I’ll never get over that it took just one strangers small moment of kindness to change Xie Lians path. All of the suffering he went through, all of the despair, the disillusionment, all not forgotten or even forgiven, but reconciled. All because one person, not Hua Cheng, not family, not his ex friends, not his people, reached back to him when he’d been starting to lower his own hand in defeat. It’s possibly my favorite and most meaningful part of TGCF for me, because for me it stops being about these two guys who were meant for each other and were impossibly lucky enough to have found each other, and becomes a story about a person who had lost his way in his world so thoroughly that he lost himself, only to be found and put back on his feet by that same world that he mourned so terribly. His world stops being a concept of scale of numbers, black and white, good and bad, and becomes about the individual. What he can do to help individuals, the connections he can make with them. Their histories, their names, their faces. Inside each person is it’s own world. He’d been knocked off his pedestal, and the fall hurt to the point of breaking. But now that he’s risen to his feet, he’s able to look all these people in the eye, and they’re so much taller than he’d seen before.
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I NEED the Krew to actually TALK about what happened in episode 46. (Spoilers under the cut)
And I don’t mean them mentioning that it happened but “it’s all fine now because they’re alive!” Because I imagine that shit scarred all of them, one way or another. Frost especially.
I don’t care HOW the conversation happens, but it does need to happen. They each need to have that closure, rather than letting those thoughts and feelings swirl in their minds for all eternity. And I don’t just mean in fanfic or whatever. No, it needs to happen sometime in canon, when they have a moment to talk about it in-depth (so probably post-canon, all things considered).
I just…I need Frost to tell them how it felt, watching as all his friends fall around him, and how he couldn’t do anything. I imagine he still gets nightmares about it, especially for the first few nights after the fact, and I imagine he wakes up from those nightmares and probably goes and cuddles up next to Gricko (after making sure he’s breathing. Even if, logically, Frost KNOWS that Gricko is alive and breathing—he’s snoring, shifting around, whatever—he still needs to check. Just in case), as if to confirm to himself that, yes, they’re here. Theyre alive. He’s not alone.
I need Torbek to talk about how he feels like he’s not good enough in battle. How he kicks himself for not being able to control the Witchlight better, for not being able to bring out the Other. Because maybe, just maybe, if he was somehow able to bring out the Other in that fight, maybe they would’ve had a chance (they still wouldn’t, it would still end the same, and Torbek knows it deep down, but he kicks himself all the same)
I need Gricko to lament about how he thinks he’s not a good enough healer. He’s supposed to keep his friends from dying, and he couldn’t even do that right. Maybe if he had gotten to Gideon sooner, maybe if he had realized that Gideon was already long gone before he pumped his last spell slot into him. How he regrets that Hootsie wasn’t spared. Maybe if he had told her to run sooner, faster, maybe, just maybe, she would’ve made it out alive. Maybe. Or, at the very least, he wouldn’t have had to hear her yelps right before he fell unconscious himself. He’s supposed to be her father, he’s supposed to protect her. But he didn’t. Couldn’t. Just like he couldn’t protect his friends.
I need Kremy to tell Gideon how it felt to watch his best friend, his husband, get ripped apart before his very eyes, and being unable to stop it. Unable to help in any way. How he couldn’t imagine ever living in a world without Gid. After all, what’s the point of living when your reason for waking up each day is long gone? Someone else could pay his debt, surely.
I want Gideon to lament about just how useless he feels. With the mixture of being unable to help Twig in episode 41, turning into a stupid useless dancing mushroom (where he was the slowest because he traded the rhythm in his step away, and his friends had to help push him along), losing some of his fire (sure, he gained it back, but for several hours he felt colder. Weaker.), and then being the first one down during the Jabberwock fight? He’s supposed to be the strong one, the fighter, yet time and time again his friends are the ones protecting him. Keeping him alive while he keeps throwing himself into danger. He could’ve killed the Jabberwock, surely. With the help of Torbek, sure, but it would’ve died! It just got the jump on him, is all.
I just…I need them to talk, when they get the chance to. They deserve that much. To reassure themselves and their friends that everything is okay. They’re alive, and they’re not going to just abandon each other. Not again. Even if they feel weak, or useless, or like they could be so much more if they were just better. They all know now what it feels like to lose their family, their best friend, the love of their life, their everything. And I don’t think they’ll ever let themselves or each other experience that again. Not for a very long time, at least.
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I know this may sound crazy but remember how in No Way Out, Sonic told Nine that he still considered him to be a friend while getting down on one knee and Nine calmed down? Later in Nine’s Lives, Nine says “Typical” when seeing Sonic run to the others and accused Sonic of betraying him when Sonic called the others his friends.
Nine was sort of acting like Sonic proposed to him and then cheated on him by being friends with the others.
Okay so first of all, I don't think you're crazy. During S3 there's actually plenty of evidence that Nine is jealous, both of the Tails variants and Sonic considering everyone else his friends.
One example that presents his specific kind of jealousy is during Episode 2 of Season 3, when Nine first appears to Sonic in New Yoke.
"Everything is collapsing... This is terrible!"
"Is it? That seems odd coming from you. As far as I can tell you only care about your own home."
Essentially what I'm getting at is this. I do believe that pre betrayal, Nine admittedly considered Sonic to be the most important person to him, and thought Sonic may have felt the same way. And the "betrayal" at the end of S2 hurt Nine very deeply. He had this image of Sonic in his head that was shattered by the finale, so he sort of instinctively switches to thinking the worst about Sonic because he can't trust that anything he thought before wasn't a lie. This is one of the reasons that he can't fathom Sonic caring about shatterspaces other than his own home.
But it's not just that he can't fathom it, it's that due to this deep hurt, Nine cannot allow himself to believe it.
Because if Sonic genuinely cares about the shatterverse as a whole, if he genuinely cares about saving all of these people, then to Nine, what made him the exception?
Sure, we the audience can see Sonic’s journey in Prime. We can see that by the end of S2, Sonic wanted to keep the shatterverse safe just as much as he wanted to bring back Green Hill. He wanted everyone to be alive and happy. But from Nine's pov here, he's just learned that Sonic lied to him, spoke honeyed words and manipulated him just to get to the prism. None of that is true, but he doesn't feel like Sonic actually cares for him or wants him. So at this point, for Sonic to put saving all of these people over saving his own home or genuinely worrying about their home makes Nine feel like the exception or that his feelings about Sonic must be wrong. Either one of those ideas he'd understandably like to avoid (because one means that Sonic is genuine with everyone except for him, and the other would mean to him that his feeling of betrayal and hurt feelings post S2 finale are misplaced and not allowed to be had, though he feels justified feeling hurt)
And that scene in S3 E3 No Escape is actually another big exemplifier of Nine's brand of jealousy and just how hurt he is.
"Don't worry. Beneath the surface, my new friends are far simpler than the flawed creatures you knew and loved. And all the more loyal for it."
Starting out strong, Nine takes a not so subtle shot at Sonic's friends while taking subtler shot at Sonic's loyalty, since Sonic had been his first and only friend.
"Ever wonder where we'd be if things had gone differently between us?"
"...Not anymore."
"I do. All the time."
"Not anymore." Implying that post the S2 finale he really had dwelled (at least for a time) on thoughts of how things could have been different. How he wished things could have gone differently.
And Nine gets visibly angry/frustrated when Sonic confesses he's always thinking about how things could have been different. Perhaps because it feels like a slap to the face, or feels hard to believe.
"Tch. You had your chance."
"...Right back at ya, bud."
And then, despite his anger, despite how he's been trying to get Sonic all along so he can drain his energy and save his home, Nine ignores Sonic's "should we get this over with". He puts on another one of those faces, similar to earlier when Sonic arrived and Nine talked about his "new friends". Perhaps to cover up exactly the way he's feeling in this moment with a veneer of superiority (he always did something similar when talking up Sonic to the Chaos Council).
"You know...after all this time...I think I finally understand you, Sonic."
...
"You wanna save everyone. Friends. Foes. Total strangers! You say it's because you're a hero and that's what heroes do, but deep down... After what you did—destroying your own home—it's the only way you can ever live with yourself. Even if that means you won't live at all."
And while I think Nine isn't incorrect—that there is a part of Prime!Sonic who's been acting out of selfishness, caring more about feeling like a good person than actually being one—these are still words from someone who feels betrayed by Sonic. I think there's a level to which Nine is seeing a part of Sonic no one else did, and also to a level which Nine is trying to recontextualize Sonic's more heroic/selfless seeming actions so he can reconcile them with how he feels about Sonic and sees him at this moment. In other words, while he's seeing a facet of Sonic he didn't see before, this is not all encompassing of who Prime Sonic is. It's just that perhaps by believing that Sonic's every seemingly selfless action is disingenuine, that all those nice words and intent to save people is just so Sonic can feel good rather that actually caring about anyone, then Nine doesn’t have to feel like the exception. Then he can see Sonic as someone who is pretending to care about all of this, and Sonic's other friends as fools who don't see what he (Nine) has seen.
But as I said, it's more complicated than that. Perhaps Nine is seeing a facet of Sonic that other people don't see or don't want to see, but Prime!Sonic is multifaceted. Perhaps he does want to hurry up and sacrifice himself in this scene because then he can finally feel like he's atoned for what he's done and he's absolved of/paid for his crimes, but that also doesn't mean he doesn't genuinely care about the lives of people in the shatterverse.
"If I don't make it, and you do, how do I know you'll keep your promise."
"Don't worry. Your 'friends' are safe. Once I have your energy, I can restore everything. They can have their silly lives in their silly spaces, as long as they leave me alone."
"Fair enough."
...
"And for what it's worth...I wouldda done the same for you."
"Don't lie to me..."
"I'm not–"
"DON'T!"
"Think whatever you want, but it's true. Even after everything you've done, everything we've been through. Together. Against each other. You're still my friend, Nine."
I really couldn't express more just how hurt Nine feels. That he doesn't believe Sonic would give anything up for him, even if he were to accept that Sonic would do that for everyone else. When he tells Sonic not to lie to him, frustrated, angry, voice wavering, I think it's because he can't take this again. If Sonic is lying just to manipulate him, if this isn't genuine, if he's just using him again, he can't take it again.
This is an incredibly intimate scene. With Sonic, standing face to face to Nine, inside Nine's safe space, his home that no one else has been into, behind the physical representation of the walls surrounding Nine's heart post betrayal, this is his first time all season really being allowed to speak to Nine directly. Here there's no one to perform to aside from each other.
But you can see that despite everything, Sonic still reaches Nine in this scene. It's not easy, but he reaches Nine's heart, leading Nine to start to believe in him again.
And that's why it's a pity the other variants show up when they do, using Sonic to breach Nine's walls. With the way Nine reacts after this happens, Sonic may as well have made Nine believe in that image of him again. Sonic may as well have made Nine believe that Sonic does care about him, that he'd do anything for him (or, at least, would give his life for him like he would for the others if it meant they could live), only to be the trojan horse that allowed the enemy™ to breach his safe space. The pretty lie.
At the beginning of S3 E4 Nine's Lives, Nine says "Predictable" when Sonic runs over to his friends. And, as anon mentioned, Nine says that Sonic has betrayed him for the last time, calling the deal off.
I wouldn't necessarily say here that Nine feels as if Sonic had cheated on him so to speak, but I would say that even if Nine doesn't see Sonic as a willing "trojan horse" here, Nine still feels like a fool for "falling for it again", for believing in Sonic. I think it's enough betrayal to Nine that Sonic would convince him that he cares about him and wants him to have a future too, only to then side with a bunch of people who want to beat Nine down and who would not let Nine be happy if Nine surrendered to them (from Nine's pov at least).
So in short, anon, I think you are seeing Nine's jealousy here. Even if he also has to believe Sonic is secretly fooling the others, to him this is a scene where Sonic is not only choosing them over him, but another example of Sonic (from Nine's pov) proving that he's a liar who doesn't care for Nine or his future/safety at all.
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