#dirtcube chat

I actually *rarely* do dedicated watches of SMP's, oftentimes because the vod-format can be quite rough to me. HOWEVER, I play in SMP's (private or publicly watchable) quite often and dedicate myself strongly to roleplay.

For me, a primary reason for not really following an SMP is that as much as I enjoy the creators, I find a lack for what makes these things interesting to me- Narrative. Many SMP's seem to be *very* light on the world lore, which makes it very accessible for a broad audience, but feels like a missed opportunity to get to tell a collaborative story instead.

Consequently this makes SMP's that aren't actually roleplay based more interesting to me, because I don't go in with the expectation to see a narrative. I.e hermitcraft, any content SMP that manifests for a while, the life series. (I do not consider consistent bits a narrative)

Of course, I'm not very in tune with SMP's these days. Especially as I'm not on twitter anymore which seems to still be the home base for all MCYT things being formed.

First of all: Main character

Avery is just not a compelling or interesting main character. I believe he should have either been continued being given the silent treatment by not being voiced, or have received a similar voicing as Derlord in part 1. The scratchy radio tone of Derlord's voicing made it clear that the viewer was only observing someone's experience, but that they weren't actually speaking to us directly. Avery's voicing leaves... a lot to be desired. Which is interesting, as the VA for Avery has done a very good job at sounding natural in a different series.

The thing that jars me a LOT and what makes avery so much less appealing to me as a character, is that his lines are so dramatically delivered in ways that people don't naturally sound like. He delivers them like an anime character- I straight up referred to it as the "deku voice" when watching it because of how grating it started being on my experience.

How I would've improved on this is to do one of the two following directions instead:

Regular read-over of Avery's dialogue similar to Derlord's in Part 1, disconnecting the character's written voice from the vocalised voice. This further emphasises that we are spectators to this story and are being given a convenience, NOT that its meant to be the actual character speaking. Also not doing the deku voice would really go a long way.

Have Avery just not be speaking in text chat and give him a shitty headset mic so it pushes the idea of him recording things from his POV more. This would provide a nice contrast to Derlord, who is quiet and solemn, vc Avery, who could audibly be freaking out over a shitty mic. Not only would that give him some humor to his tone, but it would ground him in "reality" a lot more. Let the actor speak naturally.

Narratively, Avery's motivation is lacking and weak. He doesn't really have a reason to be following after Derlord, or go through that much effort. Sure he's curious, but it doesn't feel EARNED because he isn't a puzzler. I think this would have been improved if there was something established that actively prevented Avery from looking away as well. Why not? He's interacting with a cognitohazard, let it sink its hooks into him and let him be "too late to save", so that Derlord can still desperately struggle against it anyway. By establishing that he is trapped too, it'd give him a sense of urgency to move forward a lot more beyond this weird... weak "well I have to go save this person I don't even know!"

There is also very little established on why Avery is the "vessel". It just feels slapped on and cheap.

Overall Narrative Criticisms

I am disappointed but not surprised that Wifies chose to go with the lovecraftian adaptations of The King In Yellow for inspiration. What was so compelling about part 1 was that the threat was the cognitohazard. While it did speak about some entity arriving, that still felt like it could have been a misinterpretation by the people in the village on what "it" is.

The compelling threat was not knowing what happened to Derlord after he was "infected" by the cognitohazard. It was incredibly fun watching someone dig their own grave without realising the consequences, because this hazard preys on human curiosity. And Derlord *had* to know. And he paid for it.

The King In Yellow, by Chambers, is an anthology series about a cognitohazard. The idea of the King In Yellow (from my understanding from reading it myself) is that it depicts the concept of a society so deathly afraid of someone being "influenced to the point of madness" by a thought or idea and them daring to challenge the status quo to change it to their new ideals- by force if necessary- and people destroying themselves over it by either trying to push it forward or stopping it.

Anyway, none of that really matters because Wifies' video does not cover it. Instead, it takes from the lovecraftian depictions which I know little about because I'm not particularly interested in watering down something as compelling as Chamber's KIY to a singular "oooh spooky entity that drives you mad!!!". Being able to put a name, a form, a personality to the threat takes away from it BEING a threat.

And on that note-

Seeing as Wifies was explicitly doing their own adaptation of the thematics of KIY, it was incredibly disappointing to just have a blatant scene of Derlord going "UHJHHHH YOU KNOW HASTUR. THE KING IN YELLOW. LOVECRAFT." and effectively going "SEE. SEE THE THING!! SEE ITS THE THING YOU KNOW OF! ITS THE THING I'M BASING MY STUFF ON!" and making us not look at his work as its own unique adaptation anymore. By the point of part 2, this is no longer showing something weird and strange happening to a guy, but it is actually trying to show a narrative story. And it just did not feel satisfying that they got this knowledge for free- nor that it was delivered in such a way. It also did not feel... fitting? For the overall narrative? that Derlord became all-knowing. Because it effectively served nothing but detriment TO your big spooky evil bad. Why would it have done that or allowed that to happen at all if it is all knowing and should have known that derlord would have caused problems? Your spooky evil bad guy is supposed to be the Guy That Knows Everything Forever and then you get this weird plot hole where somehow it failed to see that Derlord would be a threat and a problem.

Overall the big major plothole of "how the fuck did Avery get the laptop if Derlord is stuck to the screen" is... frustrating. I've seen some excuses that were theorised, but nothing that was actually explained in the world itself. It would have been more impactful and interesting if Derlord was just dead and gone irl and was up front about that. I feel like he would understand the importance of making the threat clear to Avery? "Hey dude I was found dead at my computer and I've been trapped here With The Thing get the fuck out of here now."

Furthermore can I just say the anime moment at the chapel where avery ~remembers~ who he was was uh. Man. It really took me out of it. The crying was not warranted. Again, there is no reason Avery has this much of an attachment to Derlord? I think establishing a greater character relationship between the two would have majorly improved Avery's motivation to do anything here. Like idk, maybe Derlord could've been an old online friend that once went offline and never came back and here is Avery discovering what is effectively his ghost on accident because he didn't realise that the storage locker he got the laptop from belonged to him. Just- anything to actually give Avery an emotional attachment to the guy to motivate him!

The Evil Big Bad

Whoooooooo the fuck told Wifies to hire Tim Stephenson for its VA??? Like I'm sorry to the guy but genuinely he's just a terrible voice actor unable to put in any natural inflection to his voicework- Literally so bad that your first thought is "is this an AI voice???". People criticised and accused Zoochosis of having AI voicing because of this guy's delivery.

Like good god surely there were better options.

But anyway in all seriousness the king should have never had dialogue or a voice or any visual form to begin with. There is no point or purpose for something that is meant to be beyond humanity to even bother directly engaging with them. It is a cosmic force. Treat it as such!!! Why must it be a boogeyman that gloats and suddenly magically can't do ANYTHING when previously it was such a massive threat. The second you can TALK to your threat it reduces the actual fear of it.

Again, not only is there a massive jarring contrast between "this is a video of someone presenting things happening to someone else" and "this is a narrative video" by having sudden actual voicework happening, but also it just. It really takes away from everything. From the threat of the story.

The king's only motivation is "I want to enter your world", with no specification on WHAT that will do. We don't know the threat, so we can't even gauge how dangerous it is. Nor does it make sense that this huge gigantic threat is contained within fucking minecraft of all things. It was so much more compelling that the idea was that minecraft was just a vessel for the cognitohazard to travel, not that its LITERALLY TRAPPED INSIDE...

So, here's some things I feel would have majorly improved it or at least somewhat alleviated the weak parts of these issues.

Have the king communicate through text chat. Everyone else does. There is no voice chat natively in minecraft. It would have been a lot more fitting for it to communicate through text chat- hell. Have it hijack Derlord's text chat to communicate. Show some consequence to Derlord being "infected" by having it have some semblance of power over him.

OUT with the spooky images and trying to put a "design" to it. Make it bodyless. it is a CONCEPT. it is a phantom FORCE upon the mind. Its been constantly depicted as the void, darkness, so leave it as such. The fear of dark- because you do not know what is in it- would have been such a lovely way to give "form" to something that is formless. This would have further matched up with how its been constantly depicted threat-wise.

DON'T HUMANISE YOUR COSMIC HORROR. The king has been made so much less interesting the second it became humanised. It would have been so much more interesting if this was a story of two humans fighting against a cosmic force that doesn't even consider them. Like two people trying to fight the incoming waves on a beach- hopeless, impossible to fight back what is just an inherent force of nature so much grander than the two of them combined.

The king should never have been "defeated". It just felt like a spit in the face of this threat that's been built up to have it be so easily defeated. Humans are capable of mitigating threats, of moving them, of taking preventative measures. It would have been so much more interesting to take it in that direction. Again- You cannot prevent the waves from crashing to shore, but you can put up a seawall and protect your shoreline from the tide. Alas, we got big anime monologue instead.

anyway idk my brain is starting to fizzle out but these were just some of my feelings abt it.