”average minecraft smp player experiences at least one tragedy per episode” factoid actually just a statistical error. Rusty Courage, who experiences 100 tragedies per episode, is an outlier adn should not have been counted
Soul Hunt SMP episode 3; took me a while to get around to watching this one but Oh Boy I have Thoughts
[spoilers below cut; apologies, this post is long.]
Rusty Courage's Adventures with Object Permanence continue!
Look, when I said after watching last episode that people tend to get themselves killed "the second Rusty looks away from them", that was intended as an exaggeration, not an instruction, Liam.
(Genuinely, if you time it out on the video, Sinna gets blown up about... four or five seconds after the line-of-sight must've been broken? But Liam falls to his death barely even two seconds after Rusty looks away. How did he even manage that.)
Okay. Let's review.
I love Rusty's pessimistic house and the fact it immediately gets abandoned. Also love the fact that Jaw was just... chilling? On Rusty's lawn? Despite the apparent time-skip? Like, was he there the whole time? Idk, there's just something really funny about the idea of Rusty building this whole tower in-between sessions, meanwhile the local semi-domesticated undying nightmare entity is just camping on her front lawn because I guess he's homeless as well as deathless.
I also really enjoy how rapidly Jaw's vibe has fully pivoted from "I'm killing everyone, this is inevitable" to "Oh. My bad. Did not understand what kind of monster I was making outta CC there. Sorry y'all."
Like, he's trying to stop any further bloodshed (or, at least... push pause on any further killing people? While he works out his complicated feelings on the topic?) and he's trying to give advice to help keep everybody alive, but I'm getting the vibe he's not particularly... good at that? Which makes sense, I guess, I mean, death is kind of irrelevant to him personally.
Rusty's quest to go seek out Sinna and 4C is very pretty, 10/10 mountains, the view while travelling is excellent. The fact that Rusty initiates conversation with the quietest, shyest little "Sinna?" and Sinna just screams before immediately snapping to a cheerful "Hello Rusty!" is hilarious for reasons I can't quite articulate.
Also, shoutout to both Sinna's A+ negotiating skills, and to 4C being equal parts blessed and burdened with an abundance of patience and common sense. Maybe he could benefit from being less indifferent to Sinna's arson, but 4C managed to sort of... half-calm Jaw down regardless? So... at least he's probably not on the list of "people Jaw still wants to stab despite having New and Complicated Feelings about The Whole Killing People Thing".
Shadow Katie is both fascinating and slightly unsettling to meet, due to how undecided she seems to be with regards to the whole "being evil" thing. Like, she doesn't seem... particularly aggressive? In fact she seems generally rather polite and friendly? But also seems to be trying to hype herself up to kill, so... still threatening. (If we're describing all the Shadows as "came back wrong", then Shadow Katie is "came back almost right", which is its own kind of scary.)
4C casually dropping the fact that he wants to build an entire creeper farm, then his tone of voice staying equally casual as he explains that he's terrified but hiding it behind a mask of polite indifference in order to convince the Shadows that he's not weak enough to be an easy target... if we do not get to see 4C politely threaten someone with an ungodly number of explosives before the end of this series I will be moderately surprised.
(Also really enjoy Rusty giving 4C a god apple and him trying to refuse the gift because it's too much, mostly because of the moment where she shows him she has more than one — that moment of "Look at me 4C. I'm fine." — I just envisioned it as Rusty holding the other four god apples in her arms so that he can see all of them. It adds a fun layer to 4C saying he'd "keep this between us" if he knows how many she actually has.)
And can I state that every instance of Rusty diving out of the window of 4C and Sinna's house to hide from an approaching Shadow on short notice somehow manages to be equally anxiety-inducing?
And the total silence after Sinna dies really does an excellent job conveying just... the shock of it all. Honestly, there's been a lot of moments in this series where that sudden quiet has been really effective to convey shock, or emotional turmoil, or that sort of... dazed state that Rusty keeps slipping into when big disasters occur that take a moment to process. (Although in this instance, Shadow Sinna then shows up to be delightfully unhinged. It certainly interrupts the mournful mood, but it's also really funny.)
And need I even mention the discussion between Rusty and Jaw, about Rusty's apparent curse of ambient misfortune, being interrupted by Liam dying the second after Rusty glances in his direction? I swear, you couldn't script that even if you tried.
It also fascinates me how, at this point, the goat trio come across like they're more threatening than half the Shadows are. Ever since episode 2, I've just... gotten the vibe that Nominal is going for the "smile as he stabs you in the back" sort of approach? I mean, since I've only seen him from Rusty's pov, I have no evidence of this. Aside from the fact that he's giving me similar vibes to episode 2 CC. And considering CC turned out to be a threat, I feel like Nominal is also a threat. (Shauna I have not seen enough of to draw conclusions on. Cherri I just assume is always a potential threat in these sorts of scenarios.)
Speaking of Shadows who do seem more threatening than the goat trio, though: Wade! (Wait, Wade?)
I'll be real, I didn't expect this from him at all. Up until this point, Wade's just seemed... kinda goofy? (We're disregarding the part where he was Legundo the psychopath amnesiac for a bit.) So Wade just pulling out a whole soft-spoken villainous monologue? Explaining in such a sinisterly calm near-monotone that his personal resentment against Jaw has sparked a desire to see everyone suffer, purely out of spite towards Jaw's attempted redemption arc?
Damn, that was scary, man! The fact that his "I'll make a deal with you" so clearly conveys I am giving you orders, on threat of death— and there's such an audible smile to his words, too, which is creepy as hell.
And then, as if Rusty's day could not get any worse after all the death and drama and implicit threats, she runs into CC.
Can I just make it clear how unsettling Shadow CC is at this point? It feels like the only two emotional states we see from him are amused and disgusted. Like he's either laughing, sneering, or totally emotionless. In this whole scene, he keeps punctuating all his sentences with giggling, and it makes him come across like he's plotting something, or at least in on a plot that Rusty is unaware of. It adds this layer of, like... unhinged emotional detachment which is just so good considering he's kind of being framed as the main antagonist of Rusty's pov right now.
All things considered, I've just been really enjoying the series so far. I'm kind of equal parts impressed by and afraid of how terrible Rusty's luck has been, but that's been fun to watch, in its own way. It's also been fun to see how each of the Shadows have put their own spin on the "came back wrong" vibes of it all! I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes from here. Especially if 4C gets his hands on all those explosives he's after...
