Hiiii! Any thoughts on the parallels between entropy and meteorflower? Besides how one is a lot more healthy than the other.
oh boy. sorry this answer was so delayed ladybug this is just such a loaded question and i was thinking about how to answer it. this is gonna be long so sorry in advance
i think the most concise way to describe these 2 duos is that they’re some of bliss’s most consistent and strongest narrative foils. all four have a lot of things in common to each other—especially now, the similarities between greenscreen (Q & wyll) and coinbros (silva & mugm) are being pretty explicitly pointed out to the audience. Q’s recent conflict of morality and wanting silva to be a real friend, not just a follower, strongly resembles wyll’s feelings during gilded breakup. as for silva, he’s directly questioning whether he’s becoming someone like mugm. he’s also a prominent contrast to mugm, with whom he shares the conflict of being a strong pvper who lacks a strong self-identity and wants purpose.
however, in terms of themes rather than surface-level conflicts/personalities, i actually think silva & wyll and Q & mugm have prominent parallels as well
mugm tends to define himself by other people’s expectations and assessments. his self-actualization is constantly being hamstrung by the audience, both in a meta sense (meaning literally by US, the viewers) and in-universe by the server entities and by the other characters. Q goes through a version of this same conflict, where she was constantly switching goals, personalities, and aspirations to fit with where she felt the most valued and appreciated. the one difference is that Q didn’t think she was good for anything and had to reconstruct herself from basically nothing, whereas mugm always has a pre-established role he can sink into at his worst
on the other hand, silva and wyll both struggle with feeling like they lack presence and adequacy. silva went into the season aspirational, wanting to prove himself and do good things—a hopefulness that was slowly ground into a red paste by the ruthless nature of the server. he slowly started to feel like nobody ever actually saw or wanted him, and that his existence amounted to nothing much at all. wyll wasn’t nearly as idealistic, he started out on more of a “baseline”. but similarly, he also had to come to terms with the true nature of bliss and the kind of person he actually was compared with who he wanted to be. the difference between him and silva is that wyll never became disillusioned with the cycle of violence, and instead of becoming despondent about his place in the world, became even more determined and, critically, FUCKING MAD. if you watch early early LE streams, wyll chats a lot of shit about silva (calling him a crybaby, useless, etc) and i feel like the reason is because wyll projects his past self onto silva and hates what he sees. he hates how silva reacted, in his own words, "pathetically" to situations similar to what he overcame
i also think one of the main ways they are the same is the fact that they both address bliss’s theme of connections nearly identically. meteorflower start digging themselves out of the hole they were in when they begin to communicate, trust, and accept their roles in the other’s life. in the same way, LE’s biggest strength is their unity and trust—the reason why they’re even together now is because mugm took a massive risk by being vulnerable to wyll about something extremely precious and potentially retraumatizing (his gold gem plans)
though once again, they contrast each other in the way that meteorflower consistently concludes that the present is the best time to live in, while entropy is almost constantly occupied with the past and future. their teamup is literally emotional redemption and revenge for events that happened 2 years ago, and theyre relentlessly moving towards their perfect ending rather than living how they are now…..
like, i think the deepest way meteorflower and entropy foil each other is that meteorflower are gleaning the real lesson that i thiiiiink the prophet is trying to convey? (which is the value of the present and what you already have) whereas entropy are consistently failing to grasp this—thus failing the prophets tests—by becoming obsessed with legacy and control in what is ultimately a server and life that will decay and disappear just like any other. I ❤️ BLISS SMP EXISTENTIALISM
