#i think like my favs for sure for the og sonic crew are amy sonic eggman and metal

[felikatze]

Rambling about IDW Amy because i love her

(i've currently only read to #56 so this post only covers up to there)

actually i'm still thinking abt amy. i really love how amy has this like, very quiet character arc in idw? she's introduced fighting alongside sonic and she has FUN and it's a blast and an escape for her and she sighs going back to the resistance. and it gets even WORSE when knuckles ditches to go back to angel island and amy is just The Leader Now.

what makes it great is that amy is a pretty compassionate character to begin with. she wants to help people!! both because she admires sonic being a hero i think but also because she just likes doing it. but her help for others tends to be on the more personable level rather than grand saving the world business. like how often is amy just a core supporting character (this is not an insult) and helps prop people up to do the hero-ing instead. like big examples of her being personable and compassionate in games being the SA games with gamma and how she was the one who got shadow to turn around, or her supporting role for silver in 06.

and like, again, her help is on a personal level. and she wants to help everyone, she really does. because now, with the restoration, she is Responsible for everyone. she doesn't just want to make people happy, she has to. as again, contrasted by knuckles being the lone hero type - the status quo is restored, so he's done, bye, while amy tries to get the people back to actually happily living their lives and moving on from trauma and whatnot, instead of just removing The Big Threat.

and she's the only one of the core cast who's gonna do that. who's gonna see beyond the big hero shtick. but it is simply Too Much <3 it is too much. she's constantly tired and exhausted. it's ACTIVIST BURNOUT BABEYYYYY

in making herself responsible for Everyone, she stops being able to help people on the personal level she's used to. and she CONSTANTLY grumbles about her job, about how she hates large scale organizing and logistics and all this dumb shit that actually goes into running a huge organization.

notable here how when she's w the restoration, she Immediately perks up when Sonic & co. show up, and ya ya, her crush on Sonic, but also because like, again, back to her introduction! The hero stuff becomes going back to her roots, making a big tangible difference, getting out of the minutae - it's an escape. yknow, that's what sonic stands for, and all. freedom. being w sonic and the gang, even outside her persistent infatuation (which she even tamps down to get to business!), sonic is freedom, to her.

and it all comes to a head w the zombot arc, obviously, because if running a rebuilding squad was tough, running a zombie apocalypse shelter is worse, just constant setbacks and losses and stress and Everything Sucks So Bad For Everyone.

there's not really a great big moment of realization for amy to step down, it's just that Tangle goes, hey, i got this friend who likes bureocracy, and amy JUMPS at the opportunity.

and after that, amy starts joining main storylines more often (e.g. chao races!! hanging out w cream and rouge!) and she's having more fun and obviously way less Fucking Stressed all the time.

thinking abt the camping arc or whatever it's called (i will never remember names of arcs) where amy takes the girls on a roadtrip. belle is experiencing major daddy issues, tangle is dealing with a breakup (kinda), and jewel is unsure of herself, and amy forces all of them to take a break. she's paying it forward!

and you see her in that arc slot right on back into that supporting role she's so much more comfortable in, in how she supports and encourages jewel to develop the leadership abilities amy knows she has, and this does actually help jewel step up to bat and solve the crisis.

amy's learned that she can't be responsible for everyone, or she's just gonna run herself into the ground without helping anyone, and her solution for that is to limit her scope. she focuses on her friends, on the people in her immediate surroundings, the people she knows and connects with. what she's good at.

which is!! such a good direction to take her character!! man!! i know ppl r complaining abt amy's crush on sonic being toned down in recent games (generations remaster WHAT are you doing) and i think the idw comics did a FANTASTIC job expanding her character beyond her crush (while still keeping it, even), by extrapolating the emotional impact of how she fares from her role in forces!! (considering how weak forces' writing is, isn't that Fucking Incredible.)

anyways, this is probably my favorite take on Amy <3 go girl set limits to your compassion because bleeding hearts can only bleed out <3 also again like fun Recontextualization what the crush on sonic means for her like, symbolically. it's good.