Fuck it, I feel like I need to clarify why I didn't like the stream.
SPOILERS FOR THE 27/11/21 QUACKITY STREAM
DISCLAMER: I am not saying my opinion is the right one and is just the way I saw the take of today's events. This is all c!.
Admittedly, I didn't have high hopes to begin with, so going in and seeing the cinematic at the start of the stream, I feel like it makes you expect more than you actually got. It's beautiful, the artwork from previous lore teasers, fantastic, it's our first look in the casino the way Q imagines it.
We get so Slime, ok, not unexpected, and hell, the reason why Q thought Slime as perfect to next leader of Las Nevadas is actually good. He's a blank slate, largely unaffected by the previous events of the server.
My first niggle though, is by saying Slime is like himself. Slime and Quackity, or at least Season 1 Quackity don't feel the same. Sure, the DSMP was young and so was there characters, but Q has always felt sharp, darker jokes, he's loud and outgoing, a self-imposed leader. He's never liked to live in someone's shadow so steals the show, but the problem with Slime is that he is Quackity's shadow.Slime isn't a character to follow, but he is a follower, listens to what Q says.
The one thing I did like about the way that Slime was worked with was the fact that he offered an innocent view onto Quackity's teachings, or a view of an onlooker, to be more precise. More than often, it's questions, ways to make Q re-evaluate the way he thinks, it's a good foil, I'll give Slime that.
The plot with Purpled confused me at first, if I'm completely honest. I couldn't tell who it was from the lighting making it seem like he had darker hair plus the purple suit. I honestly thought it was Karl at first until he mentioned the UFO. I may be missing lore, but I don't know where this came from, it feels slightly pulled out of thin air to me, and I'm not a fan from that front.
The Sapnap and Q stuff did genuinely bring a smile to my face, I wasn't expecting Quackity to be so relaxed around Sapnap seeing him again but it definitely was like a breath of fresh air from the denseness of everything else before. I understand why Q would be so reluctant to leave everything behind, especially because he is still under the impression that he was abandoned by them.
The fact that Sapnap was also somewhat trying to get Q to join Koniko (?) Kingdom was sweet, and very in character for him, he felt so kind and chill though that whole interaction to the point Q even dropped his edge and let himself enjoy it all. I liked it a lot, and I feel Sapnap was the strongest character through the whole stream.
The Karl stuff was interesting, and I do wanna point out now that his eyes were yellow/amber compared to the normal light brown which I found super interesting, though it isn't mentioned. It's clear Karl's memory is kinna fucked up, and his whole atmosphere is off, he's not bubbly, he feels distant, almost as if he's under water and the words Sapnap and Q are saying are muffled. He repeats things a lot, he's constantly moving as if he's trying to find himself, to figure out where he is.
He's able to recognise who he's with, and I liked the call-back to the El Rapids era that was through the whole part of this bit of the stream. It feels like Karl can only remember the bad stuff about Q, because that's the one thing he can really strongly recall. and he's pissed. He's angry. He yells. And Q, impulsive, rash, loudmouthed Q, lashes back in tenfold.
This is the difference between Q and Slime. Slime is friendly, he's nice to the people around him, he has a bubble around him that emits something joyful. Quackity, however, can lash out if you so much as phrase your words wrong, and he's very quick to snap and make a judgement on something before he even really even has time to think.
And that's shown wonderfully here, because he's yelling, yelling so much louder than Karl, hoping to scare him into backing down, to become the dominant person in the argument and to make it clear that only he is the correct one talking. Also at this pint, I was expecting Karl to push Q off his house, I really did, the heat of the argument and the position of them was too perfect for it not to in my mind. Missed opportunity.
Sapnap is clearly distressed, he didn't want this, he wanted them to get along, remember one another and hopefully get Q into the Kingdom. Instead he has a huge argument that he's in the middle of and is in no position to break up.
Quackity ends up storming off angrily, he's outraged at Karl, he couldn't win that argument because he couldn't get Karl to back down. Because that's what Q wants when he yells, he wants to scare them into shutting up. And he couldn't win.
Part of me feels like Karl couldn't remember everything that happened to him that day, that or he really wasn't expecting to die when he did. There is a bit of lore, though, that suggests that he may just be bitter at Q, and that's the fact that Quackity congratulated him for effectively dying for that cause. He didn't comfort Karl, just told him "Well done". That's honestly kinna harsh.
But alas, Sapnap runs after Q, he is fumbling for words, he's apologising. He feels bad. Q is still angry at Karl, though, and with Saonap, he's able to use that last little bit of anger to get him away from him so he can go back to his country.
Yada Yada Prison breakout mini bit. Not that relevant right now.
The bit with Purpled continued. The trap was nice, nothing much to say about that barring one thing, I did briefly think it was going to be something to do with Wilbur, since he hadn't shown up yet, and his whole plot with Quackity has been largely neglected in these last couple months to the point where it feels like filler.
But alas, as I said, the trap was nice, it was creative, and it captured Q. I liked the fact that Slime was the one to give away the secrets to Purpled. It shows off a point about Slime that Quackity made earlier, he's naive, trusting, too trusting. Purpled thinks Q has the revive book, and while he doesn't, he still wants it for reasons we don't know of.
They fight, physically this time instead of just words, and it's fun for the minute that they're fighting until Slime gets knocked into the lava. Q followed suit and properly tries to save him, and it shows that Q actually has that spark of humanity in him. That compassion for the people he cares about deep down, and the fact that he does want to care.
He can't save slime, though Slime does seem to give himself up in a way where he has muddled the lessons Q had tried to teach him. It feels like he's having a dignified death where it doesn't call for one, and his opt out was right there. There is something very Charlie about it, I must confess, but it feels wasteful of a life. At least it shuts up Purpled.
One of the nicer parts of the lore stream is that we get to see Q's way of grieving, where he delves into his work, and tries to bring Slime back. He's distraught, he's grieving, but the fat that weeks have past niggles at me again. The whole prison escape looses the sense of urgency it once had, and it makes it feel like it's not a threat anymore, which feels bad for the story because of how much it and the prison are hyped up.
Quackity giving Slime his name is nice, and at least he has one now. and the drop in from Foolish is great, I love seeing him, but here is where another problem sits with me. He says he's been letting Foolish run things/do things for him, which slightly harms the idea that Charlie would only want Q to be in charge of Las Nevadas.
I get that Charlie is out of commission right now, but Quackity also feels like the type of guy to stay terrifyingly true to his word, so giving trust to foolish, it rubs me the wrong way.
The "Legacy" thing leads me to believe that, when Charlie wakes up, he only remembers what Q taught him, and he looses that innocence that he once has before. I really do think that could be the case, and in a way, it could be like a wake up call for Q and the way he runs Las Nevadas.
As much as I have sung some of the stream's praises here, I still dislike it, and though the visual work was great, I feel the ending and other parts were weak to the point where Q started to feel a touch OOC. The truest parts to his character was when he was being loud and rowdy, especially the bit where he talked about Dream early on because it scared Charlie. It felt weak, and I feel back for saying as much because of how exited cc!Quackity was about the stream, but I'm being honest, and those were my thoughts.
