Not to stir up trouble, but the Aphmau fandom can be so hard to be in sometimes cause all of us have increasingly strong parasocial relationships with characters who kinda sucked

I know you did not ask and you can ignore if you like but whenever I see Garroth’s Betrayal Sucks I feel contractually obligated to speak on what I make it in my head because I hate that pat so fucking much and of it wasnt so intrinsically tied to the time skip I would burn it to the ground

I make it an Aphmau’s Fault Too thing. Garroth being the loyal guard he is tells Aphmau about someone trying to indoctrinate him and Aphmau just says. “We can use this.” and so a double cross plot is born but Aphmau never pulls the plug even as it gets more and more apparent they cannot make this work because everything has always worked out for her before even when she goes against peoples advice, and despite Garroth insisting they should stop he doesn’t disobey his lord, until it’s already too late of course.

That solves the “Well why wasn’t any blame placed onto Garroth?” issue as well as really adds to and clears up Aphmau’s desperation to bring him home.

It also makes Aphmau missing her children’s childhoods and her village crumbling partially her own fault, the consequences do not fit the crime but to me when it’s something that big and Aphmau being such a “Makes things happen” character it should be her own fault in some way.

(this also of course breaks Garroth’s trust in Aphmau, because he thought they were friends but she ignored every concern and let him be sworn into the Jury of Nine, an establishment she knows he detests)

No thank you for bringing this up! I completely didn’t think about it that way (probably the Laurmau bias 😰) but I definitely see that this works a whole lot better than the shithole that part is, especially the part where Garroth asks about the pendant and,, (I literally paused for a whole minute I forgot what happened) ok so I may be wrong but originally aphmau refused to tell Garroth about the pendants location however after the war she finally tells him that laurance has is. Considering she knew Garroth wasn’t himself and Ofc later finding out that Garroth immediately went and stole the pendant, that would definitely point guilt onto aphmau, also like girl he’s been “sick” and been looked after by a random stranger who walks in also was it cadenza who told Lillian abt Garroth istg first Zane about laurance now this ANYWAYS especially when tensions are high in the village and there is a traitor would you not hold slightly more concern?? I hate this part can we just idk make up a different reason they go to the Irene dimension 😭. Anyways I’m not 100% abt the indoctrination however there is absolutely mistrust between Garroth and aphmau which is completely their own faults in different ways, ultimately I think it’s Zane’s fault, and if I could completely remove that part I would but alas we have to fix everything in this series.

TLDR I think in my very future rewrite the betrayal arc will turn into a oh no he’s manipulated and under a spell arc (smth like that ig) basically keep the good (needed) parts (the time skip and relic absorption) and ditch the bad (the complete butcher of Garroth)

Tempted to write out Aaron but I guess he needs to be in to get Garroth out 🙄 or we can use aphmaus Irene powers or smth