Moonchanter

your last ally in all the city-states is an elf who would unironically lick the sweat from your armpits in front of the entire congregation. he begs his dad to let you couch surf. one of his brothers admits to your face that he wished you would die

two members of the swiss guard arrest your children so you punch them in the neck until the judge says you're free to go. the pope personally calls you to apologize for the trouble

ilberd tries and fails to hotbox you to death

a hot elf wife takes you on vacation to a nest full of cool bugs

anytime there's a serious moment estinien challenges the tone of the scene by pulling a giant novelty eyeball out of his pants which is played 100% straight every single time. not a single soul questions this or reacts in surprise

Over 500 years spent trying to cut down a whole trunk of human culture.

So fandom is often a very strange space to be in.

People trying so desperately to prove that a character is good and justified and “the victim” and another character is bad and wrong and “the perpetrator.” Rather than asking what the character’s role is in the story, what lies they may be telling themselves and others, what are their flaws, what might their arc be?

Instead, they’re focused on other people’s perception of the character. And you can feel their sincere dismay that people don’t see things their way through the text of their posts, this visceral sense that other people’s disagreement and dislike is hurting them.

I can’t imagine that engaging with fandom that way is anything but miserable.

Eventually, you’re going to need to expand your taste, and realize that characters who murder or are bigoted or cruel can be great characters regardless of their goodness, and enjoy them for who they are.

You’re going to have to allow other people to disagree with your opinions and dislike your favorite things without being hurt by it.

The process is actually quite sophisticated, and requires the presence of a full-grown goth to trigger it. A pupal-stage proto-goth, at this point completely indistinguishable from any other small human child, only needs to encounter a mature specimen once - and while the initial imprinting that ensues will only take seconds, the incubation period often takes more than a decade, even several.

The first visible step of the transformation is triggered when the dormant goth suddenly gains awareness that they have free will and can do whatever they want with their appearance. While the progress may be gradual, or seem like the transformation happened all at once overnight, the initial seed was planted years ago. And now, in full bloom, a fully-fledged mature adult goth may finally be happy.