2025-04-06 21:26:25 ¶ ●

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Hi prev anon here. Please say more about the characters whose fans you hate and the ones you hate because of fandom idolizing/"purifying" them

Okay, so, let’s start with the idea of me disliking the fandom ‘idolizing/purifying’ these characters. I don’t necessarily believe that to be. True. Mainly because I am aware it would make me a hypocrite. I cannot be objective about my opinions on Jon. That’s fact. So it’s not so much that I believe the fandom is acting in a way that glosses over their faults… it’s that the narrative and the fandom make their flaws into things that should necessarily be forgiven and therefore make them out to be entirely irreproachable.

This got super long so I will now put a read more.

Now, when we look at where the story leaves them off in the penultimate episode, where we have gotten perfunctory apologies from Georgie and Basira regarding their actions towards Jon and their place in the Mass Ritual by that eleventh fucking hour, we do not see any actual change in their perspectives. We get Jon telling Georgie she didn’t need to apologize, and we get Jon apologizing TO Basira as their final exchange. We don’t even get any kind of back and forth between Jon and Melanie in this final season that isn’t antagonistic. We get her misplaced hatred of him being validated and justified by his 'betrayal’. We get their opinion of him being a self-centered, egotistical, power-hungry monster being validated and justified.

In other words, if we are supposed to believe that we are NOT supposed to see their actions as being in the right and that they are morally just in everything they chose to do with and without coercion, then the narrative fails on that in every aspect. Regardless of what the fandom reads into it and regardless of the writers intent.

When Jon pushes against Basira’s perspective regarding her time as a police and her using both Daisy and Melanie as a metric of what is and isn’t justice, it is immediately invalidated by his own actions and Basira is back to being morally center, if not good or bad.

When Melanie has consistently verbally and physically attacked Jon, it’s justified by his own acts against her in retaliation being presented as worse. And no, despite how the narrative tried to gaslight us, no one on voice in podcast told her to look at things from his side. Ever.

When Georgie drops Jon like a hot potato after his coma, both telling him he needs people to anchor him AND the person he chooses to be anchored to that he should be cut loose, her autonomy and boundaries are all that matter and he is the one that oversteps.

This is the perspective the narrative gives, this is the perspective the fandom goes by. Basira is a fixed, level-headed point and this is good. Melanie is righteously angry and this is just. Georgie is the queen of setting boundaries and this is unquestionable. Any deviation in thought from this will be labeled as misogyny rather than simply pointing out how these characters have flaws. That these flaws are allowed to be acknowledged and not excused.

I’ve only spoken about the only surviving girls at this point but this also goes towards Martin and Daisy. And, least I be burned at the stake, Tim and Sasha as well. But I won’t be talking about them at this moment because the original archival team (and Daisy) is an entirely different beast than this. That side of the fandom doesn’t seem to hold Jon in the same contempt as the aforementioned one so my emotions towards them are more complex.

Jon’s choices and Jon’s issues are all on him. We are never allowed to point out the consistent manipulation from childhood, his upbringing as an orphan, and any neurodivergence he may have as being the reason for those choices without having to append that it is no justification. We cannot be sympathetic towards him, as to be sympathetic to a ~man~ in any degree at all means you cannot be sympathetic to his women peers in any aspect.

I do admire Basira for how secure she is in herself and her choices. Even if those choices are self-serving with no regard to others.

I do know how Melanie feels when it comes to her anger and how she cannot recognize her own kindness or give it to Jon in any capacity.

I do think Georgie had the right to decide what she was willing to handle. Even if it was callous and dismissive of everyone else.

These characters are multifaceted and nuanced and make some of the most insane decisions due to this and if I took away the voices trying to flatten them into 'girlbosses’ I could find myself enjoying writing about things from their perspective and writing about their healing and growth. As it stands, though, I cannot. Because all their nuance flies out of my brain the minute anyone tries to say that they are morally better than Jon.