#he's a newcomer and an outsider who doesn't have experience with that war so to him there's no reason to jump back to it

[thefirstknife]

I'm gonna say it: I think Bungie doesn't really have a character idea for Crow. They've taken his potential and just thrown it away in favor of 'uwu softboi crow'. It was understandable when it was the Cabal and Saladin was genocidal, but they've turned him into a caricature. This week just confirms that they want him to be hated by the fanbase and it's working. I don't know if his VA is too expensive or what, but it really feels like they're running his writing into the ground so they can kill him off without protest next expansion.

I don't really agree. Bungie has never made Crow into a "uwu softboi Crow." That's the fandom at work.

Crow is a deeply traumatised man who has been through more shit than someone should've been through in his short life. From incomprehensible violence at the hands of the Guardians that drove him to killing himself, to literal slavery with the Spider where he was demeaned, kept on a leash, starved and severely punished for making minor mistakes, to manipulation by Savathun who more or less forced him into coming to the Tower and accepting a Vanguard job before he was ready for it, to being manipulated yet again into getting Uldren's memories back, to being pushed into more work by the Vanguard...

He's a tough and hardened person. He has his convictions and deep empathy towards people who suffer like he did. He is not defenseless or clueless: he is misguided and confused. People either decide to turn him into a baby or to still hate him and that's been the case since he returned. Crow is a very capable and skilled Guardian. Very few Guardians get official jobs with the Vanguard within the first 2 years of their life and his jobs so far have been extremely important and taxing.

People who hate him after this week have always hated him. Nothing will ever change that. He made a mistake, he is going to suffer for it for years to come (someone as empathetic as Crow who wants to save innocent lives causing the death of an innocent...), but as I said in a previous post, he has been forgiven and all who were affected by his mistake have decided to move on, not hold a grudge. This is most evident with how patient and understanding Saladin is with him, but also with how Zavala decided to shut down the Psion stuff for good despite the disagreement with Caiatl, and with how Caiatl is not compromising on the alliance over this incident because, in her eyes, the debt is paid.

I think the "uwu softboi" interpretation mostly comes from how emotional Crow is and that comes from his trauma. Being emotional doesn't mean that someone is immediately a soft person. Saint is very emotional as well. I think this comes from being unaccustomed to seeing men openly emotional as they are. Despite being emotional, they're both uncompromising on their protective instincts and their morals and their care for innocent lives. Crow has argued plenty of times against the status quo and against his superiors. He's not always correct, a portion of his mistakes comes from inexperience. But I don't really view his narrative as him being shown as what the fandom tends to do with him and turning him into a baby.

Crow has been pretty consistent and has been advocating for peace, empathy and understanding with our enemies. He's done it with the Eliksni since he was rezed, even with Wrathborn Eliksni, he's done it with Cabal, the Eliksni again, and now the Hive. He sees himself in these outsiders who are viewed as monsters based on what they look like because HE was being judged based on what he looks like. His characterisation hasn't changed in that regard, imo.

I don't think they're planning to kill him off by making the players hate him. I certainly don't hate him: I think he is a valuable member of the team who should be given more help and understanding. As Saladin put it, the Vanguard "put a gun into his hands and told him what they wanted him to be." He needs time to find out who HE wants to be.

And also Bungie doesn't kill off character for VA reasons. If the VA is expensive, they will recast the VA.

[hamphobicbasil]

different anon, as someone who technically is still a dsmp fan (although at this point i consider myself more a fan of some specific streamers who happen to be on the smp, and haven't watched a dsmp storyline stream since january), everything you said makes complete and total sense. i don't fully agree with every point made, but i agree with most of them, and honestly that -- combined with. y'know. actual person dream being revealed to be... Like That -- are probably main reasons behind my growing disinterest in the server itself. i still really like some of the creators, but. the story's degradation combined with some of the creators i don't like getting steadily worse... i really don't care about the server anymore.

but as someone who has kept up with the more current stuff, i can just say that. basically everyone is cheating off of wilbur's storyline homework in some way or another. quackity's current thing with las nevadas is being regarded as him "drawing parallels" between him and wilbur's character arc, and with wilbur being revived it's being seen as him being a character foil -- i do not think these people know what a narrative foil is, because it's not just a carbon copy -- but in all honesty he's just doing pogtopia wilbur v2. the egg arc has been "resolved" technically, but it less got resolved and more just petered out and died pathetically after a genuinely really good stream (red banquet) where they set up interesting things. it's just. done now.

techno seems to be incapable of allowing his character to develop whatsoever. he never lets his character suffer, never lets him hurt, and even outside of the monotone acting his character never loses anything. he's invincible and that doesn't seem set to change. even now, when he got tricked into being trapped in the prison, he made it clear that his character isn't even remotely bothered by this. does he have a plan to escape? maybe, although if he does it's gonna read as a shoddy deus ex machina because he didn't set anything up aside from "press this button and i teleport out." did he know he was being trapped? it's not clear, he might've known or he might've been just incredibly stupid. it's boring. he's less a character and more a brick wall with a rocket launcher.

and i feel bad for tommy The Person, because he's clearly gotten stuck in a bit of a content mentality. he got a big reaction from his character suffering in pogtopia, so he did the exile arc. the exile arc got a big reaction, so he did more similar things. it feels like he's gotten stuck in the mindset of "the fans like angst, so i need to continue to just endlessly torment my character with no purpose or goal." his "death" had even LESS permanence than wilbur's, because he got full on revived two days later just so his character could be traumatized some more.

the server is somehow simultaneously too ironclad in its story (not leaving room for others to jump in with ideas like a rp should, such as eret wanting to return in the pogtopia arc, or the egg plot being just ignored) and way too open ended (no clear rules or laws, lack of communication between people -- the "villain" team on the january doomsday showed up a whole 30 minutes earlier than the scheduled time without telling anyone, seemingly because "war isn't fair." those streams are an absolute disaster.) it's a little disappointing because some of the people involved are clearly talented; wilbur is a decent writer, although clearly more suited to a dungeons and dragons DM type of medium, many of the streamers are pretty good actors and not horrible writers / could be better with practice, and some of the newcomers, like ranboo, clearly have experience with roleplay character-driven storytelling and are very good when they're actually given the chance to do things. the whole thing is really disappointing, all in all.

sorry for rambling so much. tl;dr, you're absolutely right, it's disappointing as hell.

sORRY for not replying to this sooner- i read it earlier and completely forgot to respond

added a read more just in case this was a bit too long!

BUT UR ABSOLUTELY RIGHT ON ALL OF THIS- and speaking of "drawing parallels" with characters, i feel like its become a MAJOR crutch for the writers lately. its not only in universe with c!tubbo being compared to c!schlatt or c!quackity being compared to c!wilbur, it extends to myths too. i find the whole c!tommy = Theseus thing and whenever techno starts writing to be sorta a "get out of jail free card" yknow? they don't actually have to write their own plots or characters, just mimic that from myths and legends and i dont think it gels well with wilbur's somewhat original plot [i understand it was just minecraft hamilton, but it had some charming stuff in there yknow?]

and god yes you put my problems with c!techno into words beyond his voice acting, i don't want to imply that he's written his character to be invincible [or the olden term, a "gary sue"] but god it certainly comes off that way. i get so confused when i see people say "oh c!techno has been hurt over and over again!! why are things so terrible for him?" when he got "betrayed" once and that's it, its just so stupid and i cant understand the love for his character

and speaking of tommy, i totally agree. i dont mean to speculate on the kid's mental health since that's mega weirdchamp but combined with the constant angst his character is in plus his recent bad run ins with twitter, i hope he's doing okay. and on a side note, i hope his character gets to have the happy ending he deserves because man. Man.

BUT I HAD NO IDEA ABT THE EGG ARC KINDA BEING WRAPPED UP?? thats so disappointing oh my god. i'll read into it more since im curious about how it ended but god the fact that it sounds like it didnt have a bigger ending is just. wow. the annoying green man villain with no real motives and less of a stage presence gets all this hype and a bigger "ending" [yknow, him being sent to jail] than the eldritch creature that was growing throughout the smp?? wack.

i think one of the bigger problems of the dsmp story is just that. wilbur introduced some basic ideas and basic world stuff and instead of expanding on it gradually in a satisfying way, the new writers just went ham and didn't know what made the original so enjoyable, even tho it was, again, minecraft hamilton. i've seen some people claim that the new writers are better at precise intense moments but i heavily disagree with that, but thats probably because a lot of them involve dream yelling for his acting and i cant take that man seriously even in character.

but yeah, youre absolutely right on everything you've said here. they basically went "hey can i copy your homework?" with wilbur and somehow made things worse