ive been harassed and lost friends over liking mink and his character development in re:connect
how do you suggest i deal with this, and also what's your opinion on mink?
First of all I'm sorry you had to deal with that. It is my firm belief no one should be harassed or lose friendships over your enjoyment of fiction.
I feel you on both, both happened to me because of my proship stances, or liking a specific character or ship.
I'll be honest, I think if "friends" are ready to cut ties with you over your enjoyment of a fictional character in a video game (which, let's recall, deals with heavy themes in ALL its routes), it tells more about them than it does about you.
Fiction isn't reality isn't fiction. As long as you cultivate a healthy distinction between the two, what you enjoy in fiction isn't a reflection of your irl values and morals.
Now, as to how to deal with it, sadly I can only give the blanket statements.
For the harassment, block (and report if applicable, like in the case of death threats) the people harassing you. If you are on a platform that allows anonymous asks, or has something like a strawpage or a curiouscat, it would be good to disable anonymous asks for a moment, to avoid giving people a chanel for harassment the time it calms down. If you're on a platform like twitter, privating your account for some time can help you feel safer.
If it goes to a totally unmanageable point and you feel unsafe, contacting the local authorities can be good (with receipts).
Don't stay alone. Connect with other Mink fans, join discord serves dedicated to the character (or generally proship DmmD servers), so you can have support. This is very important.
And if possible, try to have irl support. Friends, family, people you can talk to and won't diminish the harm of cyber-harassment and who can be a support system fully detached from the online world.
For the loss of friendship, sadly there's not much you can do but the above: creating new friendships who won't break over something as silly as preference in fictional characters.
And finally, I don't have much opinion on Mink, I'm sorry 😅 When I was in the DmmD fandoms, I didn't get around to play nor watch his route (I think I only did Noiz and Clear, and Virus and Trip in Re:connect). I heard it was controversial, but I also knew many people who were fans of him, and who, shockingly (/s) weren't bad people.
Because there's no correlation. You can like the sweetest, most unproblematic and cute fiction and turn out to be a real monster irl, and on the contrary, love the most dark and taboo fiction while being extremely respectful and kind (and in my own experience, I've met many people who were into the filthiest stuff, and who turned out to be absolute sweethearts, very respectful of boundaries and great people overall).
I hope this could help a bit, and at least to make you feel less alone! I hope you have a nice time in the DmmD fandom !
