Spot my coffee reading this🤣🤣🤣

Even aaron fans abandon him ...

I'll preface all of this by saying I think it's valid to see his behavior in this current relationship as pathetic. IMO that's how it's always kind of been, especially as someone who basically watched their entire storyline from start to finish in under three months. Aside from a few moments, I've always felt that aaron's kind of the kicked dog that keeps running back for more within rbrn, especially during affair era and 2016/17.

To answer your question, it never really occured to me that there was (as you so aptly put it) a Mass Exodus of aaroncels after rob left, I kind of assumed people just preferred robert all this time and didn't care for aaron. But now that you've brought it to my attention, I think there are a few reasons for this extinction event.

Primarily, I feel that emdale writers/the show really struggled with aaron's character post-divorce. I never really watched into the pandemic (I might have to pick it up again just so that I can really back up this point) but for the six months following their divorce, I think they did a good job of following aaron's grief and his return to unhealthy habits that weren't sh. But beyond that they really had a hard time pinning down the balance between grieving and moving on. It wasn't just the fact that they had him in a rl less than a year after his divorce, it was the general way he was being written as one note for a lot of 2020. That, paired with his deteriorating relationship with Liv, made him a seriously unsympathetic character. Fans wanted to see the suffering he was going through from the loss of robert, and were met with a seemingly well-adjusted aaron. Fans wanted aaron to vent and cry and for liv and aaron to mourn the family they had, and instead got even more tension and conflict between them. I think the latter less so bc it's realistic for that sibling bond to detoriarate given what both characters were going through, but it definitely painted aaron as the bad guy, callous and cruel. Beyond that, Liv's death really obliterated any return to his pre-2019 self we could have ever gotten. I saw glimpses of that character between 2020-2023, but after Liv's death I think the writers realized he was so fundamentally changed as a person bc of it (see 2023 return) that any "return to form" would be disingenuous. I firmly believe they struggled to pick a tone for his character after that, which is why it was such an extreme shift when he came back. Die hard aaron fans from the jackson era probably felt they couldn't even recognize the character anymore, which could explain their departure.

Aaron as a character was always extremely layered, a deeply angry and violent person who was also empathetic and kind and had really meaningful relationships with many people in the village, working incredibly hard to be better. As these character traits have been chipped away at more and more through the years by characters leaving, rls deteriorating, and the character becoming more cynical, those relationships and traits have dwindled to almost nothing. we still see moments of these things ofc, but to a much lesser extent. which again, makes him less sympathetic as we see less and less of his internal thought process.

But most importantly, I think people hated seeing aaron moving on from robert. For a character on a soap to stay interesting, they have to be able to have relationships (particularly romantic) with others, so I do understand why they had aaron start seeing other people from a writing perspective, but on the other hand it fell flat as a character decision. From my experience with soap, I've never seen a show or fans so committed to a specific ship as I've seen with rbrn. Maybe it's easy to say in retrospect, but I truly never had a doubt when rob came back that they would get back tg, and I have a feeling there was a similar sentiment during 2017 era. Their inevitability made aaron's character feel like it was on pause, holding its breath for robert's return before it could continue. The writers did everything in their power to try to work past this and ignore it, but when you've written two characters to be as strongly attached (literal soulmates as both actors have said) as these two, it is ridiculously hard to force aaron to be in a rl with someone else less than a year after the divorce. If I remember correctly, it's mid 2020 that aaron receives that letter from rob which provides him with "closure" so that he's able to move on, but this was definitely one of those moments the writers fumbled the ball. it rings hollow. I think if aaron had fallen into a john-esque rl back then it would make more sense, but I feel a lot of fans probably saw this as a betrayal.

Now this splits into two sects: Betrayal of self vs. betrayal of character. I hypothesize that people who stuck with the show saw this as a betrayal of the rbrn ship by aaron. Maybe this jaded them towards him, caused them to dislike his character not only due to his purported moving on, but all the other reasons listed above giving them even more fuel to add to the fire. In the other camp are the die-hard aaron fans that saw this decision, and a lot of the subsequent aaron character decisions, as a betrayal of the character and by the show rather than by aaron. I could understand watching and loving a show and its characters to the point where the show making egregious decisions would force me to give it up entirely.

so TLDR; I think this aaroncel flight is a cocktail of uncertain writing, unmet fan expectations and unsympathetic positioning. aaron is not the character many fans probably fell in love with in the beginning. years of grief have made it impossible for him to be that person anymore, and the show struggles to understand what his position within the village is now which probably caused the aaron super fan drought (ASFD) we are currently experiencing.

anyway this was a very interesting ask to answer I had a lot of fun, and I especially appreciate you saying people enjoy my perspectives on aaron/mdale, it's such an honor to know that people care about what I have to say lol. so basically thank you! I hope you share your thoughts on this topic if you have any, and I hope that my deep and unconditional love for aaron brings about a resurgence of us super fans back on this site. An Aaronaissance if you will. I feel like there are too many people who worship robert uncritically and the troops over on this side are dwindling, but that does not mean we fight with any less vigor or purpose.