I hate the term theyfab I need to get off the internet forever and read aldo leopold’s Sand County Almanac which is Walden for bitches with discerning tastes
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one of the things about having an unstable parent is that it can so easily ruin your future. you want to get out, but getting out takes having agency. it takes the resume and the grades and the stellar community service history.
but you have to choose your battles. you know if you sign up for an after-school activity, it'll be okay for a while, so long as the activity is parent-approved and god-fearing. over time, like all things, it will become an argument (i can't keep carting your ass to these things) or a weapon (talk to me like that again, see if you get to go to practice). sometimes, if you love the thing, it's worth it. but you also know better than to love something: that's how they get you. if you ever actually want something, it will always be the center of their attention. they will never stop threatening you with it. telling you of course i'm a good parent, i came to all of those stupid events.
you learn to balance yourself perfectly. you can either have a social life or you can have hobbies. both of these things will be under constant scrutiny. you spend too much time with her, you should be at home with family is equally paired with you're acting like this because you're addicted to what's on that goddamn screen. you cannot ever actually win, so everything falls within a barter system that you calculate before entering: do you want to learn how to drive? if so, you'll need to give up asking for a new laptop, even though yours died. maybe you can work on a computer at the library. of course, that would mean you'd be allowed to go to the library, which would mean something else has to bleed. nothing ever actually comes free.
and that bitter, horrible irony: you could be literally following their orders and it still isn't pretty. they tell you to get a job; they hate that your job keeps you late and gives you access to actual money. they tell you to do better in school; they say no child of mine needs a tutor. they want you to stop being so morose, don't you know there are people who are really suffering - but they revile the idea you might actually need therapy.
you didn't survive that fall the way other people would. you've seen other people scramble and get their way out, however they could. maybe you were made too-soft: the answer didn't come to you easily. it wasn't quick. it was brutal and nasty. some people even asked you why didn't you just work hard and escape during school? and you felt your head spinning. why didn't you? (they control your financial aid. they control your loan status. they love having that kind of thing). maybe in another life you got diagnosed sooner and got the meds you needed to actually focus and got attention from the right teachers who helped you clear hurdles to get up out of here - but for now? here?
the effort of trying. the effort of not-dying. that kind of effort was absolutely agonizing.
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Tangle has such good Cool Big Sis energy with Tails . . . like in a lot of ways she has similar drive and energy to Sonic (albeit maybe a little less responsible in some areas since she's new to adventuring and mostly just grew up living a normal life in a normal town), and so in that way it's easy to see how she and Tails could become really fast friends if they were ever given more time to work with each other. But even apart from that, we've already seen how she would look after him, too, because even if she lived in a normal life in a normal town and was never responsible for looking out for anyone else (she and Jewel are the same age I'm pretty sure), she still would if given the opportunity and we actually have that with Tails in canon.
Like I don't blame the characters for the bad writing in Forces because obviously they have no agency over how they were written, and Tails in particular was just butchered in that game, but . . . well, given that we see Tangle working with Tails and checking in on his emotional state right after the Metal Virus ended and Sonic went MIA, I feel pretty confident in saying that she wouldn't have just let him fuck off into the wilderness if he ever "lost it" during an apocalypse scenario. Like again, the fact that Amy and Knuckles did during Forces is just another example of bad writing in that game, but Amy isn't that much older than Tails and Knuckles is used to being a loner, so I could kind of give it a pass. But Tangle really stepped up here and checked in on Tails and didn't let him just brush her off, and she's just such a Cool Big Sis who, yes, will absolutely help him test fire new rocket launchers with no safety gear and 100% agrees that cookies are an acceptable breakfast, but also genuinely cares about his emotional well-being and will look out for that, too.
Also, they're cool tail buddies. What's not to love?
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