Midway into December already....

[rogueslayer452]

++ We are on lockdown again because cases have risen significantly. Seriously, what is so difficult with abiding by the rules, staying at home, wearing a mask and social distancing? I'm so tired.....

++ The Last Of Us: Part II basically swept The Game Awards, including best performance by Laura Bailey as Abby Anderson and Game of the Year, and honestly I am so incredibly happy, especially when you consider what happened earlier in the year with the leaks and people bashing the game before even playing it and people who cannot separate fiction and reality harassing and sending death threats to Laura for the character she played, these wins are absolutely well-deserved. I know that there are genuine criticisms going into this though, mostly when it comes to awarding crunch culture and the mistreatment of employees, a massive problem within the gaming industry as a whole and that shouldn't be ignored. And yeah, award shows in general are often popularity contests, but I'm not going to lie and say that I don't feel somewhat vindicated that something I love won and felt was well-deserved (and it sucks that there are these other behind-the-scenes factors that go against it, aka crunch culture). The Last Of Us franchise, while not entirely perfect, is a masterpiece of gameplay and storytelling, and The Last Of Us: Part II delivered more of that in a brutal and heartbreaking way.

++ With all the announcements made of upcoming Disney/Marvel/Star Wars/etc content, my overall feeling is just....meh. There may be couple of things that I'm curious about, but otherwise I'm just so exhausted. Between the constant reboots/remakes and large continuing franchises being announced every five minutes it seems, I'm just so burnt out. We've known for a long time that the entertainment industry lacks in originality, but seeing these announcements back-to-back really drives it home.

Comments

[tabaqui]

Bah. I keep expecting another lockdown here, but my state is too fucking stupid to actually do it. They just don't give a damn, and it sucks.

I'm not really excited about much that's coming out, either. The new season of The Expanse (!!!!!!!), Falcon and Winter Soldier kinda sorta....i think that's it.

It is...so exhausting to just deal with idiots and anxiety daily. Take care of yourself, bb.
*hugs*

[rogueslayer452.livejournal.com]

Every time I look at the news and I see people protesting against the lockdown and purposefully going against the rules, I just want to scream. Look, at least with businesses I understand the frustration of needing to keep your means of income afloat, but by not abiding by the rules you're actively part of the problem. Like, that's just common sense. But there are unfortunately still people out there who think these rules don't apply to them, that nobody can tell them what to do (because, y'know, 'Murica and all that), which has made the prevention of the virus harder to do. And I'm just so tired of all of this, so so tired.

*hugs* Take care of yourself, too.

[songbirds.livejournal.com]

I totally agree with you about the all the Disney/etc. releases. It's really hard to put my finger on why exactly I just feel so incredibly apathetic about it all. That stuff used to be my jam!! And there's gonna be tons of it!! So, why is it that I can't even bring myself to care?

I think honestly it's just the sheer amount of it that we've had in our faces for the better part of a decade, and now they're ramping that up exponentially. I think there's just way too much to care about. And the originality factor is also a thing at times. I thought The Mandalorian was a really original thing, and they're exploring some lesser-explored Marvel characters with She-Hulk, etc. But there are an astounding number of remakes, that's true.

But I think for me it's just way too much and I don't have the time or energy, man. I just feel overwhelmed by it all.

[rogueslayer452.livejournal.com]

I think honestly it's just the sheer amount of it that we've had in our faces for the better part of a decade, and now they're ramping that up exponentially. I think there's just way too much to care about.

That's precisely it. There's been so much for so long that, aside from 2020, we've always had a presence of these franchises that having a long list of upcoming projects from them just feels so empty. And the remakes/reboots add to that emptiness, since it's less about originality and more about banking on nostalgia. And it is very, very overwhelming.

(Of course, they're not all going to be released at once and surely COVID will play a major role in determining whether or not these even make it out in the future, but seeing the sheer size of everything that was announced is quite overwhelming and it makes me just feel less inclined to be at all excited even for things that do look interesting.)

Also, I'm bitter because we had a good Marvel television line-up that explored the lesser known characters of the universe, many of them had their own concepts and genres and ways of telling the stories and push the envelope that way and were all original in the way they presented themselves, but those were all cancelled (the only one that got to finish proper was Agents of SHIELD). I'll admit to being curious about She-Hulk and seeing Kate Bishop, but I would rather it not be held by Disney+ and the short leash they'll be on, y'know? Which is another issue altogether that we won't see more risk-taking with these newer MCU-based shows.

[awakenyourfaith.livejournal.com]

The Last Of Us franchise, while not entirely perfect, is a masterpiece of gameplay and storytelling, and The Last Of Us: Part II delivered more of that in a brutal and heartbreaking way. - Couldn't agree more!

I feel much the same re: the Disney announcements. There was a lot.

[violateraindrop]

Germany will start enforcing stricter rules on Wednesday since the "light lockdown" which started in November was completely useless. There are actually more cases now than before it. It still doesn't feel like a real lockdown to me.

I liked the Loki trailer a lot more than I thought I would, but there was just sooo much announced. It's ridiculous. I only really took in what I saw reblogged as gifsets on tumblr and only then watched two trailers. After a day or two I found out that there will be a Zootopia series which I completely missed.

[rogueslayer452.livejournal.com]

What boggles my mind is that, no matter how strict the rules are enforced, there will still be stupid people who will break them to do whatever they want to. :/

Yeah, there's just so much, too much. Most of them are completely unnecessary, imho. It's just rehashing things for nostalgia purposes (and money, obviously) and it just feels so hollow to me.

[silverusagi]

I will admit I'm very curious about the Loki series, but I have a weakness for trickster characters.

[rogueslayer452.livejournal.com]

I'm mostly curious about She-Hulk (since it's Tatiana Maslany) and I do want to see how Hailee Steinfeld does with Kate Bishop. but otherwise I don't really care about the majority of the MCU characters....

[noybusiness.livejournal.com]

The pandemic has exposed a deep current of selfishness and short-sightedness within America, and that the Republican Party will politicize *anything*, even something as simple as health and safety regulations that everyone should be following as a matter of course regardless of their political affiliations because it's just what one does. No other country seems to be quite this fucked up about it.

It used to be that having a live-action Star Wars TV series was a pipe dream, and now we're getting seven at once! I'm so excited! I couldn't be happier about how the Star Wars universe has expanded from the classic trilogy into this whole thing!

And I'm also very happy that we're exploring so many corners of the Marvel Universe! Just think of all the people and places from the comics that will now be canon in the MCU! I'd rather have all the previous Marvel Television projects back at the same time as these others, but they're all good in and of themselves, too.

(Sheesh, am I really the only one here who gets more excited the more stuff there is to look forward to and not less? I have Autism, and we're supposed to be the ones who suffer from sensory overload.)

Also way looking forward to Matt Murdock and the characters from the prior Spider-Man movies appearing in Spider-Man 3! I was really disappointed when there was no sequel to the second Amazing.
.

[rogueslayer452.livejournal.com]

It really has, especially with the politicizing something as important as healthcare. Like, you have people outright denying that COVID isn't real and it's a "political ploy" by the left and it's like...???? Are you serious right now? You'd think something like this would bring people together to help stop the spreading of something deadly, and while that does exist we're seeing more and more cases of people just...not caring, not bothering to care. It's really scary.

I'm happy that you're excited about those announcements! I guess, for me anyway, I'm just kind of exhausted of just seeing these franchises dominating everything.

[noybusiness.livejournal.com]

Even people who are dying of it in the hospital while denying it. It's really scary, or sad, that they couldn't see how untrustworthy Trump and the other purveyors of misinformation were. Following health and safety guideline should not be a political statement. Neither should acknowledging that Biden won the election. My father and others of his generation have written about the contrast between this attitude and how everyone accepted rationing and gas masks during World War II.

I haven't felt oversaturated with Marvel and Star Wars, especially the latter since we've only gotten one Star Wars movie per year or every two years (and the next will be December 2023, apparently). And I like both franchises enough that it would be hard to have too much of them, as long as they don't squeeze out potential other things, which they don't seem to be.

[haebin.livejournal.com]

Seriously, what is so difficult with abiding by the rules, staying at home, wearing a mask and social distancing? I'm so tired.....
I feel you. We are going here in Germany in a Lockdown as well (from tomorrow on) and people are crazy, running into the cities, going shopping, crowded in narrowed places. Every day we have 500 deaths... And people don't stay at home. What the hell??

[rogueslayer452.livejournal.com]

The fact that people are just outright pretending that the pandemic doesn't exist is incredibly scary. I get wanting things to return to normal, I wish this as well, everyone is feeling this way since the lockdowns began earlier this year, but things won't get to that point if you're not following the very simple instructions to prevent the spreading of this virus!

People are just so....stupid. Ugh. :/

[elizalavelle.livejournal.com]

We're in "lockdown" here in which we say it's a lockdown but it's really not. So the anti-maskers etc. freak out like they're being restricted and really only small businesses are suffering as the big box stores are all mostly open. Predictably it's doing very little to slow the rise in cases.

I'm fortunate enough to be working from home because my company is on board with realizing this is a scary thing and so we aren't required to come into the office. I have friends who have more micro-managing bosses and they're all back at work in an office with very few safety measures in place. That's the kind of thing the government should be managing. If the job can be done at home (and let's be real office work is pretty much all manageable from home) then the business should not have people in the office and fines should be enforced if they're forcing workers to come in.

Agreed on the Disney/Marvel announcements. I am excited for a few but I wish we saw more new things and maybe not 83719 Marvel spin offs all at once.

[rogueslayer452.livejournal.com]

It's going to be a vicious cycle, people are going to be stupid no matter what with or without restrictions, and the pandemic is going to be prolonged indefinitely because of it. It makes me so mad because this is so easily preventable? And yet common sense goes out the window. Ugh....

If the job can be done at home (and let's be real office work is pretty much all manageable from home) then the business should not have people in the office and fines should be enforced if they're forcing workers to come in.

Precisely. This should be a no-brainer, and it shows that you actually care about not only the employees but also about the job as well, because shit happens and you have to adjust accordingly and if you can do that by having office work be done at home that's a surefire way that your business will still thrive even when you're forced to shut down actual offices, does that make sense?

Agreed on the Disney/Marvel announcements. I am excited for a few but I wish we saw more new things and maybe not 83719 Marvel spin offs all at once.

Yeah, I definitely think that's part of the issue. It'd be one thing if they announced newer things, but then just dumping all of these announcements at once, most of them rehashing things for nostalgia, that kind of takes a lot of the excitement out. It's too overloaded, and we didn't need all of this released at the same time, they could have at least spread it out more. It doesn't help that I'm not happy with how Disney is basically dominating and controlling everything.

[elizalavelle.livejournal.com]

I really feel like humanity was given a pandemic on easy mode and we failed horribly.

For sure people are suffering and I don't want to downplay that but a whole lot of people are doing okay and are just being selfish. They're going to parties and seeing lots of different people and refusing to wear masks etc. If you have food and shelter and a job and are still being selfish just because you're bored or don't like being told what to do then I have no sympathy whatsoever. We essentially have unlimited entertainment at home via library services, the internet, streaming services, games, phone apps, etc. and access to having pretty much anything we please delivered to us.

I'm pretty convinced society would crumble if we were facing a bigger disaster.

Agreed on the offices. If people can work from home that keeps business going and transitioning to that faster means that if office buildings get closed the business is okay. Plus employees can't work if they're dead so...

I keep seeing the rumour about Disney rebooting Firefly as a family friendly show... just no. I love Firefly but the world is dark. You can't have family friendly Reavers or companions or River's entire backstory etc. It just isn't something for little kids.

[rogueslayer452.livejournal.com]

They're going to parties and seeing lots of different people and refusing to wear masks etc. If you have food and shelter and a job and are still being selfish just because you're bored or don't like being told what to do then I have no sympathy whatsoever.

Yeah, it really kind of demonstrates the selfishness in times of a serious life or death situation. It's really kind of disheartening seeing so many people disregard this all because they're bored or think that they can just ignore it and it'll go away.

You would think that for something as serious as this people would be exercising at least self-preservation in preventing any kind of continuing spread of this virus, but somehow people are just so determined to be the biggest, most entitled people ever. It's truly unbelievable how dumb some are being, and for what? What is the purpose? What is the message you're sending? Because the whole, "I didn't follow the rules for a worldwide pandemic because fuck the man!" is going to make you look like a fool rather than heroic.

I keep seeing the rumour about Disney rebooting Firefly as a family friendly show... just no.

I don't believe these rumors, but considering that Disney/the industry wants to reboot everything underneath the fucking sun I wouldn't surprised if they tried this, especially with the success of The Mandalorian with it being a space western and all. But I agree that attempting a "family friendly" version of the 'verse is not appealing, and even if they can update some of the questionable things from the original series (i.e. casting Asians to be part of the cast and not just background extras and develop the world-building a bit more to make more sense) I wouldn't want something like Disney to do it. I don't trust Disney with most things, especially with properties that aren't theirs and want to fundamentally shift and change the way the elements of the story are told just to fit their squeaky clean image.