Your Greta defense and appreciation posts are a shining light in the darkness, thank you

As someone who is a black woman, I will always stand for and by black cis/trans women before anyone else. It's unfortunate, but no one will stick up for us the way we stick up for each other which is why I'm so protective of Greta. An overwhelming amount of the fanbase has dragged her through the mud for no fucking reason other than Trephacard or Alucard needing more time to process his traumatic experience with Sumi and Taka. While the second part is definitely more understandable (I am a former sexual assault victim btw), every one needs to realize that people have different ways of working through their traumatic experiences. Not everyone is prone to completely shutting down and pushing people away altogether. We've seen throughout the series that Alucard is someone that needs to socialize/have a goal in mind to fully thrive in his element and a lot of people see that as a negative for some reason. Regardless of what the fandom thinks or how they write Greta out of the narrative altogether, she fulfilled both of those needs (neither Trevor or Sypha did so) while still having her own autonomy as an individual. People complain she was a one dimensional character despite having a backstory provided as well as a clear-cut purpose.

For example, despite Sypha being around for the entirety of the show, we really don't see her grow as a character (the only time we see potential with her character's growth was at the end of S3 when she realizes that adventures don't always end with a fulfilling conclusion, but the writers completely threw that development out in S4) and half of her dialogue is directed towards belittling Trevor in some fashion (no shade). Yet the fandom never drags Sypha for being a know-it-all or demeaning in general towards characters due to her intelligence/leadership skills in comparison to their own (characteristics that have been pointed out by other characters). Greta, on the other hand, teased Alucard at best and attempted to lighten the mood yet fans called her annoying for literally doing what anyone else in the series has done in terms of flirting. As Greta fans, we can't really change what the fandom thinks about her, but we can create good content that celebrates her and her relationship with Alucard.

So Netflix just announced on Twitter the spin-off with Maria and Richter, and tbh I'm not all that excited??? Idk...the way majority of the fandom treated Greta like she didn't play a significant role (not only to season 4 but to Alucard) left me side eyeing ALOT of people; and them forcibly forgetting that she's canon to ship their fanon polycule or even Maria who wasn't even introduced to the Netflix Castlevania world yet is a bit upsetting. But now that Maria IS in the mix and Alucard is more than likely to be in the spin-off, people are MOST DEFINITELY gonna forget about Greta (except for the few galaxy brains out there) to ship him Maria, and it's already rubbing me the wrong way. It's almost as Greta didn't even exist. Maybe I'm thinking too hard about this. What are your thoughts? (You'll probably see this ask around; I want to hear other people's opinions!)

I'm really mixed to be honest, however, based on the game that the spin off will be centered around, Maria would be a young teenager (approximately 12-13 years old if I'm not mistaken). Alucard shouldn't make an appearance in the spin-off since he isn't supposed to awaken until 1797 (this is when Symphony of the Night takes place). However, since Dracula and Lisa were revived I have no clue what direction the story will go in since the whole point of the series is that Dracula is revived every few hundred of years to try and destroy humanity. Although, I'm happy to have seen him and Lisa again, the Netflix team really bonked things up by giving those two a happy ending. I'm really sad that we didn't get a S5 of the cast that we're accustomed to, but COVID literally messed everything up with production and they were forced to condense two seasons into one which is why some viewers felt that this season was rushed. Since Netflix had already ordered the Rondo of Blood spin-off, they had no choice, but to shut things down for this story which centered around the events of Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse. I'm really sad that we won't get more from Greta, she seemed to have a lot to offer as a character, but she did make an impact with the little time she was given. I would say that the only thing that we can do as a fandom is to continue creating content to show our appreciation for our baby. Also not to drag ships, but the Trephacard shippers are a whole mess tbh. They have completely negated Greta's work in helping Alucard work through his traumas and the covert racism that plagues this fandom has left me sad, but not surprised. The only reason why it's even a thing is, because the poly-ship consists of pretty white people, change my mind. I'm all for poly representation, but Trephacard makes no fucking sense contextually given the events of the series and I will die on this hill. I'm not one to drag ships, but the fandom's erasure of Greta's role in S4 as well as them trying to force her into a polycule is downright problematic. But at the end of the day, people are going to support what they want to support and I refuse to allow the fandom's racism to stop me from loving Greta and that's all I can really offer.