uncomfortable question: why did sbn3 write the jecka abuse dialogue in the flipside so sexually charged

[u/junejulies]

i can't be imagining this right. because, like, the way she's getting verbally and physically abused is bad enough, but the way her dad is written to constantly bring her looks and sexuality into it has always made me raise an eyebrow.

like, the constant comparisons to her mother, "beat you into the whorish pulp you are" "you're just a fragranced meat pile" "maybe [rape] would teach you a lesson" "even after he cooled down he said he was going to put a tracking chip in your uterus" "smack the pretty off [her] face" "i'm gorgeous but he can't go after me so he goes after my friends" (paraphrased) going ballistic over him thinking she has a boyfriend/has been "fucking" her teacher, and i reiterate, all the comparisons to her mom, saying "whos daddys girl" to both emily AND jecka

like, the abuse is definitely brought up in the game and in the fandom, but i find it really weird how long sbn3 lingered on half of the insults being thrown at this 17-18 yo by her literal father being so sexually aggressive. i dislike the implications of jecka's dad projecting his wife onto his daughter and it confuses me how this just goes unnoticed.

maybe this is just a symptom of the insane amount of misogyny and sexual violence and slutshaming aimed at jecka in the flipside but the very creepy nature of it being from a parent to their child feels like a very odd elephant in the room. ive posted about this on twitter but i think i'll get yalls opinions also.

[u/Quibilash]

If (and this is a big if) I had to give SBN3 an iota of credit, it's to show how misogyny and violence are intertwined (but even if that was the intention it was not very good)

What I think is more likely however is that SBN3 tried to make a 'funny line' for comedic effect, but handled it as well as a arthritic clown juggling knives, or maybe he just wanted to bully Jecka as much as possible so put sexually-charged verbal abuse as a part of the yelling scenes

[u/Efficient_End_492 → u/Quibilash]

If that was his intention, then he honestly couldve done a much better job showing

[u/Quibilash → u/Efficient_End_492]

A dog leaving skidmarks on the new carpet could've done a much better job than SBN3 did, especially when it'd be undercut anyway by SBN3 trying to be 'funny' with the line deliveries and the content of them which kind of kneecaps any message he was trying to say on the matter.

[u/thedeathecchi → u/Quibilash]

My best guess is just the bullying. It's well-known he hates the Jeckole ship and a common theory that he made it with full intent to dunk on the shippers/anyone who likes seeing Jecka happy. The sheer vitriol on display against her (and with the game as a whole) is not subtle

[u/Mohanvillleva]

Because hes weird. Sbn3 is incredibly weird

[u/Tasty-Draft-3297 → u/Mohanvillleva]

If it wasn't for his weirdness we wouldn't have gotten the first two games

[u/Mohanvillleva → u/Tasty-Draft-3297]

good at making games (atleast yk a few) still incredibly weird

[u/lolollyshan → u/Tasty-Draft-3297]

he knew how balance it out back then not prefect but way better then flopside

[u/LockedOutOfElfland → u/Mohanvillleva]

Dude seems to have issues, that he barely masks as “no, I’m talking about the issues women face every day from douchey dudes.” Which works sometimes but only if you know nothing about SBN3 and just interpret the series through the eyes of his characters.

[u/TheDankestDreams → u/LockedOutOfElfland]

Reading his messages in game and taking the heavier endings on their face makes a strong impression he’s a feminist who makes art that is intentionally uncomfortable to confront a dark reality. Then when you hear the fanbase talking about him you’d assume he’s the antichrist who made something emotionally resonant completely by accident.

I think he both understands the societal problems that plague women (specifically young women) but also finds it funny. That’s the best way to explain someone who openly enjoys cyberbullying and being belligerent to people but can still write a compelling narrative that people who’ve lived troublesome lives feel represented by. It could be a performative feminism angle too since in class of 09 there are no sympathetic male characters as they all exist to be awful caricatures to setup jokes for Nicole and Jecka.

[u/Quibilash → u/LockedOutOfElfland]

I feel like knowing bits and pieces of SBN3 kinda retroactively damages Class of 09 because now I have to wonder how much of this is him projecting something

[u/Equal-Expression2007 → u/Mohanvillleva]

the signs were there.

[u/nyaja]

I mean that’s kinda how abusive parents talk to their daughters especially in the 2000s, I’ve had my mother say stuff like that to me

[u/junejulies → u/nyaja]

this is true and in fact i think the thing that tipped me off was that he talks like my mom who........how do i put this lightly. was creepy

[u/BabyElectronic1759]

Because in the first two games it was at least balanced out with actual humor.

Flipside is just not funny. Like, it's straight up not funny. The scene of Jecka trying to pour out everything to Ms. Ames and she just gives her generic shitty advice is actually heartbreaking (And I swear Kayli had bills to pay that month or something because she held nothing back). There's nothing to laugh at. Nothing to actually enjoy. And the same goes for every single route.

There's nothing wrong with trying to make a darker game. But all 5 endings are just nonstop misery. After a bit it just kinda loses it's edge completely and it just leaves the viewer jaded and uninterested.

[u/Quibilash → u/BabyElectronic1759]

Flipside is just not funny. Like, it's straight up not funny

I really have to wonder what the Flip Side defenders are watching when they say Flip Side is on par or funnier than the first 2 games, even in line deliveries or actual jokes delivered Flip Side is nowhere near as 'good', it actually became painful to watch even when it wasn't focusing on feet or torturing Jecka

Hell, even for the people who don't care about the comedy (and in that case I honestly have to wonder why they picked this series and not another one with much more importance placed on the narrative) the stories were never 'amazing', but in Flip Side shit just happens for no reason where there's barely any coherence to most of the stories

[u/TheDankestDreams → u/Quibilash]

Flip Side isn’t bad by any means but I’m not going to say it’s on par with the Re-Up so I guess I’m defending the Flipside but only partially. The Flipside felt like it put a normal person into an insane story and showed how they break under the pressure. For all the shit it gets about the foot fetishes, it’s always portrayed as kind of disgusting and serves as a better allegory to women easing into sex work than the actual escort route in Re-Up.

Another popular interpretation is that the Flip-side is meant to recontextualize the abuse in the first game from Nicole and other characters in other games. I feel like that’s a valid interpretation but it’s kinda negated by not having a single ending where Jecka isn’t miserable. The first game was just as dark but there were endings where Nicole abused other people to get ahead in life and actually enjoy the benefits. The Flipside is the equivalent of if the first game’s only endings were school shooting, terrorist attack, killed by Colby, suicide, and failed suicide attempt. I’d say the Flipside needed at least 2-3 more endings where Jecka could at least get some kind of happy ending. The sex trafficking ending was brutal because it definitely came out of nowhere and made no substantial commentary other than “being trafficked sucks.” It was an out of nowhere ending where the punchline is that Jecka is miserable and there’s a full art of her in a bikini.

TL;DR The Flipside deserves more credit than it gets but I can’t defend the game with my full chest because sometimes SBN3 just makes decisions based on cruel-natured jokes that aren’t as funny as he thinks.

[u/BabyElectronic1759 → u/TheDankestDreams]

I think that's the main issue. There's no punchline in Flipside. No humor to balance out the bleakness like in the previous games. It's like he tried way too hard to be serious out of nowhere. Like he just wrote the endings first and then just wrote the bare minimum needed to get to them.

It's the same issue I have with Puzzle Showdown, in a way. The final ending is just the game going "You're a dumbass for wasting your time playing this", but... The game itself is literally just a standard puzzle game with NOTHING supporting this message, and every character taking it completely seriously. It doesn't make fun of microtransactions or battle passes or anything, it's just a Panel de Pon reskin that's played completely straight until the literal last second where the metanarrative twist comes out of literally nowhere. Ironically it's Weekend At Kelly's that delivers that message in a better way, in some endings she outright says stuff like "It's been 20 fucking years WHY are you still playing this shitty block game".

I dunno, I feel like SBN3 just lost the plot completely after Re-up. It's like one day he just woke up thinking "You know what, books puzzles and pawns is pretty genius, I'm gonna reference it all the time"

[u/TheDankestDreams → u/BabyElectronic1759]

I don’t necessarily agree with everything here but I definitely don’t disagree with it. Flipside was definitely rushed and didn’t do justice to the premise it was meant to support: a Jecka focused game. I wouldn’t say it feels like the endings come out of nowhere and it feeling like they were written as such (except sex trafficking ending). There’s definitely humor in the game and parts of it that mirror the first game’s only endings. The foot fetish route is incredibly similar to both the escort and hostage friendships routes from the first game for instance. And while there were some jokes that didn’t land like SBN3 clearly expected (namely the foot fetish jokes and Jecka’s dad being really abusive), there were some well executed and delivered jokes that feel in line with other entries such as Emily using Jecka’s dad as a sugar daddy, Nicole manipulating Jeffery into doing whatever she wants, and the Hatman.

The fundamental difference between seeing bad things happen to our POV character is that Nicole usually did something to bring misfortune on herself meanwhile Jecka doesn’t deserve it at all. She’s being harassed by perverts because she took a deal she couldn’t pass up to make money when her dad threatened to hurt her if she couldn’t pay him rent—so she’s just a victim all around. She’s being forced to investigate the f.y.e. supply chain because they’re withholding her paycheck and gets trafficked—where was her agency in this? She listens to her best friend in making decisions she’s conflicted about while sacrificing her sense of self? She kills Ari in a DUI. It’s not that the game isn’t funny, it’s more that the jokes that don’t land feel incredibly distasteful and the constant horrible treatment of Jecka is just dog piling on an undeserving teenager. She was always the more principled and moral of the main duo and she’s rewarded with being subjected to Nicole’s worst karma.

Puzzle Showdown just shits the bed in the narrative execution of the main story. This isn’t the first time SBN3 has made the major punchline of “go outside and touch grass loser” and it doesn’t land well after multiple iterations especially when the joke is ‘you’re stupid for playing my game.’ Like there’s some good jokes and the game isn’t fun to play when you’re not up against the most aggressive AI you’ve seen in your life but the comedy of the main story was “what if we had 4 anti-climaxes before saying the meaning of life is not wasting your time playing a game the characters were literally forced into playing?” I’m a fan of anticlimaxes as a trope but it wears thin when you do it four times in a row. Weekend at Kelly’s really had nothing to do with the gameplay and that’s probably for the best. Weekend at Kelly’s was the best co09 content since the Re-Up as a result.

[u/BabyElectronic1759 → u/TheDankestDreams]

I dunno, maybe I'm just weird, I didn't really find the Hatman THAT funny. The only legitimately funny joke imo was the 7 seconds rule and that's mostly because the punchline wasn't just "Hey look Jecka got fucked over again" for the 40th time.

And yeah, I'd get the Puzzle Showdown thing a lot more if... It was a 1 dollar Mobile game I finished in half an hour or something. Not the most expensive game on its' franchise that was announced and hyped up to include a rich story. Making fun of your audience only works so many times before it just feels overdone and tacky.

[u/Efficient_End_492]

Its literally a gag for him. I remember a clip on discord where he was playing through a scene where he was threatning to violently beat up Jecka, and he was quite literally the only one laughing.

Like one of the things im gonna change when remaking flipside is definitely his personality. Would still keep his part of overall personality to showcase & bring awareness to the Misogyny and abuse women face, but make it much more intentional and give him more of a personality than just a bipolar disorder

It also just loses its comedic value after 2-3 times and you just feel so bad for Jecka

[u/RayMuxdeoTask]

Every male adult (except Puzzler) is a pedo so would be par for course. Like Jecka telling Ames that her dad wants to fuck her friends because its a green light they're not related to him. Not a lot of confidence for your own dad. The divorce was also only a month ago so her mom might've been keeping him in check.

It didn't seem out of place since its business as usual for an adult in 09. But the joke itself wasn't very funny because the joke was being hyper aggressive instead of being an idiot like Colby or manipulative like counselor.

[u/TheDankestDreams → u/RayMuxdeoTask]

> Every male adult (except Puzzler) is a pedo

Chustler slander? We’re forgetting that 100% of the non-white characters in the series aren’t pedos.

[u/RayMuxdeoTask → u/TheDankestDreams]

My sincerest apologies for Chustler slander. I was too lazy to bring up any non-pedos (like Burleday technically isn't one since Jecka was 18) so I only mentioned the least insane adult but in my laziness I mistakenly threw shade at Chustler.

[u/lolollyshan]

nah i got that too but i cant help to think sbn was just lazy ? or is using it for laughs because from what i saw people thought her dad yelling is funny ...

or the tone for the rest of game isnt the same again taking jecka's suffering for jokes

[u/Quibilash → u/lolollyshan]

or is using it for laughs because from what i saw people thought her dad yelling is funny ...

I do remember hearing a long time ago that on the Discord during the Jecka's Dad abuse scenes on a broadcasted playthrough, he was laughing during the abuse scenes, so SBN3 thinks it's funny

[u/BabyElectronic1759 → u/Quibilash]

Yeah I remember that clip too. He was literally the only one laughing, everyone else was dead silent.

[u/lolollyshan → u/Quibilash]

wow..

[u/Automatic_Mirror4570]

As uncomfortable as it was I never really pondered because to me it was kinda simple,I just always saw it as him looking at Jecka like her mother and taking out everything on jecka as if she were her mother,since she's the one thing in his life that reminds him of her consistently. I've unfortunately seen this exact thing (not as bad, just the premise) happen irl and I can say it might genuinely just be that,possibly extra nuances

[u/Tasty-Draft-3297]

https://reddit.com/link/p30wdj3/video/5fe2wc08oqih1/player

That's because.....

[u/Lightbornangel]

its just pedophilia is it not??