fandom good kid hot take but more people need to look at Eastside discussion with a touch more nuance
Something I’ve come to notice within the general GK fandom space is a lack of nuance being brought to Eastside and it’s story, especially in relation to Cicada, and the way people will treat Gentu and Ada both.
getting my opinions on Ada out of the way first, i feel many people- intentionally or not- end up becoming split between those who absolutely do not like Ada and are unwilling to look past Eastside and people who love Ada and excuse what she had done in Eastside, and both these perspectives end up removing a lot of the nuance from her character, especially in relation to Cicada. Cicada is neither meant to excuse nor sweep under the rug Ada’s previous actions, as I think it’s what gives us a glimpse into her ACTUAL self, not what the CICADAS/Cicada Spiritual Group (which, if those two things are the same or separate but overlapping groups I’m not all too sure about?) want her to be. She CAN have a soft music loving side to her, just as she has the side which solo’d the Kami Gang and attacked Gentu. She’s a layered character and viewing her as strictly good or bad strips away the different layers to her as a character as a whole. She is allowed to have done terrible things and you can still like her
For Gentu- I believe a lot of people forget a couple of fundamental things about him as a character.
• This Gentu most likely didn’t have a past as Lancashire, for Neo-to and Gentu-OS are largely unconnected. He didn’t start existing one day, he has an actual past this time around.
• He’s a nearly homeless, largely unsupervised teenager in a world clearly not made for him.
• His past in the Kami Gang along with general attitudes makes it clear he likely had a rough upbringing, not having much for good parental figures before Rebel and Mimi- and even then they cannot constantly be there to watch over him.
• He doesn’t actually get Nomu Kid involved with the Kami Gang, as the boxing ring did seem to be sanctioned as there were other regular people spectating the fights along with an actually ref. As for street art, that’s an unrelated passion of Gentu’s which itself is his way of rebelling against the system which he has found himself trapped in.
• He had just been attacked and kidnapped by the people he considered friends when Ada appeared to take HIRO from him- and he had no clue what was happening. For all he knew, she was here to hurt him too and fight or flight reasonably kicked in and he fought back.
• He DOES have a disability- his arm, which Ada does seemingly intentionally destroy, as supported by the “metal poison against flesh” on her cork board, along with her complete lack of regard after she DOES destroy it, instead focusing on destroying HIRO’s memory tape and fighting Mimi. Even if HIRO overclocking it may of contributed to its destruction, you can see a jolt of energy go from her bracelet into his arm before it explodes. (also- this is more debatable but you could probably argue the fact her destroying his arm was a direct reference to the moment in Fullmetal Alchemist when Scar destroys Ed’s automail arm is more evidence of it being intentional but that is neither here nor there.)
Treating Gentu having his prosthetic arm being destroyed and the shit kicked out of him by people who he thought were friends and a woman he does not know as “comeuppance” or “punishment” lowkey sucks ass and shouldn’t be viewed that way.
uhhh this is too long already point is- I’m begging people to please treat Gentu and Ada both with more nuance and Ada not as either a terrible monster or perfect girl who can do no wrong and Gentu not as someone who “had it coming” for shit he’s doing for he is in fact a stupid unsupervised 15 year old and sometimes 15 year olds do fuck up and accidentally get involved in bad shit when left without good adult supervision.
EDIT: clarifying that i think the tumblr side of the fandom is better at seeing some of these things with nuance, this is mostly complaining about the sides of the fandom where people will still argue about Ada and/or Gentu- otherwise here is pretty good on all this. yall get a gold star :D