#but some apply that same denial of the realities of a situation/breadcrumbs over schnitzel to the real world and. yikes.

[utilitycaster]

Were people mad about Marion x Sean not happening? I know it was popular during episode 1 but I feel like by episode 2 most everyone saw the writing in the walls with Marion and Jean obviously being into each other.

A refreshingly small number, honestly! It was one or two people in the main tags and maybe one or two more who said obnoxious things in the tags of my posts. I used that as an example because it was fresh in my mind and because that was genuinely such a great line in a fantastic arc in a fantastic series that closing yourself off to it is a miserable prospect.

Here is the thing about writing on the walls: there is a level of shipping where people will openly ignore it, eg: literally everyone who claims Beau and Yasha "came out of nowhere"; basically anyone who focuses extensively on microexpressions because that frequently goes hand-in-hand with ignoring Character A and Character B kissing each other in favor of how Character C blinked a millisecond too rapidly in A's direction; etc.

This also, honestly, isn't limited to shipping, though that's the most common case where I see it. I think part of why Campaign 2 hate is so bitter at times is because there are genuinely many, many people who watched all 141 episodes and who loved almost everything in 140 of them and then hated that the finale did not bring back Molly or did not have the ship they thought was "supposed" to happen appear - I was there, and people who claim Campaign 2 sucked were there too watching along throughout the whole thing; they just definitely thought the couples would all break up and rearrange in episode 141 for no apparent reason.

That's really my larger point: I think there is a certain kind of person who tells themself how a story "should" end, whether it's a particular ship or a particular story beat, and becomes furious when the story - which never made that promise - fails to deliver. Not only did Candela pretty clearly signal that Marion and Jean were into each other, it also told us inherently within the story and in literally every out of character interview that this was pretty much guaranteed to not end remotely close to any sort of happily ever after. It's funny - earlier in campaign 3 there was a lot of flack towards some fans' (of which I was one) frustration with the story on the basis of narrative/pacing, and I still see the inane "must stories have conflict" argument pop up. But those same people who get mad at those who talk about inconsistent themes or characterization or awkward pacing are, more often than not, people whose assessment of a story rests entirely on the incredibly narrow "did I get the exact ships and plot elements I wanted out of this and was my blorbo the coolest guy ever all the time," rather than the broad and inclusive "did this story capably deliver on an interesting premise."