Mal is the ultimate teacher's pet. This would have been her crowning glory, a thread that would weave through every creative work she made for the rest of her life.
But the creepy professors kept liking girls who were prettier, the real manic pixie dreamgirl types. She didn't get it out of her system in college. So a man like Joe appealed a lot.
I think Mallory triggers people's "aww, but she's just naive" response because she
Mallory trips that in people for a couple of reasons:
- once upon a time she wrote some amusing stuff that brainy lit-loving millenial girls loved, and she seemed utterly into it and very sincere
- she got a high-profile mainstream job as a result, and folks were excited to see what the wit would do with a salacious but stale property
- she has big, wide-open eyes that look like Bambi
- on the scale of media and internet people she is cute and attractive with an open face that screams "how could 'lil ole me evah do anything to hahm or offend anyone??"
^ gave her enormous built-in goodwill, especially at the time she became NuPru. The transitioning thing happened before the market was saturated, so politeness ruled and deference was paid. Her mainstream viewers were unaware of Joe or things like the fist-in-mouth picture, of conspicuous and tacky consumption or outré freaky-deaky overshares.
Mal may hate her birth family, but they gave her the gift of demurral and politesse, and of knowing what to say (or not to say) when, and how, in order to preserve her sweet-girl mien, even as a boy.
That, or she's actually as dimmed by codependency as she seems.
Or both.