finally catching up on neverafter and my god
for all this talk about not being a real little boy, Pinocchio feels a hell of a lot like a real little boy experiencing real emotional distress
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I've seen a lot of takes on what would happen if Sonic and Tails returned to West Side Island and confronted the people who were so abusive to Tails, and I had an idea for a somewhat new spin on it.
What if, now that Tails is a world famous hero, the Islanders try to try to basically gaslight him into thinking none of the abuse ever happened? They find out he's coming and they throw a big "Welcome Home" party and give him a medal and stuff, and when confronted about their treatment of him just completely deny or twist it. Like "oh yes I'm so sorry there were a couple kids who were bullies but that happens to everyone you weren't being targeted, and we tried to get them to stop it" or "we didn't know you were alone and homeless, if we knew we would have taken you in" and all sorts of garbage like that
And Tails, who's maybe a tween-young teen now, and no longer has distinct memories from that early in his life, starts to question if maybe he really was blowing things out of proportion. Maybe he really was just bullied by one or two kids, and they weren't really that bad. Maybe people didn't really chase him away and refuse to even let him go through their garbage for food. He knows he has anxiety. Maybe he was just imagining how much everyone hated him. And he almost wants to believe it, to believe that he was never truly hated.
But Sonic remembers. Sonic remembers the gang of older kids beating and violently attacking toddler aged Tails, and only stopping when he physically intervened with his own fists. He remembers questioning the townsfolk about the two-tailed fox he'd seen and being meet with sneers and complete disdain. He remembers how skinny Tails was, how his ribs were visible even through his fur and how he wolfed down the food Sonic offered him so quickly that he nearly threw it up later. He remembers how Tails flinched from any quick movement or attempt at touch. He remembers the long process of gaining the fox's trust, a process that tested his nine-year-old patience as he spent literal weeks urging Tails to come closer, keeping his hands slow and his face friendly, finally getting the fox to join him at the campfire, to walk beside him without dashing away when moved his arm too fast, and then, eventually, to let him touch him. He remembers the first few times Tails let him try to brush out his matted, dirty fur, each knot a testament to neglect, and finding scars and wounds on the skin beneath that spoke of so much abuse. He remembers realizing for the first time that normal, everyday Mobians could be just as cruel as Eggman.
Tails doesn't trust his own memory. But Sonic remembers. And Sonic is not quick to forgive.
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I like bloodweave. Okay. But I DON'T like the version of them in fanfic where Astarion is a dick and Gale is like. Whining and pleading for him to be emotionally vulnerable (or just. Nice to him) prior to the relationship being established. Because that is just not accurate. Gale needs the player to express interest in him during his weave-teaching scene before he even considers hitting on them properly. Gale is entirely resigned to his fate and needs someone else to pull him away from it. Gale only starts being sweet and romantic and devoted after you accept his love confession and give him hope for the future. Gale says fuck all and then slinks away to cry privately if you break up with him.
Like he isn't chasing after people lmao. He isn't dropping to his knees and crying about anything much less this dickhead he met a week ago. He is overwhelmingly passive about literally everything personal to him up to and including his own death (provided there are no casualties/there is a good reason) until after the player expresses that they care about him. Astarion is not doing that in any of these fics.
Like Gale is friendly and a dork and doesn't wanna get murdered but he fully has a suicide plan. He thought the artefacts would help him survive but he didn't believe he'd ever truly live again. If Gale confessed and Astarion said/did like one (1) mean thing afterward Gale's romance is closed off forever. He's wandering into the forest to cry. He's killing himself immediately. His fragile ego and self worth can't take it. You have to understand that when we joke about him being pathetic it's not bc he's like. Sopping wet and chasing people down and begging for a scrap of attention. It's because he craves affection but would literally rather die than ask or even hope for it until someone else forces that hope back into his serotonin-deficient tadpole brain.
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Time to be fucking sad. Vash talks to God exactly once in Trimax (as of the end of vol 10 at least). Like he goes into church once, laments about how he thinks he is unforgivable, but that's musing to himself. He's not actually talking to God or praying.
No, Vash talks to God exactly once, to ask for the only thing he ever requests. The only thing he wants, and the possibly the only thing he allows himself to want. And of course by the time he allows it, it's entirely too late.
Vash talks to God to ask for exactly one thing. To save Wolfwood, to let him live. So they can share their tomorrows. And by the time Vash lets himself ask for this one thing, he already knows how futile it is. Sitting next to his best friend, probably the only person who can come close to understanding him, he talks to God for the first time. And God does not answer.
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Just a small thing I noticed while being totally normal about the gay pirates:
I've watched The Kiss™ way too many times a normal number of times and my favorite moment is the series of microexpressions Rhys cycles through while Stede is reacting to "what makes Ed happy is...you" because it's just so lovely and masterfully done. While trying to find a good gif of just that moment (no luck so far!) I noticed something that happens while Ed is pulling Stede in.
Stede, darling honey light of my life, clueless useless "oblivious" gay that he is, tilts his head a bit and leans into the kiss too. Before it's even started. On some level he registers that This Is Happening in time to react in a positive way, even before their lips have touched.
Our boy is a creature of instinct, and when he acts on his emotional instincts without thinking too much he knocks so much shit out of the park. Instinct is part of why "you wear fine things well" hits as hard as it does. Instinct is how he can woo Ed as easily as he does. Instinct is how they were able connect so deeply so quickly, because his instinct is to be open and non-judgemental to this beautiful man waiting beside his sickbed and asking about fine fabrics.
Stede's thoughts are still too clouded by his trauma and self-loathing to be useful for him, and he can end up thinking too much about what he "should" do or what other people do. Thinking is part of the reason he's so quick to believe Chauncey in the woods. Thinking means succumbing to beliefs about his perceived worthlessness, which leads to his biggest mistakes. Thinking tells him to adjust what he says about Blackbeard in that tavern of townies, when his instinct was to say how "absolutely lovely" Ed is.
Obviously man cannot live by instinct alone, like he definitely should have thought for a minute about making a deal with Geraldo to fence the hostage. Stede needs to learn to balance the two and when to listen to either/both of them. But I was just so excited to see him leaning in the way he does because it underlines a feeling I've had for a minute, which is that Stede's instincts are those of someone crushing and then falling in love, and that never wavers.
He lacks the context and vocabulary to identify what's going on without outside intervention, but he also deeply gets it in a way that's extremely queer and that I hope starts showing up more in the fanon. I do a little happy dance every time I see this in people's fics and I just need so many more of them! Give me more eager Stede who is Ready To Go once he's given the right context for his feelings about Ed!
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