#But thematically her putting so much stock in him feels bad. Poor girl and her extrinsic validation

[nyaagolor]

Thinking about how badly Shion got screwed over in the final chapter of Higurashi again. Meakashi was all about her ostracization and deep loneliness and the way she used Satoshi as a projection of those insecurities (with his disappearance just validating that paranoia), but then her happy ending is just a continuation of that exact same issue. She put so much stake into the reciprocation of her love by her family and this is just the same thing all over again— for the vast majority of their meetings Satoshi was under the assumption that he was talking to his good friend Mion. She’s putting so much emotional weight on this guy who barely knows her and may not care about her as much as she cares about him— if he cares about her at all beyond the fact that he’s a nice guy. Watching every other character overcome or start to overcome their struggles through community while Shion still remains on the periphery tying her happiness to a single uncertain relationship that she can’t be honest about is so deeply sad to me. Shion ily I wish u got a happier ending

[mortar-canyon]

... I

I'm sorry, what???

Look, I haven't watched X since I was little, but I'm not sure what you mean by "nobody excuses their flaws". At least in my experience, that's... Kind of what we like to focus on most.

Like, if a character making poor choices or just being less than a good person is enough to make them uninteresting, why would we care about Elise as much as we do? That girl is, like, 90% childhood religious trauma, and we don't think she's a bad person because of that, we see her as someone who desperately needs to be given a chance to grow and become who she wants to be rather than the figurehead she was molded into. She's gonna fuck up along the way. That's normal. She'll make questionable choices. By no means does that make her a weak character, or stop us from wanting to see her heal.

And for Amy, Tails, and Cream, I have no idea where you're getting that they aren't flawed.

Cream, I understand, because her whole thing is that she's too "perfect", and while she's eager to help, she doesn't owe the world her life. She deserves to have a childhood. By becoming a hero so young, just like the others, she's losing that, and we have no idea what it might do to her in the future. Her moral compass never steers her wrong, but right now, she's comparatively weak. To survive as a hero, she has to get stronger, and that might force her to neglect that compass. And that says nothing about the basic occupational hazards. Remember the Zombot arc? That's... Yeah. That was really the only way that could've gone for her. Cream is "perfect", and that makes her a tragedy.

Amy... C'mon. What do you mean, she doesn't have flaws? That's kind of the whole point of her. She's clingy, which isn't bad on its own, but more importantly, she can't accept rejection, and that leads her to literally chase away the people she cares about. Over the course of the franchise, though, she's gradually grown past that, and although she's by no means perfect, she's come a long way, and we wouldn't be nearly as invested in her as a person if not for the rocky start.

And they did try to give Tails more depth in Lost World, but it wasn't very well written, so a lot of people didn't like it. Personally, I love the idea of it, just not the execution. His story in Adventure 1 set him up to grow into his own hero, like Amy, which feels sort of like a coming-of-age story to me, so it makes sense for him to later be given some sort of "teenage rebellion" arc, like they tried in Lost World. That's important because it would also show that he's not just upset because teenagers get mad about little things or whatever. It's usually bigger than that. Tails has perfectly valid reasons to be concerned, and when someone feels they're being ignored, yeah, they're gonna raise their voice. The error there is miscommunication, which can absolutely be a character flaw. At the same time, it sets up a few foil flaws for Sonic.

Rewriting Lost World would be nowhere near as compelling without that element of Found Family - more specifically, putting in the work to overcome things like this and keep that bond strong - at the center of it. It even ties into the Zeti's story and gives them more of a thematic purpose than just The Bad Guys.

So, like... I understand your take that, "if" they were flawed, nobody would like them. Because, honestly, if they weren't, why would I care about them? If they didn't make huge mistakes and push the plot forward, why would I give a shit about seeing where it goes? Like, yeah, save the world or whatever, but any characters could do that. I want to see how this specific cast tackles the problem and how they make it worse along the way, because that's what sets them apart from stock archetypes, y'know?

If you have a counterargument, I'd love to hear it, genuinely, but I'm really not sure I can agree with, just, the very foundation of this.

"Chris Thorndyke is not real! Stop whining about a fictional teen!"

Yeah and Amy, Cream, and Tails are fictional too and nobody excuses them for their flaws. So your point is??