u/rqwedr

Honestly I think “too much screen time” is a term that is extremely overused to the point where it’s almost meaningless. But honestly, by objective measure, Anastasia in Disventure Camp 5 did get a rather disproportionate amount of focus for what her plot ultimately ended up being. Even up to now, her line count in seven episodes is comparable to the twelve who’ll have twice as many.

And also, hot take but Anastasia this season is a big downgrade from her Disventure Camp 4 showing. She’s a borderline Mary Sue nowadays who had all of her growth offscreen between seasons, faced little real struggle, and was shed of almost all the traits that had made her one of the most compelling characters in the show.

Cutting her earlier would have given the Favorites team more conflict earlier on, vastly improved the build up to Alec’s elimination, and would have allowed for at least some more Ally / Benji crumbs that we didn’t get because a writer decided we needed to see Natalia get unjustifiably villainized for not blindly trusting someone who she has mostly bad history with. But that’s something that merits a post of its own lmao.

ONC was literally sitting on a goldmine and just… did nothing 😭

All the Natalia next boot predictors have taken yet another round of Ls, as they will continue to do until she wins the season 🥰

This is Natalia’s world and we all merely have the privilege of living in it 🔥

So hyped to see her clock the new gens at merge

It has honestly been pretty clear edit wise already that Natalia will emerge victorious in her rivalry with Rosa, and this episode has only solidified that further. Natalia’s in the best position she’s been in for a long time while Rosa’s majority alliance is now the increasingly fractious one. And Lake’s story is beginning to start so narratively Rosa has to go atp. Which is unfortunate since I love her a lot this season.

Honestly Ara and Lynda would be a great dynamic in the far future if a Redemption season happens

I think there will definitely be some "WTF" pairings, as there always are. Honestly, I see potential in Ren and Aiden especially.

This is inspired by the post OkShirt made about a month ago. I think that posts like these are genuinely a great idea especially since the Disventure Camp Reddit is one of the few places where long-form discussion can fully occur.

Essentially, open a discussion about anything pertinent to Disventure Camp under this thread lol. Curious to see what comes up.

Honestly the Fans as a collective are lowkey “the Ted of Disventure Camp 5” given the fandom discourse around them. It’s lowkey just a lot of slop. But as far as individual characters go, it’s actually scary how much Manu is basically just Ted.

Both were the second male boot / third overall boot of their respective teams and their respective seasons. Both had one central character dynamic with another pre-merger cut in the eleventh episode. And there is a lot of talk about the supposed potential storylines they were “robbed” of having that doesn’t seriously look at if or where such could fit in the shared narrative as a whole.

They also now both share the same VA, lol.

Honestly, if it was up to me, I would have had the DC5 team swap be an EP1 four-way swap to get more of the Bruno-Manu dynamic, but I’d still cut him around the same time, give or take. In the grand scheme of things, Manu’s story would be best told in a subsequent season with a different cast in which his narrative would have a proper fitting place. If anyone from the bottom six of the season was truly robbed, they are Ernesto.

EP13 - Rosa María (13th, later 14th)

EP14 (MERGE) - Tom (12th, later 13th; 1st Jury Member)

EP15 - Rejoin (Benji)

EP16 - Fiore (new 12th; 2nd Jury Member)

EP17 - Ara (11th; 3rd Jury Member)

Thoughts:

- I do not see Natalia being the next boot. Admittedly, this take is fueled, to an extent, by cope on my end given how much I've loved Natalia this season. But even cope aside, I just don't see her going. She is clearly the main character on the Favorites side and possibly for the season as a whole. She has the most speaking lines of anyone in the season as of EP12; last season, as of EP12, Anastasia (the eventual 3rd-place finisher) held the most speaking lines. Additionally, she is currently tied for the most confessionals in the season, but unlike Fiore, her confessionals have had substantially more depth, and their distribution across the episodes aligns more with those who typically go far in Disventure Camp; every winner and every finalist more broadly except DC1 Ellie (and DC3 Tess; the first eight episodes of All-Stars were written with the original Final Three edit in mind) has had an EP1 (or EP2 in the case of DC3... it genuinely is such a weird season editing wise) have had an EP1 confessional, for instance. And in general, almost all the Favorite plot-lines so far have been Natalia-centric in some capacity. Gabby and Tom have also been supporting characters for Natalia rather than vice-versa in a related example.

Secondly, there just aren't really the prevailing circumstances necessary for a Natalia vote to be successfully orchestrated. Natalia is on socially tenuous footing, but ironically, that works in her favor, as folks like Fiore and Spencer have a vested interest in keeping her around as a shield. In EP11, Spencer explicitly states that he wants to keep Natalia and Rosa's feud going indefinitely, since otherwise he risks being eliminated.

I think that, especially in EP12, what we've seen is clearly a red herring. Maybe I'm wrong, and within a few days of this post, I'll be eating my words. But as of now, I don't think she's out anytime soon. Also helped by the fact that ONC likes to emphasize more dramatic, conflict-creating characters.

- I think that one of Lake or Rosa María is the final pre-merger. Rosa has been receiving votes outright, while Fiore has actively floated Lake's name. Both individually and as a duo are key strategic threats with the merge imminent. Honestly, it is a true toss-up, and while I would love a Rosa deep run, I think that she is more likely to be the last pre-merge casualty between the two. Lake's story arc at the moment feels like it'll naturally conclude with her essentially bending her morals for a cash prize lol. But I can see the setup for otherwise.

- Gabby will reach the merge. There has been a setup for a Gabby independence arc for a while now, which, especially given the Nat-Gabby schism, now practically mandates Tom's exit soon. Tom himself has clearly been a supporting character for both, in a way similar to how Dunia was a support for Nura and Ren, who are now in conflict.

- Fiore is not going particularly deep. I see everyone and their mother saying that she'll be the next "TDWT Heather" or whatnot, and I genuinely don't get it. Fiore honestly might be the most obvious early merge exit in a while. She isn't a main character this season and is mostly just comic relief. She didn't even get an EP6 confessional about the impact of the Alec vote on her... her ride-or-die ally of three seasons, and while she has numerous confessionals otherwise, they have basically no depth. Plus, in Fiore's introduction, she speaks of floating undetected until the merge, where she just assumes she won't be voted out because she isn't an apparent comp threat... and then in the most recent episode, she shuns being a social player in favor of being a comp threat... and Sam whom she is merging with watched DC1 and doesn't know of Fiore's poor All-Stars finish... Fiore stans I wouldn't be so confident if I were y'all.

- Ally isn't getting eliminated any time soon. People who say this are genuinely just coping in the purest definition of the word. She's very under-edited yes, but she has clear longevity under the present prevailing circumstances. Everyone needs her vote, and at the same time she possesses an Idol while being set up for an arc in EP2 and EP10, and for dynamics in the merge. As of now, she's genuinely safe until F8 at the earliest.

- Benji will win the rejoin. He's the most obvious rejoin since Connor. The only other somewhat-contender is Bruno of all people lol. And there's no Rescue Island episode to set up a viable alternative in Amelie-esque or Marissa-esque fashion or set up early Benji closure. I don't see Benji in the endgame, though. He went four straight episodes without even a confessional; that is perhaps the worst thing that could ever happen to a prospective winner, edit bar OTTNN5s in every single episode.

- Ara is cooked early-merge. Literally everyone hates her atp; it's honestly kinda funny, I can't lie. And Spencer or Natalia are already the sacrificial jury lambs. She is either the early merge consensus vote or Ally default dances on her winner aspirations with the Idol.

Asides from Natalia I honestly am generally confident in these placements tbh. Let’s see how well or poorly this ages. 😵‍💫

Natalia is genuinely a wildcard at this point. As much as I hate to say it I can see a world where she is the next one out. But at the same time she has been so central to the narrative of the season in a way that none of the other contestants have been. Eliminating her may be like hypothetically eliminating Ellie in DC1 EP7 or Aiden in DC2 EP5. Time will tell.

- Disventure Camp 6 will feature a new cast. The announcement basically soft-confirms no returning players.

- Disventure Camp 6 will certainly return to the standard 18 player cast size of DC3 and DC4.

- Disventure Camp 6 won’t return to 13 episodes. That’s clearly a thing of the past atp.

- Another Survivor theme will be explored. In the DC5 announcement Jared explicitly named Champions v Contenders and Brains v Brawn v Beauty as themes he wanted to explore so I suspect it’ll be one of those.

- New location, this is a given IMO as has been the standard for all seasons post-AS.

- Emily will be host. She’s here to stay atp.

- The jury will be featured in the season. It is clearly a permanent fixture of the game atp.

It’s now my turn to do one of these!

Under this megathread, you may discuss the twelfth episode of Disventure Camp 5: Fans vs Favorites. As always, make sure not to post any spoilers if you've already seen the episode prior to the premiere. After the episode concludes, you may post about it outside the megathread, but please spoiler tag and keep spoilers out of the post titles for the first six hours (until 9:00 PM EDT).

Thank you, everyone! 🥳

It's been a while since I've made an opinion tier list. This time around, I have also created a proper ranking rather than just arranging the contestants within each tier alphabetically.

A few thoughts:

I have been enjoying the season up to this point. Natalia and Nura are both my favorites and also the main characters of the season; I really lucked out here, lmao. They have consistently been engaging to watch and quite compelling in their own right, and I'm always left excited for more. Aiden and Rosa have also had their best portrayals in Disventure Camp 5. Ren has been a brilliant subversion of expectations as a more lighthearted character who is actually competent in the game, and Ara has really come into her own ever since Finn left.

The hate for Tom this season is genuinely so forced even for the Disventure Camp fandom. I say this even as someone who honestly would've booted him in EP11. The discourse around him is just endless "mUh ScReeNtiMe" slop with zero substance that makes me almost glad he's merging out of spite. Tom hasn't been super flashy this season, but he has been quite good as a supporting character for both Gabby and Natalia.

Fiore's a good character as per usual, but as far as Disventure Camp 5 goes, she's lowkey overrated and doesn't really have much substance to her name. I do think she has the capacity to improve post-merge and finally get some true dynamics outside of Alec.

Benji's story is honestly overhated to a degree, but it is genuinely pretty flawed, especially given that he went four episodes without a single confessional. It is also largely contingent on whether he wins the rejoin challenge. He probably will, honestly, but nothing's impossible with this show.

Oliwia's character just isn't really my cup of tea. I think, objectively, she's written quite well for the character she is, but in the competition she lowkey sucks. It's a big problem I have with the Fans in general, except for the higher-ranked ones here. She has had absolutely zero strategic content. Even Manu at least tried to flip on his alliance.

Anastasia in Disventure Camp 5 is honestly a big downgrade from her preceding incarnation. Disventure Camp 4 Anastasia was a far more compelling and well-rounded character, but in this season she's lowkey a Mary Sue. The edit constantly glazed her and gave her generous amounts of screentime that should have gone to Aiden, Ally, or Benji... all while the character flaws that had made her compelling and rootable were tossed out the window. It's especially disappointing since Disventure Camp 4 was only six months prior in-universe, and all the other Favorites from that season feel like six months have passed and still retain several character flaws. I like her role in Alec's plotline and interactions with Rosa, though.

Manu is my least favorite in the season, but that is largely by process of elimination. At his core, he's just fundamentally incompatible with the rest of the season cast minus Bruno, and generally isn't much to write home about. Honestly, in several ways he is the Ted of this season, even down to how much he gets glazed for his "potential" or how his "robbery" is lamented. But even then, Ted (and every other third boot minus Kai) were far more consequential. I do think, however, that not all of the issues are with Manu himself. A lot can be attributed to sheer circumstance, lowkey. I do think that he could be a lot better in a subsequent season, but Disventure Camp 5 wasn't the time or place for a deep run or arc.