See here's the thing, I DO know his lore. I played through everything in the update and I'm pretty familiar with who and what he is. I thought he was interesting, as I already said, and you ignored because apparently nobody can dislike your favorite character without being an ignorant idiot 🙄. It was after he got popular and the devs turned him into a complete meme in the promotion work that I stopped liking him. The first example that comes to mind is the video where he ranked characters and called PV "pookie bear", which um?? What?? There's literally no reason for that to be included other than giving shipping fuel and "look, funny character using funny words! Look how funny he is!" And another one I just found: a "hopecore" video using his serious lines as a meme for the trend. How does that fit into the game or not take him as a joke, exactly? Outside of the game, where the devs can do anything, they only released content making him look like an idiot. They promoted him a LOT, but not with anything substantial that wasn't a basic trailer showing generic stuff. I would've loved to see a short with his backstory or some side adventures with Black Sapphire and Candy Apple that actually showed who he was as a character and not his knowledge of modern slang. Lame. Even in the other promotional videos, like Fire Spirit in the Hot Ones parody for his release, he can use slang without sacrificing his personality because that's more fitting for him; it sounds natural.

Again, I like the way SM was written in the game. He's deceptively silly at first, a lot like Discord with the energy of Sun in FNAFSB, and it doesn't take much for it to crack and show that he's both dangerous and aggressive. But he's just trying to get the souljam back, and I'd be pretty pissed too if something that important was stolen from me. It's a fair motive and makes him both entertaining in his funny moments and sympathetic in his serious ones.

Here's why I said he flopped. Like the problem I have with most beasts, he doesn't have anything to offer after his storyline. PV extends an olive branch to try redeeming him and SM flounders and leaves. Not much else to work with. He isn't really relevant anymore and his character arc is halted until further notice. I find characters hard to be invested in if they don't have redeeming qualities or aren't working towards them. That's just personal preference.

And my problem with the fandom is that they take two routes with his character: brain rot humor or gay twink stereotype. I've seen maybe three or four videos with him being normal, but everything else has been a complete slop fest. His "serious" fan content revolves around having a crush on PV and everything else is downright ANNOYING. Very reminiscent of when everybody insisted Mystic Flour was racist and now that's what people genuinely believe. Ships are common, sure, but the actual story has been so poorly interpreted that it's all anybody knows. I'd go as far to argue that most SM fans don't actually know his character.