#also my poor bio just gets longer and longer. it goes off screen on my desktop theme now 🤧

[arcadian-vampire]

Ah yes, my favorite name, Arc/oracle,

Guess I'm rearranging these bc it Will Not Let Me have c / o without any spaces. There is only c/o

[thatgirlkennedie]

G*vin R*ed

So my most recent post regarding my game experience had mentioned Gavin Reed and I said I was going to need a longer post to describe why I strongly dislike him. That post is now. Now you can disagree with me all you want and if you want to talk about it with me (like an adult), my ask box is there. Now without further ado, I’m going to get into the nitty-gritty that is Gavin Reed.

I’ve seen this fandom since this game came out. I’ve seen the good, the bad, the great, and the God awful stuff all over this Hellsight. Now, there’s a bunch of characters in this game, some characters who we only see a few times and those you see throughout this whole game. I bring this up in general because there’s seem to be a lot of favoritism in this fandom which I’m not saying is the problem; My problem lies when favoritism is put on a person who has little to no interaction and only a few scenes of them present. It’s baffling really, I thought a fandom as big as DBH would come to actually favor the three main characters, maybe even the leaders of Jericho but boy was I dead wrong. Favoritism is more often than not on 4 characters; Connor and Hank, which make sense, Gavin Reed which... I’ll get to, and RK900 or as the fandom likes to call him, Nines.

Now, I love Connor just like anyone else and even love Hank too and I love them both because of their character development throughout the game. But my favorite character will always be Markus by far and Kara fall short because of awful writing from Dav Cag himself. Most to all characters that aren’t Connor or Hank fall short to poor character development and it makes sense for everyone to like Connor and Hank.

What irks me is the amount of love for Gavin Reed and RK900. Now, I don’t hate the people who like them, but it sickens me to see how 2 characters, one in which is on screen for literally 4 seconds, have more love than both Markus and Kara combined. I have no ill hate toward RK900 because he doesn’t warrant hate since he literally says nothing when he’s on screen. And I get the whole “But he’s a blank slate uwu” but really you guys rather develop someone with nothing than develop the characters who have something but not enough? Wild.

Now I see people talk about how Gavin is not that bad, that he’s just a gay tsundere or their “trash boi (TM)” (and it’s not everyone but it’s a heavy majority), but he’s literally just an asshole and on top of that, he’s racist. And why is he racist? Well maybe because he antagonizes androids for fun???? Being unnecessarily rough with a traumatized android and not only that, but he’s blatantly mean to Connor and that doesn’t sit right with me. Abusing your power because you think you can since you’re a cop is no bueno. Also, the fact that he also makes fun of Hank when he knows he has an alcoholic problem is awful behavior. Not to mention the fact that he can actually kill Connor in the evidence room without any remorse is literally terrible. His character bio literally says he’s an asshole and I believe he’s poorly written and unnecessary to the game.

Now, I love an actual good antagonist. Like Amanda, she’s great because she represents an actual antagonist toward Connor with him taking orders as such. Gavin is no antagonist, he’s just a bully. A redemption arc? Redemption for being nothing but an asshole? Nope, not worth it. I rather see character development of literally anyone else before I even think about a Gavin Reed Redemption Arc. And even though he isn’t a good antagonist, he does represent anti-android prejudice just like all the other humans who hated androids. I most certainly rather see him be that kind of villain being portrayed rather than an “Oh but look! He’s a misunderstood boy, I swear” redemption arc. If there was even an ounce of some sort of us seeing him changing just a little, I wouldn’t be making this post in the first place which leads me into another thing I’ve seen.

Gavin Reed apologist

There’s a pretty obvious difference between fanon and canon. One is what the story is and what is given to us while the other is the fandom interpretation and creative aspect of canon. The fanon Gavin, I couldn’t give a shit about because you can change a character all you want, but when you change a character and begin to believe that that’s how they are in canon and apologize for how they are, red flags go off in my head. This goes for any character really but seeing Gavin portrayed as just a gay tsundere only is a big can of nope to me.

Another thing I want to mention that I’ve seen people compare Gavin to other characters for behavioral purposes. Just so I don’t make this post too unbelievably long, I’m not gonna describe all the people I’ve seen him being compared with but I will give an example of one: Hank. Now I’ve only seen this a few times but I think it’s downright silly comparing these two. Yes, they both were mean to Connor and yes, they both hated androids but what set those two apart is the fact that Hank actually developed. He had a reason to hate Connor, was it justified? Nope, but it was a reason nonetheless, Gavin has no reasons at all. He fulfills the “I’m a cop I do what I want” narrative almost too well and before you start pulling out the pitchforks, yes, I know he’s underdeveloped but he’s just like all the other human that hate androids. He believes his job is threatened because Connor is there which I think is silly because Connor is the only android there like why are threatened and why are you such a bully??? Hank was the same way, he was very verbal about his hatred but even he started seeing Androids as more than just machines and I commend him for that. And before you say “But we don’t know anything about Gavin so how can you say this?” Well, if Hank, who’s not only lost his son to what he believed for so long was due to an android and is a depressed alcoholic can change, I’m pretty sure Gavin could have changed but nah, he’s just bitter.

Now I spoke about favoritism before and I feel like it even goes deeper than that. Most might not realize it (it’s an unconscious thing too with our society) but it’s also racist ideology to choose white character over POC. Now before you start putting my head in a guillotine, think about it. Is Markus or Josh in your favorites list? Is either of them in remotely the top 5? Are they above a white character? Better yet, are they above Gavin? If the answer is No to most of these, first of all, that’s okay, but unconscious racism is a thing that is just that, unconscious. You don’t mean to do any of it but with our white driven society, that’s the majority of what we see so you're bound to be drawn to white characters more often than not. It’s rooted inside of you since birth really so it makes sense and it’s not your fault. And I say this only because I think it’s baffling to like Gavin over Markus in like any context.

I guess to some all of this up, Gavin is just a bad character with no redeeming qualities and people apologize for his shitty actions. And hey, if you like him in the game or fanon than good on you, but I for one will not stand for someone who’s a racist, bigot, asshole or anything that glosses over (or worse, romanticize) his shitty behavior. And at the end of the day, he is just a character in a video game but does that change my stance? Not in the slightest. There’s so much more I can say but I’m gonna leave it here. This is all opinionated btw so you are free to disagree or agree if you want and I’m open to talk about it only if we’re keeping it, once again, adult-like.