Neal Cassidy is Mischaracterised
I was on Tik Tok and saw an anti Swanfire edit, an old one, and in the comments people were complaining about how Neal left his pregnant girlfriend, but here are some things those people don't understand or take into account.
Neal didn't know Emma was pregnant. Emma herself didn't know she was pregnant until she was already in jail. So saying Neal left and let a pregnant Emma go to jail is wrong because as I said HE DIDN'T EVEN KNOW!
If he did know I don't think he would have left because he never wanted to be like his father.
Neal is Selfless. Neal left Emma because he knew how much she wanted to meet her parents. August basically told Neal that if he stayed with Emma she wouldn't go to Storybrooke and wouldn't break the Curse and in doing so would never meet her parents.
This could have gone two ways for Neal. (or three if you have read the Fanfiction "Wishing On a Shooting Star and Thinking that a Heart Can’t Lie" by Dragonbat on AO3)
1. He stayed with her and they leave get their money, go to Tallahasse, have a son together and Neal would never have to think about Storybrooke or his father who would never come back into his life because Rumple would never remember and the Curse would have never been broken. (but Emma would never know that her parents didn't want to abandon her)
2. What happened in Canon. Emma got to find her parents. All the people cursed broke free due to Emma coming to Storybrooke. But most of all Rumple remembered, Rumple came after him.
Something Neal didn't want but knew would be inevitable if let Emma go. Which he did because he knew how much Emma wanted to find her parents, how much she wanted to know why, why did they abandon her on the side of the highway?
And of course all those people caught in the crossfire of HIS father's curse, a curse that was made to find HIM.
We don't know Neals Age. Now no one said anything about his age in the comments of this specific video but I have seen other Anti Neal and Anti Swanfire edits on Tik Tok saying that Neal statutory r*ped Emma. Even though we are talking about a fictional character who was in Neverland, a place that doesn't age one physically or mentally, for who knows how long. We kinda know the age he goes to Neverland at. (I think it was around 15 or 16, I don't know for sure) but we don't know how long he was in Neverland or when he leaves. In other words we don't know his age and I wouldn't put it past him to fake credentials when he go back to this new world were you need an ID to live.
Neal Cassidy is mischaracterised and I'm tired of it so I wrote this structured rant. Thanks for reading! (if you did)