normal abt repressed characters

Joyce Summers:

i see ppl calling her a terrible mother constantly like god forbid this woman is not a perfect saint at all times

she did her best with an impossibly difficult situation and she looked hot doing it

Abby Anderson:

Abby exhibits all the same flaws (incredibly central to the overall story of the game) as Joel and Ellie do, but Joel gets a pass 'cause he's the beloved man and Ellie barely gets a pass because she's at least at "our" side. Meanwhile Abby is afforded no such grace. Her being muscular only makes things worse because looking "unattractive" to a general boring male audience is a crime even worse than killing their blorbo (while said blorbo can surely kill whoever he wants and the theme of the narrative is just irrelevant I suppose). Plus those same muscles lead to any femininity she has (and she has notably more than Ellie) being denied to her, 'cause. Booo, muscles. Manly.

Abby starts as a traumatized revenge-obsessed girl much like Ellie then becomes in turn. As the plot goes on she displays actual compassion over and over. She shows that she's not a monster. The way she helps Lev and Yara, the way she takes Lev under her wing. (The way she's never transphobic to him either). The way she ends up sparing Dina despite narratively having every "right" to take that life(s) for a life(s). She does that growth before the other people in the narrative do. And she deserved so much more grace, if not love, than she got.

Death threats to the actress, massive temper tantrum online, endless debates about how her physique isn't realistic, compilations of her in-game deaths going viral with comments all saying how much they hate her….. People will straight up be so smug about how "wow the game is telling me revenge is bad I already knew that" and then bullied several actual human beings as revenge for a fictional character's death. Like maybe y'all do need to have someone sit you down pre-K style and explain that revenge is bad ¯_(ツ)_/¯