#where my RedCrackle shippers at

[trolls-poppy-specialist]

so, I was working on a RedCrackle fic and i wrote a reunion scene coz it was in my to-dos

@grahamcarmen

@redxcrackle

@redcracklestan

@redcxackles-backup

@redcxackle

@redxcrackle

(from gray’s pov)

“GRAY!”

I’m fiddling with the electricity supply, barely managing to place the final touches before I get wrapped up in a bear hug. My heart skips a beat at the familiar voice, and from the corner of my eye, I see the familiar lump of curly auburn hair and register the scent of rose-scented perfume I know all too well. The wetness on my coat is surprising.

“Carmen?” I break the hug, staring into her blue-grey eyes, and they are slightly swollen and red, “you’re crying.”

Oh gosh. I messed up. 

“I know… I just… I thought you were gone…” the last of her sentence becomes an inaudible murmur as she sobs and lets out a soft hiccup.

“Why are you here?” I try not to sound too condescending, and the straight look of Shadowsan appears in my head. I instantly feel scared.

Her face falls in five seconds, and I’d feel guilty if I didn’t hear what she says next, “My team dragged me here.” I grip onto her bare hand as she buries her face into my chest, and my heart flutters to seventh heaven. But at the same time, I can tell that she’s more closed off than usual, and I tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. Zack and Ivy are probably whispering somewhere, Shadowsan is probably judging me, and Player is probably on video call listening in to this conversation.

So I better not screw anything up.

“You seem quiet. What’s going on? Are you okay?”

“I don’t know how to say this but I… I… I love you.” the confession nearly goes unheard, but I manage to catch it amidst the whir of the air-conditioning, and it’s then I realise that most of the men who work here have stopped in their tracks, staring at us, and the chatting crowd outside has partially gone silent. I try my best to ignore it.

Did she just…?

Oh god, she just did. What do I say back? How’ll she react? Will it be bad or good? Somewhere in the back of my mind, I hear the two Boston siblings giggling, and I do my best to shake the thought out of my head.

“I love you too, and–” I manage the best and most reassuring smile I can, only to have the remaining words die on my tongue when I feel a tug on my coat, followed by her lips on mine. I don’t know what to do for a second as I hear my heart pound in my chest and feel the blood rushing through my ears.

She’s kissing me.

My first kiss with the most beautiful girl in the world is great.

I can’t think straight, and I’m left stunned.

But it is kind of nice, actually.

I let my eyes slip shut, wrapping my arms around her waist and pulling her closer as I run a hand through her auburn locks. The world seemingly stops rotating as if frozen in time. It’s not like the kissing scenes in movies, but just something new, something that I haven’t gone through, even with my first girlfriend.

Heaven. Sheer heaven.

Heaven is what it is.

As we pull away, my hands moving to grip hers, I open my eyes, and it’s then that I register what’s going on in the real world. My male colleagues are standing, frozen in shock, one of them yelling, “YOU GO, GRAY!” while the rest blend in with the ocean of ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’, some staring at me with what I perceive as envy in their eyes. Carmen’s crew has moved forward– Zack and Ivy are filming the entire thing and snickering, Player has his jaw slack from what I see on Carmen’s phone, and Shadowsan has his eyes widened as he’s chewing on something that looks like a Snickers bar.

I can hear whispers washing through the crowd, like ‘have you seen the look in his eyes whenever he mentions her? You should’ve seen the sparkle in them. That’s true love there’ and ‘this is Grammy-class romance here. I’m filming this for my Instagram’. Shadowsan is now uttering something that sounds like ‘Carmen is officially not single anymore.’, the last of his Snickers bar gone; and Zack is literally screaming at a volume so loud the security guards at the other end of the country could probably hear him, “OH MY GOSH! THEY KISSED! THIS WILL MAKE GOOD CONTENT FOR THE KIDS!”

Shadowsan, please, PLEASE don’t kill me. The last thing I want is to be at the hands of a sharp knife as he hurls profanities at me.

“Well done, Carm,” Ivy walks over, putting her hand on her shoulder, “you two are officially a couple now.”

Her cheeks turn crimson, and I can’t help but make the association.

La femme rouge.

“So…” I speak up, “you want to… go out on a date with me?”

[lara635kookie]

As a RedCrackle/CarmIvy/Jeantonio shipper kind of gal, "The Opera in the Outback Caper" is my confort episode where I get my little, but much needed, romance crumbs from this show

[firelxdykatara]

Was watching sneezys video on K/A v Z/K and wondered slightly off tangent why you (and ill admit that I) never took redcrackle as a red herring pairing? Was it just preference for enemies to lovers or ? Is it because they have meat to them that seems it actually might resolve in a romantic fashion (if xyz reasons and behind the scenes wasn't in the way)?

Prt 2 of the sneezy x rc because to clarify i always wondered why being like they are (not having the same values and always having to leave each other instead of coming together) didn't make you see it as a k/a or m/z?

So I actually answered an ask similar to this quite some time ago, though the framing was a little different--I was asked if I agreed that red crackle was maiko 'done better' and my answer was kinda wordy but I think it boils down to this:

I think a big part of it is that Carmen Sandiego started out giving you the sense that these two characters genuinely loved and cared for one another in the 'childhood friends' portion of their past. ... The thing about maiko is... it was entirely one-sided from the very beginning. Shippers will sometimes try to sell you on them being 'childhood sweethearts', but they really weren't--Mai had a crush on Zuko, to which he was oblivious,...

...

Gray and Carmen, on the other hand, were established as rivals who quickly became best friends over the course of their year in school together. They clearly cared deeply for one another, and Gray was just as upset as she was when Carmen failed their final exams ... They didn't see each other for three years (incidentally, the same length of time between Zuko's banishment and meeting Mai again), at which point they were enemies, and yet Gray was clearly upset at the prospect of having to hurt her.

...

Carmen and Gray both grew as characters separately and together--Mai never grew at all, being the exact same person in her last appearance as she was in her first, with the same beliefs and no indication that anything about her worldview had changed, and this is especially egregious when she was paired as a love interest with the character who arguably had the most dynamic growth throughout the series.

Ultimately, my problems with maiko (and kataang) were never that the characters involved had diverging morals or goals, or that they spent significant portions of time separated--those are things that could make for juicy romantic development if given adequate time and page- or screen-space to grow and add to the tension between them until it eventually boils over. The real issue is that neither of these ships actually sold me on the mutual development of their romantic feelings or relationships.

And actually, maiko and kataang both share the problem of one-sided interest being established and nothing being done to make the journey from unrequited to requited love seem believable for the characters who did not originally share these feelings. Aang's crush on Katara is abundantly clear from the beginning of the show, where he hatches from his ice egg and imprints on the first girl he's ever seen in his life like a baby duckling. Katara is entirely oblivious to his interest in her even when he tries to act upon it (take the Cave of Two Lovers, for example, where they kiss to light their way forward and Aang seems flustered and clearly wants to talk about what just happened, but Katara seems to feel nothing except relief and excitement that their plan worked and she can now find the way out), until quite late in the series when, after Aang rather aggressively projects his own feelings onto her, she suddenly seems to reciprocate. Likewise, it is established in a flashback that Mai had a crush on Zuko, but there's zero indication given that he ever noticed her feelings, much less returned them (which makes sense given that he was ten years old at the time and she was his sister's friend and helped to torment him), and no care or attention is given at all to his feelings towards her in the present until suddenly they are dating at the start of book 3.

Then with maiko you have the added issue of nothing ever being done to resolve their stark differences in worldview. At the end of The Boiling Rock, Mai turns on Azula to save 'the jerk who dumped [her]', not because she suddenly realized she was wrong and the Fire Nation needed to change. And at the end of the show you have evidence that Zuko had completely forgotten about her (despite the fact that he could quite possibly have thought she died defying Azula to save his life, and never once seems to think about her again afterwards), and they just... get back together. Because reasons, I guess. Because Mai says 'I guess I kind of like you' and that's supposed to be a good reason for two people to get back together despite none of the things that made their relationship untenable in the first place having changed.

On the other hand, Gray goes through an entire arc on the show after getting his memories back where he comes to realize that working with VILE was not worth losing Carmen, and it wasn't worth Carmen losing herself. And while you could certainly make the argument that at the end of the day he was still saving Carmen because he loved her (however you interpret that love; I personally view it as romantic but obviously the show did not choose to make any specific Carmen-centric ship canon in the end), not because his own moral center had shifted away from the villainous, I would counter that taking a stand against VILE was a clear indication that he had discovered something that was worth more to him than his criminal inclinations. And there was actually a relationship there to serve as a foundation, plus the obvious potential for him to join Team Red in the future and use his skills for good rather than evil.

I have always been a proponent of the redemptive power of love, incidentally. I think that one of the most beautiful forms of redemption is choosing to change because of love, because the act of falling in love and recognizing that love is inherently transformative. Because love changes us and makes us want to be better versions of ourselves. (Or sometimes worse, I do love a good corruption arc too but that's a different topic.)

But the thing is that I ultimately need to believe that love exists in order to buy its power to redeem. I never saw any reason to believe Mai and Zuko were in love beyond very surface-level indications of attraction and an otherwise shallow relationship where they never seem to connect on any deeper level--and not for lack of trying on Zuko's part, here is an excellent essay about their lack of emotional intimacy. Carmen and Gray, meanwhile, had a close friendship and deep emotional bond which persisted through Gray's forced amnesia and that changed him enough that he let Carmen go and then took steps to get her away from VILE after they captured and brainwashed her, branding himself a traitor and risking imprisonment or death to do so.

You can't just skip the part where the story shows us how and why a couple are in love or might have fallen in love and then try to convince me that they are and this isolated moment of sacrifice embodies it. You've gotta put in the work! And atla ultimately fails to do so for either of their main canon ships. (Zutara on the other hand..... but that's another essay. Cough.)

[so-wonderful-so-beautiful]

Hola amigo 😁

Espero que te sientas mejor. Me gustaría saber tu opinión sobre el final de Carmen sandiego.

Tu opinión importa y me gustaria escucharla.

Cuídate mucho

Woof. I get why they did season 4 the way they did. Having Carmen not end up with anyone was their safest route. I think it kind of sucked to do it that way. I don't think they wanted to upset the community and piss of either shipper. They also had to put a lot into a short season since season 3 was so short to begin with.

There was a lot of character growth that needed to happen in 3. And I totally get why. It helped set up season 4. I will always secretly hope that Carmen and Julia got together. I know RedCrackle shippers out there felt shafted too.

I think everyone stayed pretty true to character. The ending was super rushed, and again, I understand why. A lot to fit in, not enough time to do it. But I feel like they did the best with what they had. I do love that Zack and Ivy ended up at ACME working along side Julia and Devineux. And that Zack is Chiefs favorite. *I need to see that dynamic.* I wish they'd do a surprise season 5, or even just a short of "Where are they now?" Kind of deal. But oh well. I love the universe, and I love the characters. And that's why we have fanfiction to begin with. Haha. So, hopefully I can try and show you guys how I would tell the story.

I hope my ramblings made sense! 💜

[starcrossed-pharaoh]

Red Crackle Breakdown

Itstalkcartoons recently had a live stream interview with Carmen Sandiego’s showrunner Duane Capizzi, I’ve seen some thoughts on tumblr so after watching the interview I thought I’d drop down some direct quotes and talk about what happened. You can find the interview on Istalkcartoon’s IG page, it’s about an hour and a half long full of other tidbits about the characters and the show so definitely check it out if you’re interested. The post below will have spoilers from season 1 - season 4 so if you haven’t seen it yet, do not read below. 

- Duane confirms that Gray is the most complex character and has the most complex arc of anyone in the show. 

- Gray’s story was meant to be wrapped up in the season 1 pilot. Duane created his story for that episode only. After the pilot, the Writer’s Room was developed and he was blown away by the interest that people had in Gray as a character. It was from there they decided to go with the ‘amnesia’ arc to expand and enrich his character. 

- Duane confirms that in the pilot episode, at that point in time, Gray “was willing to kill her [Carmen] for V.I.L.E on the train”. He says a little earlier to this quote that “we know Gray has good qualities, from his days back at the school protecting Black Sheep, but he’s still a criminal, still a sociopath” and he admits that this is a controversial opinion of the character. “He [Gray] says one of the most awful things to her, that anybody in the series has ever said, something like ‘You proved yourself to V.I.L.E, that’s all you ever wanted, wasn’t it?’ and it’s so demeaning.” By Carmen leaving him gift-wrapped in her coat on the train, Gray “got what he deserved” and Carmen “moved on”. 

So what we do know is that despite Gray and Black Sheep being very close on the island, when Black Sheep defected, no matter how hard Gray could have found this he was still grimly determined to kill Carmen for V.I.L.E. This is heart breaking, not only for their friendship, but because of the successful brainwashing and nurturing of sociopathic tendencies that V.I.L.E did to these barely legal adults. Carmen clearly proved herself unique to this, she had the longest exposure to villains and brainwashing on the island, but her innate empathy for others won over her drive for success. 

I suppose, we don’t know exactly what the lives of the other V.I.L.E members were like. We know from season 4 that Gray’s drive was to be successful, he was a junior technician at the Sydney Opera House and wanted more out of his life. But V.I.L.E is, essentially, a cult. V.I.L.E engages in mind altering practises, cull dissenters, dictate their students’ beliefs, education, social communities. They clearly target and prey on teenagers with specific skill sets, who likely have specific backgrounds that make them more vulnerable in society, or more likely to respond to a vigilante or criminal way of living. They clearly make sure that their students know V.I.L.E is their entire life, their entire community, and if you want that: you need to follow the rules. 

It’s not too surprising to me that Gray is like this in the pilot. He’s a complex character leaning into sociopathic tendencies, he was written to be that way. 

- Gray’s arc changes with his amnesia. Duane confirms Bellum created nice guy Graham Calloway onto Gray, it was a personality “grafted onto him” that opposes his personality in the pilot. Carmen protects Graham Calloway, she recognises that he isn’t the ‘V.I.L.E Gray’ and that he is innocent and has the potential for a do-over. This shows Carmen’s true selflessness, despite her ex-best friend trying to essentially kill her/take her down, she sees he doesn’t remember any of that and believes in his goodness. So much so that she protects it. It’s the opposite of where Gray was in the beginning.

- Tragically, when Gray gets his memories back, he does revert back to V.I.L.E. Duane does not confirm exactly why this is but he does say that Gray was never good enough for Carmen up until the finale. We can theorize and infer a lot from what he’s told us of Gray’s character, despite the good qualities he does have, he struggles with doing the right thing. How much of Gray is because of V.I.L.E’s cult-like brainwashing and how much of it is due to Gray’s own chaotic morality and ambition is up to interpretation. I’m of the belief it’s a strong mix of both. In saying that, I’d like to think Gray’s aware that if he defects with Carmen, he knows he’s as good as dead. Graham Calloway might have believed Professor Maelstrom would let him walk free, but Gray is not so naive. He made his choice a long time ago and taking Carmen’s hand is not just about caring about her, it’s choosing a side and who he wants to be. 

Just because Gray doesn’t join Carmen doesn’t mean his arc is entirely reverted though. In the pilot, he was willing to kill her. After knowing her through the eyes of Graham Calloway, and having the empathy and naivety and kindness of Graham Calloway literally injected into him, Gray truly feels regret and empathy. V.I.L.E unintentionally gave Gray a huge gift they likely never foresaw: a different perspective. He regrets ever hurting Carmen and never wants to do so again. That’s a huge step from where he was at the beginning, but is it enough to leave what he’s familiar and used to? 

There’s a lot to unpack there that I won’t go into because this is long enough. I think it’d be interesting to go more in depth about the psychology of cults and how future Gray and future Carmen would assimilate the personalities they were forced into. Do those personalities go away when the memories come back? Can the trauma of it cause black outs and more memory loss? What does it do to your mental health? Do you assimilate it into who you are? But I digress

- The most important part of Gray’s arc is in the finale. As Duane says, it’s Gray’s “coming of age, when he becomes a real person” and he does so by showing what Carmen stood for: true selflessness. There’s a bitter irony to Gray’s ambitions of success, his desire to work with Carmen as a team, pulling off successful and incredible heists ... all his dreams are coming true. But she takes more risks, he’s shocked by her ruthless and individualistic impulses, he knows it isn’t truly her, and whatever he could excuse before, he knows it’s wrong. He chose to be a criminal, Carmen didn’t. The final thing that gets through to him is what Gray knows she can never take back: killing Shadowsan. He defects and betrays, not for himself, not for success, not for anything except for her. He’ll risk getting killed, imprisoned, he’ll even betray this Carmen, out of a true selflessness for her to be herself again. He proves he has become a person good enough for Carmen Sandiego.

- I also absolutely love that at some point he changed his Crackle Rod to stun mode as a ‘maximum setting’. He didn’t plan for Carmen to be able to use it against him because he thought she couldn’t use it, so for awhile now he’s been ‘stunning’ people instead of killing them. Even though he returned to V.I.L.E, he came back as a changed person.

- His decision in the hospital room was also quite tragic, he didn’t want to complicate her life any further and Duane confirms he felt shame over his actions. That it was the right narrative at the time. I agree with this, though I’m a RedCrackle shipper at heart, the writer in me recognises the parallels of Carmen selflessly staying away from Gray to not ‘complicate’ his new beginning, and now Gray showing the same selflessness is a mirror to me that they’re on equal footing. (But also, please meet up again and talk to each other, because they’re the only ones who have gone through traumatic memory altering and personality grafting and there’s bound to be mental issues with that and they could help each other!)

And now, some talk by Duane on some RedCrackle hints:

- Carmen [on V.I.L.E island] was at an age where she probably didn’t know how to interpret her feelings for him, referencing when she called him a big brother to her. She tells Player she cares about him but doesn’t specifically reference that this is romantic or not

- 100% Graham was flirting with her in Australia

- They absolutely will meet up again in the future.

Anyway, I’ve seen some things circulating about the interview on Tumblr and I just wanted to provide some context and quotes from the interview. It was surprising to me that we were to read Gray as someone ruthless enough to kill Carmen in the pilot, because I didn’t interpret that exactly from my viewing, but I suppose that’s the great thing about art: it’s your interpretation. It also makes sense to me that Gray was written for the pilot and it was the Writer’s Room afterwards that took his character in new ways, just proof of organic storytelling. I also love that in the interview, he doesn’t specify any of the pairings as canon but if we saw things happen between characters or implied by a character, it was intentional, and I love that. 

Definitely check out the interview for yourselves on Itstalkcartoon’s IG, they had a lot more to talk about, particularly with the goodbye to Zack and Ivy and Carulia. 

Special thank you to Duane Capizzi, I doubt he’’ll ever read this, but thank you for your part in bringing this amazing show and its characters to a new narrative. It’s such a shame it only lasted for four seasons, hopefully in the future we get new stories to tell with these characters. As a complete side note, I am a New Zealander and it was so great to see NZ represented in media, even better that it was a Carmen and Gray episode :D To everyone else, thanks for reading this if you have gotten this far :) 

[mengyan]

Hi....i hope you dont take this as hate

I def see the appeal of Julethief but I simply prefer redcrackle. I just feel like julethief shippers hate Gray? Like even aside from ships, Gray is my favorite character and it kinda sucks to see half the fandom shitting on him. I just wanna know, do you hate him?🥺 Give me the total honest answer please-

hi anon, you’re fine, don’t worry!

while i can see where you’re coming from about julethief shippers hating gray, from what i’ve seen myself it looks like it’s more in a joking way? i’ve seen the memes and stuff and they’re not horribly mean or anything, in my opinion. i know most of them do it for fun and they actually enjoy his character. that said, of course, there are some people who actually don’t like him, so i get that.

to answer your question, no, i don’t hate him. i would say i tolerate him? i’m kind of neutral, considering i don’t talk about him much unless it’s in my fics and aus. he’s not my favourite, but i don’t go out of my way to actively hate on him or anything. his character arc is interesting and he’s fun to write :)

hope this answers you well enough anon!

[grahamgumball-andotherstuff]

Okay, so @jackie-shitposts I respect your opinion on Crackle, but, here are a few thoughts as to why lots of ppl also like him:

Note: I colored some of the sentences bc it's aesthetic (ok now keep reading)

So first, you mentioned this:

Okay. In my opinion, Crackle, as his true, VILE self, is a bad person.

Yes, that's true, but, most ppl, (including me lmao) love him for that bc some (most) of us like his stealth suit, his sassy, charming attitude, and a lot more reasons. Also, his VILE self is not his "true self" per se. (I'll explain later on, keep reading)

Next, you said that:

I don't know how many people know this, but Gray tried to kill Carmen on the train in the first episodes. That sizzle stick was canonically set to fatal levels, as said in the novelization of the first two episodes. Duane confirmed this as well. Gray tried to kill his old kid sister to suck up to an evil organization that threw him away in an instant.

Lemme explain-

first, VILE didn't "throw him away," bc VILE protocol dictates that failure to complete the mission will be forgiven, but getting caught won't. Crackle clearly got caught, leaving VILE with no choice but to kick him off the organization. Next, I know his so-called "sizzle stick" (sorry pet peeve IT'S CALLED A CRACKLE ROD PPL!) was set to fatal levels, but he turned it off. He turned it off when Carmen started talking to him. In the last part of episode 2, we can see him fighting Carmen using the crackle rod, but, was it set to fatal levels in that scene? Also, in s4, in The Big Bad Ivy Caper, we see him knocking out all the ACME agents (while he still has a headache from getting his memory back, no less), and we can only assume he hasn't had any professional training from VILE after his brainwashing, so his fighting skills are supposed to be pretty rusty, right? So what if he knew what he was doing back in s1 and just let Carmen win the fight in the train? I mean, it's all worth it for his old kid sister, right?

Next:

Mind wiped Gray isnt too bad imo. He’s a little bland, but I do like his complex relationship with Carmen (im not a RedCrackle shipper, dont get it twisted) and her feelings and grieving about losing her ex best friend to the organization she’s trying to take down.

I agree with you- brainwashed Gray is a little bland. I mean, for me, the best thing brainwashed Gray did was that charming "Oh?" in The Crackle Goes Kiwi Caper lmao

Okay, here's the big issue:

The REAL kicker here is in the Himalayans, when Carmen and Gray have that chat in the lab. Here, Gray isn’t mind wiped, he isnt under anyone’s control or influence, he is 100% his VILE self.

...

Then, he says “Give up trying to stop us, because I never want to be in a position to hurt you again.” This is absolutely AWFUL of him to say. Gray just told Carmen to give up her life’s purpose just for his own fucked up conscience.

HE DID NOT TELL CARMEN TO GIVE UP HER LIFE'S PURPOSE DAMMIT *breathes deeply* okay, yes, he has a "fucked up conscience" but only bc he's still basically brainwashed; only he believes that VILE is the "good" side now, thanks to the videos VILE showed him. The only part where he's just genuine Graham Calloway, his own self, was in the flashbacks in s1, with no influence by VILE whatsoever. You cannot say that he's his 100% self here bc he's still under VILE's influence. And I think him saying that is also setting Carmen free- GRAY WANTS CARMEN TO HAVE A NORMAL LIFE BC SHE HAS NEVER EXPERIENCED THAT BEFORE AND HER NOT DOING SO IS HURTING HIM (also guys don't misinterpret this part of the essay as romantic- I mean Gray wants Carmen to have a normal life in a friend way, but-nvm interpret the scene however you like)

But then:

After this point, he chooses to allow Carmen to be brainwashed, and he steals with her, knowing its against her morals and watches her almost kill people for 6 months because “it was fun!” It wasn’t until he hears that Carmen may kill their old mentor that he decides it suddenly isnt cool that Carmen has no agency over her own actions. he KNEW what being under mind control felt like, and he still chose to do nothing for six months.

As I've said, his VILE self is not his real self. He allowed Carmen to steal because, yes, "it was fun!" and this might be his only chance to see Carmen as "Black Sheep" again but also bc he wasn't in the right mind in during that time! He's still "brainwashed" by VILE, making him do this.

Lastly:

He isn’t irredeemable, but i do not think he was redeemed.

Yes, I'm gonna have to agree with you on that one, since we don't rlly know what happens to him after the show bc his ending still has a lot of possibilities and we don't rlly know what he does after he goes back to normal life- does he keep stealing? Or does he try to live like he did when he was brainwashed, no drama whatsoever? Or, Does he try to find Carmen (here's one for the Redcrackle fans everyone)?

We don't know (that's what fanfics are made for, duh lmao).

why do you and so many others on this side of the fandom seem to dislike crackle? (i am also on this side of the fandom ps) like hes not my favorite character or anything, but i dont rlly recall him doing anything *wrong*. Hes just there. Good for him. Just hoping you can spell it out lol

oooh boy buddy lemme take you on a RIDE

Gonna preface this and say that i do like Gray as a character, but he’s a bad person and fun to dislike as a person lol. AND this is all my opinion and not true of everyone, please dont attack anyone or anything.

Okay. In my opinion, Crackle, as his true, VILE self, is a bad person.

I don't know how many people know this, but Gray tried to kill Carmen on the train in the first episodes. That sizzle stick was canonically set to fatal levels, as said in the novelization of the first two episodes. Duane confirmed this as well. Gray tried to kill his old kid sister to suck up to an evil organization that threw him away in an instant.

Mind wiped Gray isnt too bad imo. He’s a little bland, but I do like his complex relationship with Carmen (im not a RedCrackle shipper, dont get it twisted) and her feelings and grieving about losing her ex best friend to the organization she’s trying to take down.

The REAL kicker here is in the Himalayans, when Carmen and Gray have that chat in the lab. Here, Gray isn’t mind wiped, he isnt under anyone’s control or influence, he is 100% his VILE self. He tells Carmen that being good only mattered to him because Bellum made him believe so (we see this is true in the application interview video Maelstrom showed) and that he knows Carmen won’t go back. Then, he says “Give up trying to stop us, because I never want to be in a position to hurt you again.” This is absolutely AWFUL of him to say. Gray just told Carmen to give up her life’s purpose just for his own fucked up conscience. At this moment, Gray could have chosen to go with Carmen, or at the very least could have said “i just want you to know if we encounter each other in the field and im attacking, the missing IS intentional.” Yet, he chose to go with the organization that repeatedly showed they could not give two shits about him, instead of his old best friend.  After this point, he chooses to allow Carmen to be brainwashed, and he steals with her, knowing its against her morals and watches her almost kill people for 6 months because “it was fun!” It wasn’t until he hears that Carmen may kill their old mentor that he decides it suddenly isnt cool that Carmen has no agency over her own actions. he KNEW what being under mind control felt like, and he still chose to do nothing for six months. He isn’t irredeemable, but i do not think he was redeemed. 

That, and its fun to make fun of him lol. So yes, I am a cracklephobe, thanks for asking