Okay okay okay making a separate post because 1 I didn't wanna inflict this on op's notifs and 2 this might get long so it probably needs a separate post anyway. This is about the post I just reblogged because I saw it and I thought about the whole "disney not allowing Mickey to have any control of his own life" thing again and the train of thoughts spiralled and combined into one
AU where Disney's tight control over Mickey slowly erodes and suppresses his personality. The decades of having his character altered and changed and censored, of being told exactly who he is supposed to be and what he is supposed to think and want and feel, begin to wear on him. The standards change all the time as the company change their minds about what a good role model for children looks like, as they flip between how angry he's allowed to be, how sad he's allowed to become, how nice, how scared, at the drop of a hat. It's a lot to keep up with because it isn't enough that he acts the way they want him to on camera, they expect him to be that way all the time because he is a performer and a mascot and it's his job to perform no matter what...
It's hard to keep up. Hard to change himself. Hard to constantly be rewritten
But maybe it will be easier if there's just... less to change
After all, what's the point in clinging to personality traits and likes and dislikes that might be erased from him in a decade anyway?
So epic mickey happens (because of course I'm making this about epic mickey and the Brothers again) and this eroding effect still hasn't hit him, he still has enough of himself left that no one realises anything is going on. Then at some point after both em1 and em2 he spends more time in Wasteland to hang out with Oswald and Oswald starts to notice there's something... odd about Mickey. He doesn't have any preferences, doesn't seem to have many opinions. He goes with the flow to a... really weird degree, and Oswald can't remember the last time he expressed an actual want or desire of his own. And he knows for a fact that's not how Mickey normally is, because he wasn't like that the first time he landed in Wasteland, so what in the world changed? At first he thinks Mickey is just being a people pleaser and he finds it really annoying, but the more it goes on and the more he presses and confronts Mickey about it, the more his annoyance morphs into concern as he realises something is wrong
Mickey for his part doesn't have any idea anything is wrong. He finds it amusing when Oswald presses him for details about his favourite food, colour, clothes, anything, with more and more urgency, because, well, it depends on what Disney needs from him, obviously. Of course it depends on what Disney needs from him. He's the mascot, he needs to be flexible so he can fulfill whatever they require from him
It doesn't give him pause until Oswald's concern starts becoming distress, and he starts insisting everything Mickey is saying isn't normal
It's only then that the questions - basic questions, things anyone should be able to answer about themselves - make him slowly realise he doesn't know anything about himself anymore
