Demios

You can refer to me as Bomb, or "The Bomb". Any pronouns go. No DNI, as said above, I will just block you.

This blog is partly my creative endeavours, partly my enjoying of media and partly my unfiltered and very loud thoughts.

A few months ago, I remembered seeing a lot of posts giving advice on how to write dialogue for DSMP Characters. And while those posts contained numerous helpful pointers, overall, they fall just short of capturing what it means to write in a character’s Voice.

Unique character Voices, while tricky to get right, are usually achieved by giving each character a distinct set of words to say, in a manner that distinguishes them from the rest of the cast. 

With this in mind, I’ve spent the past few days combing through almost Thirty Hours of VOD footage to collect nearly all of the unique words, phrases, and speaking habits of every major and minor character on the Dream SMP (involved in 2+ story arcs.)

Before Reading:

Sentence-Starters are single words or phrases which begin a sentence. (ie. “Y’know, maybe you should try something different.”) 

Sentence Paddings are reoccurring words added to the middle of sentences. (ie. “It’s like he just can’t cry.”) 

Sentence Endings are single words or phrases which end a sentence. (ie. “There’s no need to fight, I hope.”)

All three of these types can be combined with one another to create more natural-sounding sentences. For instance, if a character has the two Sentence-Starters “Okay” and “So,” they can be used like this; “Okay, so, I’m a bit worried.”

(Note: When certain traits or phrases aren’t obvious with how they should be applied to dialogue, an (ie.) will be added below to illustrate them.)

Wilbur

General Traits:

Repeats himself for emphasis. Sometimes these repetitions will add additional information. More often, this repetition is focused around a specific word with the circumstance of the sentence being changed each time.

ie. “I’m living in an eternal limbo again. I’ve been through limbo, I’m out of limbo, and socially, I’m still in this limbo.”

Highly eloquent in language, bordering on poetic.

Highly introspective; significantly less so after Eret’s betrayal and onward.

Occasionally makes literary analogies and references, sometimes breaking the Fourth Wall to do so.

Curses semi-frequently. Wilbur is the only known character to use the word “cunt,” although rare.

Common Go-To Swears - Fuck, Shit, Prick, Bastard, Hell, Ass (Including all variations and combinations.)

Tends to hum when he thinks to himself.

Stutters most often when offended, shocked, or surprised.

Generally addresses characters semi-formally, often by title or role.

Often slips into long-form monologues when self-reflecting.

Usually defaults to being the head of a conversation; introducing, managing, and elaborating on topics throughout, especially when speaking to three or more people.

Circumstantial Phrases:

You and I, we’re ━ (To connect positively with someone.)

ie. “You and I, we’re used to seeing the good in people.”

I wanna pick your brain / Can I pick your brain? (To ask about someone else.)

Don’t say that, I’ll cry (Affectionate banter, only to Tommy.)

I’m afraid ━ (When hopeless or delivering bad news.)

ie. “I’m afraid there’s no getting out of this now.”

There’s no reason to ━ / There’s no reason for ━ / There’s no need for ━  (When being threatened or breaking up a fight.)

ie. “There’s no need for violence, gentlemen.”

deadlock fan characters concept splash

What do you guys think of the marks on Drifter’s hands?

I have two head canons. My first headcanon is that they’re self inflicted marks that he carved into himself that allows him to do things like teleport behind people, blind people, etc. since I think that somewhere on his arms is an X shape that matches the X on the Stalker’s mark icon, but I’m not 100% sure about that one. I have seen others head canon these marks as an affliction that Drifter is trying to get rid off, and that’s the true reason why he’s in the ritual, and the whole “I do this for free!” Thing is just an act he puts up to not reveal his Achille’s heel. Which is an incredibly interesting way of seeing things, and I do like this! But, also I have a particular love for the idea that Drifter really is fighting in the ritual simply for the chaos and slaughter that it brings. As, sometimes, the classic Disney-Villain esc motivation of wanting to do evil things simply because you’re evil is more entertaining (atleast to me) than anything!

Regardless, this head canon is based mostly on personal preference, but it still would be a very interesting route for Valve to take if they want to explore more of Drifter’s backstory in a visual novel or some other form like they did with Lady Geist. Since I think Drifter is like Lash, similar in the way that they are both more intelligent than they let on, and seeing Drifter researching ancient texts and then physically searching through abandoned structures/ancient temples for ways to strengthen himself would definitely be something I’d like to see!

My second possible head canon is that the marks naturally came as a result of how strong he became with age. This one links to another head canon I have that Drifter is much older than we think, personally I like to believe he’s at least 1000 years old, but I do like to imagine a possible scenario where Drifter was born in Ancient Greece, and got his accent from spending a large amount of time in Louisiana, and New Orleans. I think Drifter would migrate there as a result of hitching a ride on a boat from France. Anyways, I head canon (both for Deadlock and vampire media in general) that once a vampire becomes stronger than the vampire who turned them, their bite marks finally heal fully, the scar tissue drying up and then flaking off, and they become stronger altogether. So maybe once Drifter became stronger than the vampire who turned him, he gained the marks because of this. After all, we don’t know what any of the other elder vampires of Deadlock look like as of now, so maybe they have similar markings to Drifter? Regardless, those were just some fun ideas that I had, since I was playing deadlock one day, and went down a rabbit hole of where the symbols on Drifter’s arms could have come from.