#the thing abt the Sonic characters is that feeling negative things is often like . . . they try to fix it for each other?

[sage-nebula]

To be honest I kind of just want to write a fic set after Frontiers where Tails ends up in Possum Springs and befriends that crew. Not for any plot reasons, there's no plot really, but just so he can hang around with a bunch of people who have problems and negative feelings and think it's A-OK to feel and express those negative feelings. They treat him like the kid he is because they're in their twenties, and he explodes with everything he's been through in a way to prove that he's not just a kid, and Mae responds with the NitW-certified understated, "Jeez." They take him to smash lightbulbs behind the Snack Falcon. They let him sit in at band practice. He helps Bea out at the Ol' Pickaxe so she can finally fire the creep that assaulted her. (She at first tells him that's probably a violation of child labor laws. He goes, "what are those." She says "fuck it" and hires him.) He and Lori get to gleefully shout, "everything sucks forever!!" while laying on the train tracks because sometimes you've just got to embrace the fact that, yeah, things suck! And maybe they always will! And maybe that's okay! Maybe it's okay to not be okay!!

There's no plot. This follows the events of NitW too, so there's no danger from the cult. Tails is aged up a little maybe, perhaps 12 so that he and Lori can be closer in age (since she's 14), because I want them to be besties and later pen pals. (She gets him a friendship necklace that's two halves of a star. Together they spell "BFF." She gives him the B, because he has a big brain, and keeps the second F because she wants people to think it means "fuck."

Tails: "So . . . Brains Forever Fuck?" Lori: "Exactly" :3)

I just think it would be fun and maybe what he needs. Everything's dying in Possum Springs and everything sucks, Mae is severely mentally ill, Bea is cut off from her dreams, Gregg and Angus have no way of knowing if they'll ever manage to get out, Lori was probably going to be the next target of the cult. But hey, they're still alive. They can still smash lightbulbs and build crazy robots and tightrope walk on the power lines and have knife fights (ok that's just Mae and Gregg) and play grunge rock as loud as they can during band practice. Angus can tell Tails about a universe that doesn't care, and people who do. Gregg can commiserate on what it feels like to feel worthless, and Bea likewise on how it feels to be overwhelmed but knowing you have no choice but to keep going anyway. And Mae can save him the trouble of paying for a shit therapist by telling him, look, the only therapist around will tell you to just journal your thoughts and feelings. So do that. Maybe it helps. She doesn't know. But she does it, so hey, might be worth a shot.

I don't know, I just like thinking about it. Don't know if I'll ever write it, but the idea of Tails and Lori M being pen pals regardless is one I like a lot (as well as Tails taking a burned CD of the band's EP with him when he leaves, and actually picking up on that journaling thing big sis Maeday told him about . . .)

[dxrkblaze]

okay so. i feel like i should provide a better explanation for my recent behavior other than “hshdskfs i think my art sucks”

bc that’s not true. i don’t think my art sucks as long as others don’t?? i actually think it’s p good now, right? i’m a lot better than i was this time last year. i just feel like, if i actually SAY i’m good, that ppl will get the wrong idea, and suddenly i’m the cringey new artist who thinks he’s good when he’s not. that’s part of it.

the other part is... okay, back when i was 12-15, and i was just getting into sonic, i kinda tried to deny it?? idk why, it just seemed like a “cringey” thing back then and i didn’t want my friends to know that i was obsessed with sonic. this is partly because i had watched so many cringe compilations/callouts of ppl in the sonic fandom (all from a very specific person on youtube who i won’t name). and more often than not, the art by the people being “called out” was showcased, and it was usually either their fan-characters or favs drawn with a skill level that’s... below average? i hate to say that bc i don’t wanna seem like i’m calling their art bad (god knows i know what that does to you) but it was unpolished to a neutral eye. 

so i kinda... started associating art that “isn’t good” with cringe? if that makes sense? that mentality eventually stopped when i started writing fanfic (almost six years ago now), because i realized how hard it is to create content. so don’t get the idea that i still think those things, bc i don’t, it’s not even a passing thought when i see others making fanart/writing. 

but when i evaluate my own work? that’s a different story. if my work “isn’t good”, i feel like i’m contributing to this stigma that the sonic fandom is cringey, or that liking sonic is cringey, that the general public still seems to have all these years later. so i’ve developed this mentality that, if my work isn’t good, i’m bringing the whole fandom down. because someone might have a neutral opinion abt the sonic fandom, then see my “bad” art, and suddenly have a negative opinion about everyone who likes sonic. 

when i first started creating content in this fandom, i was just doing it as self-indulgence, writing stories i had played out so many times in my head with my fav characters. eventually tho, i started getting pretty good at writing, and my goals changed. now, when i write, i try to make stories that are so “blow-your-mind” amazing that you forget you’re reading sonic fanfiction. like, if someone read my writing, and thought the sonic fandom was all cringe, i would hope that they’d have a different opinion after reading some of my fics. my mentality with the sonic fandom became “leave it better than you found it” in that sense, i guess? if that makes sense?

now that i’m trying art, i kinda have that lingering mentality still. in the back of my mind, if my art isn’t “amazing”, or at the very least “good”, i’m bringing the whole fandom down. i’m thrown into the heaping pile of “cringeworthy sonic fans”. i’m worthless as a creator except for neutrals to have a laugh at my expense. all the personal accomplishments i’ve made with fanfiction are worthless. 

so ye. that’s why, when i start feeling like my art isn’t great, that i get so down. i feel like everyone’s looking down on me, and the fandom, and it makes me so extremely sad. like their opinion of me or the fandom has changed somehow bc my art isn’t good. and what i’ve described above is why i try so hard to make my art “blow-your-mind” amazing. that’s why i care so much what my art looks like, or where it is on the spectrum to “bad to amazing”. that’s why it hurts so much when people say my art “isn’t amazing”, like so many ppl have, even though i know that’s true. i haven’t even seriously been trying to improve with art for a year yet, of course it isn’t amazing!

anyways. ye. just wanted to give y’all an understanding of why i get so down on myself sometimes, and why i care so much about ur opinions on my art. it’s convoluted and stupid, but it’s a mentality that’s been ingrained in my brain for so many years