that could be preventable?

Some side missions were either very poorly done or obviously majorly glitched, since it felt like they skipped important parts and I was often very confused at the end of them! For example, the Corpo V side mission was so short! I expected to be able to hunt down Abernathy and get revenge for V and Jenkins, but instead, I shoot some random assistant I don’t even remember? And that’s it? Done in 2 minutes! If that! What is the point of that? I didn’t even have fun! Also, what happened to Garry? I wanted to save him but V just never follows up on it.

And, I wish we got closure with T-Bug. The fact that V never bothers to find her body and give her a proper burial was just poor form.

The endings were not... good. There are technically 6 different endings, all wrapped up into 3 parts. In my opinion, the best ending is the one where V kills themselves and has a very “Arthur Morgan watching his last sunset” vibe. It made me cry. Another good ending is having Johnny take over V’s body forever, as you can really see how much Johnny has changed as a person thanks to V’s influence. But they still felt very... eh and the story just never got that boost it needed, ending before it could take off. In the “best” ending, the Nomand ending with Panam, V ”survives” but has only another few months to live. So they die off screen. Satisfying? Uh, no. Not at all. There’s no possible ending where V has any hope of survival, but I much preferred being there with V until the very end. I disagree with the people calling Johnny’s ending the “bad” ending, because it really isn’t! I ignore all of this of course, and my V is living happily ever after.

I kind of hate that CP2077 has this illusion of options when some are clearly intended to be chosen more than others. Judy and Panam have the best endings in term of romance. Why bother with River and Kerry? Kerry is more of a fling than an actual romance, and is met very late in the game at a point where you can ignore him completely and just end the game, and River’s romance is so glitched that many people can’t even do it fully, and in every ending he dumps you, so it feels like none of it mattered to him despite him being the most “domestic” of the possible LI’s...

Takemura’s ending! He died in my playthrough, because the game didn’t tell me I could save him. That really annoyed me. Also, I recognise that V is in no place to lecture him, and there is some wisdom to his quote: “You speak against corporations yet offer no valid alternative.” But, Goro, bro... anything is better than fascist mega corporations keeping most of the city in absolute poverty, while waging devastating wars against other mega corporations? I wish we could have opened his eyes a little. There’s a good, even ground between Takemura believing Corps to be doing the best for humanity and Johnny being willing to kill 12k people for a revolution. This game went a little “capitalism is bad, but the alternative is worse!” at times, in my opinion. I wish more could have been done against the corporations, instead they just kind of... exist... in the background. And I know, “Realism! “ because we live with massive corporations like Amazon in our lives and can do fuck all about them but we’re not V. V is an absolute unit who survives death multiple times... I wish there had been two paths, like do Johnny’s path and work against the system or do Takemura’s path and work with the system? Sort of like The Witcher 2?

You know how in Saints Row, The Boss has homies they can call on for help? I wanted V to have homies to help them out in fights. It felt pointless building trust with the Fixers only to not have them help out at all with fights against the NCPD/Militech/Arasaka in their territories.

The stealth mechanics are not good. They are funny! But not very good. Often, It’s better to just attack and save yourself the trouble of sneaking only to get caught by a guard who can see through the back of his head.

The fact that you cannot get arrested and have someone bust you out of jail. Maybe RDR2 set my expectations too high, but I thought this would have been included.

I’ve read about the cut content, and I’m really disappointed they weren’t included in the game. Wall running would have been amazing! And the police hiring mercs to hunt V down? I would have loved to see it! 😔

Driving cars is terrible. Just awful. Sometimes, you crash. Other times you’re flung up into the air and break through the sky into the void, spinning for all eternity.

River’s glitched romance deserves a special mention. The relationship just drops off suddenly and you cannot interact with him properly again. It does not affect the main story at all, so you wonder, what was the point? The text messages also glitch and V will sent messages that you can’t control, leading to disappointing dialogue, like with Joss.

The romances in general were just not all that impressive. I was expecting something great, considering there was only 4 and thought they’d really affect the main story, but I’d only recommend Panam and Judy. I would have played the game just as well without romances, and they felt very unnecessary but I wanted to do one to get the most possible story content. I think we should all leave romances in RPG’s as the exception, not the norm. Some studio’s can do them well, other’s cannot. CDPR cannot, in my opinion...

Obviously the many glitches and bugs, several of which are game breaking. I usually have to reload a save at least once an hour, because an NPC won’t talk to me or I can’t move the mouse to select different dialogue options! Or my gun won’t equip, so I die.

The AI in general is very bad. Sometimes cars will stop in the middle of junctions for no reason, causing you to crash or mount the sidewalk to get past, meaning you’ll likely run someone down and get a police warrant. NPCs just walk from one end of the road and back again, over and over on a loop. It’s very creepy!

The lighting, mostly inside buildings. Everything is pitch black! Why does V not own a flashlight? The amount of enemies I’ve barrelled into and alerted because I couldn’t see is too much.

The lack of dialogue choice, it was less interactive than what I’d been told to expect. There was only two or three options, with one only ever rarely being unique to one of V’s three possible background choices and most will yield the same results with a few exceptions, like avoiding combat.

V’s personality is already decided by the game, and is not really customisable. Do not expect full control over your V’s personality, as they are very much a canon character and exist outside of your (limited) choices. I didn’t expect Baldur's Gate 3 levels of customisation, but I did expect something more like Dragon Age 2’s dialogue wheel? Nice, Sarcasm and Angry? You know?

Obviously, the seizure inducing scenes were very dangerous. I get a headache whenever I have to do a braindance, and I wish it was skippable!

Accessibility as a whole is very much an afterthought in this game, I think. The subtitles are in “speaking English”, so instead of: Hey, how are you? It’s: Heyyy, how’re ya? It is often difficult to understand, and sometimes I just couldn’t work out what was being said.

It’s nitpicky but I wanted to do a pacifist route and I realised you can’t, you need to kill certain character’s...

The main “villains” such as Yorinobu and Adam Smasher were very forgettable, and V had no personal stake in taking them out. I honestly forgot all about them. Takemura was talking about revenge and I’m like, who? Who are you talking about? Why are we kidnapping Hanako Arasaka, again? Johnny, why would I bother killing Adam Smasher? If they’d personally murdered Jackie, then yeah, I’d understand! But all V needs is to remove the chip and I don’t know... I just didn’t feel anything.

So, to summarise: I think CDPR were out of their depth. The long, very long, troubled development process was an indication of this before the game was even released, and the story I’ve experienced in the game is proof enough. I don’t think they knew what they wanted from this game, and as a result, we have a game that is honestly very confusing and frustrating with a story that always got close to gripping, but never quite makes it. All in all, I found this game to be pretty average. When the bugs are ironed out, I will think better of it. But as it stands, if I had to score it, I would give it a 6.5/10 or maybe 7/10. Good concept, somewhat misguided execution. The best part of the game was the Johnny/V dynamic, but I wasn’t satisfied with how it ended. They needed more time together! Anyway, it will be interesting to see what happens next.

#cp77 spoilers #cp77 critical #cyberpunk 2077 #I’ve already been vagued about a few times for my CP2077 opinions so I expect more to happen now I’m posting this hehe

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