like AS A BABBY he met his parents and his other siblings so HE WASN'T ALWAYS RAISED THAT WAY and he experienced the shift

when Tristan took over and sent their parents away and spirited him off into his rapunzel tower

so the other major people in his life aren't total strangers they're people he hasn't seen in a very long time

WHICH IS JUST more depressing honestly

poor fucking baby

and he still grew up initially in crappy mage culture but he was inherently a cute this time so instead of kicking servants and murdering his sister's cat he just

had like 6 pets of his own and never really grasped the class differences

IN A WAY yes because he probably just tuned out servants because they weren't really People to him unless they did something to cause particular notice

but not really he was too young and probably a kind of daydreamy kid

and then this time instead of being attached to his mom he was probably more attached to his dad since their dad was just kind of quiet and benign iirc??

and mom was scary

AND THEN shit happened

and instead of a pompous little 11 year old monster Tris was dealing with a confused 6 year old who didn't understand why he was being locked up

??? but Tristan what did I do

he was probably VERY SAD AND LONELY he probably had actual bonds with siblings other than Tris and they were cut off

so he just flopped around and overattached to Tris out of lack of anyone else to talk to until Jupiter arrived and then to Jupiter because omggggg a frieeeend

he probably actually withdrew very quickly

because he wouldn't have understood it very well and he IS pretty smart even as a kid he would have grasped that he was being singled out so he wouldn't have entirely accepted any

explanations from Tris that it was a good thing or for his benefit he would have really immediately internalized it

god this is so sad

as being his fault somehow

that he did something wrong or was wrong in some way

which carries into how he is later because right up to when other Ariel woke up he really couldn't... entirely push for anything he wanted or question Tris's decisions very well

because he believed at heart that there was some problem with HIM that made things that way and Tris was right

and it kind of became a self-fulfilling prophecy because the more he was overprotected the more PRACTICALLY incapable of protecting himself in the real world he became

because he wasn't allowed to learn the normal skills someone would learn growing up for dealing with social interaction or... anything?

like he literally doesn't know how to deal with normal social discourse, it's a disproportionately big blow to him if a conversation doesn't go well because he wasn't allowed to experience

normal relationship forming

let alone knowing shit like how to be suspicious of strangers properly

so TRIS BECAME KIND OF RIGHT because Ariel, before he got 50-someodd years of memories shoved into his head

if you let him go outside alone was seriously vulnerable to everything

because he just did not know how to cope with PEOPLE

or things

he didn't know what the world was like at all

and HE KNEW THAT about himself in that he knew he didn't know a lot and he read enough books to know he was missing things

so he was just down on himself a lot

and still is and is still vulnerable but he's compensating by drawing on other Ariel's memories

but yeah he probably just

went from a really perky friendly child to a really quiet uncertain one SUPER FAST when Tris came into power

and he regained a lot of that perkiness over time but it was really only directed at Tris and Jupiter

I THINK he was always very kind to the staff who had access to him but he never opened up entirely again the way he did when he was little

whereas as a kid he would have kind of tuned out staff but if he had a reason to talk to them he would have been !!enthusiastic!! a lot

LOOK MISS MAID I FOUND A BUG

he was probably very cute

look what you did Tris

I'm going to ping awaywards and dantalion to this

and opalinesque will probably want it too there

well he could just reset the timeline again ariel

not be over-protective

you stop that timeline fudging nonsense right now tristan

whatever clearly youkeep saying this one didn't work up and challenging him to reset it

work out*

no he keeps expressly saying he wants you to quit thinking about timeline resets!!

who would ever know

judging by this one, everyone

maybe he can practice memory wiping random nobodies before reseting this time like

no Tristan no

if he's gonna reset a world it doesn't matter if he memory wipes a few hundred people to get that right

/picks up Ariel and carries him away o^o