#bc shadow does not need to have this much beef w tails let’s be real

[neometalsilver]

you ever think of sonic growing up in the woods alone and fighting eggman regularly since the day he was 8/9 years old and then think about how he’s been raising tails since he was a 4 year old fox kit. like sonic not having a childhood and making sure that tails does no matter what because he knows what it’s like to have to be an adult before you’re ready.

knuckles losing his childhood to protecting the master emerald and growing up alone on angel island with a destiny and burden he isn’t even old enough to comprehend yet. meeting tails and while he’s not sold on sonic yet, he knows he’s never going to let this child experience the same crushing demands that he had placed on him by a tribe that wasn’t even alive to explain.

shadow only ever getting to experience fleeting moments of childhood when he’s with maria, and spending every other moment being tested and experimented on by scientists and doctors for a cause far beyond both him and his sister. meeting tails, who has grown up surrounded by danger and violence and war yet remains soft and kind and gentle despite thanks to his older sibling. shadow thinking about the trauma he had already experienced ten times over by the time he was tails’ age and feeling just burning hot jealousy and rage for the childhood he never got to have, the only source of peace and happiness he had being shot in the head in front of him while he was stuck behind a wall of glass. shadow meeting tails and wondering why he gets everything he never got to have.