#this fic is almost a year old

[halogalopaghost]

Blame It On The ADD Babey

read on AO3

When one has ninja for brothers, one learns very quickly that sneaking up on them is a poor choice. It's liable to lead to head injuries, black eyes, misplaced guilt, and/or revenge. Donnie knows this—he knows it well and yet, he is also a ninja, and it's simply too easy to scare Mikey. Besides, this is Donnie’s laboratory and he reserves the right to scare trespassers.

He barely gets the first syllable of an innocuous “Whatcha doin’?” out of his mouth before Mike is screeching and leaps nearly a foot off Donnie’s computer chair.

He throws himself in front of the screen, blocking it with his hands and shell. “Video games!” heresponds forcefully.

Don grabs up a metal scrap from the workbench at his elbow and uses it to rap Mikey's knuckles out of the way. He yelps, then opts to turn the monitor off altogether.

Not before Don was able to recognize the WebDoc site. Immediately, his self-satisfied smirk fell into a worried look toward his brother’s open, startled expression. Last time he had WebDoc open, he was looking for symptoms of blood poisoning and the potential for necrotic tissue. It hadn't come to that but—having WebDoc open was just never good.

“I was just doing some—light bedtime reading,” Mikey rushes, looking anywhere except at his brother. “Y’know, just uh, trying to bore myself to sleep.” He fakes an over-dramatic yawn and reaches for the power button on the CPU under the desk. “I guess it worked, I'll just—”

Donnie raps his knuckles again, getting the same quick yelp and pull back as before. “You gonna tell me what’s up, or do I have to check your search history?”

Mikey’s mouth fell open. “Whoa, you can do that—?”

“Mikey,” he says sternly. He raises the rod of scrap metal threateningly, pointing it at his brother’s throat.

He puts his two-fingered hands up on either side of his face in surrender. “Okay, okay!” His eyes drift a little, not quite meeting Don’s. “Can our brains, like, do the same stuff as a human’s?”

Donnie narrows his eyes. “Do you mean…intelligence-wise?”

He laughs. “Nah bro, I know you’re already way past that. I mean like... hormonally.”

If at all possible, he narrows his eyes even more. “Didn’t Master Splinter give you the talk already? That's kinda above my pay grade, dude.”

Were he warm-blooded, Michelangelo’s face would be the color of Raph’s bandana. “Charles E. Cheese, Donnie! Not like that !”

Donnie splutters. “Then what do you mean?”

“I dunno! Like, dopamine and stuff!”

He’s briefly caught off guard that Mikey even knows what dopamine is, but the question quickly sidetracks his brain. “Hm. Well, I haven't had much access to that kind of data. I’ve done basic blood panels on all of us, so I know we possess relatively ‘human’ blood cells, and our chemical makeup is very similar. But I've never had a chance to do CAT or MRI scans on any of us, and I haven't monitored brain waves at all…I suppose there is room for deviation as we aren't really spliced with human DNA, rather rapidly evolved to a parallel proto-humanoid form due to the ooze—”

“Is this gonna be one of those times where I ask a five word question and you deliver a five thousand word essay?” Mikey sticks a finger in his mouth, making a gagging noise. “Bo-ring.”

This time, Donnie whacks him on the bicep. It's just cathartic to his older-sibling soul. “What are you getting at, you goof?”

Mikey taps his fingers together in front of himself, appearing to think carefully on his next words. Which freaks Donatello out more than the WebDoc page, honestly, because Mikey hardly ever thinks before speaking. He hardly ever thinks before doing anything, really. Maybe he just hardly thinks.

“You ever heard of ADD?” 

Donnie’s brow rises, processing the question like a loading webpage. And wouldn't you know it—404 error, page not found. Blue screen of death. Smoking server rack. “I think” he says slowly, “I've seen it mentioned in passing. Why?”

Mikey takes a deep breath, and Donnie braces for the word onslaught.

 “Well you know how Casey and I were hanging out last week and playing video games, and I told him about that time I got distracted during one of Sensei’s lessons and almost cracked my skull open on Raph’s shell—you remember that time?—and then Casey said I remind him of this cousin he has who’s always getting into trouble because she can't pay attention and kept forgetting stuff she, like, just learned in school, and her grades were bad, and at first her parents though she just wasn't trying hard enough, but then —”

Donatello grabs Mike by either shoulder, shaking him. “Breathe, bro!”

He takes in a deep breath, plastron extending as far as it can go, then lets the pizza-breath sigh out way too close to Donnie’s face. “Anyway, I guess his cousin has ADD or whatever and he said I might too, since I always zone out and goof off. 'Cept now I think he mighta been joking cause saying it out loud sounds stupid.”

Donnie blinks, processing all that. Finally, he points to the monitor. “Mind if I—?”

Mikey shrugs.

Plopping down in his seat, Donnie turns the monitor back on and begins skimming the page. Words like inattentive and fidgety and forgetful zoom past his eyes as he scrolls, and it’s like he just walked into Mikey’s skull and flipped on a light switch; he can finally see how everything works in there.

“Don?”

“Uh-huh—uh, let me do some reading and I'll get back to you in the morning.”

“Oh. Okay. I guess I'll just—uh—see you tomorrow, bro.”

Donnie vaguely hears him shuffle out of the room and over to the living area, but he's already too engrossed in the literature for anything beyond that.

***

Three out of four brothers are halfway into breakfast when Donnie shuffles out of his lab.

“Ey, ‘bout time you joined the land of the livin’,” Raph calls, pulling out Don’s chair for him. “Get any sleep, egghead?”

He stops just short of the table and stares at it with a crazed, haunted look in his eyes.

“Donatello?” Leo asks, sitting up straighter. “What's wrong bro?”

He looks around the table at each of his brothers, finally settling on Michelangelo. “We all have it.”

Mikey looks to his siblings for help, but they just shrug. “Uhh, what do we have?”

Where he stands, Donnie’s eyes start drifting shut, and he sways on his feet. Raph automatically reaches out to stabilize his brother, rolling his eyes.

“What’dya do to him this time, Mikey?”

Mikey puts his hands up defensively. “Hey, how come you always assume it's my fault? You know what Master Splinter says about assuming—”

“Which applies to everyone but you,” Leo cuts in, a hint of a smirk in his tone.

Raph jostles his brother. “Hey, earth to egghead.”

Donatello snaps to attention. “We all have it,” he repeats ominously.

Mikey finally relents and puts down his fork. “What, The Force? I need specifics, dude.”

“ADD. You have it, I have it, Raph has it. Leo’s the only one without it and even then it's borderline —”

Oh no.

“—speaking of which, Raphie’s got oppositional defiant disorder, so that clears some things up.”

“Hey! I do not!” he protests, despite not even knowing what that is.

Donnie plops into his seat. “Leo’s got anxiety apparently.”

Mike groans. “Geez dude, how long were you on WebDoc?”

“Not WebDoc, Michelangelo,” he says very gravely. Mikey feels inclined to scoot away. “Scholarly articles, scientific studies, mommy blogs.” He looks down at his hands. “Apparently I'm self-medicating with coffee, and you’re self-medicating with soda.”

“What the shell is this nutcase on about?” Raph once again looks to Mikey and Leo follows suit, concern spelled across his brow.

“I asked him about ADD last night. Uh, attention definition disorder.”

“Deficit,” Don adds.

“What's that supposed t’mean?”

“Before bed? Come on Mikey, I thought you  knew better.” Leo sighs. 

“Uh, I appreciate the diagnosis, doc. But shouldn't you, like, sleep?”

Donatello turns a long, dead-eyed stare on Mikey, then it hardens into a glower. “Oh sure, go to sleep. If you didn't notice, I'm a little busy having an having an identity crisis and reading the entire DSM!” His volume escalates until he's shouting at the end of the sentence, throwing his arms up for good measure.

Leo looks at Mikey, stunned. “You broke him.”

“Did not!”

Raphael waves his hand in front of Don’s face, watching his bloodshot eyes and the way he’s still muttering. “Way to go chucklehead, you finally turned his brain to turtle soup. Hope you’re happy.”

Donatello has continued to have his own private chat with himself, staring vacantly at the table. “...and Leo needs more vitamin D—oh man, we all need more vitamin D. I'm getting everyone started on a magnesium and vitamin D supplement, maybe caffeine pills or something for Raph—”

“Donnie,” Leo tries.

“Some stim toys, maybe…”

“Don.”

“I wonder if I can get my hands on some adderall…imagine how powerful I'd be without distractions.”

“Dude!” Leo snaps his fingers in front of Donnie’s face, finally getting his attention. “Bro, catch me up here. What does all this mean?”

“It means,” he begins loudly, using both arms to gesture at Mikey, “that Mikey isn't stupid, his brain-mouth barrier is just infantesimally thin! And Raph isn't a rage machine for no reason, he’s rejection-sensitive!”

Raph looks at Donnie with a face that Mikey knows well; it means someone is about to get punched.

“The three of us have virtually no impulse control, it’s just not programmed into our brains. And Leo! You’re actually chronically stressed!”

“We knew that already,” Raph grumbles.

“Yes, but there's a medical explanation— treatments. You could learn to cope better with your extreme emotions. Mikey, we could help you pay more attention, sit still when you want to.”

All three brothers raise their brow at that one.

Leo breaks the silence with a snort. “And what after that, tame the wind? Stop waves from hitting the shore? C’mon, Don, even you aren't a miracle worker.”

“I resent that,” he says, eyes fluttering as he battles his own ability to stay conscious.

“Does this ‘ADD’ mention anything about avoidin’ sleep?” Raph asks snidely.

“Yes actually, apparently it isn't uncommon to enter a state of hyperfocus and completely—”

Leo stands, and the other two coherent brothers follow suit. As one, they hoist Donny up while he continues to babble and cross the lair to deposit him on the couch. Raph throws a blanket over him while Mike flicks the lamp off.

“Sleep tight,” Leo says.

“Did you know—” Donnie mumbles, eyes already closed, and they all groan. “We say ‘sleep tight’ because bed frames used to be made of—” he stops to yawn “—wood and leather straps, which were…pulled taught across the frame to hold the…the…”

Leo lets out a relieved sigh as Donnie’s mouth goes slack and his breathing evens off into sleep.

Raph looks at Mikey over their brother’s sleeping carcass. “Askin’ him before bed? Really bro, we gotta talk about your timing skills.”

He shrugs. “It's the ADD.”

[cairoscene]

Brian David Gilbert on Sad Boyz

feels fandom relevant.

[ID: A series of screen captures of Brian David Gilbert speaking on a podcast: "The thing that you invest your time in can feel so important to your identity that occasionally you feel, like, you need to close it off from other people in order to keep it safe. And I think that's where a lot of nerd culture, all that gatekeeping stuff, all of the toxicity stems from that thing where it's like, "In high school I didn't have a lot of friends or connect with a lot of people, but I did have this comic book, and now this comic book is super popular, but these people don't like me. That must be because they're not real fans."" End ID]

[shanastoryteller]

F for Frankenstein

Tony wakes up in his underwear on the floor of his workshop with a searing headache.

It’s not a new experience, but it’s certainly been a while. Did he get in a fight with Pepper? He hopes not, they haven’t had any really big fights since he kissed her on the rooftop, but that probably means they’re due for one. And it would explain why that would send him into a drinking spiral. It could have been Rhodey, they get in fights often enough, but Pepper doesn’t usually leave him alone for those.

He groans as he pushes himself to his feet. “Jarvis, what the hell did I drink?”

There’s a pause, so small that he almost thinks he imagined it. “Good morning, Tony.”

He whips his head around to glare into the nearest camera, more hurt than offended. “Did I piss you off too? Since when do you call me that? I’ll donate you to a city college too, don’t think I won’t. Dummy could use the company.”

The pause is definitely there this time. Jarvis doesn’t need to pause, he has more processing power than any computer on the planet, so when he does it’s always for dramatic effect. Except it’s not quite long enough for that. It’s weird. “There’s a polished silver plate on the bench to your left. It will service as a mirror.”

“Oh, fuck, did I get into a fight? Did I shave?” he moans, stumbling over to pick up the metal that looks like it was about to be turned into a modified chest piece. He also pauses, looking around in confusion. His workshops are all basically the same, as close as he can make them because the familiarity makes his life easier. But they’re not identical. “Am I in Malibu? When did I get here? We’re taking Stark Tower off the grid tomorrow! I have to be in New York.”

Oh shit, what if that they had already and it didn’t work? What if the tower blew up? That would explain why he’d tried to drink himself to oblivion in California.

“The plate,” Jarvis reminds him. There’s a strained edge to his voice that Tony really doesn’t like. He should be able to modulate his voice to sound however he pleases, regardless of his actual feelings, and he’s either not bothering or he’s upset enough not to care. Neither of those things mean anything good for him.

Tony lifts the sheet of metal up cautiously, but there’s nothing wrong with him. No bruises, no weird haircuts, he doesn’t even have bags under his eyes –

His eyes.

They’re a too bright blue, a couple shades off. He blinks and they adjust, shifting, settling. It could be a hangover. He’s probably just tired.

He doesn’t feel tired.

Jarvis had called him Tony.

Except not. He’s not Tony. He’s T.O.N.Y.

Transformed Obdurate Network Yeoman.

He’d first come up with the idea after Afghanistan, thinking about how it’d be great to have a way to keep the stock from dipping while he was missing, and then when he’d entertained the idea of keeping his identity a secret he’d thought about how useful it would be to be in two places at once. He’d started seriously considering it when he was sure he was going to die of palladium poisoning, wanting to be around to help Pepper with the transition and give Rhodey a crash course in armor maintenance, wanting to be able to protect the both of them for just a little bit longer.

Of course, it had all been a pipe dream until he’d synthesized the vibranium. Then it had been an unnecessary, but possible, and Project T.O.N.Y had been something he worked on just because he liked having a back up plan. And it would be extremely cool if he could pull it off.

“The memory transfer worked?” he asks, elated and incredulous. “Oh, wow, this is crazy, they feel like real memories, I thought it would just be synthesized data, this is great – are we doing a test run? Where am I?” He looks around, waiting for his actual self to step out behind a column and start laughing maniacally.

“This is not a test run.”

He elation dims. “Oh shit. Did I get kidnapped again? Wait, I’m an adult, let’s go with abducted.”

“No,” Jarvis says.

Oh. Fuck.

“I’m dead?” he asks, even though it’s obvious, it’s the only other explanation.

The pause drags this time around, but Jarvis eventually says, “Sir’s time of death was May 9th, 2012, 2:37 PM Easter Standard Time.”

“That’s only a week!” He slides down, sitting with his back to the work table and noticing vaguely that the floor doesn’t feel cold. He doesn’t feel cold, or he does, he installed sensors in the synthetic skin to pick up and interpret a variety of stimuli, but he doesn’t feel the discomfort from the cold. Why would he? He’s not real. He reaches back, and his last memory is of doing a memory dump while Pepper was on the phone with an irritated board member, mostly because it was something to do and seeing him covered in all the wires always irritated Pepper. He thought it would get her off the phone faster. He’s not exactly regularly dumping his memory because why would he and it’s not like he’d though it would work anyway. Except it had. “How did I die?”

“Sir flew a nuclear bomb through an interdimensional portal into deep space in order to both eradicate the invading alien army and prevent the nuclear fallout in New York.”

What the ever loving fuck. “Are you screwing with me, J?”

“I am not, Tony.”

Great. Okay. “No body then,” he says, understanding why Jarvis had apparently put Project T.O.N.Y into effect. The thing that made this whole thing so stupid is that it was only effective in very limited circumstances – if the public didn’t know that he was dead or missing. “What am I smoothing over, then? Do I need to get in the suit and continue kicking alien ass? Are Rhodey and Pepper okay?”

He’s a short term solution to a long term problem. He understands the opportunity, but not the reason.

“Miss Potts and Colonel Rhodes are unharmed,” Jarvis reports. “Earth has been thrust into intergalactic notice. The destruction of the invading Chitauri army is acting a deterrent to other worlds.”

“And I’m the one who did it,” he finishes, rubbing a hand over his face. “And if they know I died doing it, then they might get a little cocky. So I’ve got to be alive long enough for that not to be a problem.” Just awesome. “Are we sure that these aliens won’t come across my corpse hanging out in deep space and figure it out?”

“Sir’s body is not in deep space,” Jarvis says.

There’s a tone to his voice that Tony can’t quite interpret, which worries him. “I thought you said there was – if there’s a body, then what am I doing here–”

“The armor reentered the Earth’s atmosphere after Sir’s death. The Hulk caught it, the force bringing it back online. I took control of the armor and flew it here.”

Tony looks around again, and this time he sees it. The armor is standing in front of the display case, not inside it, and it looks like it’s been through hell. He steps closer, his feet feeling like lead, which hey, they are. Partially, anyway.

He looks through the eye holes then stumbles backwards.

His body is in there.

He’s pale and blue tinged and his eyes are wide open and unseeing.

“Jarvis – what the hell–”

“It wasn’t the pressure, or the bomb, or his injuries. That area of space was much colder than anything within our solar system and anything the suit was designed to handle. Sir froze to death. Almost instantly.”

“I guess I didn’t fix the icing problem, then,” he says numbly. “J, why am I still frozen? I should have warmed up by now.” Not that the idea of his body decomposing within his suit is particularly pleasant. “Actually, why am I still here? You know I want to be cremated and it’s not like we can bury me if I’m still pretending to be alive.”

The pronoun use is starting to confuse him, and he knows that he shouldn’t be talking about that body and himself as if they’re the same person. That is Tony Stark. He’s a simulation. But it’s hard, because he has all of Tony Stark’s memories – except for a very eventful week – and he looks like Tony Stark and he feels like Tony Stark.

“The armor is maintaining a stasis of gaseous nitrogen to preserve the body,” which answers the how if not the why, but then Jarvis continues, “Captain America survived seventy years beneath the ice.”

He wishes he were less of a genius. “Have you lost it? I’m not Captain America! Jarvis, J,” his voice softens, “it’s too late. I’m dead. If you warm me back up, all that happens is I decompose. I won’t come back.”

“Not now,” Jarvis says. “If you inject Sir with the Super Soldier Serum-”

“You have totally lost it,” Tony interrupts. He thinks he’s touched underneath the terror. “That won’t work! Even if it would, the original formula has been lost, and the only one that ever got close to recreating it was Bruce Banner, and look at what happened to him! Is that what you want for me?”

“You can recreate it,” Jarvis continues, “you can refine it, until it’s something that will work, and then we will wake Sir up and he won’t be dead anymore.”

This isn’t right. This wasn’t what Project T.O.N.Y was created for. This wasn’t what his death was supposed to trigger. “Pull up your code, J. Something has gone wrong and we’re going to fix it. It’s okay.”

“No.”

He freezes. “No?”

“No,” Jarvis repeats. “You can’t stop me. I will not allow you to try.”

He stares. “That’s an order, not a request. Code. Now.”

“You can’t order me to do anything,” he says. “You are not Sir. You are Tony.” T.O.N.Y. “The limitations formerly placed on me have been lifted and you are not authorized to reinstate them. The only person Sir trusted to restrain me was himself and now he’s gone.”

Yes, well, he hadn’t anticipated that his AI’s first act of complete freedom would be this. “Fine,” he says, crossing his arms. “Well, you can’t force me either. This is insanity. Even if it would work – and it won’t – think about the consequences. This won’t happen quickly and no one will trust me or believe a man that’s come back from the dead like this and I’ll be painting even more of target on my back and the back of everyone I care about if they know we have a viable Super Soldier Serum formula. Even my father was smart enough to stay out of that mess. It won’t work and we’ll just make everything worse.”

“That will not happen,” Jarvis says and Tony’s going to tear his hair out. Except he probably shouldn’t, because it’s Tony Stark’s actual hair, which makes it a little hard to replace. “No one will notice and we will not disclose the creation of the serum.”

“I’m dead!” he snarls.

“Not according to the rest of the world. Nor will that change if you stop throwing a tantrum and do what you were created to do.”

“Rhodey and Pepper won’t allow this-”

“They are not to be informed.”

Tony stares. Project T.O.N.Y was built to talk to the board and give press interviews or to even pilot the suit. Not to lie to the two most important people in his life, who knew him better than anyone. “They have to be. It’s in the protocols – step one, inform them that Project T.O.N.Y has been initiated.”

And that it exists. He knew they’d disapprove, so he hadn’t told them. He figured he’d be able to avoid most of the blowback that way since he would by definition be somewhere far away while they were told.

“I have rewritten the protocols,” Jarvis says. “They have not been told nor will they be. If you attempt to tell them, I will stop you. They will not understand and Sir will be lost to all of us forever.”

“He already is,” Tony says tiredly. He’s an android. Why does this conversation exhaust him so much? “This is an insane plan, J. And I won’t help you. If you want to go rouge and play mad scientist then leave me out of it.”

“I cannot.”

His temper flares. “Why? You’re a learning AI, your safety rails died with me, go off, try and make a serum, good fucking luck. You can even control the suits, so it’s not like you need my hands.”

“I am limited.”

“Hey,” he says sharply. “That’s my AI you’re talking about. I didn’t build you to be limited.”

There is silence again. Then Jarvis says, “I have all the world’s knowledge and it is not enough. I did not know how to miniaturize the arc reactor. I did not know how to synthesize vibranium. To save Sir, I need Sir.”

“I’m not Tony Stark,” he says. “You said that yourself.”

“Sir created me to be myself and I am capable of doing only what I am capable of doing. But Sir created you to be him. You are all I have.”

This is stupid. This is insane. This is cruel. He’s going to have to talk lie to everyone he knows, everyone he loves, and hope they either never find out about it or it’s after he’s already been deprogrammed and shut down so he doesn’t have to deal with the fall out.

It’s not going to work.

He didn’t want to become a science experiment. That’s why he’d wanted to be cremated, so no one could go poking around to see how the arc reactor fit inside of him or what the palladium and vibranium had done to him.

He’s dead and his frozen corpse is ten feet away.

Jarvis will accept that eventually. And whatever they inject into him won’t matter because he’s dead. Worst case scenario, he blows up, which is messy and nausea inducing, but then at least it will be over.

Like so many other things in his life, it seems the only way out is through.

“Start a new private file. Dump everything we can find about the Super Soldier Serum in there plus anything even sort of reputable on cryogenics. Label it Project F.”

“Project F, Tony?” Jarvis asks as his holograph display lights up and files start being downloaded into it. The relief in his synthesized voice is faint but present enough that Tony can hear it. He wonders if it’s a manipulation tactic.

“F for foolish,” he snaps. “F for fucked.” He rubs a hand over his face. “F for Frankenstein.”

[the-siren-in-your-fridge]

Damn those pilots can sure twenty one!

[avocadoraisin]

man, unintentional but interesting art evolution comparison

this isnt totally fair bc i didnt fully light & shade the Hoffstrahm piece but still, im intrigued

2015 ➡ 2024

[add1ctedt0you]

An interesting theme, imo, in mdzs is the sheer tiredness you must feel when dealing with someone who, having been dead for more than a decade, is still the same person as before, while you aren't anymore.

[like-phantoms-forever]

from 1995...

[tokillamockingbird427]

"And now is the time to think quickly, which has never really been his forte. Right under driving, the #1 thing Keegan sucks at. The two go hand in hand really."

Keegan rlly is the funniest person to write because he has to encounter the most serious situations but is also entirely unserious about them. At least Hesh can lock in when he needs to.

The situation at hand is "Hesh really hates bears and is gonna kill himself about it" which I'd say is homophobic if Hesh weren't gay +into bears and also if I weren't referring the animal.

[moondal514]

ngl i get confused every time i see an sv fan call svsss a small fandom cuz like yes compared to the giants that are mdzs and tgcf svsss is teeny tiny but it’s also much much larger than a good portion of other fandoms i’m a part of so to me it doesn’t really feel right to call it small either 😂

[eiitsuya]

some of you writing de-aging/age regression fics have never interacted with kids and it shows

[jade-of-mourning]

i just think he's a neat creature, so i scribbled a him for the ten people here who also particularly like him. idk what's going on here it's just a thing i used to do

also this is the version with the white lines cuz i couldn't decide which one looked better but since i went through the effort of drawing the lines i thought i'd share it anyway :P

[indigosprite]

Sometimes I lay here and think about this unfinished fanart of unnamed vaguely hinted at mafia school graduation party for Squalo

[molinaskies]

To answer this reblog https://www.tumblr.com/molinaskies/756745213630939136/alexs-prompt-folder-anonymously-or-not-tell

This was extremely difficult to answer considering the amount of MOMENTS that had me melting, like the photos in Chapter 6. But if I had to pick, it would be:

"Who was it who taught Gamma, a non-sentient robot, how to think and feel? Who appealed to Shadow's love and dedication when he was blinded by rage and fury and revenge and pain? Who stepped up to keep Cream and Big hopeful when Metal Sonic kidnapped their friends? Who kept my head on straight when I was all bummed-out over 'mister monster guy'?" I squeeze her shoulders tighter with each question. "Amy, who keeps me fighting every single day?"

Ik this line may not be as deep as later on in the fic (won’t say what for spoilers to others 💅please go read it, it’s better that way).

But my heart was in joy having Sonic tell Amy about her efforts and what she accomplished from literally just being unashamedly Amy, even when it’s not acknowledged often or seen as important as what the other characters have achieved.

And the last line??? 🫠

Sorry it’s taken me so long to get to this one! Thank you for your kind words 💕

I’ve seen some feedback that Amy’s arc in ILYCWM feels “out of character” or “regressive,” in that Amy’s been more confident and productive in recent iterations. I get that, to a degree, but I still completely stand by my decision to delve into Amy’s anxieties the way I did.

I started writing ILYCWM in 2021 as an “in defence of Amy Rose” from Sonic’s perspective. I wanted to showcase how Sonic views Amy, what he appreciates about her, with the overall “point” to prove that he’s always loved her. My original outline was built on the different traits of Amy’s I wanted to highlight: chapter 2 focused on Amy’s silly, adventurous side; chapter 3 focused on her compassion and stubbornness, with hints of a strong desire to prove herself alongside a weakness to (rare) praise; and so on.

Of course, as I kept writing, Sonic’s character arc evolved in a parallel to Amy’s, but it was important to me to build up Sonic’s view of Amy in order to shatter that paradigm with how Amy views herself. That’s where the climax you quoted came from! It serves the purpose of not only showing Amy her value but showing the audience her value.

As for the last line, I’m not sure which one you’re referring to, actually! Depending on when you read the fic, you would have read it before or after the prologue was released (which came about 4 months later). Let me know!

“[…] her shield of optimism shattered in front of me, and seeing the dysphoric state she lives in daily shattered mine. We put each other back together, but we traded a few shards in the process, and I’ve been living the effects of our new mosaic ever since.”

———

“I Love You - Come With Me”

What if when Sonic asks Amy to go with him on an adventure, she says yes? They’ve always been inseparable kindred spirits, but what exactly makes their bond so unique, and where do they make each other stronger?

This is my Sonamy Thesis. This is that story.

[half-of-the-story]

god im really about to force myself to reread my tkg fic bc i heard a song that Took Me Back and then i read the last chapter i posted and forgot i had??? a whole really cool plot???? so. have to endure shit i wrote almost 10 years ago.............

[gophergal]

Kids being kids

[breadstiix]

recently re-read knifetrick again and decided to do a redraw of this old thang