#and in the end even if I like the thought of a romantic relationship. would that even be a good idea right now

[autumnscribbles]

take care of you | rc

pairing: mommyissues!rafe x pogue!reader

summary: after a heated argument with ward, rafe seeks comfort from the only woman in his life who’s ever stayed

warnings: wee bit of theorizing about mama cameron (death)

wc: 1.8k

a/n: hey friends!! thank you to the anon that sent this request in!! i love me a soft rafe moment who just needs to be held🥹 enjoy!! feel free to send me more angsty/soft rafe i love it!!!

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅ ⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅ ⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘

Rafe slammed the truck door shut behind him, twisting his key into the ignition. Ward stood in the doorway ahead of him, his mouth moving but his words unheard. Rafe stopped listening to him even before he decided to leave. He couldn’t listen to it anymore. The rain pelted the windowsill, overpowering the pounding sound of his accelerated heartbeat. He pulled out of the driveway, no destination in mind. He just had to leave.

As he drove, his headlights broke through the rain ahead, illuminating the pitch black road. His breathing was still heavy, trying to ignore his fight with Ward. They weren’t exactly few and far between, but this one had escalated particularly badly. He replayed it over and over, on the verge of screaming just to make it stop.

He didn’t know why he tried to hard to impress Ward, or to get his validation. Everyone is his life left in one way or another. Whether it was on their own terms, or they were taken. He clung to Ward and the fact that just maybe, he would stick around. Be proud of him. In the end, everyone gave up on him. Everyone screwed him over.

Except maybe one person.

When Rafe first met you, he didn’t like you. He never thought he could be friends with a pogue, let alone be with one romantically. You had too much confidence for someone who didn’t have very much. He admit, he thought less of you. He judged you about things that didn’t truly matter. Eventually, he began to find you endearing. You didn’t need boats, a big house, designer clothes, or anything material to be happy. You knew who you were, and he admired that.

You understood him in ways no kook ever had, and probably more than any kook ever will. You knew hardship, and you saw through his bravado. You could tell deep down, he was in pain. No money could fix what was truly happening inside. All the other kooks were shallow. Never having any conversations with substance, just rambling about bullshit. Rafe never really fit in with any of them. He pretended to be friends with most of them, to keep up appearances and his reputation. At the end of the day, he knew none of them truly cared about him. Even worse, he knew they would mock him if they knew he was with you.

Without realizing, Rafe ended up pulling into your driveway. Through the still pouring rain, he could barely see your house. All the lights were off, including the porch light. Were you home? He didn’t even know. As his mind reeled, he automatically drove here. He wanted to see you. Wanted your comfort. Before you, he hadn’t had that in a long time. Since his mom…no one had ever been there for him. No one to tell him things would be okay, no one to comfort him, or hold him. He craved it.

He hopped out of the car, jogging through the rain to your front door. He rapped his knuckles, hoping you would appear on the other side. He saw a light turn on inside, and exhaled a sigh of relief.

You opened the door, met with a dripping wet and sad looking Rafe on the other side. You were surprised to see him. You had some distance from each other recently, since Rafe told you that his friends couldn’t know about your relationship. You pulled back as he continued to hang out with them, unsure how to move forward.

Seeing him here made your heart sink. He pouted as his blue eyes bore into yours, sadness overcoming his entire expression.

“Can I come in?” he asked. “Please.”

“Of course,” you muttered. You stepped aside, letting Rafe into your empty house.

He crossed the threshold, a shiver coming over his body at the sudden change of temperature. His wet clothes left him cold, making the warmth of your house even more shocking to his system. He wiped at his face in attempt to dry it.

“Are you cold?” you asked gently. “Here let me go get you some clothes and a blanket.”

You walked away for a moment, leaving Rafe standing in your doorway. You gathered a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie that belonged to your brother. He wasn’t here, he wouldn’t mind. You snatched your fuzzy blanket from your bed, scurrying back to where Rafe stood waiting. You passed him the clothes, offering him to go change.

As he took his time, you put a kettle of water on the stove. Opening your white cabinets, you rummaged through the various flavours of tea you had. You settled on chamomile. You knew Rafe liked it, even though he would never admit it to literally anyone else. You grabbed 2 mugs and placed the tea bags inside as the kettle began whistling.

You took the two steaming mugs out to the coffee table, where Rafe sat on the couch, waiting for you.

“Here,” you muttered, handing him the mug. You grabbed the blanket, placing it across his lap. “That should warm you up.”

“Thank you,” he said softly, gentle eyes looking up at you.

You sat down beside him, tucking your legs up on the couch. You both sat in silence for a moment, sipping your tea. He let out a small sigh after his first sip, a little smile tugging at his lips.

“My favorite,” he whispered. You responded with a nod.

“You take such good care of me,” he said, breaking the silence more. “I don’t deserve it.”

“Rafe,” you sighed.

He shook his head, not wanting you to deny the truth. He didn’t want you to tell him that he deserved it when he knew it wasn’t true. You were consistently there for him, exuding a kindness he’d never felt. Yet what did he do in return? Essentially tell you he’s embarrassed about your relationship. It was ridiculous, and you shouldn’t be nice to him.

“Come here,” you whispered, opening your arms to him.

His eyes welled up with tears, and he leaned over, resting his head on your lap. You tugged the blanket up slightly higher, covering his torso. You ran your hands through his hair and down his back, feeling the tension release from his body.

Unexpectedly, the tears continued to fall harder. Rafe’s breath caught in his throat as he heaved out a sob.

“You’re okay,” you cooed. “I’m here.”

He let out all the emotions he had been trained to hold back. Grown men didn’t cry. Strong men didn’t cry. This is what he was told over and over. No one ever let him express himself freely, or show vulnerability. For some reason, he felt safe to show it around you. Confident that you didn’t judge him, or view him as weak.

He didn’t realize how much he was craving to just be held. To have his hair played with, his back scratched. To be told it’s okay. He couldn’t remember a time when someone treated him so gently. He wondered if his mom was the last person who truly took care of him. Now, he felt responsible to take care of people around him most of the time.

“Talk to me,” you said. “What happened?”

“My dad,” he blurted out. He rubbed the tears from his eyes, taking a deep breath as he tried to compose himself. “We got into a fight, as always. I accused him of…of killing my mom.”

“What?” you asked, unable to hide the shock in your voice. “Do you really think…”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I was too young, but sometimes what he says just doesn’t add up. Doesn’t matter anyway, not like anything would happen to him.”

You nodded silently, knowing he was right. Even if Ward had killed her, no justice would be had. You knew Rafe grappled with the loss of his mom. Rose wasn’t exactly a replacement. She was cold, unkind. Rafe was in a constant battle with Ward. Trying to impress him, get his validation. Rafe grew up wanting his dad’s success, but most of all he just wanted his love. His acceptance. He didn’t think he would ever have a real family. That possibility only came into view when he met you.

“I’m so sorry, Rafe,” you consoled him. “I know how tense things can get with your dad. My arms are always open if you need a break, or need to talk.”

He sat up from your lap, facing you. His eyes were bloodshot from his previous tears. His usually hard features had softened, his eyes still carrying a deep sadness that you knew you couldn’t fix.

“I’m going to tell everyone we’re together,” he told you. “You’re…you’re perfect. You don’t deserve to be hidden. I don’t deserve you in general.”

“It’s okay,” you whispered. “When you’re ready.”

“I’m ready,” he nodded. “I think…I think you’re the only person who actually cares about me. Who listens and…sees me.”

Your eyes welled up slightly. You weren’t expecting Rafe to say something so vulnerable like this. His rough edges were beginning to soften around you.

“I see you, Rafe,” you told him. You reached out and cupped the side of his face, brushing your thumb along his cheekbone.

He leaned forward, his warm lips crashing onto yours. The kiss was desperate, yet gentle. You didn’t realize how much you had missed this. When you pulled away, Rafe’s eyes were glistening once more.

“Everyone in my life leaves, or screws me over,” he told you, repeating his previous thoughts. “Please don’t leave me.”

You pulled him towards you, wrapping your arms around him. He melted into your touch, safety and warmth encompassing his entire being.

“I’m here, Rafe,” you whispered. “I’m not going anywhere.”

You heard his stomach gurgle, making you let out a quiet chuckle. “Hungry?”

He nodded into the crook of your shoulder. You laughed once more as he pulled back, a smirk on his face.

“Let me make you something,” you told him. You planted a kiss on his cheek before standing up, placing the blanket over his carefully. “You just sit here and relax, okay?”

“I love when you take care of me, baby,” he murmured as he rested his head on the arm of the couch.

You smiled down at him before going into the kitchen to make him some food. He felt safe with you. You had to admit that your heart soared at the thought that you were the first person he came to after a fight with his dad. The first person he opened up to about his mom, to try in front of.

You didn’t even realize it would always be you. You would always be the first person he would run to, even in a crowded room.

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[priniya]

𝜗𝜚 𝐍𝐎𝐁𝐎𝐃𝐘 𝐇𝐀𝐒 𝐓𝐎 𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐖 𝜗𝜚

⋆ pairing. oscar piastri x verstappen!reader

⋆ summary. falling in love has never been on your radar, but when the cute, quiet guy finds his place in your heart, you try to cherish the rare, yet beautifully domestic moments. that is, until you hit the four years together mark and realise that your family probably doesn’t know.

GROWING UP YOU WERE CONVINCED BY THE circumstances that being loved must be earned. you had never put any thought into that — it was just the things were, at least that’s how you were brought up. if you did something your parents didn’t like, you were given a cold shoulder and — from time to time — a silent treatment. as a teenager, you came up with a… pretty saddening conclusion that love wasn’t worth it in the end, so you simply avoided any kind of romantic relationships.

to be completely honest, it wasn’t a hard task. all you ever wanted since you entered the awkward phase of your life, when you could make your own decisions, one of which was leaving your household as soon as it was only possible.

you had departed from your home around the age of fourteen, after lots of begging to let you study abroad had taken place. you were the youngest out of the three. your brother was already in formula one, when you were wearing a plaid skirt, a merlot blazer with the school’s logo, a matching necktie and a few more things that made max and victoria call you a posh, british girl. you didn’t mind it, you were glad to be out of the house, slightly distancing yourself from your family overtime.

the day you met oscar took place on the day of your eighteenth birthday. you and some friends had gone out to celebrate not only your birthday, but also your acceptance to the king’s college in london, giving you an opportunity to pursue your dreams of becoming a doctor. you were yet to tell your family about it, having lied to them about the date, wanting to have this moment to yourself.

you went out to a few bars before ending up in a club as the girls secretly wanted you to find a guy to go home with, since the last year and a half you had been constantly overworking yourself to get into your dream university, (“you got the school in the bag, now get some lad to relieve the pressure”).

oscar had been racing in formula renault at the time, but ever since you left the netherlands, racing hadn’t been on your mind for a long time — it probably should, considering your big brother was two points behind kimi räikkönen last season, however you had a feeling as if racing was the reason you were so disconnected from your family. your dad was racing in formula one, your mom was karting, your brother has been racing in formula one as well, and your sister shared the interest, while the love for partaking in the sport never appeared in your heart.

your chest was slightly pressed against the countertop, smiling at the bartender with a drunken look in your eyes, while he was preparing your umpteenth jägerbomb. jesus christ, you really needed that break. the alcohol running through your veins was really hitting you already as your body couldn’t stay still even for a second — your hips swaying to the beat. that was until you looked around the place and your eyes landed on a boy your age. he was wearing a white, printless t-shirt that clung to his body, turning your quick look-around into a staring situation.

if sober, your thoughts would stay where they should — in your mind, however… you were far from being sober. the proper social etiquette you were taught over the years at your boarding school were long forgotten as you shamelessly ogled the boy. he was simply gorgeous, breathtaking some would say.

“gals, i think i just saw an angel sent from heaven just for me.” you announced, your tone causing your friends to chuckle in amusement. you sound like a person who thought they just invented a cure for cancer. “i need to throw myself at him.”

“oh my god.” aliyah, your roommate from school, laughed, throwing her head back. it was hilariously unexpected to hear you say a thing like that — the girls have heard you talk about the boys you had hooked up with before, even intoxicated, but never this. you had never been so… so not-you. “this-this is the funniest thing, like, ever.”

“which one?” inaya scrunched her brows as she looked around, searching for a guy who could fit her imagination of a guy you would call an angel. she groaned in disappointment, once you discreetly pointed in oscar’s direction. “a white guy? seriously, yn?”

“i can’t help it.” you muttered, your shoulders slumping as the alcohol intensified every single emotion you have felt during the night. “i wish he would have my baby. or like a thousand of them.” your sighed, dropping your hand to your stomach, while one of the girls bursted out laughing at the absurdity of your words.

inaya could easily recall the day before your acceptance letter came in and your speech to the group chat about romantic attraction, relationships, kids, and commitment, concluded with confidence (“i’m gonna be that one, successful aunt that hates kids, but not that one niece.”).

“they would look cute together, though.” priya giggled, stealing glances at your boy, as if she wanted to hit on him, too. then, the thought of priya with your boy disappeared from your mind at the image of your best friend and her long-time boyfriend. right, she and james had been together for the longest time. “you should shoot your–” the universe was not having the girl speak, because a guy, seemingly confident, approached your table.

“hey, i hope you’re having a good evening.” he started in a nice tone, the girl beside you — the last of the four, ciara, seemed to melt against your shoulder, looking at the boy with heart eyes. “sorry to bother you, girls. my friend, that one over there, thinks you’re really gorgeous and would love to get your number, but he’s a bit shy.” he joked, having pointed to oscar, turning the second part of his monologue to you.

before any of you could’ve responded to him, a guy — the same one you called an angel — walked up to the six of you, groaning when he realised that his friend already had done what he threatened to do. “jesus, arthur.” the blonde ran a hand over his face, groaning in exasperation.

“i’m so sorry for him.” he let out a small sigh. “i told him not to bother you, but he’s like a toddler.” he tried to explain, earning a few quiet chuckles from all of you.

“ah, there’s nothing to be sorry for.” priya grinned. “you two look like you haven’t had a drop of alcohol yet, maybe wanna join us?”

oscar wanted to refuse, out of courtesy — he didn’t really care about the embarrassment brought upon him by the monegasque, although the look on your face was making his heartbeat quicken. he’d never felt like this before, it was crazy. he just saw you for the first time and his mind was filled to the brim with small ideas to impress you that were supposed to be shoved away as he opened his mouth to politely refuse the invitation. arthur, however, had different plans and sat next to the ginger haired girl, who quickly engulfed him in a conversation.

looking at him so up close was almost a life-altering experience. for the first fifteen minutes you had to remind yourself to breathe, so enamoured with the boy sitting next to you. after that period, you got even more entranced with oscar. once he started his small conversation with you, you couldn’t help but hang onto every single word that left his lips.

you’ve never felt like this before, so interested in what a boy had to say to you. you forgot about the detail that, if it wasn’t a joke, oscar thought you were gorgeous and loved to have your number. the conversation with him was easy, you didn’t have to do anything special to prolong it, neither did he. by the time the watch on your phone was showing three in the morning, james had already picked priya, inaya and aliyah up, leaving you and ciara with the two boys. you went out to a club to have fun, drink, and dance a bit, but it all was thrown into oblivion once piastri started a conversation with you.

YOU COULD EASILY RECALL THE MOMENT YOU realised that life without oscar wasn’t what you’d ever want. it happened after a few weeks of constant texting, late-night calls and a bit less meetings at his/your place. at the tiniest thought of falling in love with him, your stomach started to hurt, because love wasn’t something you believed to have a happy ring to. your parents were divorced and they took it out on you and your siblings, sophie, your mom, wasn’t as bad as your dad, though.

oscar knew about your stance towards love, but took it upon himself to change it — and he suprisingly did. there wasn’t a thing oscar could do wrong to make you disappointed. despite the hectic schedule he had, you always spent at least ten minutes on the phone to just check in, which was the best part of your day most of the time.

medicine at king’s was killing you every day to the point, where once oscar was able to visit you, he had always made you something to eat, drew a bath for the two of you and took a nap with you. he never complained. for as long as he remembered, most of his days were fast paced — there were little to no slower moments in his life, so despite your insecurities that he must’ve hated you for being too exhausted to spend time with him, he liked just feeling your presence next to him.

your friends, despite the constant teasing, couldn’t be happier for you. you often denied yourself stuff that you probably should experience in life, as a result of growing up in a household where love was conditional. they knew that, it wasn’t a rare sight to see you crumble under pressure, before inevitably breaking down in front of them, so seeing you blossoming like that was not only refreshing, but also relieving.

you were starting your fourth year at the university, while oscar was in the middle of his first season of formula one. before the australian, you weren’t a fan, yet you couldn’t help but bawl your eyes out in pride and happiness, when oscar called you to tell you that he had signed with mclaren.

you had already known about the signing, when oscar came to your shared apartment later, so despite an upcoming test, you spent most of your free afternoon baking him a small cake to show him that his dreams are as important to you as they are to him. you definitely weren’t a great baker, but you tried your best and made a small, lemon flavoured cake with a light, orange-ish congratulations, formula one driver on top.

“baby, i’m home.” your boyfriend called out, entering the apartment as he was taking off his shoes, placing them on a shoe stand. you smiled to yourself at the sound of his voice, head turning to look at him. his hair disheveled, a stubble on his chin, and a slight hint of tiredness in his eyes that seemed to disappear once his gaze fell onto you.

“hey.” you replied as oscar approached you, sneaking his arm around your waist and placing a soft kiss on your lips. “i made you something.” you whispered, tilting your chin to have a better view of his face.

“yeah?” he asked, intrigued. “what did you make?”

“i baked a cake.” you nodded, almost as if it was something you did every other day. “because my boyfriend is officially a formula one driver. i’m super proud of you, you know? and it’s mclaren, too!” you added, a beam creeping up on your lips, your hands cupping his cheeks as you pressed lots and lots of light kisses against his entire face.

a chuckle rumbled in his throat at your silly display of affection, pulling you closer with ease. “i still can’t believe it.” he smiled in between the smooches. “i couldn’t have done it without you.” his voice dropped to a whisper laced with sincerity.

“ah, this is simply bullshit.” you responded, scrunching your nose. “you’re a great driver, baby. you would’ve done it anyway.” you matched the quietness of his tone, bringing your hand to run your fingers through his messy blond hair. “everyone knows that, especially zak and andreas.”

“you did help, though.” he muttered, relishing the feeling of your fingers in his hair. “you keep me sane.” his words earned him a quiet giggle from you. you tilted your head to the side, shaking it lightly, pulling him into a kiss.

it started off slowly and gently, now both of oscar’s arms wrapped around your waist, caging you into his loving embrace. before you knew it, his hands were squeezing your sides, sitting you on the kitchen counter, his body pressing against yours as your lips moved in sync. the pent up stress, pressure and exhaustion slowly dissolving, oscar’s stiff shoulders loosening as your fingers tugged on a strand of his hair.

his tongue has moved past your lips, when you heard a sound, making the two of you pull away from each other in reluctance. oscar’s mom often texted him, when you were either making out on the couch or having sex, almost as if she had a hunch about what the two of you were doing. as a result, you came up with a system that whose phone would go off and interrupt you, the person would have to do something in return for the other one. despite the annoyance of being interrupted, you beamed, knowing that it couldn’t be your phone. that was, until you noticed the smirk creeping up on your boyfriend’s face.

“not mine.”

a loud groan rumbled in your throat, unhappy with the result as oscar passed you your phone from the table. you let out a dutch curse word under your breath, noticing the contact’s name on the notification.

max.

you haven’t spoken to your brother since the end of that year’s season, when you called to congratulate him on his second title. making so much distance between you and your family ever since you were fourteen and in a boarding school was hunting you now. no one from your family knew about your relationship with oscar, despite being together since mid-july 2019. you didn’t want to change it, not because you were ashamed of oscar — that, you could never be — but because you were afraid it would ruin everything between the two of you, and deep down inside you, you knew that your heart would shatter into pieces if that ever happened.

oscar understood where you were coming from, he knew how much of an outcast you considered yourself to be as a kid, and how much work you put into getting away from the town you grew up in. he didn’t mind that he didn’t officially met your blood family, he knew that the friends you went to school with were closer to you and at that time of your life mattered more, so he couldn’t complain, knowing that this family accepted and liked him. your mood significantly dropped, oscar’s hand gently squeezing your thigh for some reassurance, nodding silently, a way of saying that you should call your brother back.

some people would say that your boyfriend was the reason behind the poor connection between you and your siblings, but he was actually the one, who often — subconsciously — made you reply to their texts and calls more, or even calling them yourselves to just check in as you often sent gifts to your two nephews and penelope. although you thought that it was too late to repair the relationship with max and victoria, oscar always told you that it’s nonsense (and he was, indeed, right).

“hey, sorry, i was studying. a cardiology exam coming up soon.” you explained as your brother picked up the call, your voice slightly sheepish as you avoided your boyfriend’s look.

“in december?” max asked. “i was calling to ask if you’re coming back for christmas?”

you sighed softly at the question, knowing that your reaction would probably upset your brother, which you didn’t want to happen.

“uh.” you started. “i–i’m not sure, yet.” an incoherent mumble came from the other side of the line, as you started to pick on the skin of your bottom lip. “i think i am, but not for too long. i have an early flight on the twenty seventh.”

you could see the smile rising on oscar’s lips upon your answer, you were conflicted whether or not you should go back. you missed your brother, sister and mom, but coming home always resulted in your sour mood and not-too-great memories from each year as you always ended up fighting with your dad over something insignificant that made you come back to london sooner than planned. this time, you were supposed to lay down the boundaries and try to have a good time, before flying to melbourne to spend some time with the piastris.

“it would mean a lot to all of us to see you.” max replied in a gentle tone, not wanting to accidentally guilt trip you into coming. “we miss spending time with you, yn.”

“i know, i’m sorry.” your voice broke, sadness washing over your body as you ran a hand down your face to stop yourself from getting too upset. it’s your boyfriend’s big day, you shouldn’t be crying over your familial situation, when it was such a happy day for him.

“i miss you all too.” you whispered, piastri’s hand gently moved up and down your thigh in a soothing mood, helping you calm down a bit. despite not understanding a thing you said since the conversation was held in dutch, he could tell that you were getting upset and it worried him. “i’m gonna be there, okay?”

DESPITE YOUR MOM’S QUESTION UPON YOUR relationship status during last year’s christmas, you didn’t drop a clue whether or not you were dating someone. you felt secure in your relationship with oscar, you didn’t want to jinx it. you started therapy just a few months earlier, but the anxiety to get past this awful feeling of revealing your boyfriend to your family was too much to do yet. you definitely wouldn’t do it without him by his side, and not when your father was around.

throughout the months of 2023, your relations with your mom, max, and victoria had improved significantly, which you were grateful for. by may, victoria’s oldest son, luka, considered you to be his favorite auntie and you really, really liked that feeling.

oscar noticed that you started to come out of your protective shell and he couldn’t be prouder of you. it was around summer break, when you decided that this year, you’d break it down to your family, no more avoiding the conversation you dreaded, but before — you would spend the summer break with your boyfriend in melbourne.

oscar, as usually on his days off, was still fast asleep, when you tried to get out of his grip in the morning. his arm had almost caged you to his side, but somehow — after fifteen minutes of trying to come up with an idea to get away without waking him up, you succeeded.

nicole was already seated at the couch with two steaming cups of coffee in front of her, almost as if she was waiting for you, which you knew she was. it was slowly becoming a little tradition you had with your boyfriend’s mom, you two would sit on the couch in their living room, casually chatting about something, while a movie played on the television in the background to your chatter.

“oscar’s still asleep, love?” she asked in a soft, yet chirpy tone as she noticed you walking down the stairs. your hair was still a bit messy, but nevertheless you looked gorgeous.

“yeah.” a chuckle escaped your lips as you took a seat next to her, taking the mug into your hands. “we stayed up watching a movie last night, apparently i had missed out on the magnificence of david fincher’s filmography.” nicole giggled, shaking her head.

“ah, yes. we’ve been through that, too.” she smiled, taking a sip of her coffee. “so, i’ve heard from hattie that you’re planning on going to suzuka with oscar. that’s, hm… how did she call it? a hard launch, right?” you smiled softly, nodding your head at her question.

throughout your entire relationship with the oldest piastri’s kid, you have been to few races, most of them being his formula renault and three ones, when the schedule didn’t overlap with any of your exams. during his first season in formula one, you were only at silverstone, but as a guest of max, making your first appearance in paddock since you were a baby. this time, you’d be there not as max verstappen’s younger sister, dressed in a red-bull jacket with your brother’s number on the back, but as oscar piastri’s girlfriend.

“that’s true, i’m really excited.” nicole’s warm smile upon hearing your response made you feel even more sure that you were making a good decision. “it’s gonna be my last year at king’s, and i really hope i’ll be able to come to more races to support him. i don’t want oscar to feel like i don’t care about his dreams or achievements.”

“i’m sure he doesn’t feel like that, love.” she reassured, reaching out to squeeze your hand with a slight nod. “you still haven’t told your family, have you?” nicole asked, her head tilted to the side in curiosity and empathy.

she was aware of your bumpy relationship with your family, so it wasn’t a surprise she’d asked that. you feared that oscar’s relatives would think you didn’t take him seriously, and even if they did, they never showed it.

“i want to.” you spoke quietly, having taken a sip of the drink in your hands. “it’s been going on for too long and i’m fully aware of that. i can’t see myself without your son, he’s… he’s probably the, uh, the best thing that ever happened to me.” the genuineness of your words was painfully evident. “i just want them to see that, i wouldn’t be the person i am without him. i’m also just… a bit scared of their reaction. i don’t want to hurt them.”

“i’m gonna be frank with you, love. i think they will be slightly hurt that you haven’t told them about oscar earlier.” nicole started, giving you a look full of compassion. “but you did say that they weren’t insisting on staying in touch with you as much as they do now, your relationship hasn’t been as good as it is right now, so after the initial shock, i think they’re gonna understand why you haven’t told them earlier.”

“thank you for saying that, nicole.” you replied softly, smiling at her with gratitude. “it gives me a bit of hope that things won’t go so bad.”

oscar got down an hour or so later, looking like he had just woken up, what was probably the truth. you’ve had a hunch that he would’ve woken soon, so you started preparing something for him to eat before he had to head out for his usual jog (which he skipped yesterday). his arms sneaked around your waist, pulling your back flush against his chest, while nuzzling his face into the crook of your neck.

you giggled at the sensation of his light stubble against your skin, when he pressed a few lazy kisses along your neck. “g’morning, baby.” he muttered, his voice still having that rought, just-woken-up ring to it. his slightly cold hands moved beneath your shirt, gently caressing your stomach, causing you to shiver at the contact. “what d’you gossip about with mom today?” he asked, continuing with his antics.

“ah, just stuff, love.” you replied, nicole’s petnames rubbing off on you. “edie with a friend will stay at ours before the summer break ends.” you mentioned his younger sister’s plan to come see london and all you got in a response was a soft hum.

“cool, cool.” oscar mumbled a few seconds later, teeth grazing the sensitive spot on your neck, making you bit back a moan. the corners of his mouth turned into a smirk at your reaction.

“ah, fuck off, lad.” a giggle escaped your lips as you turned to face him, having finished preparing some scrambled eggs for the two of you. “go eat, i promised max i’d call him.” after oscar stole a sweet and slow kiss from you, he sat down at the table, shamelessly watching you as you called your brother.

he knew that the situation was better, but he wanted to notice the tiny changes in your expression to comfort you within seconds. he probably wouldn’t understand too much of what you’d say, but before the season started, he’s began thinking about putting a ring on your finger one day, and proposing in dutch sounded like a good idea, so… he started learning on his own, just to be able to surprise you, but also show your family that he cared about the possible language barrier.

“hey, penelope.” you smiled as the four years old girl greeted you after picking up max’s phone. “could you please give me max?” from what you’ve known, max and kelly went to see her family in brazil, so hearing that p wasn’t asleep, wasn’t a surprise.

you could’ve heared ruffling on the other side of the call, before your brother’s voice rang in your ears. “sorry, i was outside.” he apologised. “p said you wanted to talk, everything alright?”

“yeah, everything’s alright.” you smiled at the hint of concern in his voice. “just wanted to ask when you’re flying back to monaco.” you asked, trying to sound as casual as possible.

“ah, around next week, i think. not sure though, why?”

“just… uh,” you looked over at oscar and smiled to yourself. “i just wanted you to meet someone. think you could make a quick stop in london before monaco?”

you could’ve heard max stiffle a small gasp and it made you want to laugh. they thought you’d never find someone, didn’t they? after looking at your nails, you turned your gaze to oscar, whose eyes were still watching you carefully. it was so endearing to see your boyfriend like that, so protective over you. you knew you made a good choice of not pushing him away, oscar must be your soulmate, there’s no other way. you sent him a small wink as you awaited max’s reply.

“someone?” he repeated the word. “as in friend? a boyfriend? god, i never thought i’d live to that day. he’s not fifty or something, right?” this time, you couldn’t hold back the laugh. piastri smiled at the reaction, actually relieved that you weren’t getting upset. he’s never seen you talk to jos, but he knew if that happened on his watch, the entire evening, day or week would be spend on comforting the shit out of you.

“what? no, jesus, you’re quite ridiculous.” you shook your head, a smile still present on your lips. “he’s my age, you idiot.” you rolled your eyes playfully, despite max couldn’t see you.

“but he’s good for you?” max asked for reassurance that you weren’t getting into a relationship, which would end up hurting you more than anything else. “he doesn’t hurt you, or anything? and you’re sure he’s your age? that doesn’t go well with your daddy issues.”

“i’m gonna pretend like i didn’t hear that last bit.” you joked, sitting down at the table next to oscar, taking his hand in his, intertwining your fingers together. “he’s super good for me. wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

the reasoning behind telling max before the summer break would end was simple, you didn’t want the information to mess with his performance, but also so he wouldn’t try and run your boyfriend off the track, or crash into him in a rush of emotions.

“alright, tell him to better treat my sister right or i’ll run him over with my car.”

OSCAR WAS TRYING TO CALM YOU DOWN AS YOU paced around your shared apartment, a few days after the conversation you had with your brother. your brother, who was on his way from the heathrow airport to your home.

“baby, it’s gon’ be alright.” he whispered, leaning close to your ear as he cupped your face in his hands, having brushing his nose against yours a few times affectionately. “max won’t sacrifice his relationship with you, solely because you haven’t told him about us. he’s gonna have to understand, alright? don’t stress out.” his thumb moved against the skin of your cheeks, planting a kiss on your forehead.

“you think so?” you asked, meeting his gaze as a small pout appeared on your lips.

“i know so, baby.” he soothed, trying to put your mind at ease, remembering how much hassle the situation had put on your shoulders, having heard you empty your stomach in the morning, when your phone went off once max had texted you that they have just arrived in london.

fourty minutes later, oscar was calling the security guard to let max, kelly, and penelope inside the building. the australian went back to the living room as you had planned beforehand, when you agreed on inviting them to your apartment.

“auntie yn!” penelope smiled, throwing herself at you. you swiftly picked her up, masking the shakiness of your hands. “maxie said you have a boyfrieeeend.” she singsonged with a beam on her face. you could swear to god that in that moment you’d heard the faint sound of oscar’s laughter.

“max.” you gave your brother a look, while he just shrugged unbashedly. “what? it’s true isn’t it? where is that brit of yours?”

“he’s not british.” this time, max gave you a look that said he was confused, while you just shrugged, waving your hand at the three of them, before leading them to the living room. penelope noticed oscar first and murmured to you that he looked really pretty, a warm sensation spreading in your stomach, when the pretty boy smiled at you. the oldest verstappen might get angry or feel hurt, but at the end of the day, no one could do anything to break the two of you apart. you’d chain yourself to the aussie if it was necessary.

“wha— oscar?” max’s mouth fell agape as he took in the sight of your boyfriend, who gave him a tiny, sheepish smile. “hold on a second, what?” he repeated, puting a strong emphasis on the last word.

you weren’t sure if it was inappropriate for you to scoot a bit closer to your boyfriend, leaning against his side as your older brother tried to stomach the fact that the reason behind your often trips to australia was his on-track rival.

“but you were with kelly at the silverstone, not leaving her side at all?” his confusion was messing with your anxiety and you had to do your best to stiffle the laugh bubbling up in your throat.

“yeah, um… we didn’t met at silverstone.” it was oscar’s time to speak up as the bits of contact between you made him more relaxed. “we… have been already dating back then.” piastri explained calmly, his arm going around your shoulders to bring you even closer.

“so that’s why you cried!” kelly smiled at you as your cheeks flushed bright red.

silverstone was oscar’s best finish in formula one so far and seeing him end up almost on podium had melted your heart as you broke down in the red-bull garage. when kelly asked you what made you so emotional, you slipped a small lie, saying that it was because max earned another grand slam.

“you cried?” oscar asked quietly, his heart swelled with love.

“she had a full on mental breakdown.” piquet joked, your cheeks had turned its color from bright red to crimson. it was nothing to be embarrassed about, you loved your boyfriend with all your heart, you couldn’t help but be proud of him for almost every day since you got together. although, he wasn’t supposed to know about your little breakdown.

“i didn’t know about that.” oscar teased you a little, gently pinching your side.

“wait, because i still don’t understand. you were already dating at silverstone, when did you-did you start, then?” the red bull, who — rightfully — couldn’t wrap his head around the possibility that what you were doing right now, wasn’t a silly prank or tiktok of some sort, and you and oscar were actually together.

you opened your mouth to tell him the range of your anniversary, when oscar, like he was aked about it every other day, responded with; “eleventh of july, 2019.”

“fucking four years?” max asked, his eyes widening at the revelation. “four years and you didn’t tell?”

“i was scared that telling one of you would lead to telling dad, and i didn’t want him to say something that would ruin what we have.” your voice dropped insignificantly, oscar’s arm around your body tightening in compassion. “he’s been my rock, i didn’t want to risk losing oscar.”

your brother’s face softened upon hearing the explanation and just smiled. “i’m not taking what i said back. you better treat her right, or i’ll run you over with my car — on or off track.”

ᝰ.ᐟ꩜ yourname . . . at melbourne! dec 28th, 2026

liked by maxverstappen1, oscarpiastri, inaya66 and 67 218 others.

yourname met this muppet in a bar after years of not believing in love (definitely not at the first sight), overworking myself and worrying all my friends that if i get into my dream university, i’ll have no energy to push forward. took me one glimpse of him (and a jägerbomb) to realise that i need to walk up and talk to him. big thanks to arthur_leclerc for walking up to us and trying to embarrass him.

no one could ever make me as happy as you. not enough words, papers and ink to describe even the quarter of love i have for you, two times world champion. seven years and more to come. thank you for showing me that love can be unconditional and that with you next to me, everything is possible.

(ps. a small sneak peak of one significant bean with us to come through life together xx)

comments on this post have been restricted. view all!

oscarpiastri happiest seven years of my life. nothing compares to the feeling when i’m with you xx

yourname stop cutting the onions (ᗒᗣᗕ)՞

inaya66 couldn’t be happier for the two of you ☹️

ciarrrra thats a lot coming from u considering u didnt like oscar

aliyahbilal i wanna be you when i grow up

arthur_leclerc safe to say i’m gonna be the best man?? 😝

oscarpiastri don’t push it

arthur_leclerc i made you two possible

ciarrrra baby… she was on her way to him when u walked up to us…

oscarpiastri so WE kind of made u 2 possible :p

maxverstappen1 stop posting sappy stuff, and get here already bean misses her favorite uncle xx

landonorris yeah n you’re not the one

charles_leclerc boys… i have a dog u really think u stand a chance

yourname that’s really sweet that u think u ever stood a chance with alex, jack, and james…

maxverstappen1 over her own blood??

yourname stop shaming my daughter for her choices old guy

sebastianvettel lots of love and happiness to your little family

ciarrrra sign me up for babysitter duty pleaseeee i miss my beanie ☹️

aliyahbilal nooo me me me need to catch up on those nursery gossips with my bestie!!!

victoriaverstappen can’t wait to see you guys 🫶🫶 hailey misses her bestie

mclaren we are always told things last ☹️☹️☹️

yourname you know it’s not true admin why do you lie 🙁🙁

hattiepiastri best soon to be sil 🥳🥳🥳

yourname whats with you piastris and making me cry today!!!

nicolepiastri love you both lots xx

jackdoohan i’m the favorite?? need to come over with gifts asap🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️

fin.

author’s notes! super hyped to post this fic 🥹 it’s honestly my baby that i’ve been working on and thinking about it 24/7 (even when i was supposed to be studying LMAO) huge shoutout to my whatsapp girlies esp catalina and sonny!!!! this is kinda not proofread so if u saw any mistakes (which definitely were there) pretend like u didnt 😝😝 part two with domestic dad!oscar and uncle!grid?? lemme know whatchu think <3 requests r open btw!!

[deathbxnny]

hey i was wondering if you could do how arcane characters would react to seeing their partner looking really good dressed up?? also i love ur writing!!

Arcane characters reacting to their s/o dressed up really pretty. | Vi, Ekko, Jinx x Gn!Reader

Thank you for the request, Anon, and I hope you'll enjoy this!!<3

Content: Established romantic relationships, fluff, sfw

Reader has no set pronouns.

((Not proofread))

》VI

"Ooh... where are we going?" A wide grin rested on her lips as she watched you put on your fancy shoes and straighten out the last details of your pretty attire. "I'm going out with a couple friends." In other words, she was not invited. But Vi couldn't hear you over the sound of her mind spinning with many different thoughts.

Humming, she leaned against a wall next to you, intensely dark eyes staring you down with a glint that made you shake your head in defiance. "No." "Oh come on, Cupcake! Do you really have to go out today? I mean... I can go along. It's dangerous around this time of the night and-" "-Viiii. I can take care of myself." She pouted at your clear disagreement, hardly attempting to even hide how much she loved the way you looked.

"Aw... please? At least let me tag alone so I can show you off to everyone." Typical. And yet, you had a hard time denying her anything when her hands suddenly sneaked around your waist so smoothly. She always got what she wanted out of you in the end. Not that you necessarily minded.

"Fineeee... but keep your hands to yourself around them." You huff out whilst your heart warmed a t the sight of pure excitement on her face. But the slyness in her smirk didn't leave as she gratefully kissed your cheek and let go. "Can't promise you that when you're looking so good, unfortunately... but I'll try. For now."

Rolling your eyes with a smile, you let her happily run off to get ready, glad that she enjoyed your outfit a lot.

》EKKO

He was stunned at the sight of you emerging from the bedroom, fully dressed up so beautifully it left him speechless. The Firelights were having a huge festival in celebration of a recent successful mission, and of course, you were both expected to look your best. And you weren't the type to ever disappoint either.

It was rare to see you dressed up so nicely, the cute outfit being one he had only seen a small couple of times before due to your line of work and life circumstances. But in his mind, you looking so good was a sign of success. He wanted you to be able to dress that way every day, perhaps another motivation of his to continue going.

"How do I look?" You ask, the nervous tone in your voice making his eyes soften even further. "You look great. Who are you trying to impress, hm?" His words were playful as he grabbed your waist carefully. Ekko mirrored the shy smile that crept onto your lips at his question. "A certain someone. I don't think you know him, though." You played along, watching as he raised a brow with an unimpressed smirk.

"Hm... maybe we shouldn't go out then-" "-Oi! Why are you guys taking so long? Let's get going." Scar's voice made you both jump, as he appeared in the doorway and waved you over. A sly smirk crept onto your face as you quickly followed after the man. "Ah, there he is! See ya around, Ekko!" "Hey! I'll remember this-!" Running after you two, he couldn't help but laugh a little.

The festival was going to be great, to say the least.

》JINX

You were just trying out some new clothes you had gotten. Nothing special and definitely not for anyone else's eyes, except for hers. Once you were done, you were quick to hunt down your girlfriend to show her your outfit. "Jinx! How do I look?" You asked, a happy smile on your lips as you now stood next to her, whilst she tinkered away on some projects. Removing her googles, she glanced up at you and blinked in surprise, near speechless for a moment.

Nervously shifting under her intense gaze, you wondered if she didn't like it. "Uhm... should I go change or-" "-You look really good..." She muttered thoughtfully before a large grin crept onto her lips mischievously. "A bit too good! Makes me nearly jealous, pretty. How about you dress me up too so we can match?" You should have honestly seen this coming, as she enjoys doing cute things like that with you.

And so, you did as she asked, whilst she painted your nails to match her own. By the end of it, you looked like you were headed to a fancy event, something she found greatly amusing. Kicking a nearby radio to make it play music, she held out her hand to you with a bright smile. "Alright, let's get this party started!"

[dollishsz]

BATBOYS GENERAL HCS DURING DATING ── .✦

a/n: my posts are barely getting engagement so it would be nice to reblog + like + cmmt tysm! Also

I’m so tired because I don’t know what I want to do with myself when like writing because I don’t have much ideas yk, (I do have a lottt of ideas just don’t want to like spam and idk how to like execute it correctly so ya) but I’m so grateful I’m back!

(Tags: batboys general hcs + fem!reader)

DICK GRAYSON ── .✦

Compliments: Dick will compliment you constantly, but they’re the slightly extra kind. “You look like you just walked off the cover of a magazine… Or like you’re about to rob a bank with your style, and I’m here for it.”

Date Nights: Dick is a hopeless romantic mixed a romantic flirty person. He'll plan elaborate date nights that are almost too perfect. You're having a candlelit dinner on a rooftop... until a mosquito swoops by, and you both spend 20 minutes trying to catch it.

Awkwardly Adorable: Dick tries so hard to be smooth, but when it’s just the two of you, he ends up tripping over his words, saying things like “I love you… like… in a non-creepy way… I mean, I know that sounds creepy but—“, “you know dick, you could’ve just told me you loved me no need for all that extra yapping.”

Sharing Food: He can’t resist sharing his food with you but will dramatically defend his fries. “No, you can't have any. This is the last one. You’ll be fine. It’s called 'the sacrifice of love.'”

JASON TODD ── .✦

Grumpy But Cute: Jason might be brooding and grumpy on the outside, but once he gets comfortable with you, he’s a sucker for giving you the best hugs. They’re just not as soft as you expect, because, well, he’s Red Hood and that’s not very 'soft' in his book.

Love Language: He definitely has a love language of throwing sarcastic remarks at you to show affection. “I’m just saying, you look so good, I might actually let you live longer than five minutes without me.”

Meme Sharing: Jason will share the funniest memes with you, and he will laugh harder than anyone else when you send him a reaction meme. You two could spend hours going through meme after meme while ignoring his patrol responsibilities.

Late Night Conversations: He’s always the first to text at 3 am just to say, “I’m not okay. Also, I think I might’ve made pasta in the Batcave, but it’s 80% burnt and half of the 20% is missing on the ground in other words, it’s fully burnt. You in?”

TIM DRAKE ── .✦

Puns & Dad Jokes: Tim is the king of puns. You might be mid-sentence talking about something serious, and he’ll sneak in, “Well, that’s egg-sactly what I was thinking.”

Organizing Everything: Tim will have a notebook just for your relationship. He organizes things like "future plans," "annoying habits to change," and “how we can both pretend to be normal in public.”

Overthinking: Tim might send you long, thoughtful texts about nothing and everything, then panic and delete them. Later, you get a short text that says, “Hey, I like you. It’s cool. Let’s go save Gotham.”

Netflix & Research: On date nights, Tim is all about watching a documentary on some obscure topic. You wanted to watch a rom-com? Nope. Tim says, “Let’s learn about the history of ancient pizza ovens.”

DAMIAN WAYNE ── .✦

Fiercely Protective: Damian will go full boss mode in a relationship. If someone even looks at you wrong, he’s ready to challenge them to a duel. You’ve never seen someone challenge a guy at the coffee shop to a sword fight over a latte until you met him.

Literally Shakespeare: He has this bizarre habit of reciting random Shakespeare quotes when trying to express his feelings. “My love for you is like a tempest, crashing and relentless. Also, I think you forgot to add sugar in my coffee.”

Jealousy: He’ll get jealous of even the smallest things. That random guy who offered to help you with your grocery bags? Damian’s glaring at them from across the parking lot, preparing his “You’re not worthy” speech.

Tenderness: Don’t be fooled by his brooding exterior. Damian will get you flowers (in his own way) — like a very dramatic single red rose that he purchased with the least amount of emotion possible, but you know he spent an hour picking the perfect one.

BRUCE WAYNE ── .✦

Grumpy But Loyal: Bruce is that partner who takes a long time to warm up to things, but once he’s in, he’s in 100%. He’ll still be grumpy, though. If you show up in a bat-themed shirt, you’ll get a raised eyebrow and a grunt that could probably level an entire building.

Affectionate In His Own Way: Bruce will bring you your favorite coffee without asking because he’s been paying attention to your usual order for the past six months. But if you say anything about it, he’ll act like he’s annoyed. “I’m Batman. I don’t do things for people.”

Overprotective: He’ll put the Batcomputer between the two of you if he’s feeling protective, even if it’s completely unnecessary. Someone bumps into you? Bruce is already three steps ahead, tracking their life history and figuring out their deepest secrets, just in case.

Romantic, But Quiet About It: Bruce can’t show his love through words, but the way he gives you his jacket when it’s cold speaks volumes. Of course, he acts like it was an accident. “I didn’t want you to catch a cold, that’s all. I’m not a softy, don’t read into it.”

GENERAL TRAITS FOUND IN THEM ── .✦

Matching Outfits: They’ll all pretend like they’re too cool for matching outfits, but one day they’ll catch themselves accidentally twinning with you, and neither of you can ever act normal again.

In Public: They’ll all act like they don’t care if you hold their hand in public, but if anyone tries to grab your hand instead, they’ll give them a glare that could freeze a person in place.

Batman’s Turtleneck: Every Batboy secretly loves when Bruce wears his iconic black turtleneck and glasses. They all think Bruce looks like a mysterious intellectual, and they might just start commenting on it to mess with him. Bruce is too focused on Gotham to care.

[emilija04acer]

Jayvik fics list (pt 1)

(+ some Jayvikmel)

They are soulmates, Your Honor, whether platonic or romantic is irrelevant.

Firstly, here is an essay by isdisorigionale. Yes, they apparently wanted to write about a brotherly relationship. But it doesn't really read like that, in my opinion.

An Aroace Analysis of Jayvik—Not Necessarily Romance, Absolutely Not “Bros”

Their summary>

An essay I wrote in 90 minutes 2 hours after finishing Season 2 Act 3. Notably, those two hours were spent screaming to my friends on how fucking generational that Jayvik was.

Or: They obviously didn't need to make them make out to show how much they love each other, but I’m also pissed at how apparently this is being called a bromance like ?????

♥––––––––♥♥––––––––♥

Now onto the fanfics >

Green is my thoughts on the fics.

Those are shorter fics that I read...After the finale, fanfiction is helping me cope. I'll make a separate list with older and longer fics.

♥––––––––♥♥––––––––♥

You're Dreaming by Skullsz_Writes

Viktor & Jayce are researching in the library, but Jayce falls asleep...

Short and sweet fic about Viktor crushing on Jayce in season 1

An Epilogue by GwenEani

In the countryside of Demacia two men arrive one day, no one knows anything about them, no one even knows their names for certain. But they know one thing: they are partners and are here to stay.

What if Jayce and Viktor didn't die in each other's arms but were teleported away and were living domestic lives? There are a lot of these here, and rightfully so. They deserve some happiness.

to rot and ruin by ember360

The first words Viktor says to Jayce are immortalised on Jayce's wrist. The first words Jayce says to Viktor... are not what he thinks.

Soulmate AU for these two was a need. I love Soul Mark fanfictions.

Fortune Kooky by setbet

“And you end up with… a beard!” she exclaimed pointing at Jayce’s face.

Viktor rolled his eyes while Jayce looked on, amazed at her prophecy.

“And then…” she turned her gaze to Viktor. “You turn into a robot!” cried out the fortune teller, falling back in fear. “A terrifying robot bent on taking over the world!”

“Eh, sounds fake,” said Viktor.

“Viktor, don't be rude!” said Jayce, but starting to feel a bit doubtful at this point.

A fic about two academy boys visiting a completely accurate fortune teller.

Universal Constants. by Azurita25

“Yes, well… there is also the idea of constants, no? Universal constants. Gravity is always present, the Earth always spins around the sun–”

“And we always end up doing laundry together?”

“I do not think the laundry is the part that’s important,” Viktor stressed.

“So what is?” Jayce replied, making Viktor laugh, shake his head.

“You are.”

--Or, a glimpse into all the universes where Jayce and Viktor find each other.

wrong bedroom by a1sher

“Wait a minute, this isn’t my bedroom.” Viktor and Jayce tries to break into Heimerdinger’s lab only to end up in Viktor’s bedroom;)

What if Mel accepted Vik's excuse?

…And They Were Roommates! by draconabraxas

Mel Medarda never thought she’d go on a date with a taken man; homewrecking was beneath a woman of her standing.

In her defense, nobody in their circle seemed to know if Jayce and Viktor were together, either. So, how was she supposed to know?

Miscomunication and more miscomunication! Mel isn't a sidepeace!

Why Love Songs Exist by Slither

"All these timelines at our fingertips." Viktor pauses. He smirks in such a way that Jayce knows he has a silly idea. "It would be funny if I were a worm in an alternate universe," he says.

"I think you would be a cute worm," says Jayce—his Jayce—without hesitation, and then he shrugs. "I would put you in the best garden I could find and feed you the freshest fruits," he adds casually.

Giopara is silently mouthing the phrase "what the fuck" behind them, as Viktor's mouth falls open. "Oh."

Oh, he says, as if that did not remind him of everything Jayce revealed before they sacrificed their souls to contain the Arcane. Oh, that he was beautiful. Oh, that he was...

Desired?

Or Jayce basically confessed his love, but the specifics remained unclear to Viktor.

Kiss me like one of your Zaun Boys by setbet

“They’re making out in the lab.”

“Yeah, they do that a lot.”

“But they’re not boyfriends?”

“We don’t talk about it.”

The first time Viktor kissed Jayce, it was a quick peck on the cheek, followed by a casual conversation. The next time it's on the lips, but then it's back to talk about formulas. Jayce concludes it must be a cultural thing, and also starts to kiss Viktor back. Everybody else is confused.

A story of two friends kissing each other, who are definitely not boyfriends.

only you by babybirb

Jayce and Viktor don't quite cease to exist. Instead, they are side by side in each breath, in each droplet of blood, in each wave of sound and light. What seems to be the end, is only the beginning for them. And together, they pave their way forth.

An ethereal alternate after-ending to Jayce and Viktor and the love they hold for each other. With it, they exist within all possibilities.

not to me, not if it's you by brewstersbru

They were supposed to die, then, a better ending than Viktor expected. Far sweeter than he deserved. Jayce’s hand warm and broad against his neck, foreheads tipped together, breaths fanning over skin. It was neat. It was nice.

And then he woke up, splayed in a field, draped in the tatters of Jayce’s blanket. A groan rose from his left, then some pitiful shuffling before a final, loud thump, accompanied by a slight warble.

perfect imperfections by bbgghost

In his dying moments, Jayce revisits some important moments he has shared with Viktor. And makes some new memories along the way.

i knew you in another life (you had that same look in your eyes) by coefemi

Jayce shakes his head. “You don’t need to thank me. I’d do it for you. I’d do anything.” He sounds so earnest too, and Viktor believes him. He is safe with this boy, he decides. Jayce’s smile makes him feel like he can eat the world raw, and Viktor wants to hold onto it forever.

 When Viktor and Jayce's foreheads touch, all the infinite what-could-have-beens spill through their minds.

♥––––––––♥♥––––––––♥

2x7 AU\No Hextech AU

I'd love to see more of this AU and will also write fanfiction about it.

Quiet Resonance by Qakk281

Jayce rarely wakes up before Viktor, but on the rare mornings he does, he savors every second.

After the events of Act 3, Jayce and Viktor found themselves in a different timeline, where Hextech doesn't exist.

what could've been, would've been (what should've been you) by ghostlyecho

They got married in this universe.

Jayce grabs Viktor’s left hand, examining it. He looks at his own.

Twin rings adorn their fingers, Viktor’s golden, Jayce’s silver, both holding a fragment of blue crystal in the middle.

They’re married. They vowed their life to the other, they promised themselves to one another, they actually acted upon the deep-rooted emotions that coursed through the garden that was their relationship, that stubborn weed called love, that always came back no matter how many times you plucked it.

What if it was Jayce who got to see his life in an alternate universe

What Could Have Been by TheUnknownGoose

When Jayce woke up he nearly leaped out of bed when he realized bed? Why am I in bed? His heart was pounding against his rib cage as he looked around. He was in a bedroom, not his though.

Or Jayce sees what could have been if one thing had gone differently.

In Every Universe, It's You by AniresNevil

In an Alternate Universe, a young scientist Jayce loses his hopes and dreams when an explosion in his studyroom takes a life of an young girl. Dean's assistant Viktor still seems to find him in every lifetime, and together they accomplish something once again with the power of their partnership. And maybe with something more.

What happened to Jayce and Viktor in the Universe where Ekko traveled to in season 2?

Both arms cradle you now by Alexthestarlover

They're meant to be. In every timeline of any universe, throughout all the endless possibilities of actions and worlds. Their souls are intertwined. But is it possible that they're together in death too? 

there was something about you, but now i cant remember by DipitinPuddinggg

He held out a hand for a shake, "I'm Jayce."

At the edges of his mind, a familiar voice echoed through the walls of his skull. A voice that was the same but also not. A face that was so familiar, but too smooth at this point in time, not yet marred by years of labour and hardship that not even the strongest person in Runeterra could survive on his own.

"I don't even know your name."

Viktor smiled and shook it, "Viktor."

After getting sucked into the rune, Jayce and Viktor get transported to a different timeline without the memories of their previous life. Except, some things start seeping in.

you'll never shine if you don't glow by hexcorehomos

Viktor woke up, his fact was hot, sweat dripping down it. Where was he?

He looked around, it looked like Piltover. He slowly tried to get up, still confused. He should be dead, he exploded with the Arcane. That's when he figured out that his leg was back to normal. He groaned, falling face down into the grass. He wondered if Jayce was here too, oh, Jayce. What would Viktor do without him?

He saw a few people pass, but he got the courage to speak up when he saw familiar blue hair, almost like Jinx's. "Uh, miss.." he got her attention, turning towards him.

"Hello, sir?" she responded. She had gorgeous blue eyes. "I need- I need help. My cane is gone, and I cant walk without it." he lied, desperate for help.

♥––––––––♥♥––––––––♥

The Poly relationship>

Radical Violence Theory by begaydocrimes10001

When Mel Medarda realizes that she's completely ignored Viktor's potential as a scientist, as an academic, she quickly seeks to remedy that. He may not be Jayce Talis, but he has his own brain, and he seems to be far more useful than most think. She's a practical woman, after all- it would be useful to have another genius on her side.

And when she realizes Viktor is also in love with Jayce Talis, and Jayce loves them both? She's still practical, after all-- she sees an opportunity.

(Or, Mel and Viktor are more similar than one might think. That applies to who they love, but it applies to how they love too.)

Mel and Vik are platonic in this one, and I love it. Sadly, the positive interaction between them in Cannon is non-existent.

♥––––––––♥♥––––––––♥

Explicit> (some are 2x8 specific)

Wild Like a March hare by crow_brain

Wild are the glimpses of their life, hot coals burning the soles of their feet. They dance like animals, trying to close the gap between.

(Or the body worship Viktor's always should've gotten)

Cosmic Coitus by Wink_Wonk_Wank_Wenk

Now that there’s nothing but space around them, they can do whatever they want.

Inevitable Change by magisterpavus

Viktor isn’t the same when he comes back.

Jayce is determined to make it work anyway.

convince you by spectacularorange

after being rejected once, viktor must find a way to convince jayce to join him.

2x8

Partners. by lw192

Taking place during the fight scene in the councilor's room, Jayce and Viktor reconcile and realize just how much they need each other.

(Jayce and Viktor fuck on the councilor's table.)

Can I hold you? (Even if its just pretend?) by Issavandra

“My partner died in this room,” he ground out.

“Do I seem dead to you Jayce?” Viktor asked. Jayce could feel him moving closer, he swore he felt something brush his nose. “I have never been more alive.”

A cool, metallic finger passed over his bottom lip in a featherlight touch. It felt almost reverent. “Do you want me to show you just how alive I am?”

[m0rkl]

The People We Become || Reverse AU || FiddAuthor

Hurray I have a name for this AU now! Please come yap with me more about this and the messy FiddAuthor relationship I'm about to describe

Fiddleford and Stanford's Relationship

After their initial falling out because of the portal and Bill, Fiddleford had told himself he was going to erase his memory of his entire partnership with Ford and go back to his wife and child. He promised Emma-May this would be the end and, were this the canon timeline, this would be the final use of the memory gun that really fries Fiddleford’s brain making him the ‘Old Man McGucket’ we see in canon.

But when Stanley falls into the portal and it blows up, Fiddleford notices the explosion and rushes to the lab instead. He ends up taking care of an unwell and confused Ford and not going back to Emma-May. He explains to her that Ford doesn’t have anyone else and Emma-May understands that, but she can’t have Tate expecting his dad to come home when Fiddleford simply won’t put them first. They agree to a divorce and that Fiddleford will stay out of their lives for a while, except for birthdays, holidays and the like.

Emma-May and Fidds have a good relationship nowadays, but Ford is very awkward around the family and has no interest in being a father figure to Tate. This is one of many points of conflict in Ford and Fidds relationship.

Early in their relationship, they had a lot of issues due to Ford being insensitive and getting frustrated with Fidds memory issues, but ended up going to couples therapy and having Ford learn how to assist Fidds through his memory lapse episodes and set up the house in a way that would be helpful to him.

They might be married but their relationship is far more complicated than at first glance.

Ford is ace-aro, but loves Fiddleford in his own way. He wants Fidds to be his companion for life, but it's not romantic love.

Fiddleford, however, is romantically in love with Ford and has to navigate the fact that Ford does not and will never want him in certain ways. Is it totally healthy? No! No it is not.

They sleep in separate bedrooms, but Fiddleford will sleep in Ford’s bed on occasion, especially if he’s had a memory lapse that day.

They’re legally married. Ford was the one who brought it up after gay marriage was legalized. He was very excited, but extremely unromantic about it as he thought it would be great for their tax situation and health care. Fiddleford was endeared, but a decade later is still sad they never had a proper wedding. Fiddleford loves referring to Ford as his husband or other pet names, but Ford almost exclusively called him Fidds or Fiddleford.

Fiddleford very much grounds Ford and reminds him how to be a human being rather than a work-machine. He gets him to eat regularly and sleep a semi-decent amount, as well as tries to help regulate him emotionally sometimes, even if he isn't always successful.

Ford challenges Fiddleford's creativity and they still work on inventions together, even after Ford starts turning more to writing. They go on adventures, chasing after the bountiful weirdness of Gravity Falls and save each other from various situations.

Over the years Ford is happy with their situation and Fiddleford is… happy? If a little unsatisfied. He knows Ford won’t love him the way he wants and Fidds desperately tries to convince himself he’s okay with how things are. But he is very much romantically in love with Ford while Ford cares about him and wants his company, but does not feel anything romantic towards him.He understands that Ford feels things differently and its not bad, but its not meeting all of his needs either. They both tell themselves this is fine when it's not really.

Everything comes to a head when eventually, Ford regains his memories and realizes what Fiddleford has been hiding from him all these years. 

They fight because in Fiddleford’s mind, he did this to save Ford from the portal and from himself. He knows Ford would have destroyed himself trying to save Stanley and put not only himself, but the whole world at risk opening it again.

Fiddleford tries to explain his point of view and how much he feels like he’s given and suffered for Ford over the years, but it goes unheard. Ford just is furious that he was lied to and likens Fiddleford to Bill, which isn’t wholly true, but devastates Fiddleford nonetheless.

While Ford settles Stanley into the house, Fiddleford goes to live with Tate, who does live in Gravity Falls.

Their break up causes some tension between Mabel and Dipper because Mabel is siding with Fiddleford and Dipper is siding with Ford. The twin’s aren’t entirely looking at the situation as black and white, but they do pick sides.

Mabel tries really hard to bring them back together through a series of ‘parent trap’-like hijinks, but it doesn’t really turn out like she hopes. However, Stan talks to Ford and they discuss the long years where Ford didn’t have anyone to rely on by Fidds. Stan also talks a little bit of sense into Ford and helps him realize that sometimes Ford lets his anger get the better of him and he doesn’t properly listen to what other people are trying to say.

Ford and Fiddleford finally do talk about their feelings and what went wrong on both ends. They decide that for the moment they still need some time apart for the moment and they’ll see how it goes from there.

[delta-06]

𝐒𝐢𝐦𝐨𝐧 𝐑𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐲 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐩𝐨𝐬t

𝙶𝚑𝚘𝚜𝚝 𝚡 𝚖𝚊𝚕𝚎 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚛

𝚂𝚕𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝 𝚗𝚜𝚏𝚠 𝚊𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚎𝚗𝚍

𝚛𝚎𝚙𝚘𝚜𝚝 𝚙𝚘𝚜𝚝 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚝𝚠𝚘 𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚠𝚛𝚒𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜 ☞︎︎︎ 𒊹︎︎︎𒊹︎︎︎𒊹︎︎︎

SFW

Ok now we need some proper Simon Riley appreciation post. The majority of people (not all of them) think he is some kind of heartless man and would hurt you but that is not the case, YES he is introverted and YES he may be a bit hurtful with his words as a kind of defence mechanism with people he doesn’t know and doesn’t wanna know anything about them, but what about his boyfriend? He would still joke with you and treat you like a friend because a lot of trust is required to be someone’s s/o. Knowing this, we now may be at a cross point: is he a really fond individual or is he just a more casual type? For me, he is more on the casual side. Nothing fancy and nothing too involving for sure but he makes sure to maintain this relationship.

The first time you confessed your love to him he was like: ‘’Oh cool, I have a boyfriend now…is it some kind of friendship?’’. Didn’t know anything about how to be in a romantic relationship as he had been in denial of his feelings for you since the Task Force was formed, and then he straight up walked away.

After he processed everything, you and him took things slowly. At first everything was just as normal as before but now you two knew that behind these ‘’good morning’’ or ‘’stay safe’’ there was something more behind.

At Valentine, since Ghost and the others were on a mission in some remote place lost in the wilderness a thought in his mind crossed and dashed away everything he was thinking of. At the end of it, he came up to you as he had in his blood-stained bare hand a small bouquet of yellow, violet and red local flowers, both tall and small. When you took them in your hands and thanked him wishing back a happy valentine, he swinged your back to make it face the others, who were speaking with the general on the computer screen for breefing, pulled his skull mask up his nose and whispered a low ‘’Such a good boy on the field eh? Following my orders perfectly, I wonder if you can do that in bed too…’’ while sliding his hand under your black t-shirt.

With that he gently placed a gentle kiss on your cheek and went away putting his mask over his face again. He didn’t show it but his mind was a mess of ‘’What the fuck did I do!!! Stupid repressed animalistic thoughts…betraying me like this??’’ and so on. Little did he know that he actually voiced what he wanted deep down. The kisses you two exchanged were always quick and hugs were sparse and sometimes too sudden to even feel anything, not even the other’s warmth, so he unconsciously voiced what he wanted. A small break for the two of you without people interrupting and the need to always be on guard if someone is approaching.

He didn't really call you with pet names such as "my love" or "baby" as he didn't really have a need to use them, but when he discovered you liked them he...kinda had to search online when to use them as he was a mess in all sorts of romantic things. He eventually came to a halt and just gave up so he now had to figure things out for himself. I have to imagine this guy on google or reddit asking on how and when to use them💀.

NSFW

Make out sessions were quick, hell…they left you two frustrated! Everytime things were getting serious a call or a problem with recruits ‘’happens’’ to be there. You two gave each other a look of ‘’I am going to end someone’s life today’’ and parted ways.

The first time he called you a good boy red appeared on your cheeks and small inner jumps of joy filled your love-depravated mind in that moment.

It was a quiet night, finally, some time for yourselves as you had your boyfriend all over you leaving kisses and bite marks. He had you pinned under his weight as a sort of ‘’try and escape this bitch’’ to show off the hard won dominance. His skull patterned balaclava was on his face (the mask stays on during this type of private time, no buts), just above the scarred bridge of his nose, with one hand, he held your upper back down and with the other he supported your stomach area. Usually he was a bit more calm but now he didn’t truly care, he held a steady pace, not that you minded, but you noticed he didn’t let out any kind of sound, just the occasional grunts. But then everything changed as he stopped and lowered himself near your ear: ‘’I wasn’t wrong after all before, eh pup? Such a good puppy for my love? Taking what is yours without uttering a word-’’. If you didn’t scream of joy in the mattress under you now, you didn’t know where and when else. Your cock twitched with enthusiasm and when Simon saw it, he laughed deeply while smiling: ‘’You truly do like it, eh? Being called "pup" or "good boy", I didn’t know, really!’’, you laughed too and put an arm around his head that was on one of your shoulders as you pouted back a ‘’Fuck yes if it comes out your mouth!’’. He gently kissed the area where his head was in agreement and nuzzled the crook of your bare and warm neck. After that round, he promised to call you ‘’pup’’ from time to time since your mouth curled up in pure joy every time he said that, of course… only when you two were alone and maybe very lowly and near your ear only when Price was around and wasn’t really listening (he is the only one who knows about you too).

[the-one-and-only-taffie]

dude it's like you and I shARE THE SAME BRAIN LIKENASKJAMA AHHHHHHH

I have already gathered so many other headcanons about them and even a possible scenerio/fic type of deal, but I shall save those for another time

Anyway, the main deal about these two is that as much as they liked to pretend, they don't actually love each other. Main reason, they are at a point in their lives where they aren't capable of it. Sentinel cause he's looking out for #1. White because she doesn't have the experience, knowledge, or probably even the ability to love in the way necessary for a functional and fulfilling romantic relationship.

What the two see in each other isn't someone they would want to spend the rest of their immortal lives with. Hell, they don't even like each other most of the time. They just see each other as a way to boost their own egos and prove to themselves their inherent superiority. Sentinel is very aware that he only sees White as an item to bolster his status, especially when he has to legitimize his rule after betraying the Primes. However, he can't help expressing fondness for her, even if it's only when she does or says something that makes him look good in front of the populous. White, however, genuinely believes she loves Sentinel. Her love language is bringing out the best in people by correcting what she believes to be their flaws. This is what she did with The Diamonds, especially Pink, and it's what she'll do with Sentinel. She knows the way she treated them was wrong and that this exact habit of hers is what led to Pink running away. This is why instead of fixating on Sentinel's flaws, as you said, she'll instead shower him with compliments and encourage the behaviors she believes is good. She doesn't at all see how this isn't better. She's doing the same thing again in a different coat of shiny paint, but hasn't yet introspected and noticed this. So she keeps on, even when it drives Sentinel to madness and brings out the worst in White.

When you mentioned that she "proved herself to be terrifying when mad," I immediately thought about a scenario where they're arguing as usual, Sentinel is fed up with White's "critiques" while White is acting like the bigger person and speaking to him like a detached, observant therapist who is only missing a writing pad and a pen. Sentinel in his foolish hubris goes for a cheap shot, maybe pointing out that she failed her own family. White in what feels like an instant, her face goes completely red and she unleashes her temper in one fit of rage. She goes off the deep end and woaaaaah the look on Sentinel's face would be priceless! Her booming voice echoing off the walls, her stomping the floor so hard as she paces around the room making it shake like an earthquake (cyberquake?). Honestly the poor bot would be knocked over by the force of White's scolding alone and she'd still keep going. Once she's done, she'd go back to being calm like nothing happened and she'd go "Whoops, hehe, sorry you had to see me like that. What I meant was I thoroughly understand you and acknowledge your input. However, my dear, I strongly disagree. I still respect you and what you have to say. I didn't spook you too much, did I?" And Sentinel is trembling as he slides himself off the floor using the wall like "Oh, nah, I'm fine, totally ok, yup, great discussion there, haha, but i got a meeting to go to so im going to go like now" and once he's back on his pedes he books it out of the room. Sentinel makes a mental note to never piss her off that badly again. White Diamond continues on as if she didn't just scold her boyfriend like an impudent child.

On a more wholesome note, YES YES DOUBLE DECKER YES to Sentinel taking White Diamond to the surface of Cybertron! She asks many questions about it, some he doesn't provide answers to for classified reasons. Speaking of classified reasons, Sentinel always has Airachnid and his drones accompany them in secret to notify him when Quintessons are near and to help him steer her clear of anything incriminating. As she enjoys the view, White laments how in her empire's conquest to spread her view of perfection, she destroyed so many beautiful sights like the one she sees on Cybertron. Sentinel tries to cheer her up by telling her the planets after being colonized by gems must look just as wonderful, if not more, than the way they did before. She just says she appreciates his attempts at comfort, but she says she's learned better than to find beauty in the destruction of life. Sentinel rolls his eyes. I bet in White's attempts to come off as humble, she frequently dismisses or shuts down Sentinel's compliments, especially in regards to her past or the parts of herself she believes are flaws.

But yea on the more silly side I find it so funny how their attraction to each other supercedes their incompatiblity. Like "This glitch/clod is annoying but at least she/he is hot" LMAO. The only time they seem to be at their most functional is when they're chilling together in silence.

Back with more White Diamond x Sentinel Prime crackship nonsense baby!!!

Ever since I first thought about these goobers, I haven't known a single day of peace (mostly cause the ideas are just racking around in my brain)

So here's a list of headcanons I came up with for Prime Diamond! If you have any questions regarding this ship, my ask box is open. Double if you have any thoughts or anything to add, go on ahead! I hope y'all enjoy!

I may make a part 2 when I come up with more lol

For this relationship to even be possible (as possible as a crackship between two characters from completely different franchises can be), it will have to take place Post-Steven Universe Finale/Future when White Diamond is in her therapy, self-help guru era. And when Sentinel Prime is... alive.

Also, I have been trying to do research regarding this but since the results are so inconsistent, I'm gonna assume White Diamond is around 80 to 90 ft tall and Sentinel is around 60 (based on how he's double Orion Pax's height and apparently TF One Orion is around 33 ft tall). If you know their actual canonical heights or anything close to that, please lemme know!

As mentioned in a reblog, White Diamond would take an interest in Sentinel Prime as a sort of little DIY project. Though he tries to hide it, White with her supernatural intuitiveness can tell there's more to him than meets the eye (he's an asshole). Having been inspired by Steven to see the worth and beauty in imperfections, she wants to give someone like Sentinel a chance like Steven did for her. Though she is making genuine strides to improve upon her previous controlling and obsessive behavior regarding perfection, this aspect of her will resurface in her attempts "fix" Sentinel while in a relationship with him. She adores and finds much interest in his "positive imperfections," but helping him improve on his more negative ones wouldn't hurt, right?

Other reasons she developed an attraction to him is for the same reason all the Sentinel fangirls did: he's just so... pathetic. When he tries to impress her with stories of battles he's never fought in and gives her a tour of his treasure room full of artifacts he didn't discover, she can tell he's trying way too hard to impress her. She finds this cute and charming rather than douchey and desperate.

Sentinel Prime pursued her because, as stated in a previous reblog, "his diva ass was always going to try and seek out a gem fit for a king." He laid his eyes on an 80-90 ft giant alien rock woman and thought,"I need her." As any sane person would. She was supposed to be nothing more than another symbol of wealth for him to show off to the other elites and officials of Iacon City to further cement the royal image he works so hard to maintain. He definitely underestimated how overwhelming White Diamond can be, and I am not just referring to her height.

Sentinel would rather have his spark be extinguished than admit to this, but his stabilizing servos get wobbly at the idea of his alien girlfriend being so much taller than he is. His pride would never admit to this, nor would it accept someone taller than him accompanying him. He believes that as a "Prime," he is supposed to be much taller, bigger, and more imposing than those around them.

Whenever they make a public appearance, Sentinel insists that White shrink herself to a height more tolerable for his fragile ego. He bullshits an excuse about their buildings not being designed for a being as tall as she is. White obliges, but given how Iacon was built when the previous actual Primes were all gigantic and alive, she quickly figures his lie and confronts him about it. He'd just lie again and say he didn't want the other Cybertronians to be intimidated... by her beauty. Clearly, it's not because of some Napolean complex or something. Still, White in her patience era takes the compliment for what it is.

The "guy who doesn't like speeches" vs. "professional yapper" isn't a joke. Sentinel can't stand how much White Diamond loves to yap. She's the kind of person to have thoughts and opinions about anything and everything. Given that she doesn't breathe, she doesn't even need to catch her breath in the middle of speaking, so she can go on and on and on, much to Sentinel's annoyance.

He tries to get her to quiet down at times, but as White tends to do, she either doesn't hear him or straight up ignores him. Her monologuing, along with her height and just how shiny she is, is very overwhelming for Sentinel at times. The only good thing he finds about this aspect of his sweetspark is when she dotes on him and showers him with compliments and attention. As if a attention hungry fame whore needed any more of it.

Sentinel even allows White to indulge in her psychoanalysis, playing up the whole "tragic hero whose brothers and sisters perished in battle and now has to face the pain and weight of protecting his people alone" that she eats up. White does sometimes hit dangerously close to home, so Sentinel shuts her down before she could dig straight to bedrock and uncover the more unfavorable parts of himself he wants to stay hidden.

Speaking of staying hidden, the way White carries herself in public makes Sentinel was to keep her locked away in a jewelry box. White is excellent when it comes to using her words to inflict psychic damage or to build someone up. When it comes to social situations where charisma, relatability, and poise are needed, this is when White is at her most alien. She is not the most socially adjusted given that prior to the finale, she spent thousands of years hidden away in a world of her own delusions. She doesn't have much of a filter, something she has been working on to avoid upsetting offending others.

She has the habit of pointing out any interesting thing that catches her eye, especially about people, whether or not it's positive or negative. This has led to her unsettling the bots at best or offending them at worst. Sentinel then has to come in and use his charisma to difuse the situation and paint her behavior in a more positive light. Only for White to turn around and ask everyone if they ever noticed how Sentinel's wings move in accordance to his mood and how adorable it is. Everyone laughs. Sentinel is thoroughly pissed.

Sentinel definitely has more relationship experience than White Diamond. All of her knowledge comes from what she's heard from the gems that come to her for her advice or from that human show the little green Crystal Gem recommended (she can't remember her name). In her attempts to emulate the behavior of what she's heard of and observed, she ends up coming off as cringe at best or detached from reality. At certain points of the relationship, she even imposes certain "deadlines" on courtship behaviors she expects from Sentinel. All his previous relationships were private, casual flings. He only made this one public because bagging a bad bitch like White Diamond is an accomplishment he felt he had to show off.

This may come to bite him in the aft when her radiance catches the attention of other bots. On these occasions, he acts possessive and showers her with attention, gifts, and affection. He tells himself and Airachnid it's because he doesn't want her to outshine him in the eyes of the public. In reality, he gets jealous and doesn't want to lose her interest and, most importantly, her attention. As overwhelming and embarrassing as she can get, a twisted part of him really craves her attention.

In private, Sentinel can flip flop greatly in how he treats White. On some days he leans on her for support and wants her to pet his wings while he vents about all the dumb, annoying bots he has to fraternize with and all the boring meetings he has to attend. White occasionally interrupts him with advice or her own views on the situation, which frustrates Sentinel. On other days, he's completely detached, not even bothering to give her the time of day. He is at his most consistently sweet and romantic when they're both in the public eye, performing grand gestures of love. This intensifies when they're on camera.

They present themselves as THE Iacon couple, but Sentinel and White argue a lot about pretty much anything. More often than not, White is trying to advise him on how to improve himself and his city, and Sentinel kindly tells her to shut up and mind her own business.

They are both very prideful people who can't accept when they are wrong. White is more willing than Sentinel to admit to it and compromise. If she believes she is 100% in the right, she won't go down without a verbal fight. She has yet to figure out how to properly counter Sentinel's "NUH UH!" though. She believes this is normal and healthy as she hears time and time again how arguments are a sign of a functional relationship. White knows how in the past she never allowed anyone to express their grievances or criticize her. If they did, she'd twist their words to further force her own viewpoint or take control over their mind and body. Seeing Sentinel passionately argue back while White practices her listening skills and only sometimes speaks over him gives her hope that she isn't regressing back to her previous toxicity. No one has told her that disagreements are healthy and normal, but frequent fights and arguments are not. And the kind of hellish circles these two go in just ain't it

[luck-of-the-drawings]

[OLD ART ALERT] A COLLECTION OF SCENES FROM THE GILLIONS CATSCRATCH ARC THAT BROUGHT ME GREAT JOY. i love fishy chips especially when its just gillion being delirious and violent and hostile

[fluffypotatey]

To be honest I am a huge Nalu shipper. But the thing is I want to know the difference between the way Natsu cares about his guildmates and Lucy. Like what is the obvious difference since that boy sees every as Nakama so how can we say that the wag he cares about Lucy is different?

Like even when Erza passed away? (All the way back in first season there was a segment where the guild was gathered at her grave and all) Natsu was still very reactive. Plus he was also said to be depressed even when Lisanna passed.

What's the difference between all of them and Lucy?

the fact that he stayed. the fact that before he met Lucy, Natsu wasn't one to stay in a group or even want to work with anyone besides Happy at the start of the story. hell, he was ready to just file Lucy down as "New Guildmate" once they reached Fairy Tail

but then, Lucy doesn't leave. she follows him on his mission to save Macao despite her not needing to or even really understanding everything about it. she stays and then fights with him and saves him. it's no secret that Natsu is strong and can take care of himself really well. he's been going on solo missions for years now, and no one has really stopped him, but that means he's been in a lot of sticky situations where he and Happy are on their own and have no backup. and yet, without asking, Lucy offers it

and i think this is the moment when Natsu considers that maybe it's okay to have someone there to have his back (sans Happy)

"but Natsu only needed Lucy for the next quest because of the requirements," well, Natsu also wouldn't have taken or even considered that quest if it weren't for Lucy, yeah? he was not a team player (in the picking job's sense) or really wanted other people to help him on his quests sans Happy. and then he goes and picks a job that caters to their team whilst ensuring that Lucy can't say no

or maybe i'm reading too much into it 🤷🏻‍♀️

or maybe Natsu's got horrible abandonment issues that he will latch onto people so fast (Igneel & Lisanna) but also cause him to distance himself so far when left behind (his 1st time at the guild, Lisanna's death). Erza and Gray are Natsu's closet friends after Lisanna and yet they cannot reach him when he closes himself off. and then we have Lucy, who stuck by and had his back, so who is to say Natsu didn't make some contingencies to ensure whether or not she'd join him?

but maybe it's the rose, colored ship glasses i have on

because yeah, Natsu cares for all of his guildmates. the power of friendship is his biggest motivator. when we meet Natsu, our first introductions of him is defending his guild's reputation from Bora (who was using it as a guise for human trafficking) and saving Macao. and our 1st big arc (Galuna Island), where Natsu adamantly refuses to allow Gray to use Ice Shell and sacrifice himself despite how antagonistic they've been to each other. we get Natsu 100% at Erza's defense throughout the Tower of Heaven and he is even ready to defend Wendy though they only met hours ago

Natsu is a character with a bleeding heart and cannot help but wear it on his sleeve, but we don't really see him allow others to fight his battles or have his back until Lucy comes in. to be honest, i don't even think he had his heart on his sleeve until Lucy. he still has a bleeding heart (i don't think anything could stop that), but he was not ready to be open in receiving company because he was so used to it being ripped away from him

that being said: of all the characters he interacts with, he finds Lucy to be someone compatible enough for him to start going on team missions and inviting her on them (for example, his 1st S-class mission, which he stole, he went to her house to show it to her. the fact that part of the reward was a celestial key might be a coincidence, but i wouldn't doubt it as Natsu and Happy's trump card in case she refused)

but yeah, the difference is that he stayed and didn't push her away at the beginning, but instead continued to invite her along with him to the point that doing a mission without Lucy wasn't his regular anymore. compared to the rest of the guild, of whom he spent most of his childhood with, even if he spoke to no one, they would still be around and talk to him anyway. he might not invite them on job and only challenge them to fights, but the guild is his home and a constant in his life, a constant he needs (bc heavy abandonment issues).

"okay, but he still pushed her away after he watched Igneel die right in front of him. and he left the guild for a whole year, too. so what's the difference there?" you may ask.

so 1) Natsu never thought the guild would disband. he returns to Fiore after a year and is the last to know that they disbanded. he assumed, like all the other times before and while he and others were sealed for 7 years, that Fairy Tail would still be there when he returned. he assumed that his disappearance would not impact so hard because the guild would still be around and Lucy would have the others with her

which, did not happen :)

and like, so many guild members go off on jobs, quests, or even just leave for an indiscriminate amount of time (which i, personally, believe was his rationality for leaving), so him being gone for a year was nothing! right? no harm, eh? his plan was never to be gone forever :))))

2) he just watched his father die and lose any chance of having some semblance of a long term reunion with Igneel. he literally lost one of his main driving motivations for getting stronger and taking jobs. before Fairy Tail, before anyone, it was Igneel. and to learn that a) Igneel was always with him to begin with and b) he only got to see him for less than a day after 14 years of nothing......i would feel lost too ngl

man's needed space from everybody. and he also needed comfort, but Natsu has been shown not to really be the character who asks to receive comfort (and when he does receive it, it's usually when he's already emotionally compromised). he is in the habit of shutting people out after being abandoned or losing someone close to him, with his next rationale being to "get stronger" in order to prevent what happened in the past to ever happen in the future.

anyway

what makes this different? well for one, he sent the letter only to Lucy (or it's implied since no one else is shown getting one) because of how the two spend most of their time together. even the line that goes with the panel makes it sound like Natsu is unsure on how the note will be received (maybe even hesitant? but that could be my own hopes)

and one of the 1st people he reunites with after a year is Lucy and we get such a similar parallel to the first chapter of Fairy Tail between the two as if the narrative itself is slotting them together to say "ah yes, now everything is back to normal and new journeys can begin"

but yeah, this is just a long way of saying, that Natsu does love his friends and guildmates but even when he is close to them, he kept to himself (and Happy) and sort of stayed in their orbit but always with some emotional distance because of his fear of abandonment. and then you have Lucy where he will stay for and allow her to orbit around him and he will invite to new adventures no questions asked

that's the difference

[feroluce]

Lucid Dreamer (2/2)

part 1

Gepard stalls almost a week before he finally goes out to the safehouse, and it takes him a couple days to find it because Sampo didn't have the time left to be wasn't super specific about the location. But he does find it.

It's pretty bare bones, really. Gepard knows that was probably to be expected, but… It feels crushing, when he realizes there are so few personal things here. It's nothing specific to Sampo. Just some food, some medical supplies. A cot and a heater and a lot of mismatched blankets. Nothing to remember someone by.

But he does find the letters, in a metal box stashed away under the bed.

There are two for him. Three for Natasha, and two for Seele. One for Hook, one for Serval, one for Pela, one for Bronya.

Bronya's is mostly business. They knew each other from the whole Stellaron incident, but not much beyond that, and the incoming catastrophe is a more pressing matter. Seele's is actually two copies of the same letter, and Gepard realizes why when Seele is so angry she rips the first one up without reading it. He gives her the copy a couple days later, and she slinks off without a word.

Pela seems completely normal after hers is delivered, but Gepard knows better than to trust that. The next day, he finds her asleep in bed with Serval, bottles abandoned on the floor, both their eye makeup smeared and running and Pela's glasses horribly smudged and crooked on her face. Serval doesn't read hers in front of him, but she's clingy with Gepard, Pela, and Lynx for quite a while after. She throws herself into her work a lot. She insists the heater from the safehouse is busted and she needs to keep it. It's too dangerous for use by someone who's not an engineer. Might burn their house down or something. Gepard doesn't argue.

Hook's letter is short, with easy to read words. The rest of it is actually a treasure map, and she and the moles spend the next several days running through the Underground, finding hidden candy and toys. Hook asks them when Sampo is coming back, because one of the marbles she found from his map looks green, just like his eyes, and she wants to give it to him. Natasha shoos Gepard out of the clinic before he can even begin to think of an answer.

Natasha refuses to let him see what's in her letters, which ok, fine, he'll respect that. He hears from Bronya who heard from Seele who heard from Natasha herself though that one of the letters was a map and the other a catalogue, with all of Sampo's hidden "warehouses." Gepard promptly marches himself back out to the frontlines, where he can turn a blind eye. If a ton of stolen goods suddenly enters the black market, and if the orphanage and the clinic suddenly have new supplies, well, technically that's none of his business.

Gepard goes to bed, curls up under mismatched blankets and closes his eyes.

He doesn't dream.

One of Gepard's letters was also business, like Bronya's and Natasha's. He and Bronya follow everything meticulously, down to the letter, because there has to be some good to get out of all this, there has to be. Gepard can't let it all be for nothing, it would bury him.

And so the catastrophe passes. Not without casualties, and not without a lot of damage and destruction. But Belobog survives.

And after that, time just kind of…goes on. Gepard has been a part of the Silvermanes since he was old enough to enlist. The Fragmentum had gotten so much worse in the years before Welt sealed the Stellaron. He knows the statistics, it is literally his and Pela's jobs to keep track. He knows when he sees a face everyday in the camps and then it's suddenly gone. He's not unfamiliar with things like grief and loss.

He still catches himself checking the trashcans and the supply crates and soldiers' footprints sometimes, though.

But there comes a night where Gepard goes to bed, holding the mismatched blankets to his face, and he dreams. And it's strange, it's off, it sticks with him. Sampo doesn't look the same. He's thinner. His muscles have atrophied. He looks like how Gepard has seen soldiers after months in the hospital.

The most unsettling difference is there's a scar across the left side of his head, Gepard can see it over his ear, peeking out past his hairline, carving towards his cheek. Sampo is always careful about his face. Gepard once saw him dodge a Fragmentum monster and literally let it cut across his neck just to keep his face clear. He wouldn't let that happen for nothing.

Their actions in the dream itself aren't new. Sampo seems tired, run down and worn out, but he announces his presence with aplomb by lobbing a bunch of smoke bombs off the rooftops and sending his soldiers scrambling. Same shit, different day.

The new part is what he says when Gepard chases him out to the edges of the camp, tackles him into the snow. Gepard pins him to the frozen ground to detain him and Sampo doesn't even fight it, just looks up at him like he's seeing sunrise for the first time in months.

"I'll be home in one week."

[sysig]

I’m just saying I think he has a type (Patreon)

[hadesknockedupintheunderworld]

"Perception" a Nine Essay

I started writing this back in January to take a break from brainrotting about Netflix posting EP1 of Season 3 to discuss something I had been thinking about again (ever since reviewing the end of season 2 for the umpteenth time).

I'd like to talk about the differences in how characters in Sonic Prime see Nine versus how he actually is. I know this seems like a simple topic, but I think we all do well with a reminder of just how much the characters in the show know with their limited povs (as we the audience can view everything).

I'll be going pretty much character by character (grouping some together to discuss their povs at once), and ending with Sonic and Shadow.

(Note: At the time I wrote most of this, I had planned to have it done before S3 dropped, as I felt that the messages of this essay would be good to put out there before we all inevitably saw Nine as the season antagonist. To keep up with my original intentions, this essay will only go up to what we the audience knew as of S2)

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So let's start with Rebel Rouge and Renegade Knucks. They gather their first impressions of Nine as they witness Sonic and Nine's capture at the hands of the council, although they don't properly meet Nine until they enter the Chaos Council's base.

"Are you sure we were 'best friends'?"

"Blue streak has a friend?"

"Didn't look friendly. But whoever he is, he's involved now."

They haven't yet watched the video a resistance member took of Sonic and Nine's fight, and when they do, we only know for sure that they'll watch clips of Sonic talking about Green Hill. This means that (especially since there are no references during their meeting with Nine that they saw him fight Sonic), them listening in as Nine and Sonic are abducted is baseline their knowledge of Nine before meeting him.

They consider Nine a possible friend of Sonic's as they listen in, but it’s Rebel who mentions that Nine doesn't sound very friendly. This is a fair assessment, given the tone of Nine's voice and Nine's questioning if he and Sonic even were really friends. It's enough to be suspicious of someone's character, especially in a city like this, where choosing the wrong ally in your resistance could likely get you captured, or worse. It's also worth mentioning that first impressions matter with guys like Renegade who (like Knuckles) tend to make judgements of character based on first impressions and gut feelings. He trusts Rebel quite a lot as well, even listening to her judgement when it opposes his own, so it’s not impossible that her initial judgement of Nine as unfriendly starts to inform his assumptions as to Nine's character.

But I digress. If you believe they didn't watch the full video of the Nine/Sonic fight, that small moment is enough for one or both to be suspicious of character or decide they don't like him. If you believe they did watch the full video of the fight, then I'd say that's enough evidence to form even a bit of a negative opinion on Nine and his character (after all, it does showcase Nine fighting the hedgehog they believe could be a sign of hope/an asset to the resistance. It's not too hard to come to the conclusion that Sonic and Nine may have been fighting up until being captured, even if that isn't the truth).

Now, the first meeting.

If they do have bad impressions of Nine before meeting him, Rebel and Renegade don't hold these against him. Rebel only swoops in to save Sonic from the laser and battle the eggforcers (which also allows Nine to escape captivity). As for Renegade, although he arrives after Nine has used the commotion to sneak away to the monitor, forgotten, he also never accuses Nine of any foul play or of only caring about himself. During this scene, Nine frees Sonic, saves Sonic by taking control of Rusty Rose, and ultimately aids in the battle despite fighting.

Now, as for my claim that Renegade doesn't assume Nine as a threat to the resistance or believe him to be a bad guy, let's pinpoint the scene where Nine first talks to him.

"No"

If you rewatch this scene (Season 1 Episode 2), Renegade isn't moving with intent to attack Nine. After punching an eggforcer, he bounds in the direction he's facing. He takes one step, in the direction Nine happens to be in before Nine instinctively points a mechanical tail at him (perhaps assuming that Renegade was moving to sneak up on him?). In addition, Renegade has this surprised look on his face until Nine says his next words.

"Catch up, Echidna. I'm one of the good guys."

Of course, this does no favor to Nine’s image regarding Renegade (especially as this isn't the only moment like this in terms of how Nine talks to Renegade), but it doesn't prove Nine's a bad guy. At worst, it frustrates and annoys Renegade, and if it comes off as some sort of "secret villain red flag" to Renegade, he doesn't keep this moment in the forefront of his mind. After all, he and Rebel both choose to follow Nine's idea of stealing the Chaos Council's energy crystal, and they don't mention or act like they are suspicious of Nine during the fight. This is all to say that, at the current moment, to them Nine may have an attitude, but he's not evil or intending to betray anyone.

An attitude like Nine's during this portion is either something to overlook or a trait tacked onto an indication depending on how any given person sees you. This is to say that at best if someone likes you or believes you to be good, you're "just a little rough around the edges", and if someone dislikes you or believes you to be bad, it's "of course someone bad would have an attitude like this". It's an accessory, not inherently an indication of moral character or intentions. Someone can use it to further implicate him/find more reasons to dislike him later (such as when people talk/post/write about people they think are bad people and start nitpicking their appearance in their reasoning), but for now his attitude isn't enough to make Rebel or Renegade distrust him.

After all, didn't they really think Nine would save them after nabbing the red paradox prism shard?

The shot is a bit hard to get, as they fully smile just before the show cuts back to Nine. This is the best shot of it I have at the moment. Just know that during Rebel's recount of this event in Season 1 Episode 6, Rebel and Renegade visually start to smile when they see Nine return with the shard.

Now that the mission is accomplished, we see that they're just waiting for Nine to rescue them. However, when Nine chooses to leave alone, Rebel and Renegade take it as betrayal.

Renegade is surprised before he turns angry, freeing Rebel, Rusty, himself in his rage. Rebel's expression deepens (as if angry, regretful) and closes her eyes.

These are not the reactions of people who distrusted Nine (or Sonic for that matter) from the start.

This scene pointedly shows us that Rebel, Renegade, and Rusty did not see Sonic disappear into the red shard (the doors shut before they can). Then they watch Nine leave them to their fates, making off with the shard as Sonic is nowhere to be found. It's not about Nine's attitude or unfriendlyness (or, again, Sonic's attitude for that matter. As Sonic *also* made Renegade frustrated the same way Nine did, but by calling everyone by the wrong names). It's the fact that they have every reason to believe Nine AND Sonic used them only to abandon them when they got the shard.

And this is perhaps shown best this interaction between Renegade and Sonic.

"I didn't steal the shard!"

"But your fox friend did."

Sonic had explained what happened to him to Renegade, who explained it to Rebel. Despite this, Rebel still saw him as a backstabber, angry enough to want to leave him at the mercy of the chaos council or turn him "into a handbag". Why?

Well, remember that Renegade and Rebel's first introduction to Nine was Nine bringing his and Sonic's friendship status into question. Whether they believed the two to truly be friends then, they did see the two conversing at the red crystal before Sonic disappeared and Nine left them high and dry. So even if Sonic hadn't purposely left them, I don't think it's a stretch here to say that Rebel and Renegade had assumed the two planned to leave Renegade, Rebel, and Rusty behind. Perhaps Sonic didn't make off with the shard, and perhaps he couldn't help his disappearance, but his partner made off with it.

Rebel and Renegade don't know Sonic, especially not like the audience does. Both with the knowledge they had at hand AND to deal with what was a shocking betrayal to them, Rebel and Renegade considered Nine and Sonic to both be traitors. This is also not to mention that despite Sonic's new testimony of his disappearance and his surprise that Nine would leave Rebel, Rusty, and Renegade to die, he wouldn't give Nine up to them.

Sonic has to try really hard, advocate for himself after a score of disappearances, and help the rebels a number of times for Renegade and Rebel to even consider that he's telling the truth about his helping them.

Likewise, Nine doesn't advocate for himself (or really care to). He swoops in to fight, takes Sonic to disappear again. He swoops in to fight for a bit, and then is captured by the Chaos Council.

And not only do Rebel and Renegade not know he was captured specifically, they did not see it. Earlier, before the battle, they made it clear that the red shard could not fall into the Chaos Council's clutches, or everything would be done for. Renegade even probed Sonic for Nine's location so they could make sure Nine would never give it to the coucil (even despite Sonic's testimony that Nine would never do that). Not only does Nine's capture give the Coucil the red shard, it gives them the secrets to interdimensional travel and makes them more of a threat than before.

This is all to say that, on top of the fact that Nine doesn't try to change their opinion of him as a traitor, as far as they know (influenced by their own biased impressions of him) Nine started working with the Chaos Council, betrayed them all again to get ahead.

We the audience know just as Sonic does that Nine was captured, and that he used his status to aid Sonic and their search for the prism shards from the inside.

Rebel and Renegade do not.

In fact, (now starting from Season 2 Episode 5), Rebel and Renegade are both distrustful of Sonic when he tries to tell them this (and the fact that they see it as his fault that the Council nabbed more prism shards doesn't help)

"I'm gonna bust into the Yoke, grab the shards, and rescue Nine!"

"The fox with the attitude? The one who stole the shard?"

"I...know he's a little rough around the edges..."

"It's not just the edges."

"But he saved you!"

"And then he disappeared again."

"Because he was captured! We can trust him."

"Him? We don't even trust you."

Nine's actions matter to them, and those actions color their perception of Nine for a while. Same goes for Sonic. Their trust is not easily won back after being broken.

The only reason they decide to travel to the Yoke with Sonic in the first place is because they need to make sure the Coucil doesn't keep the shards, and Sonic is going there to try to take them anyways. They don't trust him, but they do need him.

Later in the episode, "Nine" contacts Sonic to tell him of a way into the Council's fortress. We can safely infer that this "Nine" who contacts Sonic is not the real thing. The voice sounds at best like a robotic imitation, and the way "Nine" talks is suspect enough for Sonic to mention that he sounds weird and to ask if he's okay. But not only do Rebel and Renegade have no reason not to believe that this is the real Nine leading Sonic into the Yoke, Sonic himself vouches for him.

"My inside fox is gonna get us in. Come on!"

"'Bring your friends.' Why would he say that?"

"Because he's a nice guy? I told you, we can trust him."

"Not like we have another option."

Whether Rebel believes that's the real Nine or not, she suspects Sonic is being led into a trap. Even Renegade says he "doesn't like this" and mentions how ominous everything feels when the doors into the Yoke open. They only go along with Sonic because they have no other ways to get into the building.

But lo and behold, it's a trap. Sure we the audience know that this is the Chaos Coucil's doing, that Mr. Dr. tricked Nine into giving him info about Sonic that would spark the idea of Chaos Sonic's creation. We know Nine regrets this slip up and even apologizes to Sonic later for being responsible for Chaos Sonic's creation, and we know Sonic doesn’t doubt Nine's telling the truth.

But to Rebel and Renegade? Sonic just followed his so called "inside fox" right into a trap. It plays into how they already see him, just as Sonic's forced transports to the other shatterspaces before this (via touching the shards) continued to play into how they already saw Sonic as a deserter. They distrust Nine for valid reasons, but it’s because of this distrust and their ideas of who Nine is that they believe the worst of him, even when the audience can see that Nine isn’t intending on betraying any given person.

And Chaos Sonic doesn’t help this view of Nine that Rebel and Renegrade have either.

"Failure? You've got the wrong hedgehog, pal."

"Au contraire, blue hair. I know a fox that might disagree with you."

"Another trap. I knew that fox would set us up!"

So when Nine contacts Sonic himself later...

"Sonic! Are you there?"

"Sorry, pal, but I'm a little busy at the moment."

"I have a plan. Follow my directions and lead it to me."

"Ya sure?"

"Positive. But you gotta hurry!"

"What else is new?"

Here's what Renegade, Rebel, and Dread have to save about it.

"Sonic, wait!"

"Ugh. I'm starting to think he likes traps."

"Aye. He does."

Again. We the audience know this isn't a trap. After following Nine's directions, Nine uses the prism energy to blast and destroy Chaos Sonic after this.

But Rebel and Renegade don't trust Nine. They see this as Sonic falling into all of Nine's traps out of naive trust.

And Dread only agrees because he did use Sonic's trust to lead him into a trap. Dread hasn't met Nine, but if others think this is a trap, he has no reason to believe anything other than Nine being another person weaponizing Sonic's blind trust.

And aside from when Renegade saves Sonic and Nine from Dread later, this is the last time Renegade or Rebel see/hear about Nine. Sometimes Nine really does betray their trust, sometimes Nine is truly trying to help Sonic, but after the initial betrayal, everything Renegade and Rebel see (in regards to Nine’s words and actions) plays into their point of view of Nine as a traitor.

Rebel and Renegade aren't insisting that Nine is going to betray Sonic because they're right and Nine is "secretly evil" and going to do just that or whatever. Sonic isn’t ignoring the "bad" things that Nine did only for Sonic to be punished with Nine being a bad traitor villain all along.

Rebel and Renegade keep insisting that Nine is a traitor because he left them behind, because he doesn't care about them, AND because every bit of evidence they see (a miniscule bit compared to what the audience sees) just so happens to play into their existing biased view of him.

ㅤ

Let's move on to Rusty Rose.

Now this portion is shorter, as she only has a single run in with Nine. This singular run in is during the first few episodes when Nine takes control of her to help him, Sonic, Rebel, and Renegade fight.

Now here's something important about Rusty we learn in Season 2.

1. Loyalty matters to her.

2. She can choose her own alignment.

Rusty Rose's lines to Sonic when he's in the Chaos Council's clutches, in addition to the fact that the Chaos Council turned her into a fighting machine, gives us a hint as to what's going on here.

"Survival required adaptation, as you will soon learn."

Rusty Rose has always cared about her well-being. But to those she is loyal to, she would give even her life. This is to say that whether she gave herself up as the Chaos Council's weapon for her own survival or whether they saved her and she decided to work with them because of this (and because they'd destroy her otherwise), she is loyal to them. At baseline, she is loyal because she believes they will never betray her, that they will always come for her.

How exactly do we learn this?

In season 2, while Dread and his crew still have Rusty Rose in captivity, she insists the Chaos Council will come for her, and even becomes smug when the council comes for the shard.

The chaos council has come for me and the shard. Just as I said they would."

But in the end, the Chaos Council chooses to leave her after obtaining the shard. She seems surprised that they would betray her, even after following every order to the best of her ability and acting as they had programmed her to. And so, after the Council deserts her, she changes her loyalty (her eye turns pink from the red color) and decides to join Dread's crew.

This scene mirrors a point in the first few episodes.

When Nine briefly reprograms Rusty to work for him, her lone eye changes to the color yellow. Likewise, she's loyal to Nine and the rest and follows orders. And although we don't get to see her face in the Season 2 Episode 5 flashback when Nine emerges with the red shard as we do with Rebel and Renegade, we DO see her face when Nine leaves. If you look back to the screenshot I provided in the Rebel and Renegade section of this essay, you'll see that she looks sad and disappointed. She was betrayed and left behind too.

And what does she do when Nine leaves her behind? She restores her Chaos Council programming and her eye turns red again. She returns back to the only people she can seem to trust to value her.

So Rusty may not have spent much time with Nine, but loyalty matters to her. So all Rusty likely knows of Nine as of the ending of Season 2 is that he betrayed her.

I think with this in mind, it's safe to say that she has no reason to like him or believe in him at the moment either, even if she doesn't subscribe to common ideas of morality either. He betrayed his crew and it's as simple as that (and that's why she has no problem blasting Sonic when Dread frames him as a traitor).

ㅤ

Now for the Chaos Council.

Now, I think it's clear given the fact that they appropriated his tech and that Mr. Dr. Eggman (in S2 E6) referred to Nine as having a "less dull mind than the usual rifraff", the Council at the very least sees Nine as someone who is a bit more intelligent than most of New Yoke's citizens. Given that their goals are to continuously conquer and *gestures to all that they're doing* they're less concerned with morals and more concerned with their own goals. This means that they just dislike/hate anyone who gets in their way. Things like morals, relationships, etc are all things to manipulate to get what you want (if Mr. Dr. Eggman's talks with Nine are any indication).

So. How does the Council see Nine? Do they see him as someone secretly about to or willing to betray Sonic?

Let's start with their first impressions of Nine (or rather, how they will remember him).

In Season 1 Episodes 1 and 2, while Nine and Sonic are captured, Nine's life and wellbeing is largely used as motivation for Sonic to follow the Council's orders. Aside from this, though, most of the focus (the camera and the Council's) is on Sonic. So, from the events of Episode 2 and 3 of season 1 where Sonic, Nine, Renegade, Rebel, and Rusty fight their way to the red shard, it's simple enough for the Council to consider them all friends (sans Rusty). Doesn't matter if they actually are. They work together (and with Sonic who considers them all friends), so they might as well be friends to the Council. This is not to mention how Mr. Dr. watches Sonic and Nine enter where the shard is, are aware via the power shutting off that their energy crystal has been stolen, and then Sonic and Nine are the two that disappear before the Council can capture them. So at the very least Nine is...cunning. In their minds, he's smart enough to take the power crystal, but not so smart as to clash with the Council's egos.

Now, whether they knew only Nine had taken the red shard or they assumed both Nine and Sonic had coordinated (like Rebel and Renegade had originally assumed), it doesn't really matter here. In S1 E6, Sonic appears (clearly shardless) mentioning the existence of other shards and asking where Nine is (thus indicating he doesn't know where Nine and the red shard are). Then, during the Chaos Council vs Sonic + Resistance battle after this, Nine appears out of a portal with the red shard upon his craft.

And if they hadn't seen "the fox who stole the shard" as Sonic's friend before, there is clear evidence can see between now and the Mr. Dr. Eggman/Nine talk that leads to Chaos Sonic’s creation that they do now.

In Episode 8 of Season 1, the Council discusses eliminating Sonic in pursuit of their conquest, but Nine voices his dissent.

"Agreed. With our work complete, I'll give our girl-bot the go ahead on Operation Elimination."

"Tch. Eliminating the hedgehog is a bad idea."

"Arguing for the life of your friend? What a shock."

After this, Nine argues against the idea that he and Sonic are friends, but he ultimately convinces the council not to eliminate him outright.

"You sent your robots to another shatterspace. Big difference. You've only barely accomplished what he's done without any technology. He's a living shatter battery!"

*The power in the yoke dies briefly, and the coucil members each groan/make sounds of frustration*

"Til we know why he gives off this power, we need him alive. What? H– Grahck!"

*An eggforcer shocks Nine*

"The rat's right. Too many questions for us to start playing exterminator. At least...not until after we wring every ounce of shatterjuice out of that blue varmint."

Not only does he smile in talking about Sonic's accomplishments, but, if you check the end of this scene, Nine lowers his head when the council laughs over Dr. Done It's final statement, he grits his teeth, and he frowns.

In Episode 4 of Season 2, the Council brings Nine out front, and Mr. Dr. sits there when Sonic arrives to see him.

"Nine?"

"Sonic, get out of here!"

*The Eggforcers shock Nine*

"No..."

In fact, when Mr. Dr. threatens the lives of Sonic’s friends if Sonic doesn’t give over the shard, he pointedly leans in Nine's direction as the eggforcers ready their electricity based weapons.

"I'll make this simple."

*Mr. Dr. Eggman moves his chair closer to where Nine is*

"Hand over the shard, or say good bye to your friends forever."

In case you don't go back to watch the episode for this, also note that he begins to lean over during the "to your friends" part of the line, and Nine is the only one of Sonic’s friends in view of the camera as Mr. Dr. gives the ultimatum. The camera only shifts to include Sonic's captured friends after shifting between Nine and Sonic's expressions, and after Sonic turns around to look at them.

So I don't think it's a stretch to say that Mr. Dr. Eggman thinks Sonic and Nine are friends by this point. At the very very least he knows Sonic considers Nine one, given how comfortable he is using Nine as leverage.

Anyhow, in all of the Nine/Chaos Council scenes between his initial capture and the scene where Mr. Dr. asks Nine how to defeat Sonic, the council isn't fully aware of Nine contacting Sonic. This means they are not yet aware of his continued contact with Sonic and do not know what the audience knows about Nine's working them from the inside. They just make Nine upgrade their shatterdrive, remark that they keep him around for his knowledge on the shatterdrive, make him deploy eggforcers, and then keep him cuffed with eggforcer supervision at all times (should he try to escape). They don't trust him enough to keep him uncuffed and completely unsupervised, and they need his knowledge regarding the shards, but they underestimate him. Dr. Don't provides him full access to their systems, even when they leave Nine alone with Eggforcers, they aren't monitoring what Nine could be saying/doing behind their back, and they seem to think they have Nine under their thumbs enough to destroy him should he attempt to fight back.

Let's move on to Season 2 Episode 5.

In Nine's first appearance in this episode, he's led into the room the Council is in by some Eggforcers and employs his "attitude".

"Ahem. You rang for me?"

"How long are we putting up with him?"

"He's built us what we want. Get rid of him already."

"Now, now. We're going to put him to work. But this one posseses a—shall we say—less dull mind than the usual riff-raff. He'll appreciate this."

Then, the council gives Nine a demonstration of the power they possess with the three shards in their possessions and uses it to build upgraded eggforcers for the purpose of quashing Sonic and the resistance. What is the purpose of this in tandem with Mr. Dr. Eggman's "compliment"? I think the next scene involving Nine and the council gives us a bit more context to form an idea.

During this scene, we see that the council has Nine standing before their display, watching Sonic and the resistance fight upgraded bots in the scareport.

"Enjoying the show?"

"It won't be enough."

"Enough?! Balderdash! My jumbo eggforcers will pound that varmint into blueberry jelly!"

"We'll see."

"Yes. We will."

With the combination of "complimenting" Nine, showing off their power and harnessing of the shards after discussing the topic of getting rid of him, and making him watch the upgraded bots fight Sonic, it's clear to me that they're making a power play here (or at least, Mr. Dr. Eggman is). Mr. Dr. is trying to make it clear the might they possess, the futility of rebellion or of trying to disobey orders.

But here, after Nine says "We'll see", I think Mr. Dr. decides to swap tactics a little. They're still trying (and failing) to defeat Sonic, and Nine seems to believe no matter what that Sonic will come out on top. Perhaps Mr. Dr. at least realizes that their display of power is not scaring Nine into submission or causing him to give up on Sonic.

"You admire him, don't you? For all of your bluster, you think of him as a friend. Funny. I thought you were smart."

And I don't see any reason why Mr. Dr. Eggman would lie about an observation like this. If it was about aligning Nine as Sonic's friend while Nine is secretly planning to betray Sonic or doesn't like him, then the focus wouldn't be on Nine's intelligence. To reiterate, Nine's friendship status (or at least, whether he believes Sonic to be his friend) is not put into question so much as how "smart" of a move it is to place his faith and friendship in Sonic. It's manipulation tactic to put Nine's trust in Sonic into question, to again try to get him to lose faith in Sonic. Why? Well...why else? Nine is Sonic's "friend" to the Council, right? So Nine is their best chance at figuring out how to destroy Sonic.

"We both know that the other members of the council won't stop Sonic. They lack vision and imagination. Unlike you."

"You think I have vision and imagination?"

"Perhaps. Or perhaps you're just a stupid fox. Alone. Useless. Pathetic."

Here it's incredibly clear the way Mr. Dr. is trying to use Nine's insecurities against him. Even if he's only guessing, talking up or insulting his intelligence and talents or playing into a possible fear of loneliness and uselessness is a really good guess.

But when Nine gets ahold of himself, uses his tails to gain height and push Mr. Dr. back this time, and insults the Council's intelligence, Mr. Dr. resorts back to brute force. He laughs off the insults and brandishes one of those electricity based weapons.

"Tell me how to defeat Sonic!"

Of course, if Nine was only using Sonic for his own purposes of gathering the shards and secretly planning on betraying him, he could have done so at any point before now, or made it clear that he's set the plans in motion. But since we know Nine's confident in his ability to fight for himself and escape during episode 6 of season 2, he believes himself to have more control over his situation than anyone else does. With this in mind, as long as he's guaranteed a clean enough getaway with the shards he can choose to do so. This gives Nine the ability to manipulate the council back and use them to get the shards. And, to an extent, he does! Although Sonic fails in securing any of them, Nine puts himself in a position to use the council to get anything he wants, even telling Sonic that he's working them from the inside. With this in mind, while there is still risk involved, I believe that he doesn’t necessarily need Sonic's help.

This is all to say that any of these moments in Season 2 Episode 5 would have been a fine point to betray Sonic by telling the council everything he knows about him. The council is full of idiots (to Nine)—idiots with power, but idiots nonetheless. He very well could have used the council to get Sonic out of the way while continuing to play them so he could escape with all the shards.

And yet not only does he refuse to knowingly tell Mr. Dr. Eggman any weaknesses of Sonic’s, he trusts Sonic. Just see the way he's so sure Sonic will win, even as Mr. Dr. Eggman is trying to make him feel stupid for doing so. See how Nine talked about Sonic in S1 E8, tried to convince the council they’d be idiots to get rid of Sonic. See the way that Nine chooses to risk his own plans by contacting Sonic as regularly as he can. See just how Nine talks about Sonic when Mr. Dr. Eggman stops attempting to appeal to Nine's insecurities to get him to lose trust in Sonic:

"You can't. He's too fast. He thinks on his feet. No matter what you throw at him, he takes it. No matter how hard you hit him, he always gets back up! You'll never beat Sonic, because you can't understand him. You don't think like he thinks. You're not even in the same league.

And what does Nine do when Mr. Dr. Eggman and the Council treat those words as if he sold Sonic out (knowingly or not)? He tries to take it back. He says "what have I done?" He immediately tries to contact Sonic (likely to warn him), not realizing Dr. Don't had entered the room until he's caught in the act.

"Warning your friend? Not cool."

He doesn’t at all look pleased watching the Council create Chaos Sonic. He says "what have I done?" a second time while watching Sonic fight Chaos Sonic. Even Dr. Done It regards Nine's "selling out your blue chum" as a slip of the tongue.

And what does the Council do when they learn that Nine's been in contact with Sonic all along? Well they use this relationship to their advantage, of course.

Ah, ah, ah. Let's not be hasty. The fox can lure Sonic right to us."

After all of this, from now until the ending of season 2, here is what the council knows about Nine. They know he managed to steal all the shards out from under them again (with Sonic's assistance), and they pretty much just attempt to track him down to take the shards back. After arriving at Ghost Hill, they put most of their focus on fighting Sonic and Shadow to get to where Nine is with the shards, dealing with their immediate obstacles. They're also firmly antagonistic against Nine, as he's stolen the shards from them and is no longer under their control.

So let's summarize what we can safely assume the Council knows and believes by the Ghost Hill battle. Nine is intelligent, and his know-how and tech are extremely useful. They'd underestimated him, allowing him to steal the shards under their noses, contact Sonic to feed him information, and escape with said shards. They know that Nine trusts Sonic, considers Sonic a friend (at the very least), and believes Sonic will come out on top.

So we return to those questions.

How does the Chaos Council see Nine? As a tool to be used for his information, his intelligence, his technology, and his limbs, capable of performing work. They see him as Sonic's friend (an important one at that). He's bait for Sonic, a pawn that can be used to lure Sonic or motivate him to make certain choices. He's to be used when he can be, and to be crushed if he opposes the Council or is no longer useful.

Do they see him as someone secretly about to or willing to betray Sonic? Do they try to get Nine to betray him? Yes! They command him to dispatch eggforcers and upgrade their tech. They use his well-being as a bargaining chip or to lure Sonic into a trap. They're constantly using him against Sonic. They can see he has the potential to betray, which is exactly why Mr. Dr. appeals to his insecurities to persuade Nine to give up information on Sonic and let go of his trust in Sonic. And yet...they don't seem to think Nine is actively planning to betray Sonic. If they thought so, why spend so much time trying to convince him that placing faith in Sonic is stupid? Why not actively try to persuade Nine to work with them instead? Why do they keep on having to try? Why do they enjoy watching Nine protest as they laugh about how Nine betrayed Sonic? (And why does the insuation that it's all Nine's fault that the council could destroy Sonic get to him the way it does?)

ㅤ

Let's talk about Shadow the Hedgehog.

Shadow (similar to Rebel and Renegade) is a character than people often forget to consider the full pov of. This is to say that I've seen people forget what it is exactly that Shadow knows, and what of his knowledge informs his actions and beliefs (like people believing that Shadow was stupid for thinking that getting Nine's tech would allow him to traverse the shatterverse, forgetting that he didn't even have a tenth of the knowledge Sonic does of everything going on, much less the audience's, by season 2).

So with this in mind, before Shadow and Sonic talk at the beginning of Season 2, what does Shadow know about Nine, and how does he act based upon this knowledge?

Before Season 2, we, the audience, largely see Shadow appear in either flashbacks or trying to talk to Sonic (which happens when he starts to run fast enough to exit the shatterspace or is hurled through the in between after touching a shard), so it’s hard to know the extent of what he knows or can even gather in those moments of communication. Luckily, Season 2 Episode 1 gives us a chance to see some things from Shadow's point of view.

Unluckily, it's a bit hard to determine what exactly Shadow can hear and see at this point, as the first Shadow pov sprinkles in a couple moments Shadow most likely could not have seen (but we cannot rule out him seeing)—moments that tell the audience what point in time everything is occurring. One such moment is when Shadow is chilling on a crystal in the space between the shatterspaces and we see the scene of Sonic being sucked into the red shard before he shoots out of the New Yoke portal entrance. This is to say, it's hard to know for sure whether Shadow is aware of all of the scenes that play out for the audience, such as the clips that play as Shadow punches the entrance to New Yoke (Sonic losing control of his feet/legs, the shot of Mr. Dr. watching Sonic run, etc).

What we can glean from context, though (during this portion, as well as later moments) is that Shadow can at the very least see and hear Sonic, even possibly some of his surroundings (within limits). At the beginning of Episode 1 of Season 2, we can see Sonic sort of partially phase through the portal and into the in between when he runs fast enough (parallel to how Shadow can begin to partly phase into the shatterspace from Sonic's pov if Shadow is around him). During Season 2, namely during the No Place portion as Sonic tries to make off with the blue shard, we can even watch Shadow hold a conversation with Sonic and see changes to his appearance (such as the red dot of light on Sonic as Dread's crew aims to blast him). And finally, during Season 2 Episode 1, Shadow admits that he saw Nine in his lab giving Sonic the tech and the lab Sonic ran fast in (scenes that played for the audience while Shadow was busy punching the New Yoke portal).

Okay, so let's consider what we can see before Shadow confronts Sonic in the space between. At the very very least, he's aware that Sonic has new tech on his gloves and shoes and can hear everything Sonic says when Shadow manages to reach him through the portals. At the very most, he has some strange unexplained telepathy that allows him to see and hear some of what Sonic sees and hears. Of course, I don't personally believe the latter, as this hasn't really come up or been explained. So in my opinion, at most he can just see and hear what's going on and Sonic’s surroundings within certain limits. Under this interpretation, I believe that it's possible he saw and heard some of the scenes the audience sees here such Nine talking about energy, Sonic losing control, etc (if his admittance of seeing Nine and Sonic in the lab as Nine puts the regulators on Sonic is anything to go by).

So what does this mean for Shadow's knowledge? I believe it's safe to infer that, from Shadow's pov, the tech Sonic got from the strange version of Tails (Nine) has some sort of effect on him (as Sonic started to move through shatterspaces after this).

The next piece of knowledge we know Shadow could learn is the existence of alternate versions of people in the different shatterspaces. When Shadow finally gets ahold of Sonic, Sonic (loudly) starts trying to sus out whether Shadow is "grumpy Shadow" or "Shadow who needs a shower" or "Sheriff Shadow" or whoever. Then, after this, he realizes that this is the original Shadow he's faced with.

"Shadow, you're...you! The real you!"

"The only me."

This is info enough for Shadow to learn there are other versions of people they (Sonic and Shadow) know out in the shatterspaces. It's even enough context to assume that they are copies of the real thing, fakes, if Sonic's wording of "the real you" is anything for him to go by.

Here are the next two bits of information to add to Shadow's abilities and what he knows (one we learn about Shadow, and one tidbit that adds to Shadow's knowledge). The first is a bit of a testimony of just what he can see when Sonic kicks up a lot of prism energy.

"Have...you been able to see me this whole time?"

"Not exactly. When you get going fast, you kick up prism energy, and it thins the veil to the void. It's like it's...opening a portal through the gateway."

So, at the very least, we know that Shadow can't just see Sonic whenever he wants, and hasn't been doing so the whole time. As Sonic kicks up prism energy by running fast, it thins the veil to the place in between, allowing Sonic and Shadow to see each other.

The second bit would be Shadow hearing about Nine for the first time.

"So that must be how I teleported into No Place. I was looking for Nine, I started running fast, and then, suddenly, I portaled out of New Yoke."

This isn't a lot, but it at least tells us that the existence of Nine has entered the equation here. A being that Sonic knows by name who exists in one of the shatterspaces, and someone that Sonic was specifically looking for.

Now, I want to bring up something interesting about Shadow's pov after he and Sonic enter Ghost Hill. Aside from some possible tidbits here and there (and more than likely experience solely through seeing and talking to Sonic), the bulk of Shadow's experiences with the shatterspaces are based upon his experience with Ghost Hill (the only shatterspace he can enter at this time).

"What’s wrong with them?"

"It's a shatterspace, Sonic. Just like the others. A cruel version to make us suffer."

"A cruel version to make us suffer"

That line alone gives us more insight into Shadow's pov. While we, the audience, can see that the existence of those who live in the shatterspaces aren't inherently existing out of cruelty/to mess with someone like Sonic, Shadow has only seen what Ghost Hill is like. This tells us that Shadow sees Ghost Hill as a cruel version of Green Hill, an imitation that allows you to see but not have. It shows you the places and faces and voices you know, but none of it is "real" (or in this case, the original). It's not even surprising for Shadow to feel that this is cruel or purposeful. I mean, he is the one trapped, unable to do anything, as Sonic just so happens to be the one with the power to fix anything. He is the one who's doomed to watch the shatterverse change while he can't do a thing about it. And so of course the only shatterspace he can enter tricks him into thinking it may have been home (the home that's gone). Of course that shatterspace is filled with imitations that seem like what he lost but cannot be.

While Sonic is on his hero's journey, Shadow is stuck in a genre more psychological. So of course, via his experiences being stuck and his only experience with one of the shatterspaces, he'd assume the entire shatterverse was designed this way.

So, to sum this up a little bit. It is entirely likely that Shadow sees the inhabitants of the shatterverse as not only fake copies, but of those whose existence is part of a cruel game to make he and Sonic suffer over the shattering of the prism and the loss of their home. Does this make sense? It not only inherently hurts, but it’s designed to be cruel.

Shadow has only met the "ghosts" of Ghost Hill at this point. He doesn't fully know what we the audience know—that the inhabitants of the shatterspaces are real people with lives and backstories.

Now, with all of this in mind, how does Shadow first approach Sonic regarding the knowledge he has? Remember. It's, baseline, that Sonic can enter shatterpaces while he can't, Sonic started moving through shatterspaces after obtaining the tech on his gloves and shoes from a being who resembles Tails, Sonic creates portals and thins the veil between shatterspaces and the void when he runs fast, that "Nine" is an inhabitant of one of the shatterspaces Sonic knows and looked for at some point, that Ghost Hill is the only shatterspace he can enter, that Ghost Hill resembles and immitates Green Hill to a degree of cruelty, and that he believes that all the shatterspaces are "cruel" versions of his and Sonic’s home with fake versions of people they know, crafted specifically to make the two of them suffer.

"Yeah...yeah, that could work! It has to work! We gotta show Nine. He's like super smart! He knows a ton about prism energy. He–"

"No."

"No?"

"No."

"Why 'no'? I just said he's, like, super smart."

"He can’t be trusted."

If there's one bit from the Shadow portion so far I need to point out, it's this. Shadow asserts that Nine cannot be trusted. Shadow has never even met Nine at this point, only seen him standing in the lab with Sonic. How can he be so sure that Nine—or the other inhabitants for that matter—are specifically untrustworthy? Not even just fake imitations. Untrustworthy.

Why does Shadow jump to this conclusion?

"What are you talking about? Of course he can. He's just like Tails. He's just a little...angsty, that's all."

Again, there is no proof that Shadow has even seen much more than maybe an image of Nine, much less met him. Sonic's sticking up for Nine's attitude again, just like he did when talking to Rebel and Renegade, but Shadow cannot even know much of anything about Nine. He should not have a bias (beyond looks) based upon knowing Nine.

And this also means that, most likely, Shadow cannot assert that Nine is untrustworthy due to any solid evidence like Rebel or Renegade can, for example.

"He's not Tails. He's Nine. And they're not. Your real. Friends."

"Dude. He's real. This is his reality. And you know what else is real? Nine's tech on my kicks and punching sticks. So back up off Nine."

So, again. Why does Shadow jump to the conclusion that Nine and the other inhabitants of the shatterspaces are untrustworthy? This is what I think based upon the evidence we've gathered in this section.

I believe that it's entirely possible that Shadow sees himself stuck in a psychological horror. Based on his experiences living in the shatterverse so far, this reality they're in is like a punishment game. He and Sonic are both being punished for how Sonic shattered the paradox prism. Their home is gone, everything is broken. Unless they can fix it, the shatterverse is the setting of this cruel game, filled with shatterspaces (pale imitations of the home they lost) and the copies—fake beings—who inhabit it that were created with the sole purpose of hurting Sonic and Shadow. They hold similarities of the settings and the faces of the people they know as if to taunt (or to remind what they lost and cannot have). Logically under this framework, if Shadow believes that the inhabitants of the shatterverse have an inherently cruel existence and exist to make them hurt, then them seeming real is a distraction from the fact that they're designed to hurt (think...how Yen Sid tells Sora in Kingdom Hearts 2 that Nobodies are fake people, and any emotion they show is a manipulation tactic to make people believe that they're real). But Sonic is not only acting like they're real, considering them friends, he's trusting them. Perhaps Shadow feels...angry, because the only other "real" person (the one who caused all this) keeps chasing these living lies and believing them when they say/act like they can help end this hurt (help "fix" everything, restore it to how it used to be). Perhaps to him, these people (Nine included) are beings who wish to bring hurt, so why, then, would they help end that hurt or erase their own existences by "fixing" everything? Maybe Shadow thinks Sonic is being stupid, that he's placing his trust in Nine only because he sees Tails' face (falling for the lie), and is also angry because Sonic would stick up for and trust Nine rather than believe him—someone who is real and wants to end the hurt.

Okay okay, I'll stop there for now. That's moreso an interpretation I think you can derive from the beginning of Episode 1 of Season 2 up to this point rather than necessarily fact or authorial intent. I just think it's...food for thought.

Of course I also happen to think that Shadow, with his limited knowledge of who Nine even is, also chooses to insist that Nine specifically is untrustworthy because he becomes jealous that Sonic values a "fake" so much and thinks of him so highly, trusting him even over Shadow (someone who is real and clearly just wants to help Sonic as well as fix everything).

In any case, here are the facts up to this point. Shadow has heard Nine's name, knows the tech on Sonic was designed by him, watched Nine put the tech on Sonic, thinks this tech Nine created allows Sonic to traverse the shatterverse, and knows Nine is smart and "like Tails" because Sonic speaks highly of him. With this evidence, Shadow believes Nine is untrustworthy. He also believes the inhabitants of the shatterspaces aren't real and cannot be Sonic's friends. Shadow also grows angry when Sonic tries to argue and assert that Nine is trustworthy and that he and his other friends are real.

After Season 2 Episode 1, Shadow takes more of a backseat role. While we get to see his pov at times, or even watch him talk to Sonic, he can only see inside the shatterspaces to any extent while Sonic is kicking up enough prism energy. This, of course, means that Shadow is still not privy to most of the information Sonic and the audience are.

In Season 2 Episode 2, Shadow (to our knowledge) is not privy to much going on. In fact, with what we know about the limitations he has of seeing inside the shatterspaces, he could have seen during the portions Sonic is particularly speeding, but none of these occur in relation to Nine. This is all to say that we the audience could see the scene where Nine contacted Sonic through the eggforcer, explained how he was infiltrating the Council from the inside, and upgraded Sonic's tech to make gathering the shards easier, but Shadow does not.

Here is the only conversation between Nine and Sonic in Episode 2 of Season 2 that Shadow was privy to any of.

"Hang on, Nine. I'm comin' for ya."

"No. Don't worry about me. I'm working on a plan to get the shards from the inside. The best thing for you to do is to get the next shard before they do."

"Are you sure?"

"Totally! These eggheads are playing into my hands. They don't—"

"—been dowloading their tech. You just need to get to the shard first, then get out. I better go."

At that last bit of dialogue (beginning with "You"), Sonic lands on a crystal out in the place between. After Nine hangs up on him, the camera zooms out, revealing Shadow standing on the shard next to him.

"That's the first time one of them has made any sense."

It's hard to know for sure how long Shadow has been listening to Sonic's conversation, but given just how far away he'd have to be stalking Sonic when he exits Boscage maze (far enough to hear without being within range of the camera), I think it's safe to assume he's at least listened to the lines Nine and Sonic spoke as Sonic landed on that piece of crystal. That line specifically was Nine instructing Sonic to get the No Place shard before the Chaos Council does, which lines up with the immediate goal Sonic and Shadow would have. This is to say that if Shadow heard this line at least, it makes sense for him to "compliment" Nine by saying that he makes any sort of sense.

Although I also believe Shadow says "That's the first time one of them has made any sense" because Nine is one of the first inhabitant of the shatterverse Shadow's heard that isn't exactly like the "ghosts" of Ghost Hill (essentially, seems to actually think rather than repeating a single line endlessly.

What this scene adds to Shadow's knowledge is that no matter how much of the convo he heard, he has reason to believe that Nine is also seeking the paradox prism shards. However, just because Shadow knows a motivation of Nine's and more of what he's like doesn't mean he trusts him. Or, at least, Sonic takes Shadow's attitude as him still being openly distrustful of Nine. Given how short Shadow is with Sonic, even spin dashing him into the No Place portal entrance, I don't find it too much of a stretch to assert that his attitude here is a mixture of his frustration at not being able to go himself and the relationship/trust Sonic insists on keeping up with Nine (rather than just "how he acts usually").

"Nine's on our side, Shadow. And if you're not gonna help, you can–"

"Oh. I can help."

Although Shadow shows up in Season 2 Episodes 3 and 4 to talk to Sonic and to delay the Chaos Council's mothership's arrival in No Place, none of these really involve Nine. In any of the moments Shadow could have seen Sonic in No Place, they were Sonic running away for the most part (trying to escape with the shard), which of course doesn't exactly help the pov he has of the shatterverse inhabitants. Though Nine also contacts Sonic and is able to see him during this portion, these do not coincide with the times Shadow talks to him. Likewise, although Nine was on the mothership while Shadow was attacking it, neither of them see each other, and there is no evidence to suggest that they are aware of each other's presence (as in, that Shadow knows Nine is on the mothership and Nine knows that Shadow is the attacker). With Shadow being largely absent the way he is, it stands to reason he still has no chance to see the complexity and humanity of the shatterspaces' inhabitants, especially since he's in contact with Sonic as Sonic is running away (trying not to get killed).

As for Episodes 5 and 6 of Season 2. Shadow only shows up once between these two. Specifically, Shadow's pov is shown in Episode 6 as he reacts to how the shatterverse is beginning to break down. Other than that, though, the only moments he'd have to peek into what's happening (offscreen in this case) would be while Sonic is running fast enough. During Episode 5 and most of 6, these moments Sonic may be running fast enough for Shadow to peek in on him are all while he's fighting. This, again, doesn't give Shadow a chance to really gauge the character of New Yoke's residents (aside from the council), much less a chance to see what's going on with Nine.

Even in Episode 7 of Season 2, Shadow doesn't show up until the scene in which he properly meets Nine. With this in mind, aside from Episode 1 of Season 2, Shadow is very rarely present during Season 2 before his first official meeting with Nine.

So, to summarize, this is what Shadow knows/thinks about Nine before properly meeting him. Nine is similar to Tails (in both looks and intelligence), Nine built the tech that Sonic wears on his gloves and shoes, Sonic trusts Nine and fancies him a friend, even going so far as to stick up for the idea that he's real and trustworthy, and Nine is also gathering the paradox prism shards.

That's...it. That's all. And Shadow knew even less when he'd initially claimed that Nine wasn't trustworthy. Before their official meeting, Shadow saw Nine maybe once via what he saw during Sonic's first arrival in New Yolk, and he heard him speak once after S2 E2, when he told Sonic to focus on getting the next shard. He has...such little context/knowledge compared to the audience.

Now, the first meeting. After Sonic and Nine enter the space between with the shards in Episode 7 of Season 2, Shadow catches the container for the shards with Nine on top.

"It's about time."

"Nine, meet Shadow. Shadow, meet Nine."

"You're not another version of Sonic...but you could be twins!"

"Hardly. I am the ultimate life form."

"Don't listen to him. Come on."

Personally, I don't feel as if Shadow acts differently than usual in this scene. He doesn't talk very much, doesn't greet Nine, and isn't necessarily "friendly", but, again, none of this is out of the ordinary for him. The only thing I can confidently say here is that Sonic’s problem is Shadow's attitute, which is why he tells Nine to ignore him. However, he responds as this is a usual thing as well. "He's always like this. Just ignore him." He is also not going out of his way to be mean or vindictive towards Nine. Even Nine (despite his talking about Sonic and Shadow's resemblance) can't have done more than mildly annoy Shadow.

No, what's more significant than the first meeting (for the purposes of this essay) is actually Nine's reaction to seeing Tails in Ghost Hill.

"This world... It's like an embryonic shatterspace. Like it got stuck in the blueprint phase while forming. Hmm... Perhaps it would be useful in finishing The Grim."

"As long as I'm around, you'll always have a wingman!"

"This is the friend Sonic thought was like me? Heh. We're nothing alike."

After this interaction occurs, the camera switches to Shadow, who begins to make this face.

There are two bits from Nine's words I believe could be of interest to Shadow here.

"Perhaps it would be useful in finishing The Grim."

"We're nothing alike."

Why?

Well, let's tackle the first one. One thing that Shadow knows about Nine is that Nine is also looking for the paradox prism shards. Sonic seems to think Nine is on his side, but Shadow hasn't trusted Nine and his intentions from the beginning (as I went a bit into earlier going over Shadow's opinions on Nine as of Episode 1 of Season 2). So if Shadow did hear this line (and it's a bit unclear, but not impossible, that he did), he has reason to believe that Nine doesn't want the shards for the same reason Shadow believes himself and Sonic do. Or, at the very least, that Nine just has different goals in general.

As for the second one, Shadow told Sonic all the way back in Episode 1 that Nine isn't Tails, that he can't be trusted, and that Nine (as well as the other variants) isn't one of Sonic's "real" friends. A statement like "We're nothing alike" straight from Nine's mouth would be validating in this case. It validates Shadow's opinion that Sonic is being stupid and that Nine and Tails aren't the same, and it can easily give Shadow less reason to trust him. After all, if Tails is someone who generally is considered a "good" person or someone who would logically try to help fix everything, but Nine is not at all like him... That line could put Shadow off because he's already distrustful of him, and because of the potential implications Nine could be making from as Shadow's pov. This is to say that although Nine here is only rejecting the idea that he is just like Tails (or really, just like anyone and not his own unique being), Shadow is already biased against him. With Nine's wording, it's not hard for Shadow to insert intent/implications where there are none in his interpretation of the line.

Now, what I find interesting after this (in addition to Shadow's lack of hostility towards Nine despite his assumptions back in Season 2 Episode 1) is the attitude change.

Of course Shadow may have been angrier at Sonic back then, but he had also asserted so confidently back then that Nine isn't Sonic's friend as isn't to be trusted (and not even confidently, but as if annoyed or angry). But he...fulfill's Nine's wish to be alone with the prism shards, offers to take Sonic out, and gives him a calmer talk at the end of Episode 7 of Season 2.

"How do you know you can trust him?"

...

"I don't think your 'friend' wants the same thing we do."

Vs.

"He can’t be trusted."

...

"He's not Tails. He's Nine. And they're not. Your real. Friends."

There are a multitude of reasons this change in tone and demeanor Shadow has could be. It could be because he calmed down a bit more since S2 E1, it could be that he's decided to take a different approach when talking to Sonic about Nine, it could be that he's not so overly confident in his belief that the variants are all just "cruel versions to make us suffer" anymore after meeting Nine (or at least that the variants are so one dimensional), or it could even be that he's decided that Nine is helpful but Sonic should be more on guard. It's...hard to know which or how many are the truth here. All we know is that there is an outright change between these scenes and even Shadow's attitude, and that, despite the little interaction they've had, what Shadow's seen and heard is enough for him to come to the conclusion that Nine may not have good intentions and/or that Nine isn't actually trying to help them. Just like with Rebel and Renegade, whether Shadow has valid reasons or reasoning we can understand from his pov on Nine's character and intentions, his heavy bias he had even before meeting Nine colors all the information Shadow learns about him. This is all to say that (like Renegade and Rebel) it's easy for even actions/statements that have no inherent bad intentions to just feed back into his existing bias against Nine.

So, just in case, I'll reiterate. Shadow does have enough evidence to suspect that Nine doesn't truly share his and Sonic's goals, and he has enough pre-existing bias based upon his first impressions of the Ghost Hill variants to be suspicious of Nine's intentions and character. However, he has still barely met, seen, or heard about Nine second-hand. He knows very few facts about Nine other than how he's intelligent, is looking for the shards too, and is someone Sonic clearly has some attachment to. Yet...he seems to feel that Nine is untrustworthy (perhaps even on gut instinct) despite the lack of solid proof.

Well, actually, he doesn't just feel, this way. He actually tells Sonic that he distrusts Nine.

"What about him? We can't just leave him alone with the prism shards."

"Uhhh, yes we can, seeing as how he's the only one who can put them back together. You know, fix reality. You really don't trust him, do ya?"

"No."

"Of course you don't. You don't trust anyone."

He doesn’t actually tell Sonic why he doesn't. If anything, throughout this whole scene of them talking about Nine, he seems not to understand why Sonic does trust Nine (why he and Sonic aren't on the same page). Perhaps it just feels...obvious to Shadow? But even then, with Shadow's facial expressions as Sonic takes the "Why wouldn't we trust him?" stance, it seems to be that Shadow's point of view remains to be that of "Sonic is trusting him naively. This is something that could cost us."

Finally, we arrive at the final episode of Season 2. Despite his distrust in Nine (like Renegade and Rebel before him regarding Sonic), he has no choice but to join Sonic in the battle against the Chaos Council. First, Sonic's right in saying that Nine is the only person they have right now who can recomplete the prism. Second, he doesn't want to leave Sonic to fight the Council alone.

Now, while Sonic is in communication with Nine during the battle, he rarely talks to him around Shadow. The only moment he does is when eggforcers breach the mountain and put the prism's security and Nine's safety in jeopardy, to which Shadow only tells Sonic to go and protect the prism. Out of the two, I feel as if it's clear that Shadow trusts himself to hold his own over Sonic (I mean, he felt as if he (Shadow) was the best one to gather the shards in S2 E1, and he just made a statement about how badly the battles go when Sonic fights alone), so it makes sense why he'd send Sonic off to fight some eggforcers while he himself holds his own against the council, giving Sonic his chance to move. This is all to say that it makes sense why Shadow doesn't choose to be the one to protect the prism here, but we should also keep in mind just how in the dark Shadow is about what's happening with Nine.

In fact, Shadow isn't privy to anything happening in the prism chamber for a while. He didn't see Sonic and Nine's interaction, didn't watch Nine power Sonic up with the shard energy, Sonic didn't give him a detailed answer on how he got stronger and who was involved (only that he "got a power up"), Shadow doesn't see Nine power Sonic up to defeat the prismatic Titan, and Shadow–

Pause.

That scene in the final episode. You know, the one where Sonic returns after defeating the prismatic titan, Nine says that they were just using the blueprint to figure out what shards went where so they could complete the prism, and Sonic asserts they've actually been doing it to fix Green Hill? The part where Sonic and Nine disagree over whether it's possible to fix Green Hill, whether they should fix what was or move on and create a new home?

The part where Sonic accidentally implies Nine isn’t real to him?

A scene in which Shadow would be able to clearly see Nine's motivations?

The ENTIRE lead up to Nine taking the shards and deciding to leave Sonic behind?

Yeah ha ha...ha...ahah...

Shadow doesn't see any of that. You want to know when Shadow arrives? What he sees?

All he sees is Nine with all the shards at the edge of a portal, Sonic trying to get him to stay and Nine leaving (choosing not to trust Sonic). Practically all Shadow sees of Nine and Sonic interacting while they don't know he's there is Nine "betraying" Sonic and stealing the shards. He misses the entire complicated conversation and everything that lead up to the event.

Again, Shadow misses any nuance and any context that might allow him to see Nine more as he is. Nine leaving with the shards, betraying them and blowing off Sonic's attempts to appeal to him? It just feeds right back into Shadow's existing bias against Nine.

Shadow didn't trust Nine. He thought Sonic was naive for choosing to trust Nine. He felt that Nine didn't share the same goals as him.

Of course Nine steals the shards, betrays Sonic (who'd believed in and trusted him so so much, Shadow knows), and leaves them to die. Shadow already thought the variants were practically designed to make him and Sonic suffer, and what best to make Sonic suffer by having his trust broken by a fake wearing the face of his best friend, right?

Shadow did not have proof or real reason to believe Nine to be evil or planning to betray Sonic. He didn't even have half the physical proof Rebel and Renegade had when they decided Nine was traitorous. Shadow just always felt that Nine couldn't be trusted, and frustrated and annoyed for some reason that Sonic didn't agree.

Does this make Shadow a good judge of Nine's character? Was Shadow really right because he was seeing the signs all along, or was it because everything that happened just so happened to line up with his pre-existing bias (like back when Chaos Sonic implied Nine was involved with the trap, and Renegade assumed that Nine had set up the entire trap because of course the "traitorous fox" would)?

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For now, let's move on to the last point of view. How does Sonic see Nine? Is Sonic really just some naive hedgehog who trusted a fox—a fox who was clearly always planning to betray him—just because he wore the face of his missing best friend? Up until the end of season 2, did Sonic just refuse to see or miss all the red flags—all the signs that Nine was always going to betray him in the end?

Let's start from the very beginning. Season 1 Episode 1: Shattered.

What not a single person can overstate is how Sonic’s initial perception of every variant and their character is heavily rooted in his own bias. In this case the "bias" at hand is Sonic either assuming the variants are one of his original friends (like when he thought Nine was just Tails who had forgotten him), or somehow connected to them. In my Sonine Prime essay series I have talked a few times during S1 about how Sonic is largely going through Season 1 trying to guess what's happening around him with his limited knowledge of everything at hand, his lack of knowledge of the genre he's in, and his scrambling to explain things without there being someone like Tails to understand it for him. At first he believes Nine is Tails but missing some of his important memories. Then he believes that Nine, Rusty, Rebel, and Renegade are just his friends but "messed up" (still with the idea that they don't remember him). Then he realizes that there are multiple variants and comes to the conclusion that they are all part of the originals or contain pieces of the original deep down. Sonic’s idea of the reality of the variants continues to change until he at baseline believes they are all their own real people.

But where does Nine fit into all this? Just how much does Sonic's original perception of him as "just Tails" affect how he sees Nine by the end or season 2? Does Sonic actually just 100% see him as a replacement for Tails rather than his own person?

Well, I can answer that last question now if you wish. The answer is no, but the entire thing is eh...complicated.

In Episode 1 of Sonic Prime, after participating in an entire fight scene against Nine (who he believes to be Tails fighting him for some reason or Tails who doesn't remember him and home), Sonic explains what he knows of Tails' backstory. In return, Nine reacts as if Sonic knows details about him that no one should know, but then goes on to explain what actually happened to him. Sonic, of course, begins to have a reaction based on this.

I will remind you that, at this point in time, Sonic believes that Eggman succeeded in taking over Green Hill. He believes that this is is home, and that Nine, Rebel, Renegade, etc are his original friends.

"...Doesn't make sense. You are Tails, but– you're not... Here, but...gone?"

As of here through to the end of Episode 3, we have reason to believe that Sonic believes that Nine is Tails. He does his best to recognize Nine's preferred name, but he makes a number of references to getting the prism and "fixing all of this", refers to the New Yoke variants as "messed up yous", and at times even acts as if the variants should be/are like his original friends (as we see from the scene he starts introducing the variants under the names and traits of the originals). He quite literally believes that Nine is just Tails without his memories of Sonic. He thinks he just needs to stop eggman, get the prism, and make his "friends" remember.

While I will emphasize how much it makes sense that Sonic would approach the New Yoke variants initially with this conclusion, it will unfortunately affect how he perceives Nine forever.

In Season 2 Episode 6, Sonic returns to New Yoke. Rebel and Renegade are angry at him for leaving them behind, and (as we covered in the Rebel and Renegade section) they consider Sonic and Nine to be traitors. However, while Rebel and Renegade (understandably) label Sonic and Nine as traitors for the betrayal they witnessed, Sonic is...surprised when he learns that Nine made off with the shard.

"I didn't steal the shard!"

"But your fox friend did. Right before he left us high and dry."

"He...did?"

I'm going to refrain into digging too far into how Sonic sees Tails (as dredging up the evidence would be another essay), but, in short, we know that Tails is his best friend. Tails is smart, he helps fight Eggman for the greater good, and he'd never leave a friend behind, right?

By this episode, Sonic has shifted his idea of the variants already. He no longer thinks Nine or Rebel or Renegade are just his original friends missing their memories, but we know that he feels as if there are pieces or traits of his friends who reside in all the variants deep down. He tries to talk like Amy and get Thorn to be a "good friend" and make up with everyone. He tries to appeal to Dread and get him to join the crew's search for the blue shard, referring to that stubborn loyalty of Knuckles'.

So Sonic has already created an idea of Nine based upon his idea of Tails. Sure Nine is "a bit angsty" and a loner, but he'd never leave any friends behind or leave people in danger, would he?

Tails would never just leave everyone behind, and Sonic doesn’t want to believe that Nine would or to believe the worst of him. So to Sonic...it must all be some huge misunderstanding, right? Sonic will prove that he and Nine aren’t traitors. When he finds Nine there has to be a reasonable explanation for why he made off with the red shard and left Rebel, Rusty, and Renegade to the council's mercy.

Nine is Sonic's friend, and Sonic believes that Tails is in him deep down here. He refuses to believe that Nine is evil or doesn't care about others.

"If they get that energy crystal back, we're done for."

"Nine won't let that happen!"

...

"I'm sorry I wasn't there when you needed me. But I'm not a traitor and neither is Nine. Let me prove it to you. Let me fight by your side."

He thinks so highly of Nine and believes in the good in him. Most of us agree that this is because of Sonic comparing Nine to Tails and because of how he initially started trying to pull Nine into the intelligent little buddy role. But...is this all because of Tails? Is it–?

Let's take a step back for a moment. Remember how in the previous sections I talked about the character's pre-existing biases and how Nines actions would coincidentally fit into these biases, and how I've emphasized what it is the characters actually have seen?

Well, here's the truth of the situation. Sonic didn't see Nine abandon Rebel, Renegade, and Rusty. While they're clearly angry, he has no clue what actually occured, how Nine acted, and he refuses to assume that Nine grabbed the shard and just split. And when you hear that someone you've already decided to trust (even though Sonic later updates his idea of Nine as his own person, it's due to Sonic's existing bias towards Tails that he trusted Nine in the first place) has done something awful, you'd want to see that proof or know the context. You'd want to hear what happened from the one you trust. And here's another truth about the situation. Nine up to this point has never betrayed Sonic. After they talked in the scareport after their battle, had a heart to heart, Nine proved he was no longer hostile to Sonic. Nine gave him the regulators and helped him with his little running issue. Although Nine had no way to save him when Sonic was about to be blasted back at the Yoke, when Rebel and Renegade swooped in to fight, Nine freed Sonic at his first available chance. During that entire adventure in the Yoke through to episode 3, Sonic has seen Nine work together with the others as they fight for a singular goal. Even when Nine suggested they leave the others behind to get the shard, Rebel tells Sonic the same thing right afterwards.

Aside from hearsay, Sonic (by Episode 6 of Season 1) has no reason to believe that Nine is a traitor. Nine assisting with the fight in the Yoke, helping him out—all of this feeds right back into the idea Sonic has of Nine's character. He reasonably feared that Nine would keep attacking him in episode 1 after the battle, and he reasonably believed that Nine baseline cared about the well-beings of others.

Let's look at Sonic's talks with Nine in S1 E6 after Nine picks him up from New Yoke.

(For the record, as I've already taken up quite a lot of your time here, I'm going to try to be as concise as I can with this section. But if you'd like to read a more in depth analysis of Nine and Sonic during this scene I've done, you can read Sonine Prime Part 6 here.)

As I said, Nine helping out in the battle before he picks up Sonic just feeds into Sonic's pre-existing bias. Nine very clearly only came to pick Nine up from New Yoke so he could take him to the Grim (and that's pretty much what he does the moment Sonic jumps into his cockpit). Sonic, however, already asserted to Rebel and Renegade that Nine is not a traitor and that this battle for the existence of the resistance and the citizens' hope in a better future will allow him to prove that neither he and Nine are traitorous. He doesn't know where Nine is exactly before he shows up, nor does he have real reason to believe Nine will show up during this fight, but Sonic was extremely happy Nine did. Likewise, Nine doesn't know any details about the resistance's fight with the Chaos Council. He has no real reason to believe that Sonic will just go with him and leave during the battle, but he's also very happy to see Sonic and to take Sonic's attention.

So while Nine came to New Yoke to pick up Sonic, Sonic assumed Nine came to join the fight, to help the rebels fight for a better future, and to clear their names. He's assuming that Nine shares the same intentions as him and has the same general idea of what "a good person" would do that he projects onto Nine. As for Nine, he also just kind of assumed Sonic would go along with him. When talking about the Grim to Sonic, he emphasizes that it's a clean slate, he appeals to Sonic's wish for home by talking about how it can be a new home for the two of them. In addition, he also has an idea of a "good person" he projects onto Sonic, given how he tries to appeal to that assumed nature by talking about how the two of them can create a "better world" (as opposed to New Yoke, a city that only brought Nine misery, that Nine has no hope for).

Plus, as the two traverse the area between the shatterspaces, they play tug of war with the conversation at hand. Sonic talks to Nine about how they really should get back to New Yoke to help the rebels (they're fighting an incredibly important battle at the moment). Specifically he says "we should get back" (emphasis on the "we"), and talks as if he's trying to remind Nine why they should be fighting right now and why that matters.

As for Nine, especially because he's pretty detached and doesn't know or care of the extent of what's going on in New Yoke, he keeps steering the conversation towards The Grim and what he's discovered about the shards. He keeps emphasizing that this is about creating home for the both of them together, and he also talks like he's trying to remind Sonic of "their" goals and why the creation of home here matters.

It's also worth mentioning here that Nine both does not know the extent of what's happening in New Yoke (because he wasn't there with Sonic, he didn't meet the full resistance, he doesn't know about the palm tree or the specifics of that fight of the future) and doesn't really care. He also isn't malicious about it either. He's not acting like everyone in New Yoke deserves to suffer and he's purposely leaving them there to suffer. Rather, he responds to Sonic's attempts to convince him to go back to New Yoke with him and fight by talking about how the city brought him misery and he doesn’t owe it anything. He's taking a neutral stance of "That city was not my home. It hurt me and it brought me only misery. I'm not going to go out of my way to destroy it or hurt people there. As long as people there leave me alone, then I will leave it alone. It's the city's problem if it's hurtling towards destruction, not mine."

These two are just focusing on completely different things—specifically things they emotionally invested themselves in and placed their focus in before the two met again in S1 E6. And yeah! Maybe how Nine acts during this scene should have been enough to tell Sonic that Nine doesn't care about New Yoke or saving every little person in danger. Nine does make it pretty clear that he only cares about his goal of creating a new home and better world for himself and Sonic. However, Sonic is the kind of hedgehog that not only believes in Nine's capacity for "goodness" (or how Sonic personally believes one has to be to be a "good person"), but that Nine has to be a "good person". Even before he'd accepted Nine as his own person that isn't just Tails, he'd formed that solid idea of Nine's character as someone who would naturally help people in need, and he doesn’t want to admit that the idea he has of Nine in his head is wrong.

But, even with all of that in mind, is any of this really proof or "red flags" that Nine would betray Sonic all along? Sure Sonic's ignoring here in the Grim that Nine doesn't care about New Yoke or the resistance all that much, but does Nine ever give any indication that he's just using Sonic to get the shards and was planning on exerting control over the shatterverse?

No.

Nine is happy to see Sonic. We know from S2 E7 that he very genuinely had integrated Sonic into his plans, very seriously planned to create a new home to live in with Sonic (so he wasn't lying about it). He already had two prism shards and was already experimenting with using them to alter reality in the Grim, and gave no indication he wanted more. He could have continued to shape the Grim to his will, but instead he brought Sonic there so they could do it together. When Sonic seemingly rejects his proposal to create a new world together, he seems disappointed, acts like he's been rejected, helps Sonic get back to New Yoke.

Nothing about that screams power hungry fox trying to hurt people on purpose. He got exactly what he needed (a couple shards and Sonic), and if he'd had his way right then, they would have just created a home in the Grim.

All the fox wanted was to be left alone and to be home.

During this scene, how can Sonic miss "red flags" that Nine has been "secretly evil all along" that aren't even there?

Sonic's only crime is trying to hold onto the exact idea he has of Nine as a "good person" by his own standards. And frankly, even when Sonic relents and goes to New Yoke without him, he makes it so clear that he just knows Nine will come back to fight with him, just like he knew Nine would come to help earlier (even if Nine had only actually come for him).

After their battle in S1 E1, Nine had a heart to heart with him. Nine created the regulators and helped Sonic control the energy bursting from him. Nine helped him and the rebels escape captivity/danger while they were in the Yoke, and assisted in keeping the others from harm as they all fought together. He came right in the nick of time to turn the tide of the battle for a minute in E6 of S1. And even after making it clear to the audience that he doesn’t care about New Yoke, and pushing against Sonic's internalized idea of his character, he still comes back for Sonic.

Even if he only comes back to join the fight so he can give Sonic another chance to pursue his (Nine's) goals, his coming back feeds right back into Sonic's pre-existing bias. After all, he knew Nine would come, didn't he?

Let's even go further into S2. Sonic learns that Nine got captured, and Nine makes this clear as well. He tells Sonic that he's going to use his vantage point to work the council from the inside. Both are aware of how dangerous it is for the Chaos Council to have access to so much shard energy. From the little contact Sonic has with Nine during most of this season, Nine situates himself as Sonic's inside helper and giving him direction. This is why he believes him when "Nine" leads them into the Yoke for a trap, and that's why he believes the real Nine when he leads him through the Yoke building in a plan to get rid of Chaos Sonic.

To Sonic, Nine always comes through for him, whether it's for fighting, giving him insider information, or giving him directions/plans/helping things make sense to him.

If Sonic just let himself see it, he would notice that Nine doesn't really care about anyone else but himself and Sonic, and he would know what Nine's actual goals were. Assuming that Nine naturally followed his same goals and acts regarding other people "like the real Tails would", that was Sonic's folly. That's where he was being naive and only taking in evidence that fit his bias of Nine as a good person.

But that doesn't change the fact that Nine did help people out, did help out Sonic. He prioritized his own goals over others' well-being in E6 of S1, and when he left Renegade, Rusty, and Rebel behind, but he did not do so without hesitation. It doesn't change the fact that he helped Sonic out and that Sonic had no reason to believe Nine was using him for his own purposes, because even when Nine made his true character and his goals clear, he always genuinely wanted Sonic at his side. And it doesn't change the fact that even when Nine was frustrated at Sonic, he still stuck up for Sonic. He still convinced the Chaos Council not to kill him outright. He still risks his position and safety to help Sonic, even in the face of being killed for doing so. He feels guilt and remorse for being the reason Sonic was led into a trap and attacked by Chaos Sonic. He expresses this guilt to the Chaos Council (as they jab and jeer and he goes "what have I done?"), and he expresses it to Sonic, who reiterates the trust he has in Nine.

What I'm getting at here is that Sonic’s problem was always how he didn't fully see Nine as he was, and how he just assumed Nine would go along with whatever he thought and wanted. Nine's criticism at the end of S2 was not a baseless one. However, his problem was never that he trusted Nine. No matter the place his trust in Nine began from, Sonic has never had any reason to distrust him, and, in fact, only grew to trust him more over time and Nine helped him out and proved that he cared about his well-being.

Sonic thinks Nine will go along with his goals because he's "just like Tails" and kind of assumes so.

Sonic sees "the good" in Nine and trusts that Nine is his friend because he's gotten to know Nine a bit better over time. Actions speak loud, and it says a lot that Nine continues to aid him and very specifically wants to be with him.

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Now, in the interest of not going on for too much longer, I'm not going to go piece by piece through every Nine scene to dissect exactly who he is as a person and why. Nine's exact character is an essay for another time. So for now, let's keep in mind just what we can see of Nine in the show (and in contrast to what other characters think of him).

I'm going to pose a question or two. Has Nine the Fox been secretly evil all along? Has everyone else been seeing the signs while Sonic has been blind because he doesn't want to believe "Tails" could be evil?

And now, from what we've gone over so far, here's some of what we know about Nine:

Nine isn’t the type to hurt people for no reason or out of malicious intent. He attacks in self defense and generally just wants to be left alone. Thus, if you leave Nine alone, he won't go out of his way to mess with you.

He doesn’t care about others to an extent. If he's already involved in an event, he will help out if people are in danger. However, he always pursues his goals first. He ultimately hesitates when he sees Rebel, Renegade, and Rusty captured, but ultimately chooses to secure making it out alive and with the shard over risking losing either to assist these three.

He cares very deeply about Sonic. Even when he's clearly frustrated or disappointed or says that he's not friends with Sonic, his actions show otherwise. He wanted to build a new home with Sonic, and he risked his own well-being to help Sonic in S2.

He trusts Sonic back. He believes in his ability to overcome anything, even when the Chaos Council is throwing more and more terrible robots at Sonic and trying to convince Nine that it's not worth putting faith in him.

Others actually try to convince both Sonic and Nine during the runtime of S1 and S2 that the other shouldn't/can't be trusted, and that it's idiotic to place their trust in each other. These are scenes that genuinely end up showing that each plans to stay on the other's side and features them sticking up for each other.

Nine doesn't care about others, but not in a malicious manner. He aspires to be left alone and to his own devices, to which he will leave others alone and to their own devices. Even when he's alone and not in Sonic's presence, he never expresses a wish to exert control over the shatterverse and to be its god (essentially trying to make it all better). He only wants to create his ideal home with Sonic away from everything that hurt him.

He rejects the idea that he is exactly like Tails.

He actively seeks and even becomes smug/happy when he gets Sonic's attention. Being considered Sonic's friend or even a best friend is important to him.

The only ulterior motive he ever presents in helping out Sonic is when doing so allows him to get the home he desires, a desire that he includes Sonic in on for the bulk of the runtime. Essentially, he sees Sonic as a collaborator in a goal that includes them both.

So now, I pose the question to you reading this. Has Nine the fox been secretly evil all along?

Personally, I think not. He's not a "good person", but to be evil one has to have a specific kind of malicious intent. You can argue that the Chaos Council are evil because they act in self interest, knowingly oppress the mobians in New Yoke, and don't care what they have to do or who they have to kill to get what they want. They are aware of what they are doing and that they are hurting people, and actively choose to do "evil" deeds because they want to.

Nine acts in his own self interest, he doesn't go out of his way to be a hero to others, he doesn't care what becomes of the other shatterspaces, but he doesn't go out of his way to just oppress or hurt people. He doesn't attack people or leave them to die for the enjoyment of it. He's not outright acting evil with intentions to commit evil deeds, but he never claims to be a hero either. He's a morally grey fox who acts in his own self interest who just wants a real home, and just wants to be safe.

But all in all I ask this to you because I wonder genuinely. What of Nine's actions during these two seasons betray that he's just "what if Tails was evil"? Does acting in one's self interest or selfishly, even if you believe it's for a good cause and if you don't go out of your way to hurt people, make you an inherently evil person?

Has everyone else been seeing the signs while Sonic has been blind because he doesn't want to believe "Tails" could be evil?

Renegade, Rebel, Shadow, etc. They all don't trust Nine.

But with I've gone over so far re:their povs and what they've seen and know of Nine, have all of these people been seeing something Sonic has been missing? Have they not just been doing the same thing Sonic has been (in this case, forming an idea of them based upon first impressions and continuing to paint that person in a specific light because of how their continued experiences with that person fit their pre-existing biases)? They've had less run ins with Nine than Sonic has. What makes their gut instincts and povs more valuable than Sonic's pov of Nine (or the chaos council in s1 and s2 for that matter)?

What is it even that they're seeing that Sonic is missing? Is it that Nine cares more about creating a home within the Grim than saving people or being a hero, or even more than some goal of bringing back Green Hill (even at the expense of the shatterverse and his life)?

Sure, Sonic doesn’t want to believe Nine could be evil. Heck, he doesn't even want to believe that his idea of Nine as someone who would put his life on the line for those in danger and help people when he can is false.

But what? What exactly is it that he's missing? What are the "red flags" Sonic is "ignoring" in these two seasons that "prove" Nine has been evil all along? What was Sonic missing that proves Nine was always planning on betraying him?

ㅤ

It's all food for thought my friends.

Anyways, if you've read up to this point, thank you so much! I know it's a long one, but it means a lot to me that you'd take the time to read my thoughts and analysis. In the end, the point of this essay is that I implore you all to think of how the characters see each other. The creators put genuine thought into these characters, how they act based on what happens to them, and how they act based upon what they could possibly know from their povs. I implore you to consider why certain characters assert things they do. I implore you to think why Nine would have betrayed Sonic at the end of S2, why Sonic would have trusted him, and for what reason other characters may not have trusted him. I implore you to think of Nine not as a twist villain, but to think of how he actually is and what might push a person to this point.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

[ichorblossoms]

oh shit yeah grimm and yarrow are exes to lovers huh

[lesbiansanemi]

See the issue is I actually really like Yuta and Maki’s relationship and think it’s interesting. Like I think they have a fun friendship and would like to see more of it. This issue is 98% of the ppl who put Yuta and Maki in the same post do it for shipping purposes and it kinda makes me wanna throw up a little

[area51-escapee]

Listening to people talk about how they get matches on dating apps and compliments from people but “they’re just so ugly :(“. Or people with an active love life talk about how they’re the person nobody notices, the person who doesn’t get dates or romantic attention ect. creates such a pit in my stomach. I feel ill.