#It is so obscure but I have many reasons actually

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

Do you two have heretical thoughts about the dementors? (I always thought it was funny that they are actually way scarier and more threatening than the main villain group in a lovecraftian sort of way and seemingly can breed but can't be easily killed,but are just mentioned as an afterthought).

Heretical? Not sure, not sure what the common consensus is on dementors.

Our thoughts are generally that the dementors were created through some magical experiment accident/a catastrophe a long time ago, enough so that the origins of them have become obscured. (I believe this is in Pottermore somewhere but let's just go with it). My guess is that, originally, there were very few of them relative to the then wizarding world's population. However, the few there were were unkillable, terrifying, soul sucking monsters.

My guess is that, sooner rather than later, the idea occurred. Now, if you have an unkillable tiger next door that will eat someone, if not many, and you have no means of destroying it... whom, exactly, are you going to feed to it? Are you going to risk it eating just anyone or are you going to give it people who 'deserve' it or are otherwise a nuisance.

I imagine very early, the practice of feeding dementors law breakers or otherwise selecting some poor sap to keep them at bay was founded. Eventually, they managed to move this feeding ground to a remote island in the north sea that no one would ever visit, and they discovered that if they just let the dementors hover about, but not eat anyone, then a few humans could keep them complacent for many years without having to sacrifice an entire person.

Problem is, I imagine as they kept being fed and sustained, suddenly there's more dementors as they have enough energy to reproduce. You now have an island in the north sea that is fucking swarming with the things. Worse, the number of dementors is now vastly outstripping the number of people the wizarding world would naturally send to prison.

And so now we have a problem.

In a way, I think the Voldemort business helped disguise some of this. Suddenly, there were so many people who had done truly heinous things, who deserved imprisonment, that Azkaban was a booming business after likely years of drought. You have murderers, torturers, everyone you can think of in there with life imprisonments staving off the dementors for decades to come.

This may be part, though likely not all, of the reason trials were so rushed through in the aftermath of the first war and the sentences were so long. Part of the reason Sirius Black may not have got a trial was the wardens of Azkaban banging on their pots and pans screaming, "FRESH BODIES!" and since it felt so obvious to everyone that Black was a Death Eater anyway, why waste time on a trial?

But then, even when there's so many people in there, there's a tension with the dementors. They seem to be a barely contained force even as Fudge tries to use them multiple times for his own ends. He sets them loose and then "uh, children, please don't go near them because sometimes they want to snack and all the prisoners are dried out husks at this point". We're told that the dementors are displeased, specifically, that one of their precious meals have gotten away from them and that this is a problem. Hagrid is immediately sent to Azkaban for a crime in Harry's second year, which when it was believed he committed it when he was a child, had then resulted in an expulsion and not imprisonment.

And we hear news, though never see any of it, that in book seven dementors have been set loose (as Azkaban is now empty and nothing to feed them) and are wandering about the country.

I imagine after the second war, as there's a purge of Death Eaters and sympathizers, the problem is put off again, for a time, as the dementors happily get to munch on those who are imprisoned... But sooner or later, those people will be sucked dry and then we'll have the same problem, but worse, as there are likely now even more dementors.

And yes, it is interesting how blase wizards are about it, but I can see how this happened. Dementors are a reality that the average witch and wizard rarely, if ever, has to deal with. They're on the island of Azkaban, they eat the prisoners. The story is that, and I can't even really call it propaganda as it's something that everyone simply believes, that wizards and witches are ultimately in control of dementors. They're the ones who decide where they can go, who they can eat, and while they're terrifying, they're no more terrifying than dragons who are kept in reserves in Romania. And if you come across one, well, you use the patronus! If they're set loose somewhere they're not supposed to be, it's because some evil witch or wizard purposefully did that. The reality of what Azkaban really is, not so much a prison but dementor containment, is one that would simply not occur to anyone.

We see distress in people like Fudge, who personally have to deal with them and "oh god, they're bargaining with me, what the fuck", but it's evident that even he doubts himself as a) he believes he has them firmly in hand and of course can control them b) the idea that these things are only doing his bidding because the wizarding world had been feeding them an ungodly amount of prisoners over the century/that first war had great timing and really put off this problem for another 10/15 years is one that is so horrifying, so insane, that he'd be mad to even think it to himself.

But I suspect in 10/15 years after the events of canon, there's going to be yet another dementor problem, and one that no one will want to acknowledge and most won't even realize what, exactly, the problem is.

[littlebittyhollowbugs]

In our series there is an episode in the first season where Ghost does banish the Grimm troupe and the the ritual is broken.

So the nightmare heart dies, but (because we are so attached to the characters and this is basically an everyone lives au) Grimm and Grimmchild both live, now disconnected from the heart and mortal, they decide to come and stay in Hallownest to repay little Ghost by providing the regrowing kingdom with entertainment through their circus.

Now all of this leads to a very fun character arc for Grimm throughout the series where he has a difficult time adjusting to being mortal after a thousand years of being the nightmare hearts puppet.

There are several episodes that tackle this subject and they are some of my favorite Grimm troupe episodes

These four in particular, the first is the banishment episode, the second is a fun one where Ghost/Shade lord loses some of their godly power and Grimm who is adjusting to a similar change steps in to help (may or may not actually be helpful lol).

The third centers around Grimm's fears concerning his childs mortality after Grimmchild is injured during an adventure,

and the fourth is about Grimm uncovering the stories of his now forgotten past lives with the help of Ellina the chronicler (who returns to Hallownest to make a record of the new kingdom.)

[autisticrosewilson]

First of all, you have given me so much to work with, thank you so much. Second of all, I’m really glad you could see where I was going with Grant’s real test not actually being about killing Slade. Third of all, I absolutely love what you’ve suggested with the powers and I am currently designing met gala esque outfits for the trio and Tara’s specifically is really fun to play around with. I’ve been thinking to show they’re becoming more divine I’ll change their hair and eye colours but not their faces for the most part. I was drawing robin Jason with Natalia and decided he should have brown eyes and a crooked nose from breaking it as a kid but once he returns his eyes get weird (eg go blue and occasionally other colours), a patch of his hair went white and he lost all of his scars. Also, I think the closer they get to divinity I’m gonna draw cracks on their body that glow with their specific colours just to hammer home how they’re shedding their mortal forms.

With Tara being able to see the strings of fate, I though it’d be fun to give her a harp and then with Jason having the see no evil trait I thought it’d be fun to give him weighing scales since lady justice wears a blindfold. Idk what to give Grant though. I mean probably a weapon of some sort or maybe a Shepard’s crook that he can turn into a scythe to play into the sheep, wolf, Hunter thing.

With Jason and Tara’s splintering, I love the idea of them making fun of Grant for being the baby god. He hasn’t even had a cult yet, gosh he’s so young. Also them being besties just holds a special place in my heart.

And I just came up with this, of course they have parallels to the trinity but in universe rumours of their existence have been around much longer than Bruce, Clark and Diana. They’re the big three of the justice league but these guys are justice gods. So they start calling themselves the justice trinity but then people get confused about which trinity is which because the justice leagues’ trinity sounds awfully close to the justice gods’ trinity. The new all caste is certainly more distinctive branding but the point isn’t to be distinctive, it’s to be petty.

I'm so glad my unmedicated rambling helped!!! And I'm so excited for the outfits!!! I love when characters start becoming less and less human, when they're stuck in that uncanny valley spot of not quite human but not entirely Other, when they lose control and the cracks start to show...um I should probably give a warning for slight body horror elements. Not in the gore sense, in the "this body is not made of flesh and there is something divine clawing it's way out". Uh also there are teeth. Just. Teeth. I dipped into a little bit of cosmic horror at the end there because I wanted to cover my bases with mixed mythologies

Jason, with his defined splinters, is usually depicted with three faces in ancient texts. The Child, gaunt and dark colored, is said to appear before the downtrodden and impoverished. The few stories remaining tell of kindly people who give him an offering, and in exchange he reveals his true form, with his crown of golden ivy and beautiful strong wings to gift them bounties of food and water and riches. Other stories tell of not so kind encounters, where The Child witnesses an injustice - typically against women or children - and again reveals his true form, one with clawed hands and a mouth dripping with blood. Scholars argue what the wings looked like, but whichever All-Caste member annotated it before has compared their likeness to either a Robin or a Shrike.

There's also The Ghost, He appears young at first glance, but his hair is wirey and gray, his eyes milky and unseeing, in bloodied armor he greets the souls of the damned as they're delivered to him, and with scarred hands he wipes the tears of children taken too soon. Accounts of this face are few and far between, but all of them are entrenched in sorrow.

Finally there is The Soldier, scarred and still smoking from the ruins of battle he emerges, giving voice to the weak and resources to the needy. He champions revolutionaries and philosophers first, a strategist who delights in the liberation of the people from corrupt systems. Accounts of him usually come from times of famine and war, and he was particularly popular with poor villages, who would mark the graves of their dead with the symbol of his sword as offerings. For some reason or other, he got particularly popular with the youth, girls and boys both seemed to pray for him and leave him offerings.

The way these manifest on Jason is subtle at first. I could go the body horror route, but I won't. Yet. Instead I think his splinters show up as reflections, shadows, imprints. The faint echo of bell-like laughter when Jason does a move he learned as Robin, the image of a younger him with longer hair and unblinking eyes staring at him in the mirror. It gets worse when he gets the blades, the white streaks his hair, the swirling mark covers more of his skin every time he uses them, he trails the scent of smoke and blood behind him like a signature. His scars...they should disappear. They have for everyone else who used the pit, but instead his skin starts cracking. Any place he's ever been scarred glowing cracks break up his skin. He can't feel them, but he's always aware of them, the meaning behind them, the divinity literally leaking through his body. His eyes aren't brown anymore. They aren't even green. He looks in the mirror and they are copper, molten and burning. He tries his best to keep his mask on.

What do you think of when you imagine the word divinity? Probably something like Tara. Something with skin carved from stone, with moss and fungus crawling up her legs and snow laden shoulders. They say her hair is made of swirling clouds and the sun and moon are her eyes.

Some say she's a nymph although no one knows what kind. You're just as likely to see her name among the naiads as the dryads. Whether flowers bloom where she dances or waves crash when she sings, she's known to be more vicious towards suitors than her sisters.

Others have said she's a faerie, who takes the faces of lost daughters and lovers, slipping into their places seamlessly, forcing unruly men to pay their dues. Others say she's a shifter of a different sort, with a shawl of feathers and a crown of twine and gems. Stories range from men trying to steal her coat (and paying dearly) to lost children returned safely home on the back of a swan.

Tara doesn't think about it at first, the way gravity tends to cede to her, she doesn't notice how sunflowers turn their faces towards her instead of the sun. She doesn't notice the way her face...shifts. it's imperceptible really, and it's not like she looks in the mirror all that often. But everyone around her notices it, on some level, the way her expressions are off. A little too exaggerated. The way her limbs bend just a little too oddly. The way she never looks quite the same as she did the day before, the way she picks up features from the people around her the way she picks up rocks from ground to add to her collection. Clay molded subtly into the image of those she loves, a museum of everyone she's ever met. She does notice when her hair starts going white at the ends, the strange way her hair starts to curl unnaturally, almost floating. She's not so upset about her eyes, the deep blue of her father that has glared down at her day after day, she has changed her hair, her face, her language but she could not change her eyes. It seems she didn't have to, when she wakes up with one a little too silver to be gray and one a little too gold to be brown. And then her skin starts splitting, a cavern made from a broken rib and ravines made by the slashing of knives. She doesn't even bleed anymore, they never scab over. They crystallize, amber like ambrosia, like ichor. Her body a geode waiting to be cracked open to let the thing within finally break free.

They know the least about Grant, whatever he used to be. Half written scrolls, torn or burnt or simply stopped abruptly, illegible journal entries with symbols never recorded in any known language, half finished sketches where the details are never quite clear. A few things are usually consistent though, signs that he's been there, usually from hunters down on their luck or the particularly old and sickly. First, the howling. Like a wolf or a storm, although later accounts would add that it occasionally sounds like a mechanical whirring. Then the rabbits, dead and gutted, but not a trace of blood. Piles of them left in heaps on doorsteps or windowsills. Some have reported knocking at strange hours or finding teeth in their homes, a mix of human and animal. There is one photo on record, the most recent thing in the archive most likely, of claw marks on the side of a barn, too big and oddly serrated, certainly not from anything native to the area. Elderly that report these phenomena typically pass from heart problems within the week, according to some of the old medical files.

Grant came back wrong. Physically, at least. He knows that he's still himself for the most part, dying didn't make him a selfish asshole he did that all on his own, but...but something is wrong with him. It's the way lightbulbs flicker when he's mad and how cameras, no matter the quality, never quite get a clear shot of him. The way Joey can't ever grasp his features, not fully, the details slipping from his mind like water. The way eyes on his face slide right past, unable to look directly at him. It's in the gray spreading from his roots and his eyes too wide and dark to belong to something human. It's the way death clings to him like a second skin, sickly and pallid turning the tips of his fingers gray. His teeth are starting to feel too sharp for his mouth, and he hears things no one else does, whispers of voices that Are Not and Can't Be. The worst part is the orange, liquid candlelight under his skin, lighting up all of his veins and scars, webbing together like the world's worst game of connect the dots. No, there is no mistaking him for something human, so there is no reason to try. If this is his fate then he will take it, because he is not a sheep and he will not be a wolf, he is a hunter, and he is hungry.

[kirbyddd]

for a long while when I'd visit my relatives on the chesapeake for a brief respite from the hells of home life, there was an odd beat-up little cardboard box sitting amid the plastic-cased ds games in the gamestop I'd always visit (rarely to actually get anything)

finally, one time before the journey back to hell, i actually had a scattering of bills in my pocket. after looking around at the shelves of shovelware (i didnt have enough for any of the proper titles like mario or pokemon), i finally decided to bring the story to a close and give the ragged little box a home

it was Sola-to-Robo, one of the rarest ds games ever published, possibly the most technically advanced engine ever devised on the system, and among the most unique and emotional experiences I'd ever encountered in a video game (which is saying something considering I'd already all but lost emotion by that point)

i barely remember it anymore, but for the time it became my favorite standalone game of all time (although it technically is part of a series, succeeding the PS1's equally obscure Tail Concerto)

I still dream of returning to it and seeing just how well it holds up from a more experienced point of view

the one thing i do remember is that it had and still has by far the most beautiful and powerful opening song of any game ive ever encountered, which is saying something considering the hundreds out there! it's up there with Atelier Meruru's Cadena

also the fact that when you beat the game, after the credits it goes "chapter 2" and there's an entire sequel within the game. altogether both parts are probably not longer than any other rpg, but on the original ds where full 3d action rpgs were resource intensive and typically limited in scope, it was mindblowing

also it apparently had like undefeatable copy-protection and to this day still requires a modified rom to emulate or even run on original hardware without a card?

anyways.... remarkable game. i was shocked to find that it's one of the most sought after titles on the system. in rarities ive personally enountered it's second probably only to Retro Game Challenge, which I encountered at regular price once in the late 2010s but didnt have the money for at the time... that's my "one that got away"

[sortanonymous]

I can't stand the tension! I miss Unicorn: Warriors Eternal so much! I just need to know if it's coming back or not! If it's getting another season (or three like Genndy hoped for), then that's freaking awesome! If it's getting Zaslav'd before it can ever address that cliffhanger, then that's the biggest disgrace to happen in this industry in about a month or two (maybe idk). But just let ne know already! It's been a year! I miss Mel/Em, Ed, and the others so much! SGGYJGDGHBFGRKKDDYHHH

[stuck-in-the-ghost-zone]

i love these ship name polls so mucj because you can TELL just by looking in the notes who claims to be in the fandom and hasnt actually watched the show. some of these are so obvious guys. pointing at the d.px.d/c fans like. you guys have not actually watched danny phantom and it shows

[beefy-babe-showdown]

look i know i said i was only allowing 2 characters per source material but it turns out i was lying to you guys. she-ra, ok k.o.! and arcane will each have 3 entrants in the bracket

[tyrantwombat]

LET YOUR DEAF CHARACTERS USE SIGN LANGUAGE YOU FUCKING. COWARDS.

[absentlyabbie]

seriously, though. i work in higher education, and part of my job is students sending me transcripts. you'd think the ones who have the least idea how to actually do that would be the older ones, and while sure, they definitely struggle with it, i see it most with the younger students. the teens to early 20s crowd.

very, astonishingly often, they don't know how to work with .pdf documents. i get garbage phone screenshots, sometimes inserted into an excel or word file for who knows what reason, but most often it's just a raw .jpg or other image file.

they definitely either don't know how to use a scanner, don't have access to one, or don't even know where they might go for that (staples and other office supply stores sometimes still have these services, but public libraries always have your back, kids.) so when they have a paper transcript and need to send me a copy electronically, it's just terrible photos at bad angles full of thumbs and text-obscuring shadows.

mind bogglingly frequently, i get cell phone photos of computer screens. they don't know how to take a screenshot on a computer. they don't know the function of the Print Screen button on the keyboard. they don't know how to right click a web page, hit "print", and choose "save as PDF" to produce a full and unbroken capture of the entirety of a webpage.

sometimes they'll just copy the text of a transcript and paste it right into the message of an email. that's if they figure out the difference between the body text portion of the email and the subject line, because quite frankly they often don't.

these are people who in most cases have done at least some college work already, but they have absolutely no clue how to utilize the attachment function in an email, and for some reason they don't consider they could google very quickly for instructions or even videos.

i am not taking a shit on gen z/gen alpha here, i'm really not.

what i am is aghast that they've been so massively failed on so many levels. the education system assumed they were "native" to technology and needed to be taught nothing. their parents assumed the same, or assumed the schools would teach them, or don't know how themselves and are too intimidated to figure it out and teach their kids these skills at home.

they spend hours a day on instagram and tiktok and youtube and etc, so they surely know (this is ridiculous to assume!!!) how to draft a formal email and format the text and what part goes where and what all those damn little symbols means, right? SURELY they're already familiar with every file type under the sun and know how to make use of whatever's salient in a pinch, right???

THEY MUST CERTAINLY know, innately, as one knows how to inhale, how to type in business formatting and formal communication style, how to present themselves in a way that gets them taken seriously by formal institutions, how to appear and be competent in basic/standard digital skills. SURELY. Of course. RIGHT!!!!

it's MADDENING, it's insane, and it's frustrating from the receiving end, but even more frustrating knowing they're stumbling blind out there in the digital spaces of grown-up matters, being dismissed, being considered less intelligent, being talked down to, because every adult and system responsible for them just

ASSUMED they should "just know" or "just figure out" these important things no one ever bothered to teach them, or half the time even introduce the concepts of before asking them to do it, on the spot, with high educational or professional stakes.

kids shouldn't have to supplement their own education like this and get sneered and scoffed at if they don't.

[chaosandmarigolds]

yeah yeah Simon Riley with an equally badass partner sounds great but-

pre-k teacher?

Simon swore he had never seen something so...perfect in his life, and he had seen something pretty amazing things for all of the horrible things

Simon who is pretty certain he isn't good for you, after all he towers over you and whenever he does come by to help Price with a bake sale the kids stare up at him as if he's quite literally...a ghost

Simon and all of his scariness that melted away when you smiled up at him, a sweet thank you on your lips as you took the box to help clean out your classroom for the summer

Simon who told price he would find a way home on his own so he could stay to help you get all of the decoration down from the walls and get everything packed away

Simon who would snatch something he deemed too heavy with a hoarse, 'I gotchit, luv' not even realizing the pet name slipped out because it felt so...natural

Simon even though he tried to make your son sit on the small patch of carpet and keep him entertained with his book- he ended up becoming a playgym and babysitter while you did most of the heavy lifting

Simon who found your son to actually be pretty neat, unlike a lot of other children, telling the kid very censored versions of his time in the war as the little guy sat atop of his shoulders

Simon tried to very politely decline the dinner invitation (plus ride home) once the room was all packed up but gave in when you aptly took his hand and began to drag him to your car

Simon sat in the passenger seat as you apologized for the toy car that lay in the seat as you buckled your son into his car seat, smiling at the small photo that sat snug on the car screen

Simon encouraged the boys to sing along to the obscure children's song while you scolded him for it in the form of a light pat on the leg as you drove to the nearest child friendly restaurant (chick-fil-a or something along those lines)

Simon who paid for the dinner against your many denials and used it as the perfect excuse to hold your hand as he tapped the card against the reader

Simon who watched in wonder as you helped your son get his little boots untied so he could go play in the play area, your delicate hands and smile upon your perfect face...

Simon listened intently to everything you rambled about, from the happiness of teaching and why you chose it to your son and how he was the greatest blessing in disguise you had been given- funny, because he thought that about you

Simon when he heard that you would have to find a nanny for your son for over the summer since you'll need a second job wouldn't let that be for even a millionth of a second

''ll watch 'em, luv."

"Simon, that's so kind bu-"

"No buts, like the lil' guy, no problem."

Simon who does like the little boy you call your son, but who was mainly using the free babysitting as a reason to see you

Like it?? Part two is right Here!

[wonderjanga]

Billy and Bars

Now, as you probably know, most of the time Billy is ages 8 to maybe 15 (that’s what I’ve seen anyways) and of course, his Captain Marvel form looks like an adult. So, it wouldn’t be strange for an adult to ask another adult to go to a bar with them. Which is why Billy is caught in a dilemma. On one hand, he could just say no, but after a long mission where they’d all spent like two days on an alien planet under constant heavy fire from a cute and cuddly, yet surprisingly bloodthirsty race? It’d be weird not to accept. They might suspect him for being a kid! And boy, Billy does not want that. But on the other hand, he’s not of legal drinking age.

He ends up going with them anyways. Now, all the heroes are sat at a dingy bar in Central City, out of costume, of course. Though, some of them cough Bruce cough Diana cough Arthur cough and you can’t forget Billy, still in Marvel form. (He took a page out of Supe’s book and wore glasses. He’s also for some reason wearing Hawaiian print. (He didn’t have actual adult clothes and needed to borrow from a bargain bin))

Billy thankfully found a loophole for this whole mess. That’s right, this guys gonna be sipping virgin margaritas for the rest of the night. And, he try as many flavors as he wants because you wanna know the best part? Bruce is paying for everything! If Billy could jump in joy, he would. It didn’t matter that Hal was a little obnoxious when drunk off his mind. He’s dealt with worse and it’s not like it’s all that bad. He’s kinda funnier than usual this way. He gets the spend the rest of the day with people he considers friends, that’s all that really matters.

GL: “Dude, why do you keep ordering virgins?”

Crap. What does Billy say to that? Right off the bat, Billy ignores Solomon’s first, and quite frankly, wild lie to tell.

Marvel: “Hmm? Oh uh… I… like the way they taste…?”

He’s a bad liar.

Aquaman: *drinking beer* “Try again, bud.”

Okay… It looks like he might have to listen to Solomon after all. Gosh dang it.

Marvel: “Uhm… I kinda used to maybe sort of might’ve had an addiction and had to go to AA a long time ago.” *Sips drink*

He was always better at lying when the lie was already prepared.

*Whole table goes silent*

Marvel: “Uh… I’ve been sober for a while. Like…” ‘Twelve years, Billy,’ Solomon supplied in his head. “…Twelve years.”

*Table is still silent.*

Flash: *Interrupts silence by slamming hands on table* “Dude! You cannot keep dropping Marvel Lore Bombs™️ on us like this!” (Btw this is the same universe as the Marvel Compilations post. I didn’t mean to write it like it was the same universe but I might as well connect them cause why not)

Marvel: “Whaddya mean?”

Superman: “Well, Marvel…” *scratches back of head* “You kinda have this tendency to… Gosh, how do I put this?”

Martian Manhunter: “You drop obscure information about yourself at random times.”

Wonder Woman: “Then you just go about your day like you didn’t say it in the first place. For example Cap, you can’t just tell me that at some point you were an Amazonian, you were there for my birth, and then just walk off.”

GL: “Marvel, how old are you?”

Marvel: “Uuuuuuhhhhhhh….”

Batman: “You date back to having existed before Mesopotamia. I want to know the answer to that question Marvel.” *Bat-glares Billy while sipping from his drink.*

Bruce was definitely going to add the AA thing to his quite small folder on Marvel.

The night continues on with the other members of the JL grilling Billy for more information about himself, which Solomon helps with by either supplying him with lies, or with things previous champions did. By the time the night was over, Billy never wanted to go to a bar again. He unshazamed in an alley and went home to his little place. He bee-lined to his sleeping bag and just when he was about to fall asleep, something popped into his mind:

‘Why didn’t I just say I didn’t like the way it tastes?’ That thought kept him up for a couple more hours.

[notaplaceofhonour]

One of the most frustrating parts of the extreme rhetoric around Israel/Palestine (besides the obvious reliance on antisemitic & anti-Arab, Islamophobic tropes) is that it exceptionalizes so many things that are actually pretty standard features of nation-states and war in a way that completely compartmentalizes the criticism of these things into just being about criticizing the “few bad apple” countries instead of criticizing the entire institution of nation-states and war as a whole.

For instance: the fact is that war kills civilians, at an alarming average of 6:1 civilians-to-combatants deaths. The status quo of war, across the board, is that way more civilians die than combatants. And yet, despite the high death toll, despite Hamas using civilian infrastructure & noncombatants as human shields (which Hamas has openly admitted to doing), despite the imprecise & destructive nature of using bombs on urban targets, and despite the inadequate humanitarian aid that has been able to make it into Gaza… the IDF has still managed to stayed well below the average of civilian casualties.

The point of saying this is not “this is what war looks like so it’s not a big deal” it’s “this is what war looks like so we as a species need to stop doing it”—seeing the devastation war has brought to the people Gaza should move you, and it should make you never want to see another war again. It should make you want a ceasefire not just for Israel and this war but all wars always. And obviously, in practice, it’s not that simple—peace is more than “just don’t do war” and the thing about ceasefires and peace treaties is they kind of have to be mutual to mean anything—but the point stands: War Bad.

However, if instead you see the destruction in Gaza and think it’s an exceptional case, where Israel is evil and the only way war could be this destructive is genocide, you get to preserve this romanticized, idealistic fantasy of war as, violent yes, but perhaps only in a cathartic, tragic-but-beautiful way—a glorious struggle where two armies clash on a battlefield far removed from everyday life and only soldiers die. You get to preserve your belief in Just War, to look forward to a morally uncomplicated Glorious Revolution™️—you may even preserve your ability to cheer on the death of Israelis.

And that’s just one issue. There are others: the claim of “ethnostate” obscures criticisms of nation-states as a concept, the claim of “apartheid” obscures criticisms of how borders & citizenship are set up across the world, etc. This inverse Israeli Exceptionalism where Israel is treated as uniquely or exceptionally problematic isn’t simply discriminatory or rooted in prejudice (which are reasons enough to criticize it, as I have), it’s actively impeding the left’s ability to criticize the actual structural systems that are the problem.

[olderthannetfic]

hi, as someone who is tragically gen Z and only ever read AO3, can I ask: what was so great about LiveJournal? Like, I know that there were fics posted there (and I've even read about the "purge", so I get why it isn't used anymore) and that it was sort of a forum-type thing. But what I don't understand, wouldn't Tumblr fill in the latter function? How was that site any different? I see a lot of people reminiscing about it and I'm confused

--

A big factor in LJ's greatness is timing and nostalgia.

It was genuinely great, but it wasn't quite as great as all of the Lo, shall the Golden Age ne'er come again? posts suggest.

LJ arrived at a pivotal time in the development of the internet both in terms of technical stuff and how many people had access. Many fans who are now in their thirties to fifties first discovered fandom through LJ and many were at a time in their lives when they were feeling energetic and up to making lots of new friends—and to figuring out how to make a site work for them.

I got on LJ in 2002 when it required invites. Fandom arrived in droves in 2003, first via coordinated campaigns to get invites to key people and then when LJ opened up free account creation to everyone. Back then, LJ's features sucked. It was impossible to search properly, among other things. At its height (2005-7, let's say), there was a reasonable site search, and fans had developed all sorts of community resources for finding each other.

People often remember this phase but not the early days of suckitude.

This development parallels how Tumblr used to not have that private chat feature and how a lot of fuckyeah[whatever] type tumblrs have helped curate the site and make it much more usable for fans. Fandom draining away from LJ after strikethrough also parallels people draining away from Tumblr after the purge.

There are people who talk about Tumblr the way my cohort talks about LJ...

And to the shock of no one, they are people who came of age on Tumblr, who found fandom via Tumblr, who were on Tumblr during pivotal times in their lives and ones when they had energy to make friends and figure out how a site worked.

Those same Tumblrites are now making all the same geriatric-sounding posts we LJers do about how other sites lack the required features to be good for fandom while missing that 90% of tumblr's "features" at its height (2012-2016, let's say) were actually fan-created and were basically the same as any fandom newsletter or links page or all the versions of this kind of personal curation stretching back to long before the internet existed.

What life phase you hit a site at matters.

--

With all of that said, no, LJ was not a forum. It was a blogging site with threaded comments.

The key point to understand is that conversation was always happening in a specific person's space. Unlike on a true forum, people were in the comments on a particular post in a journal owned by another fan. (On a forum, there's the first post in a thread, but it's still more of a communal space with less of a hierarchy.)

Overall, the LJ format can have a feeling a bit like you're over at someone's house for tea. There's more of a sense of intimacy and also behaving yourself in front of community members.

Tumblr being obscure and impossible to find anything in does give it some of the same vibe relative to Twitter, but it's still part of modern social media that tries to shove every rando into the face of every other rando.

But it wasn't just vibes: LJ also had robust privacy features where you could lock a post to this or that group of friends. You could moderate your comments section properly. Tumblr has far fewer controls to force people to behave or leave on a technical level.

--

The biggest thing many people miss about LJ is the threaded comments. At least by late LJ and on Dreamwidth, you can expand and collapse threads, making it far easier to deal with a massive comments section. But more than that, things are properly threaded with multiple levels of hierarchy that are all easily visible in the same place.

On Tumblr, it used to be extremely difficult to find all of the actual commentary on a post. Nowadays, it's far easier, but you still have to scroll chronologically, and multiple versions of a post with a long chain of commentary may be much more divorced from each other than what would happen in a LJ comments section.

--

But could we use Tumblr pretty much how we used LJ?

We could.

I do.

--

The key things that people tend to miss about LJ, aside from the younger and more excited version of themselves or the friends they've lost since then, are:

Heavily text-based

It may sound odd on the modern internet, but there are a lot of people whose brains don't like or handle an image-heavy site well. They were everywhere in SF book fandom. They were everywhere on the early internet. Today, they're hanging out on Dreamwidth and still going to their SF cons. They're usually not on Tumblr.

You could follow the discussion

Threaded comments help, but a lot of it is about having some place you can check for updates. It wasn't actually that easy to follow big LJ discussions unless you were subscribed to comments and reading along as things were happening instead of coming along after the entire mass of comments had been left.

The tone of the discussion is intellectual and one's enemies are "idiots", not "problematic"

All this requires is a penchant for longwindedness and an itchy blocking finger to remove anyone slinging ad hominems from the comments section.

On tumblr, it's as simple as conversations happening in the replies on a popular account and that person not tolerating suibaiting and threats.

(And make no mistake, a lot of LJ discussion was in the comments on popular accounts, not spread equally between everyone's.)

It does require that multiple people like that tone and want to engage in that way, but lots of people do want to.

--

These days, I interact with tumblr by checking my askbox and reading my activity page. The vast, vast majority of my posts are ones where I'm the OP, so if I block someone, they're booted from the discussion entirely.

For me... yeah, Tumblr functions almost exactly like LJ.

Also like LJ, while I'm hosting the conversation, if you hang around, you'll see the same people again and again in the comments. They may or may not also host that kind of conversation in their space, and there's a larger pool of lurkers who have some notion of which people count as regulars. Other people are watching from the shadows, enjoying or deriding the takes of the usual crowd.

People presumably do like reading my lengthy commentary or they wouldn't be here, but my tumblr wouldn't be popular like this without a healthy pool of other people who chime in regularly. It's not just that there are more people: it's that you see the same people over time. There's a bit more sense of place and community than on some parts of the internet.

--

So, in my opinion, the failure to just recreate LJ fandom on Tumblr was a skill issue.

Threaded comments were great, but LJ culture came from mailing lists, and mailing lists had the same issue as tumblr with the diverging threads.

We solved that back then by clipping out only the parts we wanted to respond to (you'd write "snip" around the quotation to show it was incomplete). We solved the smaller LJ issue by linking to other posts we were referencing and doing discussion link roundups. We solve it on tumblr by, again, linking to what we're talking about and even quoting multiple reblog chains in our own reblog of just one chain.

--

Tumblr's technical features and even general crap-ness aren't really the problem. 90s and early 00s sites regularly went down for periods of time unthinkable today.

The missing piece is people.

When one is in an active fandom with others who curate or with friends who let one know what's up, a site with imperfect features is easy to figure out and retrofit for fandom's needs. When one already feels out of touch and is between fannish passions—or at least fannish passions anyone else cares about—seeing the potential in a new site is hard.

--

Threaded comments are different and better.

LJ's built-in way to see everyone's blog in your own style was better. The automatic timestamps and the ease of seeing a paginated archive of an entire blog was better than tumblr's endless scroll and lack of clear date labeling. But some of that can be fixed with xkit or knowing your way around tumblr well.

A lot of it is nostalgia for the lj era and a refusal to take the time to figure out how to use tumblr in an oldschool internet way.

--

So by all means, people, weigh in about what made LJ great or how the culture felt at the time...

But if I see one more god damn response going "You can't have a conversation on tumblr!" in reply to my tumblr, which contains nothing but conversation, I am coming for you.

[saintsenara]

Do you think harry is more similar to lily or James

thank you very much for the ask, anon!

i think the assessment of harry's character which dumbledore gives to snape in deathly hallows is more or less the correct one:

“He is his father over again -”  “In looks, perhaps, but his deepest nature is much more like his mother’s.”

which i think can be expanded upon really interestingly as an example of something which the series does really, really well - how it obscures the fact that lily is the key to the mystery right up until the last minute.

the things harry has in common with james - not only his looks, but his quidditch talent, his impulsivity, his disregard for the rules, his arrogance, his cunning, his beef with snape, his adoration of sirius, his belief that his uncle is faintly ridiculous, and his bold, flashy courage - are big and explicit and demonstrative, and the text lampshades that they're inherited from his father at every opportunity.

[and not only in how many characters mention that he looks like james. voldemort - for example - mentions james' demonstrative bravery - facing him "like a man" - every time he and harry interact; sirius and lupin never mention lily when discussing harry's personality, even when what they're talking about is how he's not like james.]

the text also goes out of its way to suggest that similarly big aspects of lily's character have not been inherited by her son - the most obvious example of which is that, in half-blood prince, the incandescent talent at potions which has slughorn raving about how like his mother harry is... is actually the result of harry cheating [and cheating from a textbook he's convinced for much of the book might have belonged to james].

the only thing the text emphasises again and again that harry has inherited from his mother are his eyes.

and - in doing this - the series is actually telling us something very clear about what it understands harry to have in common with lily.

eyes are a frequent motif throughout the text, which are almost always connected to the themes of authenticity and truth.

dumbledore's eyes give away his true feelings in goblet of fire - when the "gleam of something like triumph" comes into them after he learns that voldemort used harry's blood to resurrect himself - before serving as a metaphor for the way the information about the prophecy is being withheld from harry in order of the phoenix when he refuses to make eye contact with him.

[dumbledore's eyes also stop "twinkling" after voldemort returns, in a sign of how serious the situation - which the ministry never appreciates the full gravity of - is becoming.]

occlumency and legilimency - the obscuring and seeking of truth - depend on eye contact. the teenage tom riddle's eyes - with their gleam of red - give away his true depravity, even when he's still outwardly charming and beautiful. the teen snape sees the reason for his obsession with the marauders "wrenched from him against his will" at the force of lily's glare [and the adult snape frequently averts his own gaze from harry when he clearly doesn't want to risk seeing anger or pain in lily's eyes]. ginny's love for harry - her "never giving up" on him, her willingness to wait and endure while he goes off on the horcrux hunt - is communicated by a "blazing look". the basilisk kills by looking - but doesn't kill anyone in chamber of secrets, since the truth about the culprit isn't known. and so on...

which is to say - the series regards the eyes as the windows to the soul [an idea which is connected to a verse in chapter six of the gospel of matthew - the verse immediately preceding which, "for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also", is inscribed upon kendra and ariana dumbledore's graves] and to the true, inner nature of a person.

in mentioning again and again that harry looks like james except for his eyes, what the narrative is doing is hinting to the reader that harry's big, obvious, showy similarities with his father mustn't let them miss that the more subtle traits of his personality - his steadfastness, his quiet courage in the face of hopelessness, his ability to love so much it changes the entire course of history - come from his mother, and that what he inherits from lily will be much more important to the resolution of the story than the things he inherits from james.

this is a clue it plays with really nicely - particularly because harry doesn't really care at any point prior to the last third of deathly hallows about what he inherits from lily more than he cares about what he inherits from james.

we - as readers - go through his experience of learning that his mother is the key to the whole mystery in real time - when we join harry in snape's memories - and we walk into the forest with a harry who now knows the whole truth: that he's more like his mother than he's previously realised, and that he'll therefore be able to do the same thing that she did, and die so that others might live.

“You won’t be killing anyone else tonight,” said Harry as they circled, and stared into each other’s eyes, green into red. “You won’t be able to kill any of them ever again.”

[shaisuki]

Hi!! Idk if you're taking requests but I'll shoot my shot!!

I wanted to know if you add onto the suna and Miya twins bully series where the reader decides to leave the team and join another (preferably nekoma) and gets a new trio (kuroo, kenma and Yamamoto) who actually praises and appreciate her and she decides to rub it in their face by sending videos of the trio fucking her and cute photos and when the Miya twins and suna try to confront her they get told off by her new boys😋

you've gotten petty and bold.

it's not like you planned it more like it was suggested to you. since you transferred to nekoma and made genuine connection to your team. it was like a weight lifted off you and you weren't scared on what about to happen. you don't get harassed after school hours and the team shows how grateful they are to you. going as far giving you trinkets they knew you would like.

nekomata-sensei treated you like his granddaughter and manabu-sensei looks out for you at times. for the first time, you thought that you really found your team for you and them the manager they always wanted. not treating you differently since you're a previous manager at powerhouse team and a regular contender in the nationals. a manager is a manager they say and you greeted them with a smile and the care you can provide for them as a manager.

that is the reason you have gotten close with the team captain. kuroo tetsurou. charming he can be and a handsome face to boost. it didn't took long for you and him to hit it and it extended with his friend and the team's setter, kozume kenma. you like kenma and it reminds you of yourself a bit. introverted and likes to keep to themself which you didn't mind at all. it took him a long time for him to warm up to you and the rest was history and there's yamamoto who can't talk without stuttering to you. kuroo said he's that nervous only when a girl talk to him. you find the gesture cute and other than his younger sister, you found out one time when you talked to him and he seems to relax at the thought of his sister, it was almost normal how he spoke to you like a friend. comfortable and inviting that's why you're the one who took his virginity.

“does it feels good, tora-kun?” you asked him, although a little breathless. his cock huge and nestled deeply inside your pussy. eyes closing and breath labored trying himself not to bust the moment you sink your fat cunt to his cock. “y-yes.” he stutters. fists clenching and he bites a back a moan when you started to move. “good. let me take care of you.”

then you began to have your own trio. the kindest of the trio. they would whisper you sweet nothings followed by appreciation that you were a good manager while you bounce on their cocks. you've never felt this so good about yourself, not even in the previous team you managed. this was the best and kuroo knowing how the inarizaki team treated you especially those three who fooled you, devises a plan. suggesting that you send a video and pictures of how they are treating you well and you agreed.

it was suna who received it. the videos and then followed many more. circumstances have forced you to left the school and went to move to tokyo where he recently found out that you were also the team's manager of the school volleyball club. he was pissed and then the twins received it. they were fuming. you allowed yourself to be somebody's cumdump instead of only them and they currently watched the videos you sent just to tub them in their faces from how good they were fucking you plus the praises that got your slutty pussy gushing.

first, it was you and then some three guys in the video. you're bouncing on someone's dick (yamamoto's) while you give a handjob to the other guy (kenma) obscured by the video and only his lower body can be seen in the video and you're blowing someone (kuroo's). his hands in your cheeks while he swallows your cock. telling you how much of a good girl you are for taking care of them and their cocks. letting them blow off the steam in their bodies to you. exceeding what a manager can do for her teammates. your speech garbled, slobbering all over kuroo's cock. they can see you were smiling while looking at the camera. swallowing his cock deeper and bouncing more on yamamoto's cock. a huge fuck you to them. all suna knows that it would be the first and last just to let them know how you're doing but it was proven wrong when you send a video again and then again.

it was different the videos are. one of them is you sitting while kuroo eats your pussy. the squelch of your pussy and the smacking of his lips can be heard while you moan in the background. your fingers gripping his hair while you grind on his face more which the latter eagerly lap your heat more. the other is all of your holes are stuff. dripping with their cum while you pose a peace sign with their spent all over you. it was endless.

and when they confronted you about it of how a huge slut are you for letting guys fuck you like that, let's say your new trio defended you. if they can't appreciate you they will and that seems to shut the ex-trio who are your bullies. ex-bullies.

you rewarded them three with a tlc that can only come from you.

[thankskenpenders]

Amy's fortune cards

The Sonic fandom has long been the kind of fandom that takes minor details very seriously, for better or worse. On the one hand, this means fans will really dig for the diamonds in the rough, latching onto fun character interactions, animations, bits of background worldbuilding, and more in pieces of Sonic media that many would write off as "the bad ones." But it also feels like every week another needlessly hostile debate over Sonic minutia erupts on Twitter, whether it's over individual lines of dialogue, fanart that makes Tails' shoes blue, or the ideal length and volume for Sonic's quills.

So it was probably inevitable that a fandom-wide debate would erupt upon seeing Amy's new gameplay style in the DLC for Sonic Frontiers, which takes the once-obscure fact that she enjoys reading tarot and shines a spotlight on it like never before.

I mean:

The thing is, while I basically always try to tune out Sonic fandom bickering... for once, I kind of sympathize with the detractors? Don't get me wrong, I like Amy's tarot stuff, and people on all sides of the discussion are being overly nasty about their opinions, as usual. (Sonic Twitter remains my personal hell.) But when I set aside the hyperbole and zoom out, I do think I understand why some fans are put off by the sudden shift in focus for the character, even if I think it's cool.

It's complicated. Let me attempt to present the cases for and against Amy's fortune cards

For years, I was always one of those fans who thought it could be fun if they played with Amy's tarot reading, or even leaned into some kind of magic with her. Part of that is my own biases showing, but there's just something that makes sense there, especially when you look at Sonic, Tails, and Amy as a trio. (I would argue that's the real "Team Sonic" these days, especially in the comics where Knuckles is more likely to be stuck on Angel Island or otherwise doing his own thing.)

You could argue that Tails is all about logic, relying on science and technology and deductive reasoning to solve problems. But Amy is all about emotion. She wears her heart on her sleeve, is extremely empathetic, and is very prone to magical thinking - both figuratively and sometimes literally. Her origin story has always been that her tarot cards told her it was her destiny to meet Sonic on Little Planet. She's claimed to be able to "sense" peoples' presences - particularly Sonic's. She's the type to believe that The Power of Love is a literal magical force. So, on some level, it makes sense to mirror Tails's science by having Sonic's other best friend believe in magic. And then Sonic is somewhere in the middle, primarily following his own gut instincts but taking advice from both of them as needed. This isn't totally accurate to how their dynamics actually function in canon stories, but I think it's a mode that could work for them.

Going off of that, it's fun to lean all the way into Amy being a magical girl, or even a witch, using her fortune telling as a foundation. Take, for example, this version of Amy from Diana Skelly's old Sonic cast redesigns from before she freelanced for Archie and IDW. This is one of MANY such redesigns for Amy.

Fast forward to the 2020s, and Amy's tarot cards are, in fact, finally getting brought up again in canon. Which is fun! I like seeing that. I like all of the individual stories involving Amy's fortune cards. This is a fun character trait for Amy, a fun nod to old lore, AND a fun storytelling device, all in one. It's really cool that the Sonic universe has its own thematically appropriate arcana, and that the cards are getting made as physical merch. And sure enough, the official card backs and borders were designed by none other than Diana Skelly, in yet another cool example of an ascendant fan leaving their mark on the series.

BUT... when you step back and look at the big picture, I get why some fans find this shift in focus jarring. At the moment, it's starting to feel like every new story about Amy involves her fortune cards to some degree.

The most recent mainline comic arc to feature Amy as the lead character, 2021's Trial by Fire arc, prominently features a sequence where she reads fortunes while camping with the girls. The Origins version of Sonic CD now bookends the game with scenes of Amy and her tarot cards. Sonic randomly mentioned it in a scene in Frontiers. And now, just this week, we got the (very cute, gorgeously illustrated) Amy's 30th Anniversary comic with a story revolving around Amy's tarot cards, followed the very next day by the Frontiers DLC in which she gets a brand new tarot-based moveset. Even her base melee attack now has her throwing tarot cards instead of swinging her hammer. Again, I like all of these individual things, but after years of it almost never coming up at all, it's VERY noticeable that Amy's tarot cards are suddenly everywhere.

To be fair, I'm looking at this from the perspective of a superfan who's actively following ALL Sonic media. Casual fans - especially kids - aren't necessarily going to be reading the comics every month, buying the thousandth rerelease of the Genesis games, or playing the ultra-hard new alternate ending DLC for a game that came out last year. Each of these stories is going to be someone's introduction to the idea that Amy can read tarot, and that's probably part of the idea behind this unified push.

But to play devil's advocate, for my fellow superfans, I understand why it feels like a very minor footnote of Amy's character is suddenly becoming the entire focus of her personality. While Amy has always been said to enjoy fortune telling, that wasn't really a character trait in and of itself, but rather an example of her being a typical girl who hopes she'll be able to find true love one day. It's less that Amy can literally predict the future and more like her using a cootie catcher or going "he loves me, he loves me not" while picking the petals off of a flower. So I get not vibing with this stuff, or feeling like it's being pushed very hard out of nowhere.

What I don't agree with are comparisons like "it's like if they made Knuckles' moveset revolve around him liking grapes." Like, I get it. Ian Flynn loves shoehorning in his little winking references for us nerds, and mentions of Amy's tarot cards were previously on the same level as other random bullet points from old Japanese manuals. But a multifaceted hobby like fortune telling that opens up so many narrative and aesthetic possibilities is obviously very different from having a favorite food. It's ALWAYS been a part of her story, not just a random fact, and there's no reason why the fortune telling can't be elevated to something more.

And, hell, even if it wasn't an established character trait, there's nothing inherently wrong with injecting new ideas into a character. One of the best Amy stories in recent years, the Free Comic Book Day special "Amy's New Hobby" written by Gale Galligan, came up with the idea that Amy's secretly been drawing little comics about her and her friends. Is this based on Lore? No. But it's cute, and helps tell the story of a younger Amy who's still coming out of her shell as both a hero and a friend.

Certain fans are also looking at Amy's Frontiers moveset and using it as evidence that once again the Vile American Contributors like Ian are CORRUPTING Sonic Team's perfect vision of Sonic with their misinterpretations. And like. Come on. Ian does not control the gameplay. He's a freelance writer. The tarot stuff is clearly something that Sonic Team likes if they made it the basis of Amy's new moveset - and, you know, if they keep approving comics and animations about Amy's fortune telling. None of this gets made without their blessing, and lord knows how much they can micromanage shit and shoot down ideas over the most minor of details.

Like, yeah, Amy's fortune telling was probably conceived less as a sign that she Knows Magic and more as a pretty mundane hobby for a lovesick young Japanese girl to have. But you're gonna sit there and tell me that using Amy's tarot cards for more than that could only be the result of a cultural misunderstanding? That nobody in Japan uses tarot card theming and aesthetics (or the general idea of magical cards) for the cool factor? Stardust Crusaders? Persona? The Astrologian class in FFXIV? Cardcaptor Sakura?? Hello??? Do you think Capcom put Gambit in Marvel vs. Capcom ironically because they thought using magic to throw cards at people was stupid? There's tons of precedent for this! It's nothing like Knuckles throwing grapes at people, be for real.

Giving Amy a very magical girl-esque moveset also just makes a lot of sense. For decades her hammer attacks have literally made sparkly heart shapes appear around her. Leaning into both that and her tarot cards in her new moveset makes a lot of sense to me.

But, admittedly... I do think it's very odd that her hammer is treated as a secondary element here, rather than having her primarily use her hammer and adding the cards for extra flair. If hitting the attack button made her swing her hammer instead of throwing cards, I'm not sure we'd even be having this discussion right now.

But the tarot-cycle and Amy riding her hammer like a witch's broom are fucking SICK and I will not concede on this point

The thing is, this whole fortune card discourse is but a small piece of a bigger problem. Amy's been a character who needed some work for ages, but there's basically nothing you can do with her without pissing SOMEONE off.

Years of stories where Amy's crush was her primary motivator and Sonic went "Ew, cooties!" have lead many casual fans to believe that being Sonic's obsessive fangirl is Amy's entire personality. At best people might call her Sonic's Minnie Mouse. This isn't just a matter of Amy having haters within the fandom - venture outside of that bubble and you'll realize that this is how MOST video game playing people seem to see her to this day. I don't feel like this is a fair assessment of the character, but this idea didn't come from nowhere. No matter how much good deeply entrenched Sonic fans may see in their old dynamic where Amy perpetually chases Sonic, this is a very real problem that Sonic Team has to contend with for their leading girl. Of course all those games where the way-past-cool protagonist thought Amy was annoyingly clingy and tried to get away from her made people think less of her.

If new stories were to go back to emphasizing Amy's crush on Sonic a little more, they'd probably be taken as confirmation that Amy's just the girl with a crush on Sonic and that this is her entire personality. Conversely, when the crush is played down, you piss off the hardcore SonAmy fans who don't seem to understand that they're Charlie Brown and Sega is Lucy holding the football. You can't win.

And so here we are. In the absence of what was once her defining trait, now reduced to an occasional blush or wink in Sonic's direction, new stories are trying to mine Amy's past for additional material to work with. Having been a thing fans wanted to see for years, right now we're getting a lot of tarot, but we're also getting reminders of her compassionate nature and her desire to go out of her way to help the little guy. This is an ongoing process. I continue to hope that her bubbly, exuberant demeanor can shine more in future stories. Now, I also hope that the tarot stuff gets balanced out a little better with other traits of hers. But I don't want it to go away. I think it's fun.

This course correcting is far from exclusive to Amy. Knuckles is getting stories that remind us that he's a competent fighter, an experienced treasure hunter, and even a self-taught archaeologist after years of him being perceived as either the dumb one or just the guy who stands in front of the Master Emerald all day. And Tails has been getting some stories reminding folks that he's a capable hero in his own right and not just Sonic's timid kid sidekick.

But no supporting character will ever compete with the sheer number of new ideas Sega has tried with Sonic himself. Like Amy, his Frontiers moveset has also given him half a dozen new superpowers that he never had before, from the Cyloop to air-slicing projectile attacks to his own take on Shadow Clone Jutsu and beyond. He's also been a hoverboarder, a swordsman, a time traveler, an Olympic athlete, a racecar driver, cursed with a Flame of Judgment, imbued with alien power, a fucking Werehog with stretchy powers, and on and on and on.

If Sonic can do all that, Amy can try out using a tarot-cycle.

Anyway TL;DR the REAL problem with Amy's current characterization... is where the FUCK is Amy's bestie, Honey the Cat???????