The people who claim they are accepting of autism but then complain that Shane is not in touch with his emotions and say he is a poor communicator and has no reason to be so anxious... Like your bias is showing so clearly they can see it from Mars. Just say you hate autistic people and move on.
Gods Gatekeepers really fuck me off man. Even if their shits not directly @'ing me.
Yes. I am a Fucking Tourist. (Kind of, as in I'm New Here)
Never touched Resident Evil before Requiem.
Because my ass was Too Fucking Scared to touch horror games.
Yes, Older Leon drew me in.
Yes, I'm in the vast majority of women suddenly horny as shit for this character they knew nothing about until the past couple of months.
But I'm putting in the work, I'm trying to play through the older games he's in, I'll probably watch playthrough's of the ones I'm not as keen on playing, I'm watching the movies, trying to get more of a grasp of this man beyond "Holy shit I wanna fuck him"
And there's a Reason I'm doing a fucking AU/Crossover fic and inserting him into a game universe I Do know a lot about. It's easier for me.
But like... Bro. It takes Nothing to be kind?
If the Tourists come through, write a bunch of dumb fic that mis-characterizes him and move on in a couple months, who cares? Like just let people write fic and find joy in things?
I intend to stick around because I've made friends here, and I'm going to go ahead with my stupid AU fic because it's my personal way of dealing with moving on from my former Blorbo to now, Leon.
I can understand the discomfort with certain types of fic, I've got my icks too. But literally just do not engage, step away.
Fandom is supposed to be Fun, man. Lighten up.
And remember bros, it's a fucking Video Game Character, it's Not That Deep.
It seems like we're expected to not ship Donna and the Doctor because they are individually complex and interesting characters.
Throughout their time together, their interactions are built upon giving deeper insight on who they both are individually, rather than extensive shipping fodder or teasing about the nature of their relationship.
Donna doesn't save the Doctor at the end of The Runaway Bride because she was the only person in the world who could have. She saves him because that's who she is. She is kind, and compassionate, and empathetic, and there's no way she would have left him there.
It's not so much a grand commentary on the nature of their relationship, and how they are 'just so cosmically meant to be', as it is a moment for her to show us (the audience) who she is.
It's not because he already has some kind of undying love for her, he never would have listened to anyone else, or because he's willing to live only for her, or any of that.
It's that she's the kind of person who reaches out and cares even after a really rough day, when the spaceman is scaring her by drowning spider babies.
The moment is about who she is.
And they keep being allowed to be like this, where their interactions aren't relegated to being only about their relationship with each other. If anything the way they interact with each other is used like a launching point to deepen our connection to each character individually.
(Probably because we're not supposed to ship them lol. Okay definitely.)
I have to come back and elaborate on this with further specific Doctor/Donna when I get the braincell back from Bora Bora, but basically:
I love a fictional relationship where the writing is focused on deepening my understanding of and affection for each character individually, and then letting me come to the conclusion, based on an intimate understanding of each character's deepest convictions, insecurities, fears, and values that I want these two to be together.
The thing is, there is a wealth of writing out there that spends all of the character's screen time telling you to ship the characters, all too often at the expense of our investment in the characters as whole people outside of that relationship.
In my tastes, it is far more compelling and satisfying have the chance to fall in love with both characters individually without the writer feeling the need to bathe every moment of interaction in big flashing signs telling me: THEYRE EVERYTHING TO EACH OTHER!!! GET IT? LITERALLY NOTHING ELSE MATTERS!!!
It's so literary to me. Pride and Prejudice isn't iconic because Lizzy and Darcy spend every moment together, talking about each other, pontificating on the nature of their relationship and why a hypothetical reader should totally ship them.
They actually don't have a lot screen time (or page time) together.
It's iconic because we get to see who both characters are, what they value, how their failures affect them, why we should love them both.
And for the majority of readers, loving them both is enough to convince us to love them together. Why? Because we know them well enough to know they will be good together.
So. Punz and George. They're both very much defined by their relationships with Dream, probably more than anyone else on the server. It's hard to talk about Punz without bringing up Dream, and it's hard to talk about George without referencing him either. They have lives, of course, but Dream is always at the forefront of their minds. Punz spent a whole year of their life just waiting for Dream's escape; George dreams away the days even after the jailbreak in a fantasy world of his imagination where everything is perfect and he can be with Dream.
But they don't really have a relationship. They don't talk, especially not about Dream, because that would show that they cared, and George is trying to deny that to himself after the dethronement and Punz cannot allow anyone to consider even for a moment that they are on Dream's side or it was all for nothing. So the relationship they do have, weak and distant as it is, is based on bitterness and perceived betrayals and envy.
George doesn't really think about Punz much. If he did, he'd had to think about Dream, and not his Dream, not the Dream that exists only in his dreams now, but the actual, real Dream. The Dream who dethroned him without a second glance. The Dream he abandoned. The Dream locked away in an obsidian prison, rotting away as George sleeps. And George doesn't want to think about Punz. Not when it pulls him out of his dreams and makes him think about Dream.
When he does think about Punz, though, he's not exactly a fan of them. They betrayed Dream; undeniably, inexcusably, they did. They had his trust, and they threw it away for a little extra bit of money. George would never do something like that. Dream left first, after all. Dethroned George first and told him he didn't care what happened to him. Dream never did that to Punz.
And that's important. Dream never turned against Punz; they were the one who chose to betray him. Dream never quite trusted George the same way he did with Punz, and, in the period leading up to the dethronement, he let George in on less and less of his plans, grew closer and closer to his mercenary. George told himself it was because Dream wanted to keep him safe. After the dethronement, he accepted the fact that Dream just didn't care about him anymore, and that it had been a sign of that.
George tells himself that if he had been in the situation as Punz, if Dream trusted him, he would of never done what they did.
Punz...doesn't have a great opinion of George, to tell the truth. They might of pretended to betray Dream, but George (and Sapnap, and everyone who was there and just watched it happen) is the one who actually did. George left. He left and didn't come back, didn't even show up for the arrest/execution (because that's what it really was, an execution, no use dancing around it). He didn't even go visit Dream in Pandora's Vault, even when he had every chance to, even when he didn't have a plan dictating that he absolutely could not do that. Not like Punz did.
Unreliable. Untrustworthy. Uncaring. Those are the nicest words for what George is, at least to Punz. Dream died, twice, and George was nowhere to be found. Just because Dream had been trying to keep him safe. To make sure people didn't try to target George to hurt Dream. And George just left, like that was an option in this game they were all playing, that none of them save Wilbur had chosen to play, like you could just throw up your hands and say "okay, that's it, I'm done" and leave with immunity, taking everything you've done with you. That wasn't how the world worked. And it didn't matter if George understood that or not, because it still hurt Dream, and that was what was important. Because what George did was a betrayal, and because they were already familiar enough with that to know how bitter it tasted. Because Punz had to constantly pretend and reap what they had sown and deal with this betrayal they had committed - not the one they were infamous for but the one in their heart and their brain and the way people looked at them and laughed with them and the way they had agreed to the plan and let Dream die and the sneaking suspicion they had, growing louder every day, that something had gone wrong and that they had to do something about it but that too would be a betrayal - but George didn't, just because he had been there earlier and knew some people longer. Because people trusted him more and he didn't have to prove how reliable he was and how much he hated Dream and all that.
And because George had Dream's love in a way Punz never could. Dream loved too freely, that much was true, but he flinches at every motion Punz that was a little too fast, a little too sudden, and makes sure to call everything a business arrangement, makes sure they're mercenary and client, makes sure to suppress any little trace of attachment that could get either of them hurt. And, even now, even after George has gone and left, Dream still loves George; Punz isn't too blind to reality to miss it. And they had kinder days together, back before everything went wrong; there were no kinder days for Punz, and there never had been.
Despite everything, they're two sides of the same coin: wishing for something that is no longer reachable, no longer possible, because things have changed and because people have changed. Because Dream has changed, partially due to the decisions they made, and there isn't anything they can do to go back to how it was. Not truly.
And neither of them really care about anything or anyone else. They're not here to fight for ideals or morals, they just want to keep the people they love safe and away from the people who would want to hurt them. They are willing to kill for it, but, because of who Dream is, and because that would put them in danger, they can't. They're not allowed to, explicitly in Punz's case, implicitly by Dream pushing George away. Because Dream wants to keep the people he cares about safe, and that can't happen if it looks like he cares about them or vice versa.
(It's only okay if Dream's the one getting hurt, after all)
i saw posts on ig saying that sam will allegedly create his team of avengers off-screen and i am not sorry to say this but that's just fucking stupid for several reasons.
first, i cannot even recall a time after endgame where sam had expressed any interest in creating a new team at all. he seemed perfectly content working with joaquin, and occasionally asking for help whatever other contacts he has - but those were usually people he's met in the military before. other than bucky, i can't recall sam being in touch with anyone from the "old team".
but anyway, say he creates a team with some of the new characters that the mcu introduced post-endgame... most of them were introduced via d+ shows, so the casual fan who maybe doesn't follow every single thing marvel releases won't even know who anyone is. how exactly is this team going to fit together if it is never given the proper time to interact?
if they really do choose to create sam's team like this, other than people who really do watch everything, the general public will not bother rooting for them because they simply don't know who these characters are. like, no matter if you liked thunderbolts or not, that group was given some amount of time to get to know each others and become a team, and people remember these characters from past movies.
this isn't to say i think sam's team will be worse because truth be told there are some pretty powerful people he could team up with, but it's pretty clear who marvel wants us to be rooting for by giving them more exposure.
the thing is, the whole "who is the real new avengers" conflict is just so dumb this far in the history of the mcu, and completely unnecessary. i firmly believe that given all the facts, there's literally no reason why sam and joaquin can't be one team with the characters from thunderbolts (sans walker, he shouldn't be there at all no matter how much the mcu tries to make us like him).
I think we've all seen Casey Bloys' comments on an OFMD S3:
“What’s a little bit different in a linear world than here is… how a show performs over a longer period of time than three weeks or something,” Bloys stated. “So we’re figuring out how it’s doing, what it’s looking like.”
My reaction:
Really, HBO? HBO, after running one of the worst, most spoilery, most front loaded marketing campaigns I have ever seen, wants to talk about the long term?
The question that was driving everyone feral for an S2 was, will Stede and Ed find each other again? HBO/MAX put their first face-to-face meeting in the trailer. Why watch the show when the marketing will just toss a greatest hits reel out to the public before the episode even releases?
The showstopping set piece of 2x3 (MerStede rescuing Ed) was spoiled in their "marketing" since they released the concept art for MerStede days before the episode aired in a BTS video.
Let's look at the finale:
The beach kisses and the inn were spoiled in BTS videos released days before the episode was released after putting a week between 2x7 and 2x8 releases. Yeah, yeah, they didn't show the kisses exactly, but what else would that pose be for? It really enforced that 2x7 and 2x8 should have been released together, but HBO/MAX choose to create a cliffhanger while immediately posting the resolution in their marketing
Ed thinking Stede was dead was spoiled by the episode promo
Ed and Stede running toward one another on the beach was spoiled by the trailer. (It didn't show them in frame together, but it was obviously the same location and the direction they were going in matched.)
Ed reading one of Stede's letters was spoiled by marketing a few days before the finale release for no discernable reason
Izzy's climatic speech to Ricky (and that he was saying it to Ricky!) was spoiled in the trailer. It could have been a good hype VO, and they didn't need to spoil whom Izzy was talking to
The crew in the British garb and taking out soldiers was in the trailer. This plot begins nine minutes before the credits start.
The Revenge Crew working with Spanish Jackie and Zheng at some point was well spoiled beforehand in their BTS promo material. Zheng saying they should team up is three minutes before the credits start.
(Has anyone seen this amount of BTS material of episodes, including the season climax, released before an episode releases instead of after? Just holding this BTS material until after seems like a no-brainer to extending a show's interest after the finale is released.)
The reason the pacing felt super "off" on your first watch is because HBO/MAX already released a bulleted run through of the episode beforehand, and you were mentally ticking it off as you went instead of watching it organically. Watching it a second time really improves the flow of the episode.
This is a show whose popularity was raised created entirely through word-of-mouth excitement. The greediness of these streaming companies is why we couldn't have the actors doing promo, but then they took away the show's next most powerful tool, the word-of-mouth discussion, by releasing large swathes of the climax of the season before it aired, and the social media hype and discussion was front loaded to before release instead of after.
S3 was set up to show Ed and Stede as a solid couple and to show the pirate community against the British, and the season climax of these two points was released by HBO/MAX before the episode, and it was excitedly discussed then. Now, a week after release, we're stuck in some horrible gravy basket of discussing the part of the last five-ten minutes that HBO/MAX didn't outright spoil (though they tried their hardest with the grave promo stills and Ed's bloody hand in the promo!): Izzy's death. No one is having fun!
There is a lot of story setup for an S3 but DJenks and company had to set up a season that could double as a series finale in a pinch, so we also lost the "What happens next??" fervor because HBO/MAX wouldn't greenlight two seasons at once of their biggest new IP of 2022. The bizarre marketing strategy didn't lend itself to a long term success, and it's up to the fans once again to do HBO/MAX's job for them.
