When a character does something embarrassing, I generally feel massive amounts of second-hand embarrassment, often times more than the character themselves. I hate second hand embarrassment, I sometimes find myself closing my eyes to make it more manageable.
That doesn't happen with Me and Thee. Even though Thee is often being ridiculous, behavior I would normally cringe very badly at, I find myself laughing or even just smiling instead.
Because THEE ISN'T EMBARRASSED, even when they put the sound effects that normally go over a failed joke or something similar, it rings differently with Thee because when he's being dramatic and ridiculous, he's being sincere.
Someone said Pond playing Thee works because Pond believes in Thee, and I genuinely believe that to be true.
Thee isn't ashamed of being ridiculous, so why should I be embarrassed for him?
Fandoms stopped being a fun escape from reality when people started spreading the belief that you should prioritize purity over pleasure and the art you create must be a reflection of your moral standards at all times.
I agree but I want to add this feels like a symptom of the even bigger problem/reason which is Fandom is no longer communal in the way it was before. It used to be a way to connect but now the most common use for it is to feed a fixation. It's solely consumerism. It's why I think you see people hating on beginner artists and being extremely demanding of fanfic writers. They don't see this as a community of people that also love what they love and are showing it in their own way. It's seen as a way to get more of the media you are currently into at a quick rate. Consuming fanfic and fanart with no thoughts that the people making it are doing it for free and purely out of passion
so I know we don’t actually know that much about rome’s character right now but it seems to me that he is much more in touch with reality than his brother thee is.
which is so interesting because it then begs the question, why is thee so out of touch with reality (or at least insistently fantasising) ? what triggered this need to be in a constant state of social disawareness? and as intriguingly why did rome not follow suit?
is it because thee managed to protect rome from the thing(s) that caused his own distance from reality? is it because, oppositionally, rome grew up in a different household (physically and/or metaphorically) to thee and thus didn’t need the protective blanket of fantasy?
they clearly both have to abide by the same inane, and frankly insane, rules regarding physical and emotional safety. they clearly both have a very casual and disinterested relationship with money, one borne from growing up around such wealth. so at what stage did it change? what split their understanding of the world apart like this?
