#he is from roleplay . he is from minecraft roleplay

[myrmica]

some loose thoughts on The Full Story of WORMHOLE: Minecraft’s Deadliest Exploit...

largely building on thoughts i had while watching it with my partner, and conversations i had on discord (shoutout will 75hearts irrealisms). i started writing notes in the s4 directory and it got away from me so it's a post now. disclaimer also that while i am very critical here, i still found the video interesting. the problems with it are interesting problems. second disclaimer that everything is about vitalasy (and princezam) forever.

the video is presented as The Full Story, the Truth, things spoke didn’t want to show during season 4 or in the videos he released about it then, because it would make him look too bad. he says this about it in a youtube comment, before it's released:

the first hour or so of this video succeeds incredibly in being what he says it’s going to be; you get information we’ve never heard before about the dupe war and spoke’s thought processes therein. you get this, the best moment of the entire video:

[51:00 - 54:40] Spoke: I'm not kidding when I say this, but this was probably the angriest I've ever been while playing minecraft. Not only was I so dumbfounded that I really just sat there popping totems, but after I died I was dead silent for 15 minutes. Except for the few times I practiced the lies I would have to tell Mapicc and Zam, to somehow save this plan. [Video cuts to that recording of Spoke talking to himself after he respawns. He wanders around the post-dupe-war wasteland, no items in his inventory.] Spoke: What was the thought process? [cut] I just wanna ask, what—[cut] I'm really curious… about the thought process of this one. [cut] Come here for a second—[cut] So here's the first issue. [cut] Here's the problem I see with this thinking. [cut] I thought you were very well aware of the intentions. [cut] there's a difference between... and prolonging—[cut]—I need to keep going with the plan. I want to get back to the vault. [cut back to voiceover] Spoke: I needed a way to somehow gain their trust back and keep the vault safe, so I wouldn't be banned. At first I thought about telling them my plan to trick Parrot into doing the exploit, but I already had too much on the line to risk something like that. The second idea was telling them the lie I told Parrot, about doing this for the NPPP, but that would just confirm their beliefs and they would for sure pocket the duped items. The only idea I had left was to tell them... I scripted this. A couple months before these events, I ran a staged roleplay server called Unstable, and I would invite these guys on for the scripted recordings. So I already had that stigma with me, and I assumed if I just told them I was helping the enemy find the vault for content, that I learned my lesson or something, they would forgive me and let me back. I knew from there I just had to go on with the plan in a different way, so I joined a call with them. But I didn't realize how bad I truly messed up. [cut to that call] Spoke: So what's the plan? Mapicc: Spoke, you—[exhales]—you've given us so many reasons not to trust you. Spoke: Which is? Mapicc: You speak ominously, you have a bad record, you're—you were in contact with Parrot the entire time. Vortex called me and said there are at least three or four double agents that are on Team Awesome right now, that are actually on Parrot's side. Spoke: Christ. You guys—okay, okay, i'm just gonna be completely clean, bro. Parrot's a double agent on APO. Parrot is an obvious double agent on APO. But he's not a double agent in content, guys. He's a double agent to make the story better. I literally have not told them the base coords to make this more interesting. Mapicc: The base is gone, Spoke. Spoke: YOU BLEW IT UP? Mapicc: we took— Spoke: WHAT THE--WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? Mapicc: We took a ridiculous amount of money and we're hiding far away, Spoke. Spoke: WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? WHY. [cut to narration] Spoke: There was literally no point in me continuing this lie, since the vault was confirmed to be gone. But, what you're about to see is what no content creator should do on any SMP. And despite me using quote-unquote content and entertainment against them to get my way, all I really did was ruin their videos.

my whole point in the barrier blocks essay about season 4 was that lifesteal’s storytelling is competitive. and it is something weaponized on screen in season 4 plenty of times, but it’s never so blatant as this. It’s never admitted like this. Spoke outright saying, “i fucked everyone else over so i could get my video.” I never considered that the scripting thing might be a flat out lie like this. even though i knew spoke was ultimately doing all of that as part of the plan to get parrot in position for wormhole, and even though i came to the conclusion that dupe war couldn’t really have been “scripted” in a way that mattered even without knowing that spoke was lying about this, because WHY would you LIE ABOUT THIS?

It’s kind of beautiful. the perfect piece of information about season 4 to tie it all up in a bow.

and it’s incredible for being this albeit brief, raw glimpse into spoke’s mind. a completely off camera moment that nobody ever would have seen. something you never, ever get from spoke, who rarely streams, and refuses to let other players see inside of his head, or even have real conversations with him in season 4. whose power is predicated on maintaining that exact distance. because it all falls apart if you get to hear how he feels underneath it all, if you get to see the way everything he does in season 4 is nothing but madly improvising lie after lie, trying to keep the tower he’s built intact even as it is constantly at risk of falling out from under him. It’s spoke making himself for once truly vulnerable, truly seen.

but… AFTER this point, the video largely loses this undercurrent of emotional vulnerability that sells the whole thing’s premise. It doesn’t matter if spoke is lying about minutiae in that first part of the video, fudging dates and summarizing events, because the emotional honesty matters so much more. but a lot of the threads spoke presents to us in the beginning of the video never feel like they actually get delivered on, and this window into his mind is closed to us again. It feels like he falls back into the motions of just, making a lifesteal video, making a minecraft youtube video. this moment with the dupe war feels like something legitimately special and unique, precisely because of that element of vulnerability. It’s probably the closest a lifesteal video has ever come to capturing the parts of lifesteal that i love, the things you only really get on stream where it’s much harder to keep up the sort of powerplays spoke relies on.

unfortunately you are hardwired to make youtube videos and there is no saving you. I would wager there are two full hours of reused footage that adds basically nothing. and it’s the worst deflationary effect i’ve ever seen. the tension builds to this crazy height and then it’s just gone and you’re watching, dr. donut vip day. poopies the endermite nonsense. nothing against poopies the endermite nonsense, but you show me all of that and then you expect me to watch you fuck around with minecraft mobs for 40 minutes straight?

and just as a side note, it’s edited in the most confusing way possible. i think this was heightened for me because i watched it with my partner who isn’t quite as into lifesteal as i am, but this video is comprised of: 1) brand new footage and new voiceovers by spoke explaining his current feelings/reflections on what happened then, 2) old stream footage, and 3) footage from old videos that spoke previously uploaded, including the editing choices from those old videos. none of these things are ever flagged or indicated to the viewer, you have no real way of knowing which is which unless you’ve seen all of those old streams and videos. and this carries over into the way spoke presents information to you, because it’s still largely done in the rapid-fire information summary, telling instead of showing style that plagues these videos. i don’t know how you are expected to absorb any information from this narration style if you don’t already know the minute details of everything that happened in season 4. which i do, so it was fine, just stylistically puzzling on several levels.

which brings us to…. an elephant in the room. the thing left out of what is billed as the full truth. vitalasy is not part of this video. spoke’s relationship with the other exploiters at large is never really dwelled on or explored, even when ash does appear on screen relatively frequently, but there is not a single clip of vitalasy speaking in this video. we get a couple screenshots of his discord messages, only on screen for seconds, a few of which appear to be dated from a different day than spoke says they are. he’s mentioned about as infrequently as you could possibly manage to discuss season 4, let alone wormhole, without vitalasy. who we know spoke was working with in some capacity throughout the full duration of these events, who appears both in the beginning of this video as spoke establishes where the exploit came from, and in the end, when spoke jumps into the void and ops vitalasy in the same moment.

there are all of these scenes where the bedrock prison is there but never explained, or someone (parrot in one of the last pivotal conversations spoke has with him in the video) is holding an eclipse shield, and it all makes him so overwhelmingly present in his absence. spoke seems to realize how glaring it feels, because he addresses it:

[3:25:17 - 3:25:34] Spoke: I told Ash I would give him whatever item he wanted, except operator. Even though he was bummed out, he said it was fine. Vitalasy on the other hand wasn't too happy. There was some more stuff between us that I had to cut out since this video is already too long, but long story short Vitalasy felt entitled to it because he found the glitch, which does make sense. However, the risk of another player having admin was too much, and I declined.

every other time spoke mentions vitalasy, it’s with this same combination of avoidance and active dismissal. I keep coming back to that scene at the end; “i gave vitalasy op” and no further acknowledgement. what do you mean more happened between you but you’re not going to show us, and in everything we do get it feels like nothing at all has changed since season 4, you’re still portraying him in the exact same way he was portrayed then? framing it as the full truth, but there’s still this central point you’re taking great pains to talk around. the video is too long. the video is already four hours, how much worse could it get? what about all of that reused footage? that you could cut, and the pacing of the video would be better for it? am I really supposed to believe that’s why you made that decision?

and ultimately this plays into why the video doesn’t really work for me past that hour-or-so mark. because spoke isn’t actually being honest. past that point, things are glossed over or hidden the same way they would be in any lifesteal video.

maybe part of this is the fact that the dupe war stuff is new information to me where what was streamed at the end of season 4 isn't, even if it was cut out of the youtube videos, but i really don’t think it’s just that. It’s in the pacing of the video, what’s prioritized and what isn’t, the amount of time and dramatic attention given to these final moments.

In the scene towards the end where spoke monologues to parrot, after he tricks parrot into giving him admin, parrot doesn't say anything. It’s just spoke talking at him, and then the scene ends without parrot getting a word in edgewise. you get that little moment between them before spoke puts on pants and jumps into the void, but that's still parrot responding to spoke's lie, not to the truth. even if you don't get some sort of conclusion or elaboration on parrot's thoughts here, which is fair enough, you don't even get any real reflection on all of it from spoke in the end.

this is how the video ends:

[3:55:40 - 3:57:25] Spoke: After that I was left thinking, why in the world did I do this? I mean, I was so confused I ended up yelling "Ah, fuck this." then I put on some pants, gave Vitalasy op, and jumped in the void. No one understood why I did this, and I didn't either. Why did I let them win? Why did I follow the rules of the challenge in the first place? Why did it feel like I did all of this for nothing? I wouldn't find the answer until far later. For the next season Parrot didn't want to be the owner anymore, due to the stress and time it took, but he reached out to me and Ash to take his place. He did this, apparently, because we knew a lot about server stuff, but we were willing to give it a shot. I ended up hating that season. Since, no one trusted me, my only teammates on the server were Ash, and surprisingly Planetlord, who almost became the server villain himself, but the worst part was that there was no point in exploiting anymore. Why would I break the game to obtain something I could just get through console? Except, that's when it clicked. The following year, I brought back my Unstable series, this time with Parrot and Wemmbu. These videos would be scripted, but not scripted to save time or be efficient, but instead to push the boundaries of storytelling in minecraft. I've had so much fun this past year, creating things that have never been seen in the game, and that's when I realized it. My favorite moments from the wormhole were when I was making a plan destined to fail, or when I abused a new exploit, or literally any moment when i was doing something that had never been done before. I did the wormhole because it felt like I was doing the impossible. And that feeling was pretty cool.

the whole thing kind of defeats it’s own point doesn’t it? All of this weight on your self reflection, and the mistakes you made, and the way you prioritized your own Content/Story/Narrative/Career/Etc above the other people you were playing with, about chasing this feeling of power. and how, the power was only made real in the lie. you had to lie about how powerful the exploit was in order to trick someone into handing real power to you, and you had to keep that lie up so he wouldn’t stop you, because at every moment you worried that he could stop you. the wormhole is nothing, the exploit was nothing, in any of the ways that really mattered. at one point in this same video, spoke launches a hack client because he’s bored and it isn’t even remarked upon, because there’s no weight placed on launching a hack client. it’s not about what the wormhole can do, it’s about convincing everyone that what you’re doing is interesting enough, is powerful enough, that the power becomes real. it's a social game. If spoke is honest, spoke loses his power. If spoke is vulnerable, spoke loses his power. If spoke, at any moment, stops obfuscating and posturing and acting scary and obtuse and selling his power, spoke loses his power.

that’s what happens to vitalasy. vitalasy is vulnerable, and more importantly accessible, to both the audience and to the other players. because he will sit there and talk to you for hours, and argue with you, and consider your point. spoke makes himself unreachable, so vitalasy receives all of the social consequences that spoke is outrunning by keeping that careful distance. and you have to assume that vitalasy becoming the scapegoat was nothing but useful to him, even if it wasn’t something spoke did intentionally, or consciously.

at a certain point, the only explanation for why spoke won't just actually come clean to parrot instead of hanging onto all of these false pretenses, pivots everything he does on the nppp story in the end, instead of being honest about the conditions nppp was formed under in the first place, is because he doesn't want to deal with the consequences.

everything spoke does in s4 is both chasing that feeling of power in doing what should be impossible, and running away from the point where all of that crumbles and he has to face social repercussions for it. especially when it's obvious that in spite of the lie underpinning everything, and the fact that he was using parrot to achieve godhood, he still cares. it's not like there's this sense of glee in his villainy that will endure, it's just going to hurt if he stops digging himself into this pit, so he can't stop.

he still spent that time with parrot. it was still a real team, no matter why spoke did it in the first place. and the story spoke is telling about the nppp is so much more compelling, so much more meaningful, even when it can never add up right in the end. it's one thing to hurt someone by lying to them, and it's another thing to start wishing the story you were telling was the truth because you won yourself over. In the same way that vitalasy changes course during season 4 because of how much he cares about zam, only you never get to see it happen with spoke. If spoke does feel this, it doesn’t stop him. he doesn’t change his course.

what happens to vitalasy is maybe what spoke is afraid of. because vitalasy does receive those social consequences, on screen, and it’s worse by far than anything we ever see spoke receive. It all falls apart and vitalasy has to respond to it right then and there, taking center stage in a way that allows spoke to slip by under the radar.

despite this, it’s a strange kind of mutual parasitism that works out for both of them in the end: spoke remaining committed to his lie, keeping himself hidden and detached, is what allows vitalasy to avoid playing the villain role he realizes he hates, even when nobody but vitalasy seems to apprehend this as a victory for him. neither wants to be in the other’s shoes. it's easy to look at spoke doing all of this heavy lifting and think, vitalasy really didn't do anything, did he? he found the glitch and that was it, he got spoke involved. but in the end vitalasy says: this is exactly what i wanted.

and vitalasy is put in that position of social vulnerability largely through zam’s presence, acting on lifesteal as a force that (largely unconsciously, at this point) demands vulnerability on multiple levels; not only must you be visible to the audience, but you must be comfortable losing, you must open yourself to embarrassment and potential mockery. you must care. where spoke lets the audience in on nothing, zam lets us in on everything. If zam is going to portray vitalasy a certain way no matter what (and she is, because she refuses to do anything if the audience isn’t there with her), the only course of action is to attempt to control the narrative yourself. even though the more information the audience has, the more you're seen, the less control there is. (a second shoutout to will 75hearts irrealisms on this one)

i guess i don’t know what i want, really. you can’t expect more. It’s a youtube video. he’s not going to stop behaving like it’s a youtube video. but there’s something there, there’s really something there.

zam is my favorite lifesteal member for a reason, and part of it is in the pure lack of care for making videos. going back and watching a zam stream from season 3, the difference is immediately apparent; everything zam did then, she did for the sake of a video. and somewhere over the course of season 4 that changes. so much changes.

If we’re being honest, lifesteal isn’t what I want it to be a lot of the time. most of the players don’t approach it in the ways that interest me. but the thing I care about is real. it is there. and every once in a while, you get it from someone you aren’t expecting, at least for a moment. but whatever, that feeling was pretty cool, wasn’t it? the exploit was pretty cool.

[bigboobyhalo]

the anger inside of me

[wiggly-round-worm]

I’ll be honest i HATE the way the QSMP fanbase is treating Gegg and Tallulah. Like Gegg literally just appears, bro hasn’t done a single thing and people start talking about how they want him to die 😭 ?? And Tallulah starts feeling insecure trough no fault of Gegg and the Gegg tag just EXPLODES with hate. I’m a big petty baby and i don’t like seeing /neg in the tags bro. It just kinda feels like tallulahs the golden child who can do no wrong and Geggs the scapegoat who’s blamed for everything, and i feel like people are already taking it too far

[spookierz]

part of me never left that exile

[justaprototyp3]

had a grand ol' time (gave my oc a giant fucking hammer)

[mybrainsrottingwithmcd]

My friend: So if you’re rewriting MCD and hated that Aarmau was endgame, who is Aphmau’s love interest going to be?

Me:….Love interest?

[siren--squid]

Going Through It in a way that only danvis can fix I think

[stillbreathing-aer]

the end of ep 92 of s2 has me emotional, the boys are back together :'[

[roleplaysofhelios]

[ || 🧡 Part three from the roleplay with @sollyraptor! Continued from here!]

Even though Sol seemed hellbent on his seemingly great rage on Brine, the title, "Your Highness" seemed to strike a nerve in him, but not one of anger.

How long had it been since anyone had called the Demi-Deity that? Not since... not since his first days as ruler of the night's monsters, but that was over 80,000 years ago. That title once held a sense of pride for Brine, a sense of his once iron fist and the fear he instilled in the humans of the Overworld. But the being was no longer that ruler, that killer, that inhumane monster.

Now, that title held a sting of regret he felt deep in his heart, enough to the point to make his chest ache. He almost didn't snap back to reality and hear Sol's next shout as the younger herobrine took off in a quick gait towards him. Those were definitely fighting words, but Brine also felt... hurt, in a strange way?

There wasn't time for that, though. He had a brawl to keep working on! Brine shook his head to try to keep the sting away.

The next move Brine made was quick, and he was surprised he even made his move of running towards Sol with gritted teeth, before dropping to the grass and sliding on his side. The impact would have hit Sol with great force if he didn't react as quick as he did, and Brine found himself swiftly moving from his side and back onto his feet when he reached the other side.

Brine let a soft huff escape his lips before he spoke, his voice rising to a slightly higher cry than his usual tone. "So, that's how you're going to play this? Am I going too rough on you? Than show me how hard you can hit, Sol!"

His sharp canines were bared on that last word, and he clenched his fists again, readying his stance.

[fandomandangstlover]

POV — something that’s already happened, retold from another character’s perspective

POV — something that’s already happened, retold from another character’s perspective

(kinda continuing from the previous POV i did. since that's the current project am workin' on xP)

So.. Re & De left to deal with whatever that blue thing was.

Ocean wasn't really sure what to do with what he just saw. Someone has found their village, and that someone might have been a threat. Almost immediately after Balance just left to deal with.. whatever the Copper Steve's kingdom is dealing with.

Great. That's fun. So very Fun.

Best he could do now was wait for Re & De to come back, and possibly with whatever that thing was. Not like that thing would be a problem, they've beaten a God already. He's sure they can deal with whatever was just stalking them. Probably.

.. He doesn't like that the whole time, Bally is looking at the general area the blue thing was spotted in. He tried getting her attention but she doesn't respond. With all the time he's been with Bally, she's a very energetic wolf— so with her being quiet.. it's. It's really unsettling.

He was about to go back to his little cave when he was immediately startled by a very, very loud scream. And then yelling, that he immediately recognized them belonging to Re & De.

He nervously looked at the forest that the 2 are in, seeing out of the corner of his eyes that the other Balancers seemed to have heard the screaming too, unsurprisingly. He thinks he heard Spirit ask if they should go help them.

He's sure they'll fine. Hopefully.

more Balancer POV baby let's goooo

[crabbri]

my roommate (who doesn’t watch the qsmp) asked me to update them on what happened today but how the FUCK am I meant to explain what’s going on here // mi compañero de cuarto (que no ve el qsmp) me pidió que los actualizara sobre lo que pasó hoy, pero ¿cómo carajo le explico lo que está pasando aquí?

[catzgam3rz]

HOly shit Phil joking with Tallulah about Chayanne "definitely not" being Cucurucho (because actually he is, as the admin does puppet both egg and bear) Is making me lose my mind

[discoblocks]

Genuinely so excited for Tubbo on qsmp, literally so many reasons I can’t even begin to list them all, but number one being he is going to go absolutely off the wall doing crazy create mod shit with tazercraft

[fizhle]

little bit of oc shenaniganery

[smileymoth]

scu tommy is so special to me btw. I love my son who has rabies and can't be trusted. but who is also a poor boy with every sadness in the world. but that last ones just every tommy

[s00ths4yingz0di4c]

laurance ranting at 6 am bc im sleep deprived and i love him but he's so stupid and i could talk about him for hours

season 2 laurance is a character that i personally relate to, infinitely more than the orange haired green eyed idiot that was ripped from final fantasy to be part of a minecraft roleplay series in 2015, but i'm gonna try to be as unbiased about this rambling as i possibly can

the whole of laurance's existence is. tragedy. there's not a single good thing that this man can have without something happening and ruining that. already he shows off as a character who struggles to the extremes with his self image and his worth, and i feel like this is something that's already deeply rooted in characters that are put into a guard role, some moreso than others (especially for those that feel they were built to be a human weapon)

i mean. laurance lived a relatively normal life until he fell in love with aphmau, and following her as the series protagonist just. brings misery everywhere because it serves for a story yknow, even aphmau's not immune to the curse of having every bad thing that could happen happen to her

with laurance it's a bit of a unique case, and that's not just me being biased either. it feels like he is specifically singled out for quite a few tragic events. the worst part about it really is that he's never necessarily given the time to process things, which only further serves to bring his worst traits to light. his obsessive jealousy for aphmau begins to take presedence over his friendship with garroth and it strains his relationship with aphmau herself, his want to still be human overshadows the reality that he is a shadow knight and it only proves to drag him down even further, not only making his anger issues turn from mere outbursts to sudden violence but it begins to change some of his core values. yeah accepting that he's a monster wouldn't necessarily fix him, but it's easier to do that than to live in denial and try so hard to convince yourself you're still 'normal'

the fact it took until he committed mass slaughter to finally wake up a little was already bad enough, but by then it was too late for all that and he'd already suffered enough, and he'd began a spiral that it was difficult to recover from

when tragedy comes to the other characters they're given so much more room to process their feelings, to vent and to recover. laurance doesn't get that often, and even when he does it seems like he turns it away. he feels like the kind of character who heavily bottles his emotions, and to an extent he sort of does! holding back on his romantic advances, hiding his anger because of the fear of hurting and killing others that he cares about... you get the drill.

despite a lot of that his only good trait in these moments of vulnerability is how rarely he lies; he's very open about a lot of his thoughts even if they're bad. to an extent it's admirable, but yeah he goes too far. hence the argument with garroth...

his circumstances to an extent do at the very least give some insight as to why he acted the way he did. it's not like he was a popular guy; good looking, but, he didn't really have anything. couldn't even have a parent who could stick around because he'd always lose them to tragedy. couldn't have a sister to be around because he was always in another city, and she has her own life and responsibilities so she can't always be there at the drop of a hat anymore. when he went to the irene dimension, 15 years passed by and she changed; he didn't because he only had 15 minutes.

on top of all that he can't really have the same close friend group like he once had because one of them has a family and kids to focus on, and the other he's always starting arguments and fights with over a girl they both like. really, all of them were deeply changed by the realization of just how long the were in the irene dimension for, but seeing how laurance develops later on makes me wonder just how badly it did affect him, and how little about it we probably know.

and even admist all that he has character flaws that are rooted in him being misogynistic, primarily his rivalry with garroth. when he and cadenza had their talk, where cadenza even pushed the idea that laurance deserved aphmau for all he'd done for her with no reward, he pushed it down. he was just happy to be around her, and that was enough for him. he didn't care if his feelings weren't returned, he was just glad he got to be with her at all. but during the later half of season 2, it felt like that narrative began to shift. naturally it began with lilith's introduction, and aphmau's sudden and out of nowhere pregnancy, and we saw how all that went down.

i honestly don't know why i latched onto laurance specifically, but i feel like his tragedy is... exaggerated. at the same time, i feel like how he suffers through and deals with it is very realistic, and it does touch a personal part of me that i also try to repress. my portrayal of laurance might not be entirely accurate to the canon material, but i do feel like it's at least based on canon as close as i can make it without totally projecting. his emotional outbursts are nothing new, but some were way more uncalled for than others.

at the same time, these outbursts aren't out of character nor are they entirely unwanted. they were caused by something, and whether or not he's been open about the root cause (or we've seen the root cause for ourselves) is irrelevant. i feel like laurance is one of the better examples of how your environment fucks with you. his relationships with a lot of the main cast aren't healthy. at least, they aren't anymore. his relationship with aphmau is a prime example of one such relationship.

neither side of this dynamic is healthy! granted, laurance's side is infinitely worse (as much as i hate to admit it), but neither of them were in the right all the time. they've both had to knock some sense into eachother at one point or another, but they're always prone to relapsing because it's never a constant thing. aphmau's anger issues starting to crop up is just an example of how the stress of life has been getting to her during the season, and while it's something that laurance could relate to in a lot of aspects, he's no better at controlling his own anger and emotions than her.

and i feel like there's just a lot of resentment in the main 'friend' group anyways (that being aphmau, laurance, katelyn, garroth, dante, and travis)

honestly there are not many healthy friendships or relationships in mcd lmao, and i think that mainly comes down to their circumstances more than anything; mystreet characters don't really have an excuse for their actions they're just shit people a lot of the time because it's a funny gag. in mcd the stakes are way higher, and at least you can understand how somebody turned out to be so horrible in that world.

if i ever get back to working on my own mcd rewrite i know i would love to just give laurance a happy ending in my version of the story, but his tragedy is what makes him himself. i'm not excited to have to write his misery all over again (i know i could write it way worse than jess did, as in in a 'this thing is awful to write about but it's realistic and difficult to ignore' way not 'this is just bad writing and people can assume what they want' way)