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Intro
Yes, I love DSMP, flaws and all, in fact, I love it for all of its flaws, so, this is just an unedited essay about my befuddlement and simultaneous amazement that it somehow works, and how I rationalize that in my tiny little brain. So, onto the actual essay
To understand the core of my simple befuddlement I must bring up the essential question all new writers hear. It’s like the chicken before the egg argument is to science, or whether or not a hotdog is a sandwich to the culinary world. What’s the most important element of a story?
Typically, the three elements that are brought up in this argument aren’t an argument, and more to teach young writers about the elements themselves, although I argue there is an answer. For those who are unaware, the three brought up are setting (for some reason), plot (more reasonable), and characters. To clarify on the first one, the setting is time, place, and world-building, so it is more important than it first seems, but still, not as important as the other two.
Before we get to the fun DSMP stuff, I'm going to talk some more about this whole setting thing, because it’ll come into play later. First, let’s touch on the time period. A tv show technically doesn't have to have a set time period. Shows like Stranger Things, I am not Okay with this, and even things like the Gotham tv show, don’t have a set time period. They exist in a strange melting together of fashion, technology, and culture. Although Stranger Things does technically have an attachment to the ‘80s, it feels like it exists as an aesthetic for it, instead of a strict rule. Sure there are pieces of media that utilize time periods well and tie them into their story, but it doesn’t make it necessary. Second, place. A story can be outside of the idea of a place, touching more on the world-building element. Sure, every story exists at a certain place, but that doesn’t make that place an important or relevant part of every story, especially if it exists outside of earth or even our reality.
World-building is a little more complex, but also a little less. It’s easy to explain, that is. Listen, I hate JK Rowling as much as the next trans kid, but I see the impact Harry Potter has had on our generation. Take the world-building in that as a great example of why world-building isn’t super important. Sure, in things like Fantastic Beasts, we get to see more of the world and what it’s like, but we can all recognize it as a cash grab that’s milking the original series (I love the main character, Newt, and the story, don’t kill me for this take. It just wouldn’t exist if h.p. wasn’t popular.). However, the original story’s magic system is just wizards shouting Latin words at each other as they used magic wands made from body parts of creatures that are barely explored throughout the 7 part series.
In that way, DSMP is to plot, as h.p. is to setting or just world building in general.
So, let’s talk about Wilbur’s writing and then the DSMP after his writing.
Geeze, I love wilbur’s writing. Yes, I understand a LOT of the writing was inspired by Hamilton, and I love that, honestly. (Not relevant, but it’s interesting how british people interpret stories about America’s separation from Great Britain. Although, there are many criticisms for Hamilton.). It is just that though, inspired. In fact, I find the references to Hamilton quite charming if I’m being honest, and it gives the characters something lighthearted to bond over, but I’ll get to the characters later.
Wilbur wrote a compelling narrative for the political part of the story, don’t get me wrong, but the other parts of the story are jumbled in the funniest way possible. Tommy’s main storyline is about disc, and how he’d sacrifice the world for these at one point in the story, or at least his own country. Oftentimes it comes off as less of him protecting his discs, and more of his character protecting his pride or confidence, and stikes those who don’t understand as stupid, or more importantly, SELFISH. Yikes. But, again, we’ll come back to that later. But, looking at it without any of this subtext or how it relates to the character, it sounds… odd? I don’t really know how to put it. A kid fighting for his unmagical, irrelevant discs. They don’t have powers, they’re not a macguffin, they don’t have any monetary value. All they have is vague sentimental value that some of the people in the fandom don’t even have the context for. But what is it about this challenge, this conflict that makes people care about it. After all, it’s just a few music discs.
Brilliant and Sympathetic Characters
That’s the answer, literally, but, you probably knew that, because you know the story, wait no, you know the characters, my bad.
There’s something so unique about the DSMP, that all the characters are created and played by different people, who are all content creators. First, I want to touch on that cc (content creator) part. The characters aren’t the cc’s, we all know that by now, however, you can see the resemblance. The characters carry over the humor and possibly the charisma and personality of the cc themselves. This makes for easily identifiable characters. Think about it. CC’s act differently on camera than they do in real life, I assume, which makes them more extroverted and gives some of them a sort of ‘larger-than-life’ personality (not all of them, just ones who have a distinct personality that can be pinned down in a few words, that seems like it would be in a cartoon or sitcom). Then, they need to further remove their character from their cc, letting the cc express either different aspects of their personality, or add things to their humor or basic personality. Some could argue that characters are completely removed from the cc themselves, which could be argued for the antagonists, like Wilbur or Dream, who are two great actors, and who do have the ability to do that because of their acting skills, while others play a sort of DND version of their streamer persona.
This, as I mentioned before, gives the characters a sort of cartoon-like personality. Characters like Tommy and Quackity feel like they’re from a comedy, but they’ve been thrown into a world that seems separate from their character. And here I’d like to draw connections to Promising Young Woman and its casting. (I’m not going to talk about how much I love that movie, I just thought it was a brilliant example to use.) Promising Young Woman features a lot of recognizable comedians and throws them into a different world and subverts the audience's expectations using the audience’s knowledge of the actors who are playing them. You, as an audience, probably already love the DSMP cc that you are watching act as this character and suddenly this character is going through something terrible, or even traumatizing.
So, who the Fuck am I even talking about.
I’ve already discussed Tommy a little at the start of this essay. At the heart of his character is a kid. (Wilbur, I refuse to believe Tommy was in his 20s during the L’manberg revolution. No thanks, dude. I don’t think DSMP time and age works like ours, but that’s probably just because I really don’t understand it, and I also simply think it’s funnier this way.) He has a childish attachment to these discs, which in a way could be a metaphor for his longing for a time before the wars? I don’t really know, that was just something I thought of at the moment of writing this. This is another aspect of the DSMP, that anything can be a metaphor or headcanon, and you’ll see that from me more throughout this essay. He carries his whole story with charm and he’s been dubbed the protagonist of the story by many fans. He does very much fit into the role of a hero. For the first bit of the story, he has a quirky best friend, an older mentor figure, and an ‘evil’, overpowered villain to deal with, and an ensemble of more characters, who at first are still clearly figuring out their characters, which gives you more time to focus on Tommy, Tubbo, and Wilbur, whom each have a sort of solid idea of their character. Tommy starts off as himself, to an extent. There aren’t a lot of distinctions between c!Tommy (character Tommy) and cc!Tommy, at least in the beginning. However, c!Tommy changes with experiences, which cleverly serves as character development as well. Do you see why the characters are so brilliant in this story? His character grows and changes over time, but always chases after the discs, which are always in Dream’s possession, almost like a cartoon, that has a main overarching storyline, but fun misadventures on the side. This serves as an example of one of the genres the DSMP plays off of. As you watch different perspectives, you might notice what seems like a difference in the genre of the story, depending on how much lore the cc uses, how much they just fuck around, or what lore they use.
Now, let’s talk about Wilbur, my personal favorite character. Wilbur is the writer of most of the story in the beginning and is known to be a past-theatre kid and play dnd off to the side, which gives him the sort of skills he would need to be good at the kind of storytelling in the DSMP. He starts off very passionate about a drug van, which turns into a nation. It’s in this nation that Wilbur’s character is truly shaped. Don’t misunderstand me, his character had a personality before the nation was official, but not so much an overarching goal. When he does have his country, he has a goal. His goal throughout the series is control of his country. Watching it in real-time, when the country is first formed, one might think he cares for citizens or just the independence of the country. However, that view of him starts changing when the election starts. He explicitly states that he wants to run an election where he is the only candidate, creating the illusion of choice, and gets angry when Quackity overhears and starts running against him, even if that’s what an election should be. When the man eventually loses the election, his goal is, to him, suddenly, unachievable. Instead of control, he strives to destroy the country at the expense of many lives. He becomes noticeably more manipulative and dismissive towards Tommy and the boy’s feelings and even starts making deals with Dream, blinded by his need to destroy what he can’t have. When he does finally destroy L’manberg, he has no other goal. I don’t know exactly what happens in his death scene. The best way I can think to describe it or explain it is that he’s ‘high’ on the destruction he’s caused while simultaneously realizing he’s going to have to deal with the consequences of his actions and that he no longer has a goal in life. Here’s where Wilbur’s great acting comes in. Maybe I would have a better understanding if I watched the scene more, but it’s literally hard to watch, for me at least. There’s a sort of emotion, like a combination of panic and excitement that makes you realize Wilbur’s character is really not okay. And suddenly there are villain sympathizers, another sort of unique element of the DSMP, aka how common it is to be a {villain name here} sympathizer. Sympathy is made easy with good acting, a likable personality, and a good backstory. I’d say Wilbur’s character is definitely good acting and good backstory if you count goals as backstory.
I’m sort of hesitant to include Quackity’s character, simply because his lore is like, happening, (it’s popping off, one might say) and I don’t want to get blindsided on anything. I also had a massive headache while the latest stream was happening and might’ve completely missed something big and important, but fuck it, here’s the paragraph.
Quackity’s character is one of my favorites and also the most underutilized, in my opinion. I’m excited to see his new lore. c!Quackity’s personality is strange at the beginning, like the others. His character is very close to his own personality, but it too changes and grows away from that. The first time I know of him playing a character is at the start of the election, which was a great place for his character to start off. From then on, we see Quackity’s goal for power. Unlike Wilbur, this want is more for general power, and not control over a singular country. When L’manberg ultimately falls, he makes Le Rapids. I didn't watch this arch or part, but I know a little about it. Anyways, we see more of this strive for power in the more recent streams. Quackity is looking to create a new, and possibly very corrupt country. I say corrupt because it’s literally just going to be a bunch of casinos. Not only this, but it’s very possible he plans to use the Revive Book to bring back either Wilbur or Jshlatt. Although I’d guess, if one gets revived and not another, it’s going to be Wilbur. I’d argue it was hinted at with Wilbur and Tommy’s scene in the void and the whole ‘competitive solitaire’. It’d create a lot of conflict and tension, all of that fun story shit. JShlatt is a more risky person to bring back from a cc standpoint, because, while the man comes back quite often from his ‘cancelations’ or whatever, I think this most recent one hit a little harder and the ‘risk vs reward’ there shows. I would like to see c!JShlatt’s character fuck around on the DSMP some more, but it wouldn’t be as intense or narratively interesting as Wilbur. (Also, JS controversy aside, his character had some underrated one-liners.) We’ve already seen Quackity’s character manipulate c!Sam into letting Quackity torture Dream. Still, his character was nice (?) enough to continuously remind Sam he wasn’t to be blamed for Tommy’s death. And this is only his goals and motivations, I still got more words in me dude. His whole thing with c!JS is interesting. (I’m not going to call it a relationship because I don’t want to, I’m just going to call it a ‘thing’.) It definitely spawned from a comedic standpoint, I can admit that. I’d argue the moments they looked like an actual thing was at their worst moment. When JS is tearing down the white house, when JS literally dies, and when Quackity eats JS’s heart (I’ll get to that, hold on, folks). So, because their things are canon, it’s kind of said that these are the only moments when it feels real. Just think about it. There isn’t much to get into. It’s a bad thing, and I really couldn’t tell you what I think about it if I’m honest. But, I am going to touch on that whole heart-eating thing. This draws back to Quackity reviving characters. He’d wanted to bring back someone far before Las Nevadas. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that cc!Quackity didn’t release that there was going to be a whole separate plotline about the revival stuff and the other told him about it later, cause that man sort of doesn’t keep up with the real-time lore (sorry man, but it’s true. He said Dream exiled Tommy in his recent stream. No shade, we all get confused by this lore, constantly.) If you want to be fun and sexy, interpret the heart-eating scene as a metaphor. What does it mean? I’m bad at metaphors, you decide. It sounds like it would make a good metaphor, at least.