#Others(Savior Complex)

[kittykatninja321]

Very deeply annoyed by the fanon idea that Talia treated Jason like a pet or a tool when he was catatonic, because when you actually read lost days you can clearly see that Talia is literally the only person who looked at Jason while he was catatonic and still saw a person and treated him like a person while everyone else around her (Ra’s and the doctor she hired) was ready to dismiss Jason as an empty shell

[aceof-stars]

I'm so tired of hearing that Phoenix saved Miles without hearing about any of its implications.

Because Phoenix's savior complex is a major problem not a solution. Because Wrightworth is not about Phoenix saving Miles, it's about them saving each other. Because in Farewell My Turnabout, Miles Edgeworth said "We aren't some sort of heroes. We're only human." and he was right.

[worriesndoodles]

honestly i think maybe i love ace attorney because its so magical girl coded....the formula of a dumbass who has no idea what they are doing but have to roll with whatever comes their way and preserve out of goodness of their heart is so so magical girl (and a step further, pink cure) in essence, just done with evidence and objections instead of magical rods and mascots

*side note: weirdgirl assistants are essentially a mascot role in this reading as they provide advice/help/just moral support while being a very comedic character and also need saving at times

[triglycercule]

dust with a fucked up savior complex save me dust with a fucked up savior complex SAVE ME!!!! he's literally sooo savior complex coded. he killed his underground to "save" everyone and stop the human from killing them. he thinks that it's better that he does the murdering instead of the human because he has better intentions. he's sad at the beginning (rightfully so) but savior complex dust really gets so much cooler when you add in the fact that dust eventually started to LIKE killing his underground 😭😭 like just..... imagine a manic dust who's gone mad going around claiming he's helping everyone with what he's doing when he's really,,,, not. soo cool.,,, (like dude how are you SAVING people if they don't exist after you've killed the person who was killing them. there is nobody to be safe but yourself anymore) (can you tell this was inspired by the one comic of dust killing his papyrus and saying "it was better if i did it" or something)

but also also on the other hand,,,,, revenge fueled dust??? he's gotten SO bitter from the repeated resets and genos that he's genuinely bitter enough to risk it all to stop the human. he doesn't have pure intentions in this one. dust doesn't claim he's saving anybody with what he's doing murdering them all. he KNOWS it's bad and wrong and hypocritical but he does it anyways because he wants to not only stop the human but to make them suffer. he purposely wants them to keep coming back after killing them just so he can kill them over and over and over and have them experience a fragment of the suffering he did with having all of his friends and family killed. but i think a revenge fueled dust (in contrast to savior complex dust) would be a lot cooler if he still felt shitty for killing everyone. it's painful to do but hate is stronger than love and dust's hate for the human is MUCH stronger than his love for the underground atp

[johnconn]

The sheep betrayal makes me so fucking emo cause its like, there's a bunch of little homeless kids who help out a fellow kid, no questions asked, only to find out that kid is a powerhouse and he's agreed to tag along and he protects you but instead of feeling protected you get scared of him and the idea that one day he might realize his potential and leave you to fend for yourself once again. And you've seen his power so you know if he ever uses it against you its over. So you do anything you can to make sure that never happens. On the other hand there's chuuya who fights for these kids with his life and thinks of them as family and he's so emotionally attached that even after the betrayal there's no question in his mind about whether to continue to protect the sheep or not. He just does.

[sunlit-mess]

Can't catch a break, but even if I did- I don't think I'll be able to either.

[xavigab]

Okay, but Oliver actually being a stupidly rich kid too, and him being rich and bored... well, he started doing social experiments. It started off with simple stuff with the staff, like dropping money and seeing if they’d keep it or give it back to him or his mother. As he got older, the experiments became more complicated. In a sense, he accidentally created a little cult before he just ghosted them because he got scared. (He saw Scientology and was like ‘oh yeah I could do that’) He had journal after journal, all being very detailed research on each experiment he’s done. Then he entered Oxford, and instead of Oliver falling in love at first sight, he kinda just wanted to see if Felix, the golden boy of Oxford, could be befriended by a 'poor awkward scholarship kid with no style' (lmao). Anyways, he started from the very beginning, meeting Michael (whom he would have liked to befriend because the guy was weird and would be nice to socially study), and then the whole lying about his ‘family’ to be taken to Saltburn, and then after conducting that experiment because it like worked, he decided to do a second part and see how much lying it would take for a friend to forgive. He hired another family and planned to be called when he was bathing. Oh and if y’all want you could say he fell In love with Felix at the end of it so he confessed in the maze and like after some angst they had their happy ending hahaha. Anyways, he takes his social experiments very seriously. (I would say the most he would do is the Farleigh thing about the plate, but he would still feel bad lol. I wouldn’t say he would be able to kill someone. As he did social experiments, he learned more about people, the good and the bad, so I feel like he would have very good etiquette.)

Sorry I like making completely new stories from already existing once cuz I’m dumb

[kneelingshadowsalome]

since we are on a König torture train recently here's a thought that's been plaguing me for a while.

imagine König being pursued by two women at the same time, they're both sweet and lovely, competing for him by giving him food, attention, compliments, and hand-made gifts. he's in crisis because...he can't choose one and upset the other when both have been absolute angels, and he's worried if he even hints at a throuple he would lose both :(

Omg would you guys stop torturing König?!?(omg you’re torturing König can I come too!!)

He’s being torn apart by the seams, these two women fighting over him like he’s this one of a kind teddy bear they both want to play with >:(

Hopes he could just multiply or clone himself for both of these ladies, he never got a lot of attention and now there’s two women courting him with gifts, outdoing themselves everytime with their three course meals, telling him the sweetest things, stuffing him full of dessert, there's eylashes batting wherever he goes… Is he in heaven or in hell??

And König is bad at decision making, he can’t make decisions out of fear he’s going to somehow fuck things up no matter what he does... The most awful thing is he can’t control his fantasies, now thinking about these two cute ladies kissing each other when he’s masturbating :/ Telling him he can't join, he just has to sit back and watch, giggling when he cums before they've even started ://

[parasiticstars]

Hey uhm hot take that shouldn’t be hot:

Traumatizing yourself does not count as awareness for a cause.

Yes, don’t ignore it, but don’t doomscroll and purposely go out of your way to look at literal massacred children or self immolation or other carnage and what-have-you, then do nothing about it except reshare it and gush about how it gave you panic attacks and nightmares for the next week.

You’re not helping. You’re turning a fucking genocide into shock content to fuel your white savior complex.

It could’ve happened to YOU had you been born in the wrong place at the wrong time, too.

Have some respect.

[r7-b7]

Y'know voting is like less than 1% of what you can do to make a difference in your life and everybody else's life, right?

Y'know voting once or twice for a white supremacist who's maybe less evil than the other white supremacist doesn't make you a good or morally correct person, right?

Be real.

Do you even know what's happening in your city? Do you even follow your town council decisions?

When's the last time you read a fucking book by a Black author about the Black experience in America in the 21st century? (Or literally anything focusing on race/sociology/history)

When's the last time you donated to your city or towns' mutual aid group? Not a church charity, not a non-profit, a mutual aid group. A group of your neighbors, your community members, who come together for no other reason than to give care to other community members. When's the last time you interacted with them?

When's the last time you offered anything to a houseless person? Do you offer them money or food or water or an umbrella to provide shade since most of our cities are eviscerating all of our tree canopies in a time of climate catastrophe and record houselessness?

Whose fucking land are you on!? You are most likely a settler, a gentrifier, and abusing your position as a "comrade" or "ally" to get away with not facing what violence you enact every single day. You are an uninvited guest using our resources and killing our indigenous ways. You are doing all of these things if you are not actively working against the colonial white supremacist model. You must be actively working against these systems or else you are simply part of them.

If you want to "stop fascism" or "save democracy" or "dismantle the system" you need to do it in your own home and in your own mind first.

[lulu2992]

Anyway, after months of observation and hesitation, I’ve finally started interacting with the Far Cry subreddit. We’ll see how that goes...

[cornertheculprit]

one thing i think is really funny is that. like. okay edgeworth chartered a jet and came flying over the instant he thought phoenix's life was in danger but if it hadn't been for larry calling him in a panic in the first place i sincerely doubt edgeworth would even have known about it at all because phoenix sure wasn't gonna call him about it. something even funnier is that at the beginning of the stolen turnabout when atmey makes the claim that even edgeworth thinks godot is a masterful prosecutor or whatever phoenix has no reaction whatsoever. he doesn't even care. it's MAYA who exclaims in disbelief and goes edgeworth?? no way??? etc etc. phoenix literally just stands there like he's made of cardboard until maya asks him if he's heard of godot before. doesn't even REACT to hearing edgeworth's name. at any given point in time in the trilogy + investigations there is this giant disconnect in how phoenix and edgeworth see each other and it's hilarious in an interesting way. by aa3 phoenix has already gone through the "savior complex" and "victim of my undying hatred" options and apparently that just left him like ??? uh yeah edgeworth's my. friend i guess. it's good to see him again. hey edgeworth i wasn't planning on calling you about my condition or the situation at ALL but now that you're here would you mind taking care of this girl for me and finding maya and acting as a defense attorney in my place because i trust in your ability to sort shit out. thanks! and edgeworth is just like ah wright the last bastion of justice and hope in this universe the man who shines so brilliantly before my eyes (or whatever the hell the line is i forgot) my dear and indispensible friend of course i will do this for you. it's just. the more you look at it the more the trilogy and investigations make it clearer that phoenix and edgeworth are just two guys in their twenties who do not really know or understand each other at ALL

[thecanyon]

I know everyone focuses on the queer lyrics in burn bright (as they should) but it’s also the most clear and lyrically stripped down song Gerard ever wrote about how he felt about being the frontman of my chemical romance and when I remember that I’m honestly gagged.

the cameras feel like a chemical burn

obviously this is about how he’s sick of touring but also implies his sense of self is so deeply tied to being a person who others can find hope in, AND that without this role he becomes a hopeless cause himself.

which is reiterated here and I think foreshadows the total collapse he experienced once MCR was over

And “I took the pills for these empty nights/cause it makes me who I am” is another allusion to his substance use to cope with mental illness and how that became tied to his identity in the early days of MCR

And this is where it ends, the line that gags me the most, which I can only interpret as a moment where the martyrdom mask slips and shows how he really feels about the toll the band has taken on him. It sounds like a warning to everyone, but especially people who idolize him despite his openness about how devastating his career is for his personal wellbeing. there’s barely even a metaphor in this one he’s just going straight out with it and it’s so brutal

[pettytiredandjewish]

Wow- I don’t even know where to begin with this. I swear this shit keeps getting worse and worse. Maybe y’all need another reminder about antisemitic dog whistles and what blood libel is…

Also these fucking groups are still mad because the student intifada group was called out and punished (I wonder why…) and have been complaining about it and how it’s unfair.

[living-animal]

I have some gripes with Film Cooper on YT due to a video he made. If you wanna hear about it, here it is

First off, title- “this man lives in a dog suit” factually incorrect, he does not live in a dog suit, he wears it on occasion

Next, he’s tweaking over the fact that a German tv host is treating the man in a dog costume like a dog- isn’t that how you’re meant to treat all costumes?? Like they’re real?? Isn’t that the whole point of Disney? It’s the same way you treat cosplayers as the character. It’s fun to pretend.

Barely over a minute in, Film Cooper accuses Toco (the man in the suit) of being sexually aroused by the tv host calling him a “good boy” and claims that Toco must have a fetish for being treated like an animal. I feel like I don’t need to explain why that’s bad.

“Theres no way this isn’t a [fetish]. There’s no way that him dressing up as a border collie and walking around being called a good boy isn’t a [fetish].” (He was using a code word as to not get demonetized)

I can easily combat this claim just from he simple fact that this is likely not an often occurrence for Toco. He does not walk around all day in public being called a “good boy” by “hot German women” as Film Cooper puts it.

He then shows the first ever recorded instance of this suit on the internet, posted by a Japanese artist on their Twitter, showing off the suit they had made, and Film Cooper has an audibly and visually disguised reaction. “They made this for a human” yes Cooper, they did. I’m scared to see what would happen if Film Cooper ever accidentally stumbled upon a furry convention. I’m sure he would have a heart attack and die immediately.

He claims that this is “not furry” which is factually incorrect. In fursuit terms, this is just a hyper realistic quad suit. “Furry might be the closest thing” is true for the suit itself, but Toco is not a furry, Toco is likely some form of alterhuman/therian, which, from this video, I can safely assume Film Cooper doesn’t know shit about. “Furry is anthropomorphic” anthropomorphic doesn’t just mean walking on two legs, that’s bipedal. “A furry stands on two legs” a furry can be on four legs. It’s called a quad suit. Anthropomorphic means human-like, whether that be in physical form, intelligence, or emotions.

He also adds that furries “fuck”?? Which to me implies that furries/fursuits are sexual in nature, which is a whole other can of worms.

“He wants to be a border collie that licks his own BB hole” that’s a big claim. Wanting to be an animal doesn’t automatically mean you want to lick yourself?? And it’s frankly disgusting to me that that is what Film Cooper imagines when told that someone wants to be an animal. “In my opinion that’s gross. Haha. I think it’s disgusting. You like to dress up as a dog, walk on all fours all day and lick your BB hole?” When did he say that Cooper. Stop making freaky and perverse assumptions about people you’ve never met.

He then shows a video from Toco’s account of him in the costume outside a window, but edits it, turning it black and white and adding scary music. This was entirely unnecessary, and just feels like fear mongering to me. He proceeds to compare the video to the horror movie Tusk, and more terrified ramblings of there “being a guy in there”. Yes, Cooper, that is how costumes work.

“What is wrong with this man” I don’t know, he has a hobby that makes him happy? Why the fuck do you care so much, Cooper? Because his suit is uncanny? Because you think it’s “weird”? Well I think your constant queerbaiting is weird, and you don’t hear me accusing you of being an animal fetishist. And then he has the audacity to make his motto “what’s up weirdos” and call his audience “weirdo nation” while actively making content harassing and attacking ACTUAL weirdos. Don’t call yourself a weirdo if you have a visceral reaction to someone actually being weird.

“I guess the implication is that he wants to be a dog so bad because he’s in love with dogs?” OH MY FUCKING GOD?? What the actual literal fuck. The fact that Cooper just accused this man of being a literal ZOOPHILE for no other reason than the fact that he dresses up in a realistic dog costume is actually so fucking sick. Shit like this is the reason alterhumans/therians receive so much hatred on a daily basis. This makes me so fucking sick. Cooper has the fucking audacity to accuse a stranger on the internet of being a zoophilic animal fetishist because he wears a costume. It’s so fucking baffling to me. And he says it so casually. “The implication here” WHEN was that EVER implied ANYWHERE in Toco’s content.

(He then proceeds to go on some random unnecessary spiel about sexism ((in a very performative way I might add)) or whatever)

He talked about age regression and pet regression a bit, and said those were fine (although he’s clearly uneducated about those things), but he says that Toco buying an expensive suit to “be a border collie everyday” is different. (Although I would like to add, WHERE TF ARE YOU GETTING THE IMPLICATION THAT HE DOES THIS ALL DAY EVERY DAY.)

“This, it’s safe to say, we can make fun of.” No, Cooper, you can’t. Because if you educated yourself beyond literally just watching this guys videos and having a baseline knowledge of furries, you would know about a little thing called alterhumanity/therianthropy, which it’s safe to say, you can’t make fun of. Asshole.

“I’m defending this against nobody. Nobody is looking at this being like “no, come on, man, he’s just chilling.” It’s like, no, this is fucked.” No, actually, Film Cooper, it’s not, and a lot of people are actually normal, and don’t fucking care about a guy in a dog suit having fun, unlike you, on your little queer-baity white savior complex high horse, who likes to call yourself a weirdo for wearing rings and having long hair, while also bashing ACTUAL weirdos. You’re the only one making up incorrect statements about this guy’s life to cry over as if it were real. No, this man does not LIVE in a dog suit, and no, he is not attracted to animals, you sick fuck.

He then shows the second video Toco ever uploaded on his YT channel, and proceeds to make fun of Toco’s poorly translated attempts at being polite and introducing himself, because Toco is a Japanese man that doesn’t speak any English. He had to translate this, presumably using some sort of translator app. Japanese is a very difficult language to translate into English, and vice versa. He also makes his tone out to be far more aggressive than necessary, and calls his narcissistic (???) for making an intro video (which a think a lot of people who have YouTube channels do) the phrase I’m specifically referring to was “I’m going to start uploading videos at my own pace” which was very clearly translated from Japanese, as the original Japanese text was on top of the English, but FC went on a whole ramble about some “GUYS EVERYONE CALM DOWN IM SO BURNT OUT” my brother that is a whole new sentence. Where are you getting all this from?? Are you seeing something that I’m not??

He then commented on said video, clearly in a cruel and bullying way, asking Toco to “put on the dog suit and twerk” which I would most definitely classify as sexual harassment. Wow Cooper, I love your humor! It’s so funny to sexually harass people on the internet, and it’s definitely not super wrong and disgusting because Toco is a man and has a weird hobby!

Next, there’s a Q&A from Toco. In the beginning of the video, Toco literally has a disclaimer that he may have some translation errors in the video (because he doesn’t speak English and had to translate from Japanese) we know Cooper saw this because he literally read it out loud. Next thing he does, is after Toco answers the first question; “Q: why did you want to become a dog?”

“A: I’ve had a vague dream of becoming an animal since I was a child” and Film Cooper compared this to FELIX CIPHER, the person notorious for believing he is the reincarnation of Adolf Hitler. I don’t think I need to explain why this is absolutely abhorrent behavior. Not only is it making light of some extremely offensive and antisemitic behavior, but also further demonizes furries and alterhumans/therians. And also it’s just incredibly distasteful, and not at all an accurate comparison. Sure he says that Felix Cipher is worse, but he still made the comparison. He also says to Toco “let dreams be dreams. Just don’t do it.” I’m glad to see we’re encouraging people to repress themselves and what makes them happy just because YOU personally don’t like it, Mr. Film.

Film Cooper claims that Toco is “avoiding questions” even after just a second ago he acknowledged the disclaimer about mistranslations and misrepresentations.

“I don’t want to spend 30k on a [dog] suit and walk around as [a dog]” okay, then don’t? Nobody is forcing you to do that. Nobody’s even forcing you to watch this content if it makes you so uncomfortable. If you were to see it and say “I’m uncomfortable with this, I don’t want to watch it” I wouldn’t care. But when I start to care is when you go out of your way to make a video harassing, attacking, and insulting an innocent man on the internet for money and clout.

He calls him “annoying” because of his sentence structure, and because FC felt as though he was avoiding questions, even though we know, and it has been stated three times now, that Toco does not speak any English, and this video is poorly translated. He’s mad at Toco for saying that he doesn’t know why the trigger for wanting to be an animal. But what do you want him to say? If he doesn’t know, he doesn’t know. Things like this are hard to place.

The next question, he once again makes up entirely new sentences from Toco’s answers. He makes Toco out to be angry and “indignant” with the questions he’s receiving, even though Toco has been nothing but polite, friendly, and respectful. And he also continues to misinterpret what Toco is saying, accusing him of “interrogating himself” because he was asking the viewers questions, and Film Cooper interpreted that as Toco asking himself questions?? For some reason. I think Film Cooper just lacks any form of literary comprehension.

Cooper continues to reinstate the fact that Toco is “an adult human man in a dog suit. He has a job, he goes to work..” but I think that just further humanizes Toco, doesn’t it? It makes me dislike him even less. I don’t care that he’s a grown man in a dog suit, I care that he’s a human being with feelings and a life beyond what we see online of him.

He accuses Toco of being defensive again. The question was if the costume was modeled after any specific border collie, and Toco said it wasn’t, though due to poor translation, it came out as “it’s not my collie or my friend’s collie” to which FC goes on another ramble acting out Toco being “defensive” about the origins of his suit design, making him once again appear like a creep.

Film Cooper, again, takes a clip of Toco moving around in his suit, and turns it black and white and adds horror music over it to make it look scarier. I don’t know why he insists on doing this so many times.

He also accuses Toco of not answering questions again, even though he did, and Film Cooper continues to misconstrue what Toco says “Q: are you tired of being human?” “A: sometimes it is reported that I am tired of being human. I never said that. […] Be aware of incorrect information.” Toco says he has never stated to be tired of being human, yet Film Cooper accuses him of not answering questions, AGAIN, due to his misinterpretation of Toco’s answers, not Toco’s own lack of answers.

He accuses Toco of not answering AGAIN; “Q; the topic is getting a lot of attention. How do you feel about it now?” “A; I am very surprised because I didn’t expect this to happen […]” The answer to the question was that Toco was surprised, but Cooper decided to focus on the rest of the answer, where Toco talks about how grateful he is for all the comments people have left, apologizing for not replying, and asking people about how their country is viewing him. Toco answers the questions every time, but Film Cooper chooses to focus on everything but Toco’s answer, just to keep calling him a freak. “You are a real life cosmic horror villain. Lovecraft would write a story about you.”

“A day in his life is him as a dog.” No it’s not, Toco wears the suit to make content, and the content he makes is specific to the dog suit and his desire to be a dog. So it makes no sense why Film Cooper is confused as to why Toco is making content about his dog suit “as if it’s normal”. Because in this context, it is. This is his channel where he posts about his suit, so obviously, the suit is a normal thing on his channel and it’s going to be treated as such.

Toco replied to a comment asking if he tells people he know about his suit, saying that he was too insecure about it, and only tells people he’s close with. Cooper had this to say;“He should be embarrassed to do this at work. Don’t do this at work.” He literally just said he didn’t!! The previous question was literally “have you ever gone outside [in the suit]” and Toco’s response was no. Obviously he’s never done it at work. Goofy.

That’s the end of the video. I have many, MANY smaller things about this video that upset me as well, but this is just the important things. And rewatching this video to make this post has filled me with a violent rage and hatred for Film Cooper like never before. We all clowned on his for the Marsha P. Johnson thing, I thought we all hated him now, why do we all still love him?? Anyways, dear Film Cooper, please do a MODICUM of research before you make tasteless videos like this, literally just look up therianthropy and alterhumanity on tumblr.com and that’ll clear some things up for you. And to Toco, I love your videos, never let jackasses like Film Cooper tell you that you’re a freak for doing what makes you happy. There’s a whole community of people just like you out there, and I hope you’re having fun and still making bigger bucks than Film Cooper ever will 🫶🫶

[shadfinite]

ok but the thing is shadow and infinite isnt a "healthy" or "good" relationship at first. it takes them years to be good for each other. they shouldn't have been together! they should have broken up years ago! but they didn't and they are working through it and eventually things work out. EVENTUALLY Infinite stops enabling Shadow's self destructive behavior and EVENTUALLY Shadow stops tolerating the admittedly unacceptible way Infinite treats him.

See, Infinite doesn't know what it's like to be with someone who doesn't want to hurt him even a little. Every relationship he's ever been in has been a really unhealthy and dangerous power dynamic (he's been the weak one and the strong one before). It takes him YEARS DECADES maybe even CENTURIES to realize Shadow is NOT LIKE THAT. Shadow didn't even really want to specifically hurt Infinite when they first encountered each other in the Mystic Ruins. He was just doing a job. It takes Infinite such a long time to understand that. He's so obsessed with Shadow but he has this one conflicting core understanding with Shadow that he simply cannot wrap his head around. He needs to stay in control so that "when Shadow tries to fuck him over he has a way to regain the upper hand."

Shadow thinks he's lesser than everyone, even Infinite. Even though Infinite literally started a war and wanted to destroy everything just because he was bored. If Infinite wants all the power over him, Shadow is okay with that because surely he deserves it for being such a miserable creature. When Infinite calls him names and treats him poorly he just lets it happen because Infinite is the first person he's met in a long time who will treat him in a way he understands. To Shadow, this is unfortunately what true love looks like. Being attacked is familiar, and Shadow knows that when people are kind to him he doesn't know how to deal with it. He thinks Infinite is giving him a form of stability that he can't live without.

What's confusing for both of them is that they do have moments of tenderness, and they do have inexplicable boundaries that they never cross with each other. They've never discussed their limits, but there are things they would never do to each other because it'd be too much.

They have moments of vulnerability, where they are just sitting beside each other and Infinite is telling Shadow how beautiful he is. And Shadow believes it because he's pretty sure that Infinite wouldn't waste his time being nice if he didn't mean it. Shadow introduced Infinite to a part of himself he didn't know existed, a part of himself that doesn't want to have to try to hard to reach for the top. But that vulnerability is terrifying at first and neither of them want to acknowledge it. It just happens and then its back to business as usual again. They don't talk about it.

They will do things to each other that cause conflict or anger, enable each other's worst habits, but they won't try to change each other's identities. That's the hard limit. They might have an argument where they harp on each other's bad behavior, but it's just talk. They'd never do anything to each other that would actively contribute to a crisis because one thing they both understand on a fundamental level is that changing the answers to core questions like "What is my purpose?" or "What do I believe is right?" is mind breaking. They never force each other to do things that challenge the status quo or threaten to shake their already deteriorating stability.

But this boundary is also part of the problem. They, for a long time, don't let each other grow and absolutely get worse! They break each other down, but they keep making excuses for why they should stay together. People who constantly fight with each other should not be together!

And when I say "together" I don't really mean together. Their relationship is a situationship at best, but Infinite still refers to Shadow as his boyfriend. Shadow insists they aren't even friends, but doesn't really passionately refute when Infinite says they are together. He just deflects. Of course he wants to be Infinite's partner, but that commitment is terrifying and he doesn't get how Infinite can be ready to commit like that even though it's been YEARS. It feels so impermanent because Shadow's perception of time is based on his immortality. That's one thing Infinite doesn't have (doesn't really think he has).

Two things jade them: time and people.

Shadow and Infinite won't challenge each other's core values, but time and people will. For Shadow, this comes in the form of his admittedly slightly larger support system: people like Rouge Amy and Big especially, but also Sonic to some degree. Infinite stagnates. His only support system is Shadow, really. He also has, like, Big and Sonic and Wave, but he isn't ever vulnerable with them in the way Shadow is with his. Shadow starts to grow, Infinite doesn't.

Infinite is definitely the worse off in this relationship. Shadow always knew that. They both knew it when they got together. Shadow has a savior complex. He thought he could fix it.

It in fact gets worse. Infinite is just bound to break that unspoken boundary they set, and Shadow has to put his foot down. Only then do they break all of their walls down and talk about those unacknowledgable moments. Only then do they get better. They can't work out unless they start to see each other as equals, but it's a really slow process for them to explore what that looks like or how its possible.