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potato-on-your-head · 2 months ago

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Yes! And not only that, but it's also heavily implied that whatever family Fink did have was... not good. His lines about his mom's parenting style are played for laughs, and they're absolutely funny in the moment ("swimming's easy! I can teach him the same way my mom taught me. SWIM!" *drop-kicks the child*) ("My mom used to rock me to sleep. LIKE THIS! *swings a literal rock*). And yet, moments later, when they're addressed in a serious manner, you realize that Fink was actually confessing just how messed up his childhood was.

Right after the rock incident, he tells Roz, "Hey! I turned out just fine." That's the CLASSIC line that (cw child abuse) plenty of people whose parents hit them as a kid will say in response to how you, like, should not hit your kids. The fact that his mom threw him into water and said sink or swim and also got him to sleep in a forceful way is indicative of nature's harshness, yes... but it's also a metaphor for cruelty in real-life parenting. And boy does that resonate.

He reveals it all when Roz asks how he can tell a story about something he claims not to understand: love. Fink's body language shifts to both protective and vulnerable as he's all curled up. Then he admits, "Yeah, well, when you grow up without something... you spend a lot of time thinking about it." Okay, ouch. Major character motivation unlocked.

Once Roz powers down, Fink looks wistfully at her, leaves his comfy bed, and goes and settles in under her arm, curled up close to her with Brightbill above. It speaks volumes about how he admitted something and now finally has someone caring about him - and now that she's not awake, he's free to actually seek out the affection he wants without having to explain it away with a witty one-liner.

We don't get a lot of details. Fink definitely could've lost his family young. And however long he had his mom clearly damaged him and his worldview. Roz is the first one to care about him not just in a long time, but possibly ever. Which makes it all the more poignant when you see him helping raise Brightbill with things he never got.

The story Fink told Brightbill might not have even been something his mom told him. It might have been what Fink wished his mom had told him. A story he thought up late at night, imagining it being narrated by someone who loved him.

An aspect I highly admire about The Wild Robot is the manner they explore Fink’s implied trauma, when he helps Brightbill go to sleep with that story about a loving mother finding her son. Likely a story Fink’s mom shared with him as a child to help put the guy to sleep.

It’s never outright stated word for word, but God you can feel Fink’s underlying solitude, pain, and sadness throughout this film’s run time. Fink clearly lost his own mother, along with whatever other relatives, he had at a young age to nature’s harshness, leading to a selfish loner attitude, until Roz crashed into his life.

One moment that seriously stood out to me is before the winter storm slammed into their island Roz asked Fink about love and he says, “Dunno. I wouldn’t know anything about it…”, as he walked away with a crushed look on his face into the darker part of the forest. Going deep into his lowly nest curled up into a ball alone. It says so much, by doing very little dialogue, about Fink’s life he has led up to now.

Love it when movies have you read more in between the lines on scenes to get an answer.

#well now I just hurt myself thinking about that last part #it's amazing how they tell us so much with SO FEW WORDS #tons of Fink's backstory is told through his expressions and body language once he actually lets his guard down!#it's also a classic case of - to quote The Good Place -#“people improve when they get external love and support”#like????? guhhhhhh #Roz shows him kindness when she takes all the spines off his face #and she didn't have to do that! she could've just left him! he stole her gosling egg after all!!!#but he was hurt and she had the tools to help and so it was like. why wouldn't she!!#and because of that gesture of kindness she had someone helping her with Brightbill and getting all his needs met!!#and Fink sticks around and shows kindness (in his own foxy way at first and then more earnest later) to Brightbill and Roz in their journey #and one by one others join in (Paddler giving Roz a new leg had me crying so hard in the theater)#and like. people being kind when they don't have to is literally what saves everyone in this film #that's such a common message but to see it done THIS WELL and this BEAUTIFULLY is such an impactful thing #and part of it is how well the movie portrays cruelty and the harsh realities of life and death and the ABSENCE of kindness #because then when the characters start showing compassion for each other - it doesn't feel cheap #in fact it feels so hard-won and significant #so. yeah. I'm so normal about this movie. and I'm completely fine #the wild robot #potato speaks #potato yells about the wild robot #meta: wild robot

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oonajaeadira · 1 month ago

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That Awoooo Inside You, Pt. 2

Fandom: The Wild Robot / Fink the Fox

Pairing: Fink <3s OFC fox Farrah

Rating: G all the way, don’t worry. This is keeping in the world and disgustingly wholesome. Prolly too clean for tumbles 😆

Warnings: None. It’s for cuteness and for heart.

Summary: After the events of The Wild Robot, a new resident joins the island. She’s a little withdrawn and Fink finds out why.

A/N: This chapter is mainly for @brandylyn because it means so much to me that she wants to read a simple story about a little yearning fox.

PART 1

For the past many mornings Fink had woken to an empty hut, the little heap of leaves near the door where Farrah preferred to sleep flattened and empty. As much as he knew he could just track her by scent, it wasn’t necessary anymore. He knew where she was.

And his heart sank a little.

He’d been hoping for the day when he’d wake to find her still sleeping, at peace, or the night where she’d fall asleep before him, comfortable in her new home. But her ears always remained alert, feigning sleep into the night, and she was gone by first light.

Not that she wouldn’t come back to join him for meals or to play fast-as-the-wind with the possum kids. But he supposed she went to the cove in the morning for the same reason she slept near the door.

Hoping to catch a whiff of home.

There’d been two full moons since Farrah came to the island and she adjusted fast to their strange way of life. She wasn’t as hard driven by hunger as some of the other animals and gained from their talks that was because food had been more scarce where she was from and she was patient when it came to waiting for meals. Fish and shellfish had already been a big part of her diet.

So she must have come from another island…but Fink couldn’t be sure. Anytime he’d ask more about it, she’d change the subject or go quiet. And she was very very good at being quiet. Probably had to learn that with fur like hers. It’s a wonder she made it to maturity without proper camouflage. Silence and speed would be her only options.

Except when she laughed. She laughed loud and high, almost a cry when she was really going. Farrah was easy to amuse and he made sure to do so whenever he had the chance. He wanted to see her happy and settled here. With him.

And he just liked to hear her laugh. Nobody laughed at his jokes like she did.

“That is the look of a lovelorn fox,” Paddler dryly declared one day, turning away to scrape away at a massive trunk with his crooked incisors. Fink had just cracked a joke at a squirrel’s expense–and not a clever one either, something about the size of nuts–and Farrah had laughed before bounding off after a butterfly. The beaver’s remark made Fink realize that he was wearing a dopey grin and he shook it off, but not before Paddler added, “Be direct. Build her a dam to show how you feel.”

“I’m not going to give her a dam.”

“But I’m telling you, fine fellow. We may be swimming among the trees as a pike in the waters of the river, yet the ladies still love a good bit of worked wood. You have that home–a good design, said because, as you will remember it is mine–but a little riverside palace of her own? Eh? What a treat.”

Fink rolled his eyes, playing cavalier. “It’s not like that. We’re–” over in the near clearing, Farrah’s fur sparkled white in the sinking sun, her head tilting side to side as she watched two butterflies dancing, trying to pick up on their whispers, quiet and still….and beautiful. “--friends.”

“Ha!” Paddler choked on a laugh. “You fool no one, sir. Just give her a treasure and be done with it. I’m telling you a dam always does the job, but I suppose you must do as your ilk do.”

“Is that why there's no Mrs. Paddler?”

“Oh ho! I have had my salacious share of affairs, I assure you. My dams are well-given and wide spread. I am focusing on other projects at the moment,” he boasted with a grand gesture towards his gnarled tree, and turned back to his gnawing.

But Fink hadn’t let the beaver’s advice sift completely to the background and after a particularly good day of digging holes for grubs and laying in the sun-warmed grass, it was Farrah herself that completed the thought.

“Okay. You get to take one feature from any other animal and add it to your own. What are you stealing?” Fink rolled on his back, belly to the sun, black paws bent and hanging lazily.

“Uhhhhh,” she sighed. “Mayyyyybe racoon paws?”

He wrinkled his nose in disgust. “Ugh. Really? You’d lose your ability to run fast.”

“Yeah, but where am I gonna run here?” she smiled, teasing, and his tail twitched hopefully. “And I bet they’re useful for arranging bedding and…holding fish…and…oh! I bet urchins would be so much easier to crack open, no more getting spines in my jowls…”

“Wait!” He flipped to his stomach then, his claws digging in the dirt, eager to run, eager to share the idea that had just come to him, ready to bound and yip but controlling himself–she was skittish if he was too bouncy–”You like urchins??”

“Of course. Do they live here? I’ve never found any.”

“Come on. I gotta show you something,” and he took off running with the breeze at his back, which carried the information that she was following and keeping up with him as he made his way through the trees and down the sloping landscape to the shore.

Running straight for the goose flats, he turned abruptly at the shoreline and went crashing though some bushes until they came to a bluff wall. But instead of coming to a halt, Fink took a leap, knowing which ledges were wide enough to hold him, and which led out to the sea. From there, he was able to round the corner to a small cove. With the tide out, it was a completely isolated beach, not even a sand bird or seagull.

“Welcome to the northern most point of the island,” he explained with a sweep of the paw. “When I don’t wanna dig clams to a soundtrack of honks, I come out here. The tide leaves little treats too. Cockles, a dead fish, sometimes an eel. Sometimes though–” he scanned the stretch of beach, his heart skipping at the sight of a dark little blob, “--there! Urchin!”

Dashing over, he sniffed at it and, finding it still fresh, held it down with one paw and expertly cracked its underside open with his teeth. Then he sat back high and proper, very proud of himself, and offered the feast to her with a flourish. “Madame.” Surely this would be it. This cove was his little secret, his treasure to give her. And serving up delicacies with humor? He just wanted to make her smile…

But Farrah had stopped nearby, distracted, her strange eyes–one light, one dark–searching the sea, her nose activated, taking in the air.

“Uh…Farrah?” Snapping to, she closed the distance, and Fink cocked his head. “Everything okay?”

“Oh, of course. I just caught a whiff of–” she fought off a glance to the sea. “It doesn’t matter. Oh wow! The urchins are huge here!”

“Yeah,” he chuckled nervously. “It’s a specialty here. You’re gonna love the recipe. This one’s for you. Dig in.” As she did, Fink turned fully toward the water and scanned the horizon, trying to see what had caught her attention but found no scents or sights out of the ordinary. “This place is a little secret of mine, but you’re welcome to it anytime.”

“It’s nice here. Quiet.” She licked her jowls, taking in the last morsels of the delicacy. He still hadn’t turned from the sea and just as he meant to ask what had pulled her attention, she surprised him by coming to sit beside him, not just near him, but right beside him, shoulder to shoulder, flank to flank. “Thank you.”

Success. He sat still, paralyzed, trying to keep his heartbeat from racing, his tail from twitching. She liked his gift, she liked his shared treasure, he could feel his paws wanting to happy tap in the sand and the springs of his hips wanting to leap in triumph.

But still he sat. Because she had finally come closer and he knew even a twitch would send her just out of reach again, no matter how badly he wanted to curl his tail around her–not only to warm her but to protect–his foxy instincts running high.

But still he kept sitting, as long as he could, watching her from the corner of his eye as she sniffed the wind and seemed to be relaxing around him.

Not long after that, she was gone in the mornings and he’d track her here to this cove and peek around the bluff wall to find her sitting in almost the same spot, looking out toward the sea. The first day he’d found her, he’d startled her and she ran off in a flash, not coming home until after dark.

After that he left her be and went back to the goose flats for breakfast. She’d join him soon enough and say nothing about it, smiling as if all was fine. But she never sat so close to him again and she still slept every night with perked ears near an escape route.

After a while though, he tried a different tactic. He came out into the cove and sat at the shore as she did–quiet and still–only still very far away. He’d let her pick up his scent before moving closer and sitting nearby, matching her gaze to the sea, and they would sit in silence for a short moment before she would perk up as if all was well and backtrack to the wall and therefore getting on with the day, nothing more about her alone time to be said.

Until today. Poking his head around the bluff he found Farrah on her feet, trotting up and down a short length of the shore, eyes on the far, far horizon…and then he noticed the smell.

Snow.

There was an iceberg far out to sea, not unusual for late spring on some years, but not altogether common either. They never came close and were often in and out of sight within a morning. This one was drifting further away and Fink watched as Farrah tracked it going, looked after it even when it was too far to be seen or smelled, finally sitting with a little sigh and sink of the head.

And then he understood.

One recent night they’d been looking up at the stars and Fink had pointed out The Great Crack in the Sky, his friend Roz had told him its name was Cassiopeia, whatever that means. That’s when she told him that in her home, they called that group of stars The Iceberg Edge. The elders of her pack used it to teach kits not to go out onto the ice when they saw the pattern of this constellation on the ground, because it meant the ice was breaking up and going out to sea.

This is how she came here, she told him, caught on a piece of spring ice that broke away during a clutch of warm days. It drifted too far out to sea for anyone to hear her howling. When it was almost melted out from under her, she was lucky enough to swim to a piece of debris and huddle on it for a few days until there was an upset and she was in the water again and the next thing she knew she was waking up in the hut with a bear blocking the exit.

It seemed like yesterday and ages ago all together.

Once she noticed him sitting down the beach, this time he moved closer and sat quietly for a little bit before speaking slow and low.

“You…miss your home, huh.” As he expected, she only blinked down at the sand, and his ears fell to a droop. But she wasn’t running off or changing the subject. Maybe if she wasn’t ready to talk, she might be okay with listening. Fink swallowed, realizing he was about to say some things out loud for the first time. “I felt the same way when I came to this part of the island. My mom kicked me out pretty early and I was run off before I could really learn the ropes. It took me a long time to forgive her. I know now that it wasn’t her first choice, that there were too many males and not enough females so I guess she was afraid I’d get targeted. But I was pretty darn lonely for a long time.”

“What changed?”

His breath caught as she spoke up, but he managed to recover and answer. “I found friends. Really amazing friends. I hope that for you too. It seems like you’re off to a good start. Especially if you keep giving Pinktail a break from her spawn.”

At least she cracked half a smile before letting it fade again. “Friends don’t replace family.”

“No, not replace. But they can become another kind of family. I have proof.” He’d told her enough about Roz and Brightbill, and Thorn spent enough time in the hut that he knew she understood. “But I’d like to hear about your family…” and here he couldn’t help himself, his self-interests creeping in as he tested his chances, “...I assume you mean your mate and kits…”

Here Farrah gave him a look so sudden, so bewildered and distressed that he was about to ask her if he’d overstepped, but instead, that laugh of hers broke out, although not as loudly as usual.

“I was talking about my mother and siblings. They were my whole world. They had to be. The food was scarce so the families were spread out and…well. Mate? That’s… I’m obviously nobody’s first choice, I mean, just look..” She stuck out her tongue and made a silly face, tilting her head from side to side.

Fink could only blink, perplexed.

The breeze picked up, but the scent of snow was only a memory now, the water a flat line. Farrah’s nose pointed down to the sand again, her half smile diminishing by half again for a moment. Fink leaned forward, words starting to bubble up, words he thought he’d never get to say to another fox. But before he could say what he’d been holding down, she shook off the mood and feebly tried to make it a non-issue, abolishing the silence between them.

“Have I ever told you how my sister once head-butted an elephant seal?”

“Ah…no. Really?”

“Really!”

“Huh. What’s…an elephant seal?”

“It’s–oh! Sometimes I forget…of course you wouldn’t know...!” Then that laugh again, launching into the story, starting with an impression of the seal–although if it was a good impression or not, he couldn’t tell having never seen one. But he knew somehow by her laughter that it was. She was suddenly back to normal, comfortable to be herself when it was only the two of them in this little hidden cove.

No mate. She had no mate. This was good news. For him. But sad for her. That is, if she wanted one. What if she didn’t–? Wait. What did she mean by that? That nobody would choose her? Because of her fur? Because she was a runt? Maybe that made sense in a place where she would have to hide from predators, but she wouldn’t have to do that here. And even if it was necessary, he could protect her…probably. If she wanted that... Even so, she’d be okay. If he learned anything from Brightbill it was that sometimes the will to survive past nature’s plan for you makes you even more likely to outlive everyone else.

He could certainly feel nature’s plan working on him and thought with a little grin that he would gladly give up a longer life for that plan to work out….

But Farrah was speaking, talking about her family, their annual rounds from point to point in their territory, how she and her sisters used to share everything and hide and pop out to scare their mother and she would do her very best to act frightened. And the nights dancing under the green light curtains! Had he ever seen the shifting lights in the night sky? He had to admit he hadn’t. So he put his wonderings aside and laid down in the sand, crossing his paws and listened, learned, and bathed in the light of her widening trust. They had all day until the tide came back in. And Fink had no need to be anywhere but here.

He hoped in time, she would feel the same.

___

PART 3

SERIES MASTERLIST

MAIN MASTERLIST

#the wild robot #the wild robot fanfic #fink the fox #wholesome #fluff #that awooo inside you #that awoooo inside you #fink x farrah

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aconstantmonologue · 3 months ago

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I just saw Wild Robot in theaters and I am absolutely enamored by every aspect of it.

[YAP SESSION WITH SPOILERS AHEAD]

There were so many beautiful lessons and themes in the whole film that it’s hard to just pick out and label them because doing so would disservice the film in its entirety.

-Roz: From the very start I felt such a strong connection to her. She never really ‘fits in’ anywhere, and faces isolation from those she wants so desperately to form a connection with. It takes her awhile to adapt and understand things outside of her ‘program’, and even then it’s a learning curve for her, change is difficult to process and understand. But eventually she gets to a point where she’s stuck at a crossroads, she still isn’t quite synchronous with the community around her, but they’ve begun to understand and accept her, and she knows that she would be out of place if she returned to her maker. Her love and care for Brightbill and Fink are difficult for her to express verbally, but she expresses through her actions, eventually getting the vocabulary she needs and yearned for. She took her programming, and used it to create a life she truly wanted, not just a husk of a being.

-Brightbill: I saw this film with my dad and my stepmom. My stepmom raised me, she is just Mom for me, but there was a moment where I didn’t understand why I never really got to spend time with my biological mother, and I held a lot of animosity surrounding that for a long time. Eventually I grew to understand that she wasn’t to blame, the situation was out of her control, she simply adjusted her sails to save me, becoming my Mom without hesitation even if it was difficult as first. She was the Roz to my Brightbill, and sacrificed so much of her time to learn and adapt to raise me, and now she has to watch me grow up and live a life of my own.

-Fink: I wasn’t expecting to like him as much as I did, I feel like fox characters tend to fall into a very specific mold and seem flat and under developed. But seeing his growth through the film was lovely. They made it clear that it wasn’t an instantaneous change. He went through lapses where he would self isolate his honest thoughts again, not even sharing them with Roz. But as he spends more time with Roz and Brightbill, he starts to grasp the fact that there are people who WILL care about him with no strings attached. And that he is allowed to get close to others and love them without the fear of it being transactional.

Disability Representation: I was not expecting this at all, and it may not have even been entirely intentional, but elements of this story spoke a truth that rang into my bones as a disabled person. When Roz loses a foot she adapts her surroundings to suit her needs so she can still navigate while training Brightbill to fly. Paddler even makes her a prosthesis to replace the section of the leg she lost. The isolation all three face from their peers for being different and out of place hit so close to home. Being isolated from others because you were “too odd” is something my family and I, and so many other neurodivergent people have experienced, and sometimes you start to lose hope on finding a community that will accept you, until you find them in the most unexpected places.

Going off of that, Brightbill being significantly smaller than the other geese and the criticism he faces for something out of his control was written so well. There are people who will write you, and your capabilities, off without question once they realize that you are disabled and ‘not normal’. He has to do considerably more work and put in more effort to be seen in an equal standing as his able bodied peers. That’s why I think the lesson he learns (along the lines) of “you can do anything I can do, even if it has to look different to fit you” was so important. Disabled people CAN and SHOULD be given the same respect and consideration as able bodied people, and the end result should be the object of value- not the accommodation it took to get there.

I have so many more thoughts but I will contain myself, I do want to see it again sometime soon though :]

#wild robot #wild robot movie #rozzum unit 7134 #brightbill #fink the fox #my post #wild robot spoilers #disability representation #film review

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