#fungireborn.post

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Thinking about a crack pair involving Trixie x Mushroom Girl

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Small character analysis of Trixie. They're my favorite member of the Neo Trio (and my favorite epithet character in general), and I wanted to put my thoughts about them here. There will be a spoiler warning below. I'm not sure if it applies considering the book is almost 3 years old, but I'd rather play it safe.

(Also, this is the second version of the same post. I deleted the first version because I posted it too early and it was unfinished. )

POP SPOILERS BELOW

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Most of this is based of Trixie’s internal monologue in chapter six of PoP.

I genuinely think Trixie is a people-pleaser. Just not in the same way as Molly, and not for the same reasons as her.

Molly is a people-pleaser as a means to avoid conflict and keep the peace. In her view, it’s better to keep her mouth shut than to address the problem, especially if no one is competent or willing enough to help her. Better to grin and bear it than to say what she really means and get burned.

But with Trixie, it’s less about avoiding conflict than it is about making her friends happy. There’s nothing wrong with that on the surface-viewing. Most people want to make their friends happy. But this doesn’t come from a healthy place. In fact, I can argue that Trixie loves her friends so much, that she ties her own self-worth to what she can offer them.

They assigned themselves a "job" towards their friends. They assigns their sense of worth to them. In their head, if they cannot provide value to them, then they're not good for anything. They're supposed to be the "brave" one.

Trixie really didn't have any friends before Molly and Phoenica. Thankfully they have the love of their family, but they were essentially an outcast to everyone else. Sure, they were able to intimidate mean kids into backing off, but they were still alone and an outcast in a world dedicated to making them feel small and worthless.

It makes sense that they would put in everything for the only 2 friends they've had, and it makes sense that they’re keen on finding their epithet. It’s not specifically their powers that they’re most focused about, but from their perspective, it’s the only reason they met Molly and Phoenica

They cling to their role of the brave one because they’re afraid of what comes with being a kid: Adults not taking them seriously at best, and flaunting their power over them at worst. Of course Trixie wouldn’t be afraid of ghosts; they don’t stick around. Trixie wears a protective and spiky shell to protect themselves from a harsh world, but it’s eating away at them. All the shell does is protect them. She takes Xerxes advice that everything is fake and acts accordingly, but when everything you do and say is fake, you start to feel hollow. Even with the shell, it still hurts

Honestly, it’s fitting that Trixie’s sweater has a heart in the middle because Trixie genuinely has a bleeding heart. Her shell keeps her safe from those who try to hurt her, but her heart has no space. It's only when she meets Molly and Phoenica that she can truly come out of her shell. She clings desperately to that role of being the one that scares away monsters and being the protector for them. In her own thoughts, if she can't do her "job", then what is she good for?

We know her friends love and value her, and she does too, but she on some level subconsciously thinks that if she cannot be useful and do the "job" she designated herself to do (the job of the protector), then there's no reason why Molly or Phoenica should be friends with them. If they lose them...

Then they'll have to hide again

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Maybe a lot of this was probably me reaching and overthinking a lot of stuff (or me reaching in the completely wrong direction). These thoughts weren't really formal, and I kind of wrote them as they came to me. I just like thinking about my favorite characters, even if I could potentially be reaching in the wrong direction lol

EDIT: I made a small addition to this post here if you want to check it out!

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Wanted to make an add on to the Trixie analysis post, (calling it an analysis is generous, but let me have my cake and eat it too!). This is the link to the main post. This is a lot shorter than the original post mainly because it’s just an add-on

POP SPOILERS

At Trixie’s core, they (along with their family) are outcasts in a big and scary world. Molly and Phoenica are their only friends. Most kids don’t like them. They’d tease and bully them at worst, and talk about them behind their back at best.

They are a kid ruled by fear and insecurities. They’re afraid of inadequacy and failure. In comparison to everyone else in their life, Trixie somewhat feels out of place. They’re not smart like Feenie. They didn’t know their epithet like Molly. They’re not nigh indestructible like Xerxes, they can’t blow up a building, smash through things, or anything of the sorts. They’re just Trixie. Compared to everyone else around them, they feel mundane; like they see themselves as the weakest link amongst everyone, even if their friends and family don’t believe that to be the case.

Xerxes told them to stand up for themselves and to never pretend to be someone they’re not, but they only accomplished the former. They pulled up a spiky shell to keep themself safe. They’re wear a tough mask protecting themselves and act “aggressive”. because at their core, they’re afraid of the spot they standing in a world that looks down on them. They’re not afraid of ghosts or monsters. They’re afraid of the very real people they face in the world. Those with power that can use it however they see fit. People have proven that they can be crueler than monsters, and this has only reinforced how small Trixie truly is.

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That’s about it! I just wanted to do a small add in.

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Listen—

I may have a pattern when it comes to my favorite characters

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Okay: I didn't even think about it until now for the Sonic/Undertale au, but how would Mobian Souls work? Would they work the same as human souls? Monster souls? Would they be their own unique thing? I don't know why I didn't think of this consider Cream, Marine, and Kit are gonna be there.

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I'm so obsessed with the idea of Pinkie adopting Cozy and I don't even know why. I might have a slight idea, but at best, I'm grasping at straws.

Like, they didn't really interact in the series enough to have a character dynamic, so yeah. Cozy Glow herself doesn't really have much of anything going towards her character, so most of anything involving her would mostly be fanon, but that doesn’t stop me from having fun

Pinkie is so silly and whimsical, but she's smarter than she lets on. I feel like she would throw off Cozy so much in a way where their interactions would bounce off each other.

I just like the idea of Cozy slowly getting attached to Pinkie without knowing.

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I've heard some stuff about Peni being closer to her comic iteration now, but what I find more interesting is her being lead into that direction, and the end of ATSV, her straying from that direction.

Think about it! The first time we her in the movie is her tired, depressed, and beaten down by the world around her. She was made to just accept that her trauma was just a necessary step to maintain canon and that it was simply something that had to happen. She simply had to suffer & stay in line to what canon had predetermined for her, just like everyone else

But spider society, and by extension, she herself was wrong. Miles very existence & the fact that he is spiderman proves Miguel wrong, everything in ITSV proves him wrong, and Miles having a positive influence on the entire spider groups lives proves Miguel wrong. Ironically in the first movie, despite the fact that Miles was never supposed to be spiderman, he was the one that stopped the collider and saved the multiverse.

Miguel view of canon is wrong because even ignoring everything I just said, the Spot isn't gonna stop if he kills Miles father. He's not gonna stop until either something is done about him, or the entire multiverse is ripped to shreds. Miguel and his followers plan on doing nothing and letting his father die for practically nothing, which goes against everything Spiderman stands for, that you shouldn't just stand around and do nothing. Despite Miguel technically being the closest to a spider due to weird experiment stuff and Miles being an anomaly, Miles embodies what it means to be Spiderman better than Miguel

Honestly, I will say that Miguel had gotten the closest to nearly killing the idea of Spiderman

And to get back to Peni, I think she, along with others, realized this. That being put through constant grief all for some canon that Miguel has flimsy proof on at best, is all for nothing. That she had abandoned her friend for nothing. They were vulnerable & racked with grief enough that they were practically manipulated into thinking that their pain & suffering, and by extension, other's pain & suffering, was something that had to happen and they just needed to suck it up, get over it, and stand by to let other Spiderman suffer for the greater good.

Which back to my point, is why I actually like the interpretation of her being lead to fill in her comic book self by the nature of the Spider Society, and being strayed away from that and snapped out of that mindset that needlessly suffering will somehow help others more. That the symbol of Spiderman revolved around endlessly suffering for no reason, even if it did nothing to help anyone. I believe that after the chase scene, she had to process that Miles "had" to suffer for no reason, and had to challenge the notion of what canon events even were and how Miguel's understanding of the concept falls apart like wet paper.

And by doing that, Peni broke away from what canon told her she had to be, and by extension, became something unique to herself away from her comic book iteration.

Peni, along with others, had learned that it's not what canon tells you that dictates your worth and value as a Spiderman, it's you and you alone

And she decided to embrace herself with a smile on her face

I love analyzing stuff! Please let me know your thoughts of this. I am open to constructive criticism. I just needed to word everything running in my brain!

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Updated my opinions on how I feel about the EE characters. A lot has changed, but I still have a couple biases