Learning that fans hated Applejack and called her "boring" is crazyyy to me because I genuinely, unironically believe AJ's the most complex character in the main six.
Backstory-wise, she was born into a family of famers/blue collar workers who helped found the town she lives in. She grew up a habitual liar until she had the bad habit traumatized outta her. She lost both her parents and was orphaned at a young age, having to step up as her baby sister's mother figure. She's the only person in the main gang who's experienced this level of loss and grief (A Royal Problem reveals that AJ dreams about memories of being held by her parents as a baby). She moved to Manhattan to live with her wealthy family members, only to realize she'll never fit in or be accepted, even amongst her own family. The earlier seasons imply she and her family had money problems too (In The Ticket Master, AJ wants to go to the gala to earn money to buy new farm equipment and afford hip surgery for her grandma).
Personality-wise, she's a total people-pleaser/steamroller (with an occasional savior complex) who places her self worth on her independence and usefulness for other people, causing her to become a complete workaholic. In Applebuck Season, AJ stops taking care of herself because of her obsessive responsibilities for others and becomes completely dysfunctional. In Apple Family Reunion, AJ has a tearful breakdown because in she thinks she dishonored her family and tarnished her reputation as a potential leader –– an expectation and anxiety that's directly tied to her deceased parents, as shown in the episode's ending scene. In The Last Roundup, AJ abandons her family and friends out of shame because believes she failed them by not earning 1st place in a rodeo competition. She completely spirals emotionally when she isn't able to fulfill her duties toward others. Her need to be the best manifests in intense pride and competitiveness when others challenge her. And when her pride's broken, she cowers and physically hides herself.
Moreover, it's strongly implied that AJ has a deep-seated anger. The comics explore her ranting outbursts more. EQG also obviously has AJ yelling at and insulting Rarity in a jealous fit just to hurt her feelings (with a line that I could write a whole dissection on). And I'm certain I read in a post somewhere that in a Gameloft event, AJ's negative traits are listed as anger.
Subtextually, a lot of these flaws and anxieties can be (retroactively) linked to her parents' death, forcing her to grow up too quickly to become the adult/caregiver of the family (especially after her big brother becomes semiverbal). Notice how throughout the series, she's constantly acting as the "mom friend" of the group (despite everything, she manages to be the most emotionally mature of the bunch). Notice how AJ'll switch to a quieter, calmer tone when her friends are panicking and use soothing prompts and questions to talk them through their emotions/problems; something she'd definitely pick up while raising a child. Same with her stoicism and reluctance at crying or releasing emotions (something Pinkie explicitly points out). She also had a childhood relationship with Rara (which, if you were to give a queer reading, could easy be interpreted as her first 'aha' crush), who eventually left her life. (Interestingly enough, AJ also has an angry outburst with Rara for the same exact reasons as with EQG Rarity; jealous, upset that someone else is using and changing her). It's not hard to imagine an AJ with separation anxiety stemming from her mother and childhood friend/crush leaving. I'm also not above reading into AJ's relationship with her little sister (Y'all ever think about how AB never got to know her parents, even though she shares her father's colors and her mother's curly hair?).
AJ's stubbornness is a symptom of growing up too quickly as well. Who else to play with your baby sister when your brother goes nonverbal (not to discount Big Mac's role in raising AB)? Who else to wake up in the middle of the night to care for your crying baby sister when your grandma needs her rest? When you need to be 100% all the time for your family, you tend to become hard-stuck with a sense of moral superiority. You know what's best because you have to be your best because if you're aren't your best, then everything'll inevitably fall apart and it'll be your fault. And if you don't know what's best –– if you've been wrong the whole time –– that means you haven't been your best, which means you've failed the people who rely on you, which means you can't fulfill your role in the family/society, which makes you worthless . We've seen time and time again how this compulsive need to be right for the sake of others becomes self-destructive (Apple Family Reunion, Sound of Silence, all competitions against RD). We've seen in The Last Roundup how, when no longer at her best, AJ would rather remove herself from her community than confront them because she no longer feels of use to them.
But I guess it is kinda weird that AJ has "masculine" traits and isn't interested in men at all. It's totally justified that an aggressively straight, misogynistic male fandom would characterize her as a "boring background character." /s
At the time of writing this, it's 4:46AM.
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Hi! I give you this Stobotnik fankid I made a while ago :'y
She's Sofia --or Ivania or some other name ending in 'ia'-- Robotnik (coolest last name)
It's a compilation and also there's some Stone for practice bc I have no idea how to draw him pipipi Eggman is easier bc it's just his Sonic Boom design (I love it)
Some stuff about this universe under the cut!
(Btw if there's incongruencies is bc I can't make up my mind about the facts whwhw)
-Robotnik and Stone are married, very much married. Cartoon villains in love, I love that for them.
-["MARTHA I'M COMING HOME SWEETIE-"] Mixing up the movie things and the whatever's going on in the Sonic Boom, so Robotnik was gone for eight months and when he's back she's already born.
>Also the drawing is a reference to Icarly's "Whatcha got there?" "A smoothie" but she was clearly asking about the ostrich Spencer brought with him.
>Alternatively, Eggman's there and they go through the journey together yippiee. Choosing names, making evil parenting plans and whatever, being their idiot selves.
(After celebrating because they're good news actually)
"I want a boy or a girl-" (Eggman)
"Yeah me too." (Stone)
"-and we should name them a single, worth of remembering name! Like... Eggette for a girl and Eggson for a boy."
"I'm not letting you name them any of that, doctor..."
"Okay, then how about Beyonce for a girl and-"
>They wouldn't have kids (?? maybe? I don't really know, I only know sonic boom and the movie :'U)- but she was probably the 1% the birth control warns you about. Also, Stobotnik got a very active seggsual life, and I'm imagining she came to be from a quickie over the desk, why not.
>Helpful diagram of Eggman + Stone kissing and then = baby. They were in work hours.
-In the one where he comes back and the baby's already there, Eggman does a terrible job as a father the few first months, but then he gets the hang of it and it's not so bad.
>He gets projectile vomited on and he's immediately asking to get an abortion (the baby's already born) (he didn't give birth to her), Stone says no anyways.
>"Surprisingly, I'm a good father" he thinks one day and it's because he's still very much an orphan here with no frame of comparation or example aside from researching the matter.
-In the one where they wait for her together, he does all the research necessary in all those months, absolutely refusing in doing an average job in that matter, he's the great Ivo Robotnik c'mon. He excels at anything and he'll be a great father (jk he's terrified of fucking up).
-The Stobotnik family is an evil but loving family, like the bears in Puss in Boots whwh criminal family✨
-For the funny of it, Sonic and Eggman got a sort of relationship like in Sonic Boom, so sometime maybe our favorite boy, Tails and Knuckles had to look after their child.
-Also since Knuckles broke Stone's and Robotnik's hands with their handshake, let's have him handle the baby with the most careful grip ever, just to demonstrate that he didn't have to grab their hands that hard aksdjask
-She's a big fan of Sonic and friends (Sonic the Hedgehog, not Sonic Wachowski, the second guy hadn't done even half the things she admires him for, but no one has the heart to tell her when she's a kid). Has a bunch of merch and all the comics of Sonic the Hedgehog.
>When she's a teenager she proudly uses her Sonic backpack in the same way Deadpool uses his Hello Kitty backpack.
-BTW Sonic, Knuckles and Tails are all brothers and Maddie and Tom's kids bc that's the best idea ever made.
-ALSO I'm definitely gonna draw that scene where Knuckles was about to put the baby in the blender and Sonic shouts THE CHILI DOG NOT THE BABY. Some day, you'll see pipipi.
-SAGE was created for various reasons, to be her sister (since she wouldn't stop asking for one but neither Stone nor Robotnik were willing in raising another human kid, thanks very much), to protect her, and also to answer the tedious "why?" questions that neither father had the patience for (A+ parenting right there). Maybe she was used for the original purpose too idk (I don't know that sonic game where she debuts).
>The child's delighted about having a sister, then she grows up and SAGE doesn't, so she has a little sister.
>METAL SONIC TOO MAYBE? Perfect lil american family, the two happily married parents and their three kids (one human girl, an IA and a robot clone of their alien enemy).
-On her early months she was called Pebble, because she really was a mini Stone, Robotnik went along with it (bc he also looked at her and only saw his husband whw) until she was a little older and they started calling her by her name.
>Alternatively, since Eggman was gone, Stone waited for him to return in hopes of choosing together a name for their child, and Pebble worked as a placeholder since she was just a bebi.
>Alternatively alternatively, Eggman came up with the nickname. ROCK-ONNAISSANCE 🗣️ also yeah I know he was going crazy from the mushroom stuff, but he's not above making silly puns, he's a dad now and also he's naturally silly.
(NGL I really gotta make up my mind about how it all happened ajsdkad)
-She's a spoiled kid and also a little menace, unintentionally evil, she can't help it.
>Good-hearted too sometimes, she loves Sage and does her best to protect her back (it's not necessary but it's appreciated anyways).
-Robotnik calls himself 'daddy' way too much in the live-action movies to ignore it, so he's daddy and Stone's dad (dada when she was younger).
>"These are my daddies!" (points to what's clearly two villains -but also good fathers-)
-She has Robotnik's eyes but as big as Stone's. They're the lethal-est sad puppy eyes ever (they work wonders on both parents and other people) (both men got beautiful dark brown eyes with visible eyelashes fight me).
>Look at Eggman's silly eyelashes:
>Also, you know that picture of Lee Majdoub with the beautiful everything? I think he was wearing eyeliner so my Stone wears eyeliner too in contrast to Eggman's dark circles under his eyes JDJS😭
-She's the five-year-old that made Sonic fear them because 'they can be so cruel when they sense weakness' (she was brutally honest as any young kid is).
-Stone and Robotnik got Gomez and Morticia Addams kinda parenting. They see their child beating up someone and they're like:
"What did we do wrong?" (Stone while shaking his head in disappointment)
"I know... she lacks resourcefulness." (Eggman)
"Exactly, there's her baseball bat right there, why doesn't she use it?"
-Remember that Shadow said in a game that he wouldn't mind taking a candy from a baby? (fandub I think but still) This comes in handy when neither Tails, Sonic or Knuckles want to upset the kid (so Shadow does it instead).
-She plays sports too because she got too much energy. In each of them she loses her patience. She grabs the football and hauls it at the nearest team member, she throws her baseball bat to the ground and starts beating up whoever threw the ball that she missed, she stomps in frustration if she loses, she's great at dodgeball (sends her classmates to the infirmary).
-Throws tantrums and stuff and overall's an annoying kid if she's upset. Eggman's like UGH WHY'S SHE LIKE THIS?? and Stone's like Because of you, doctor (terrible temperament runs in the family and also Robotnik just spoiled her too much).
-I'm kinda dressing her up in the clothes that existed in my mind that supposedly Eggman wore (the weird dress-like jacket with the big zipper in the middle). Under her jacket there's a dress in the same pattern as the original Eggman's clothes, also she wears a baby onesie like that too.
-When she's older she's definitely proud of her fathers, but she doesn't appreciate the rumors that she's prone to go power-crazy like Robotnik did. Especially because it may be true, but what do they know.
-For the irony, she can't stand drinking coffee, but loves the smell of it because it reminds her of home (omg).
-THEY HAVE A PET CAT like I read in some fics and her name is Robot and she's a lil shit and also grumpy like Robotnik.
>Maybe she brings her alive mice to experiment on all sort of stuff (like Pávlov and his dogs and the guy Skinner with his mice and cats (??))
-She gets to hang out with Sonic and friends under the condition of annoying him as much as possible. So, she complies. (She loves Sonic the Hedgehog, but she loves making her fathers happy more).
-Very smart kid but not to the level of Tails or Robotnik at that age, she's just got very good memory and learning skills and knows a lot of stuff ever since she was a little kid. More like a Matilda-kinda intelligence.
-She's a scientist when she grows up too but the kind that makes evil potions and serums and stuff aksjdk probably (chemistry things? biochem idk). She can make silly little robots for the fun of it but it's not her passion, unlike Robotnik and Stone's. PROBABLY. I'm still deciding.
-BTW LOOK (it says 'carefully crafted ploy to distract space porcupines')
>While Eggman's there with the baby and Sonic in front of him going AWWW BABY BOO and making her laugh, Stone is sneaking up on him holding a chair above his head to knock him out.
THAT'S IT THANKS FOR READING ✨✨
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