#your brother and sister always meet some sort of tragedy in their arcs and they're both such good characters on their own and uuughhhh

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

I've had some ANF thoughts today. Y'all know how much I hate the "love triangle" aspect of the story with Javi, Kate, and David, right? If you can even call it a love triangle; it's more of a "David and Kate never felt like a married couple to begin with and now Javi has the chance to bone his sister-in-law as if that's not a weird thing to do at all👍" thing, so... not great.

I'm also just not fond of Kate as a character in general. She's pretty good in ep1, but after that it's a slippery slope as she's relegated to the injured love interest for Javi. There are interesting aspects to her, like how she's resourceful and on top of things, she keeps track of herds and overall is shown to be incredibly smart. But, she also has moments where she has to let herself be emotional and a little panicked because she knows she needs to get it out of her system in order to focus. She gets frustrated with Gabe and says things she shouldn't, and she just.... I dunno, does dumb shit sometimes? And that would be fine if it made sense... but it doesn't.

I was always more interested in the Garcia brothers aspect of ANF, and felt the story would've been improved if it focused more on Javi and David, their relationship as brothers in the past and how different it is after they've found each other again in the apocalypse. One of the best scenes in the entire game is the rooftop scene where David ask Javi to stand with him.

And so I was thinking about ANF this morning and what could be done to make Kate fit better in the story and like...it hit me: Kate should've been their sister.

No, seriously, hear me out: Kate should've been written to be the middle child of the Garcia siblings instead.

Do you know how much that would fix? Throw that stupid love triangle in the trash. It was never good, it did nothing for Kate's character, and now David and Javi don't have to bicker about who she's married to and who gets to bone her, okay? No bullshit fight at the end!

David was already married once, just let him be divorced or a widower, and a single father. Javi can have a new love interest; hell, give him two if you want, let him be a bi king over Eleanor and Tripp- wait, no that just creates another love triangle, damn it-

Anyway... if Kate was their sister, then her entire character overflows with potential that wasn't there before.

I say make her the middle child who was stuck with two rivaling brothers, one a military man who became a single father and the other a professional baseball player who lost it all in a gambling scandal.

What about Kate? Perhaps she's a single woman who doesn't know what she wants in life. She doesn't want to settle down and have kids like David did, but she also doesn't want to sink so low like Javi did. She wants to travel, but needs money to do that so she does what she can save up, but there's always something that makes her dip into her savings.

Y'know... like her father getting sick and needing to pay for treatments, which Kate is happy to give up those savings so for a chance for him to beat cancer, but there's always that little bit of bitterness lingering inside her that keeps saying, "it's never about what I want, it's always about David or Javi, I'm going no where, I'm no one, even I don't know who I am or what I want, what am I doing? Papa got sick, so Javi ran away again, and so did David when he reenlisted, and who got left behind to take care of everything? Me, it's always me left to take care of Mama and Papa, and the kids, and everything else!"

Maybe she acted as a mediator between the brothers, too. They always relied on her when they were pissed with each other, they vented all their problems to her, and she always tried to get them to connect on something, but never found that right thing.

Hell, this way she could get along with the kids better, too. She's just Aunt Kate. She always volunteered to babysit them for David. She and Gabe still have their tiffs due to clashing attitudes, but there's no "you're not my mother!" vibe.

Suddenly Kate's her own person and not just an object the game throws at you for the brothers to grunt "she's muh wife!" "but I love her, too!" at.

ANF becomes the story of these three siblings who experienced the worst night of their lives together: their father died after a long battle with cancer, their mother is distraught, Javi didn't show up in time, David's drinking on the porch and Kate's trying to look out for everyone. Then the outbreak happens, their father comes back as a walker and bites their mother, David rushes off with her to the hospital while Kate and Javi take the kids...

Years later, Kate and Javi have accepted that they've lost their parents and big brother, and they're doing what they can to keep their niece and nephew alive... until Kate gets shot and they reunite with David, because then everything gets extra complicated with the three siblings trying to repair broken bridges and survive together until they hit a breaking point where Kate gets sick of David's shit. She's done trying to be nice and play mediator, she's ready to do what she thinks is right and an argument breaks out... and Javi's forced to choose between his brother or sister, and the tragedy becomes about being unable to save one of them... not matter what, in the end, Javi will lose a sibling because no matter how hard he tried, they still fell apart.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

I just really hate every plot they give Kate, y'all. She was done dirty.

And I loathe love triangles that involve two siblings [usually it's brothers] falling in love with the same person, okay? I don't have the patience for it, I just want all of those love triangles to go far, far away from me forever and never bother me again.

Anyway, do you love this thing I do where I show up after months of inactivity to slap something like this down before scurrying away? Because I'm scurrying now.