i read the fic in its entirety and it handled matthew’s character with incredible care and stayed true to its source material (a filo movie). it does not include him being a “homewrecker.” it shows him as a character with depth who grows and learns to accept and move on from an unrequited crush of 7 years. i found it to be very relatable and coming of age / found family because they do justice to everyone in the fic in terms of characterization, including mattrae besties and there’s also some phanrae in there as well for the people !

i found this specific fic to be pretty interesting and the author who wrote it did not deserve the 10+ anonymous hate comments it got. people in the comments/outside of the comments claimed that it did matthew dirty and showed him as a character specifically made to hurt haobin, which is admittedly an upsetting trope he’s been in before, but that didn’t happen with this fic — he apologizes, moves on from his (justifiably, jealous and confusing) feelings about his crush being unrequited, and learns to accept himself and grow/move on. i found it to be a compelling matthew-centric fic that showed a lot of different sides to his character, and there’s especially a sweet scene of him talking to his mom. i’ve been matthew-biased since summer 2023 and so i might be a little biased when i say i liked the fic due to it centralizing him, but i think it inspired me to write more matthew-centric fics for sure.

basically, i found the hate that the fic itself got to not be justified because it didn’t fit the harmful tropes that the people were commenting about — one of them even admits to not having read the fic, which makes sense because if they had they would’ve known it didn’t apply.

personally i have never read any fics where i felt as though matthew was demonized, and i haven’t seen any rps-related hate about him ever, not on my rps account or my main kpop account. i would like to think this is a sign that the hate that he got during boys planet that related to him being jealous over other members or competitors is not happening anymore. nowadays the hate i see for him is not related to rps at all.

additionally, people were upset that there are those who can’t separate fiction from reality, but i would like to believe that most people can differentiate between the two. if they can’t, this should only be an incentive to post more matthew related and centric fics, instead of sending anon hate. i think our community can learn a lot from this — i know im using this as motivation to write more matthew !

all in all i love matthew to bits and i know that most zeroses do as well, so let’s hope that people who can’t separate fiction from reality start to see his personality and how much the members love him/how much he loves them.

hope this answers your question anon