#and how awful Aphmau has to be to make Aarmau happen

[little-laurance]

Started rewatching season 2 of mcd, got to the moment I think Aarmau was decided to be canon (falconclaw scene), watched the next episode (Laurance starts acting like a dick out of no where) and decided I didn't hate myself enough to continue

[romeave]

i think the reason mystreet s4 feels so off despite having fairly good ideas is bc of aphmau’s status as the “main character”

specifically, the need to keep our attention on aph at the cost of good competent storytelling. most of the major flaws in storyline execution tend to boil down to “lets insert aph here bc she’s the main character”

like, ein’s yandere aphmau photo wall. claiming that ein’s motive is an obsession with aph directly contradicts his werewolf supremacist ideology, and doesn’t make sense considering ein only wanted to get with aph bc she was the alpha of the highschool not bc of feelings. this crush just exists to insert aph into ein’s beef with aaron.

or that one scene where aph gets weird and jealous about tatiana trying to save aaron’s life. it’s just giving aph more screentime since she didn’t really have that much up to this point.

also, aph’s feelings/trauma are prioritized to the detriment of other character’s arcs. particuarly, the ro’bros, since their arc centers around zane’s trauma which is almost entirely unrelated to aph.

zane goes through the ringer this season (kidnapped, sexually harassed/assaulted, called a liar by his closest friend/family about said SA/H, all of which while under a brainwashing spell that got super close to permanently removing his free will), but is never actually permitted to actually address any of it since lucinda already used up all the non-aph venting minutes. his garroth callout is vague and entirely unrelated to the events of the season because god forbid anyone but aph have lodge trauma. after his forever potion is broken, he is only permitted to be traumatized over shit that happened to aph and “how awful it was to see her hurt and be unable to do anything about it” (apparently aph yelling at him about the ghost thing didn’t affect him at all). even after s4 ended he literally doesn’t mention anything about the lodge but aph’s trauma.

likewise, garroth’s arc is primarily about realizing how inconsiderate he’s been about zane and learning to be more attentive to his feelings. however, this is difficult seeing as he also has aph prioritization issues. it’s hard to believe garroth is really trying to make amends when he doesn’t bother to apologize to zane about the ghost thing even after realizing he was in the wrong, or, despite knowing how awful being under the forever potion is from lucinda, doesn’t hesitate to sacrifice zane’s free will in favor of aarmau and is forced against his will to try and stop his actual brother from being enslaved forever. thus his arc falls flat and sucks

tl;dr emerald secret has first draft syndrome.

[the-martyrfication-of-the-matron]

You make a lot of sense and it does check out.

I think my problem with the Aarmau stuff and a lot of my misunderstanding that comes with it is that I was only a fan of EARLY Mystreet (when it was, genuinely just my street) and the first 2 seasons of Phoenix Drop High. I kind of stopped watching after a while so I don't think I saw much of the problems that came to Aphmaus character.

Season 1 MyStreet Aarmau I think is alright given how everything is framed but the more I think about it, Aphmaus character in later Season of MyStreet does deage and it gets weird. I do think Aphmau just scrapped old MyStreet Aphmau's character and replaced it with slightly more confident PDH Aphmau.

Yeah. I was gonna make a point in this post but I started rambling about how I hate rebirth aphmau im so sorry. I hate her. Enjoy me devolve into madness I guess:

It’s really weird seeing anything of early Mys, or even really watching MCD after watching later MyS because the way she behaves is so… different. It’s a very different character, and it’s very obvious when they do their little remakes (like rebirth) and try to recontextualise events with Childmau instead and it doesn’t work. Because these plots usually rely on her having a maturity and authority that later characterisations just… don’t have the capacity for.

Aphmau fails her way into lorddom in MCD and Rebirth, but very different ways. In MCD she makes the active decision to do things that seem lordly, she doesn’t need to be asked, she sees problems and goes ‘ew this village is ugly as fuck I need to fix it’. The people make her lord because she makes herself the lord without giving herself the title. In Rebirth she becomes the lord because they need someone to hold the title and she was convenient. Sure she helps, but unlike in MCD where she is becoming the lord and making changes though she is told not to, she is being called a lord though she was never given the title, in Rebirth she is never discouraged but actively encouraged and given the title before anyone even begins to truly perceive her as a lordly figure (gtfo with the Brendan line of calling her a lord they included that for an excuse it is not a reason)

And it really goes to show that the plot starts happening TO her after a certain point. Early aph was the plot, she was carrying the story. The world existed outside of her but we only got to see it because she was making an active effort to explore, to do the work. Even in Mystreet, where it’s a lot more casual, she is the centre of the friend group, she is the main character and it’s so painfully obvious. And that’s her role.

In later Mystreet, in rebirth… things happen and she is just the messenger. Aaron is Mystreet’s new MC… Rebirth is a story told through aphmau and it’s so obvious because she’s a dumb little idiot baby wearing tiny booty shorts.

And maybe I’m being harsh, maybe I am looking at old content with rose tinted glasses. BUT JESUS FUCK GUYS REBIRTH APH IS BAD. SHE IS THE SEXY BABY TROPE TIMES TEN SHE IS AWFUL I HATE HER.

If Aaron was in rebirth, and thank god he isn’t, I think all of the problems with Aarmau would become so painfully obvious. There is no excuse of age gap now, but I guess age gaps don’t matter when one of them has the awareness of a coma patient