[Long post ahead! Sorry! tl;dr at bottom] The issue with creating lore on the Dream SMP is that everyone has to be a main and interesting character. Unlike regular media where you can have background characters who get little screen time and that’s absolutely fine. Since the DSMP is so exclusive, everyone who is part of it wants to have a character with an interesting and engaging backstory and character points. As a result, stories aren’t so much “planned” they are more of a negotiation so that everyone involved can have their moment which makes planning VERY challenging.
It is also unfortunately generally a process that is heavily managed by those with the largest audiences. If content is planned with all the people guaranteed to get at least 100,000 viewers on Twitch, everyone involved is going to benefit more. So it makes sense from a logistical side, it also helps create more of a sense of having “main characters” which helps with ease of story writing, but that does leave people with lower average viewers more on the sidelines of the lore and unable to develop their characters unless they start trying to do stuff outside of the “main lore”.
We do have a #script-plans channel in the discord, but that is talked in only about once per month nowadays. Outside of that, most lore is planned in DMs and group chats and as a result, a lot of people are left out. For example, before the whole Pogtopia war, I really wanted my character to have some sort of redemption arc for my betrayal in the style of Zuko from Avatar the Last Airbender. However, since I was never involved in the preparation and planning of this event, this never ended up happening, so it kind of had to be rushed before the war which I felt was unsatisfying. There was also a time where someone else referenced my character in some of their lore without talking to me about it first and I only found out about it because I saw “Eret” trending on Twitter.
There are so many lore ideas that I’ve had that I thought could be really interesting, for example, I thought that it could be interesting to suggest that when I tried to revive Wilbur back in January 2021, it caused some sort of rift in the spirit realm that caused The Egg’s Bloodvines to start spreading like wild fire. This whole connection could have then been explored more in future lore and really would have brought The Egg plot closer to the “main story” imo. Like imagine trying to reverse engineer the bloodvines to understand the spirit world and reverse death that way or something! But no one but Puffy seemed remotely interested, so nothing happened with that. I’m not the only one who’s had ideas like this just get no attention unfortunately.
I do miss the early days of the DSMP lore where the majority of it was improv. For example, the entire L'manberg side was unaware of my betrayal before I actually betrayed them. All their reactions were genuine surprise and betrayal! After that, plans became a lot more pre-written and people started being unable to get involved for fear of messing up the pre-written script. The whole Saving Michael situation from a few days ago was the first instance of actual improv driving the story of the SMP that I’ve seen and been a part of in a VERY long time! It was fun, though stressful, it reminded me of the early SMP again where if someone had the drive, they could get involved and make their character engaging without worrying about stepping on other people’s toes with pre-written lore and plans. I hope I can turn this into a more interesting story piece, but no one has contacted me about Michael so far.
There is also lore that happens on the server that a lot of us just aren’t aware of for the reasons mentioned above, but there are also about 40 of us in the server, so we can’t keep track of everyone. This is why we ask our viewers as the “hive mind” of chat can generally tell us the correct answer even if there are a few people with wrong info.
In general, interesting lore is very challenging to do on the SMP, especially if you want to get any where near the “main lore” that most people are actually interested in. I hope to think that a lot of this isn’t just exclusion, but it definitely feels like that at times and I know it has alienated a lot of creators from participating in or wanting to participate in lore at all which is incredibly unfortunate as a lot of these characters have SO MUCH potential!
Overall, I do wish creating lore on the SMP was more open and democratic, unfortunately, it’s just a massive challenge as soon as you want to start actually planning it. This is unlike any other form of media, the characters are actual people and you can watch the story from all of their perspectives. All of these people and characters have to interact and drive the story in ways that don’t clash and are interesting and then be able to walk away from the action and continue their own individual story and motives. Imagine a TV show where EVERY character has their own spin of series, everyone from the main “hero” character to the janitor, it’s so hard to manage. This causes things to move SO SLOWLY as it’s impossible to keep track of all this information at such a scale.
Anyway, that’s my piece. I’m sure other creators have their own takes on this situation, but this has been my experience. Hope this helps people understand why lore can be slow to produce but also why some characters don’t get the screentime you hope they’d get. I love the SMP and everyone on it, it’s done so much for me, but eventually you get to a point of wondering whether working on lore is even worth spending the time on if you’re not sure if people will actually want to work with your ideas. I definitely want to do more lore and lore streams, but developing stories that are interesting and actually work towards some sort of goal rather than just people existing and doing things is a big challenge. Sorry for such a long post! Thanks for the question and I hope this gives some understanding of the inner workings of the server. I hope no one finds this upsetting either, sometimes things just work out like this. Please don’t attack anyone over this either!
tl;dr Lore is hard to plan because everyone wants to be an interesting character and the majority of planning doesn’t happen in the server so most people don’t know what future plans are. That’s my perspective at least.
perfume isn’t about wilbur wanting his ex it’s about wilbur falling for the new boyfriend
i’ll explain if people want me to but i’m right when you think about it
Please please please elaborate im invested in this theory
alright here it is then (note: wilbur in this song is a character, i’m assuming, but for simplicity i will refer to him as wilbur)
In the first verse, the lines “The way he holds you, bet he serenades you, I can’t really blame you” can be taken one of two ways: 1) Wilbur doesn’t blame his girlfriend for leaving or 2) Wilbur doesn’t blame her for falling in love with the new boyfriend. The second one is more likely simply because the boyfriend is mentioned; if Wilbur was only saying “I can’t blame you for leaving me”, then he wouldn’t even mention the new boyfriend. Therefore, Wilbur can’t blame her for falling in love with him because he would do the same thing.
From this point on, Wilbur is no longer speaking to the ex-girlfriend, but rather the boyfriend. This means that his focus isn’t on the fact that he lost his girlfriend, but rather that he doesn’t have the boyfriend.
The entire chorus (”I can still smell her perfume; did it rub off on you?”) implies that Wilbur can smell the boyfriend. Typically, one doesn’t notice subtle good smells unless they are interested in the person. It’s a weird psychological thing.
In the post chorus (”You say your ex-boyfriend’s a policeman; I say you need better standards”) is not talking to the ex-girlfriend, because he’s stopped speaking to her altogether. Also, it doesn’t make sense for Wilbur to bring up the girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend in the context of her new one. So, Wilbur is talking about the boyfriend’s ex-boyfriend, confirming that the new boyfriend is queer. And the “you need better standards” has the implication that better standards is Wilbur, therefore the new boyfriend needs better standards which he can find in Wilbur, meaning he should date Wilbur instead.
The first half of the second verse (specifically ”so she learnt to lie, she learnt how to pretend, a drama in the futile, a means to an end”) is Wilbur telling the new boyfriend that his girlfriend doesn’t actually care, and is only dating him for the popularity. Wilbur is essentially trying to point out flaws, possibly leading the boyfriend to breakup with his girlfriend.
The second half of the second verse (”Why can’t you be a dick? Why must you be so nice? It’s hard for me to move on when I don’t really hate you”) is the product of a typical hate-to-love thing. Wilbur refuses to believe he actually likes the new boyfriend, so he’s struggling with love vs. hate. He wants to hate the new boyfriend because Wilbur knows he can’t have him, but he can’t control his feelings. “Move on” in this part is also referring to moving from his love for the boyfriend, rather than from the girlfriend. Wilbur wants to move on with his life, but he can’t do that unless he no longer likes the boyfriend, and he can’t avoid liking him unless he hates him.
Overall this shows the internal battle that happens when someone wants what they can’t have. Through the course of the song, Wilbur is talking about how he wants to hate the boyfriend, while clearly showing interest through small things he notices, like smell. He also is subconsciously trying to sabotage the boyfriend’s current relationship, while also promoting himself as an alternative.
Perfume is not a breakup song; it’s a song about knowing you want something you can’t have but being unable to stop wanting it.
Wasn’t Perfume’s known original lyrics prior to being changed much more explicit about the singer!Wilbur wanting the new boyfriend
But it’s all the same It’d be daft of me to cry Your tongue is razor-sharp I miss when it would fight mine Now it hurts my eyeline See you touching their face See you touching their face I wish they were mine
The specifically replaced lyrics still match the intent of the final one with the build-up IMO more awkward (and I can see why this was changed to the one we got; the build-up is clearer although the stick-in landing attains the vagueness instead)
okay yall wanna know my absolute favourite scene in Final Waltz?
it’s this one, because it does such a good job showing c!tommy and c!tubbo’s dynamic with each other and c!dream. let’s break it down!
okay, so c!dream basically kicks their collective ass, right. he knocks c!tubbo back, kicks c!tommy, and throws them both off the platform.
physically, c!dream is way, way more powerful. except: c!tubbo and c!tommy are really damn clever, one hell of a good team, and stubborn as all fuck.
so here’s how they recover from Literally being flung out into open air with Zero Possible Leverage:
that’s right, c!tubbo snatches c!tommy out of the air and swings him back around to fling him past the platform. in mid air.
so c!tommy prepares to swing, and c!dream ducks down to avoid him, because c'mon, that’s such an obvious attack.
wait, what’s that behind him?
mellohi! c!dream was distracted enough by c!tommy aiming an axe at his face that he practically stepped aside and gave c!tommy a free shot to the disc.
which he takes! and makes it clear that he wasn’t aiming for c!dream, he was aiming for the record player, so he could grab the disc out of the air when it went flying.
which is a pretty smart play all by itself, but putting it all together: c!dream threw c!tubbo and c!tommy off the edge, c!tubbo glanced back and saw him standing in front of the record player, grabbed c!tommy and threw him back towards c!dream, and without any communication between the two, c!tommy instantly knew what c!tubbo was trying to do, feinted like he was trying to hit c!dream, and managed to get a straight shot directly to the disc. and it worked.
tl;dr: c!dream may be much stronger, but c!tubbo and c!tommy are a fucking brilliant team, and sad-ist understands these characters like she fucking wrote them.
Loving others’ traits unconsciously leaking into their friends,,,,, Phil and Ranboo going ‘bap bap bap’ in Techno’s inflection when they’re placing blocks/doing something repetitive, Phil copying Techno’s 'bruhHhHh’, Ranboo automatically adopting Techno’s rough tone when doing a bit, Wilbur sprinkling 'mate’ into his sentences, Tommy copying Tubbo’s accent when he says 'hello?’, Phil and Wilbur and Tubbo going 'STOP IIIIT’ in Tommy’s accent without prompting, Techno and Tubbo going 'uh. UH.’ when something unexpected happens just like Phil does,,,,,I could keep going for days but it’s just so sweet to see especially because it’s not on purpose :,)
you can tell how much time someone has spent with ponk by how they say “myyy goodness”
also phil sometimes goes “HELLO?” when joining a call like tommy and tommy sometimes goes “hiya m8” when joining a call like phil
at some point during the charity stream, techno called idk either the hunters or chat “lads” the same way wilbur does sometimes
Everyone saying “King”
back when ranboo and fundy spent a lot of time together on the actual dsmp server, ranboo would sometimes say “what do you mean?!” exactly like fundy does whenever something shocking/bad happened
during the clip of Tommy reacting to SADist’s “Final Waltz” he says “aww m8″ like 5 separate times
casual reminder that Skydoesmiencraft not just lived with Post Molone, but basically had the guy living in his friend’s closet, was in a Lady Gaga music video, and is a non-binary bicon who despite not being the best person with a bit of debate over their morality, is still a survivor of severe abuse and managed to get their son back from their abusive ex fiancé because of a fucking DISS TRACK
that and they literally became one of the most notable youtubers in the history while also being in and out of mental hospitals, facing an eating disorder, and living with a gold-digging and abusive woman. while bringing joy and laughter to hundreds of millions.
They came out as non-binary earlier this year, they’ve been out as bisexual though since around 2015-2016!
-Wilbur has phantom membrane and he willingly gives it up so Phil can make Slow falling potions
-Ranboo keeps answering for people because apparently he’s a lil bitch in this canon
-Tommy has three sons, two of them he hatched himself. One is named #00000, or Hetta for short. One is unnamed. And the third is Sneeg. Because Tommy thinks everything smaller than him is his child.
- Sneeg made a house in a tree. Charlie and Will are the only other people who can fit in there. They are dubbed the “Treeo”
-Hetta has been hung by Ranboo. He’s still alive, but he’s grown up now.
Sometimes I get forcefully reminded that Tommy’s a very relatable teenager. xD
Tommy: ‘Good luck’? Fuck you! [laughing loudly] [begrudgingly] Okay, I’m gonna go do my school work. [under his breath] Fucks sake, alright. [he groans] For fucks sake, chat! Eryn man, shut up I-I’ve got my- I’ve got my- I can’t- I probably can’t say- [quieter] I’ve got my risk assessment I’ve gotta do… for film-in, for college. Fuck. And I’ve got to do it. Or else I’ll get told off. That’s bollocks. For fuc- ‘just fail’? NO! [in disbelief] No! ‘Don’t procrastinate big man’ I’M NOT PROCRASTINATING I’M JUST- streaming! I’m just getting primes! Is that procrastinating? Does that count? Primes don’t count as procrastinating, chat, surely. [in disbelief] YES? Oh- [he flings himself back in his chair, before scooting closer] Oh fuck you all, go watch Ranboo you twats, I’m gonna go do work.
