#wow. this got long.

[spearxwind]

I think it's sad that most people always think of bottlenoses as the "classic dolphin" since its the one that's always used for shows, and always think of dolphins as just straight grey when in reality there's so many varieties with so many different amazing patterns

Look at the common dolphin! They have a gorgeous X pattern and even some dull yellow/gold!!

Hourglass dolphins have gorgeous white streaks

Spinner dolphins have really pretty banding as well, AND they have a really sleek cute silhouette!

The atlantic spotted dolphin!!! Theyre spotted!!!!!!

and the pantropical spotted too!!

Dusky dolphins have a gorgeous airbrush look going on like straight out of a 2000s fantasy illustration

Striped dolphins sure have stripes!! How cool!!

And these I've shown you aren't even all of them at all, there are so many of them:

There's so so so many different types of dolphins people dont know about this isnt even all of them and some are SO gorgeous and underrated because people just dont know they exist so I'm here to fix that

[possamble]

Needlessly close reading and long commentary on chapter 57 and how the audience actually has an extremely limited view on what Marcille has been like over the course of her life.

I am once again thinking about how pre-dungeon Marcille is so quiet and stoic that she seems like a completely different person. How jarring chapter 57 is for the audience. Like you have Marcille, who has been just the most blindingly expressive person with resting baby face

And then the chapter drops a title page of Marcille hearing from Falin for the first time in four years and it's like.

Who is that. Genuinely. Would you even realize that's Marcille without the context clues?

And then the chapter just keeps coming in with the sucker punches.

We have SEEN Marcille meet strangers. It was never with this understated of a smile.

literally who the hell is this. the few times the audience gets to see some Signature Marcille Faces that they're used to is when she finally gets to see Falin again

when she's testing out her new spells

(and when Laios and Falin are fantasizing about her being their damsel in distress, funnily enough)

And then finally. Finally you get to a fully recognizable Marcille when she fucking DIES and comes back to life to geek out about necromancy.

We know she loves magic. We know she loves Falin. So it's not so surprising that she wouldn't be able to keep a mask up when thinking or talking about the things she loves. But why the mask in the first place? Where does it come from? It's tempting to think that, maybe, Falin's departure just hurt her so much that it turned her into a quiet person.

But that's only half true. If you go back, the first instance you see of this incredibly mild personality is actually introduced much earlier, in chapter 17.

What if she was always like that. What if her default after her father died was to hold people at arm's length, to never really emote past being polite and friendly. What if Falin was the first person who was able to bring her out of her shell, and when she left, Marcille just went back to how she was.

And when comparing her detached demeanour with someone else...

It's not exact, but wouldn't you say there's a resemblance? Wouldn't you think she might be trying her best to imitate what she saw of her own mother working as an accomplished mage?

It would certainly explain why she's hiding behind her portrait in her nightmare, at least.

We aren't told that Marcille has been distancing herself from everyone around her using a mature and dignified personality she modelled off her mother. But we sure as hell are shown it, I think.

[weirdglassthing]

GRIMMORNING NATION RISEEE. Criminal lack of grimmorning on this site so I’m making it my personal mission to spread my propaganda

Ignore whatevers going on with torbek, even I don’t know. I just drew some lines for his body and called it a day

[reengeen]

NEW OBSESSION AQUIRED

[archiepelago]

alternate surface au inspired by a few ive seen around on tumblr :3

[snabeus]

hhhough barbie movie thoughts…

i don’t think the “im going to see my gynecologist” line isn’t only just for us to know that barbie is fully human. the scene of her in the real world for a second (at least to me) seemed to imply barbie was getting some sort of dream job and found her purpose. but no. she’s just going to see a gynecologist. but the way she is so EXCITED… the way she’s taking the joy in this mundane thing that lots of women go through… the barbie movie is about enjoying just being ALIVE

TERFS GO AWAY 🍅 🍅 🍅

[beetleoops]

You keep getting married to Beetlejuice

This fucker loves to party (and he loves you), so you are having weddings constantly

You officially get married in private, with only Lydia, the Deetzs and the Maitlands there. You take it easy so he can adjust to being alive, but Delia still throws a pretty fun party- if a little...odd. Still, it's enough for Beetlejuice to learn his alcohol tolerance isn't NEARLY as high now that he has a heartbeat.

"Babes!! I cannot fuckin wait to get married to you all over again." He's half asleep, laying his entire weight on you, reeking of booze, smiling like a dope. "Uh-huh. Me too, Beej." You pat his back.

(Also, turns out now that he sleeps for real, he snores. you think its cute.)

Once he's human (and more or less used to it), you have a more traditional wedding with your friends and family all there, and throw an all night reception and after party at a bar - beej loves the energy and is cheering on your grandparents to throw ass on the dance floor all night

"Fuck it up Agnes! Hell yeah!" (This is probably not your grandma's name. Actually, is that even your grandma?)

This goes over not great, but better than expected; everyone has a good time. You do too, of course. You are drunk and wearing white and laughing so loud, and when you aren't dancing, Beetlejuice can barely keep his hands off you. Hell, when you ARE dancing Beetlejuice can't keep his hands off you.

you go to Las Vegas for the honeymoon and get married again - Beej insists on the most tacky wedding possible and you agree.

You get married by an Elvis impersonater in a sticky little chapel on the strip. You wear a suit, and he wears a tight, short wedding dress with a veil and pumps.

"third time's the charm?" You ask, when Elvis finally says to kiss the groom. " Oh no, babes. We're hitting the drive through wedding chapel next."

"Deal!" And you dip him before kissing him square in the mouth.

You keep getting married to Beetlejuice, because you both want to make fucking SURE it sticks.

[severevoiddragon]

I haven't seen anyone talk about how Joel and Bdubs genuinely helped Pearl. Like, they knew what her task was. But they valued their alliance more than the reward they may have gotten for guessing correctly. And pearl was. So scared they'd guess seriously, like she was literally running away as Joel spoke his 'guess', and then turned around like 'oh'. She'd put so much into that alliance, but didn't expect them to reciprocate it. But they did. And I think that shocked her in a positive way.

[facelessmime]

Dronetober: Day 30 - NULL

HAHAHA- I totally did all the days before this. Yup. I did that. Totally not a lie.... Anyway! I went hard for this one cause of the not lie.

Thank you @ddwhaleshark for teaching me the ways to start rendering-- ya dingus friend decided they were gonna do back lighting :D to do that. Is smart.

And thank you @megbanned for making this legendary drawing challenge. HAHA, imma go lay down now and think about my life choices.

[violent138]

Batfamily member's civilian identity becomes some serial killer's target because it fits some profile. Cue said murderer going after this member of the Batfamily, earning a very shocked and mildly exasperated set of swear words and then getting their ass kicked. The Batfamily member doesn't even bother calling the cops, just tosses the would be killer in the back of their car (which has bloody gloves in the seat and weird files on people), leading the murderer to conclude they're in the presence of a much worse serial killer.

Tldr: Outsider POV fic where a Batfamily member earns the undying adoration of an actual murderer and it's a slow, convoluted process to getting the evidence to arrest them while also protecting their secret identity.

[surreal-duck]

master artist and his number one fan

guy who is being so normal about the new additions to their profiles. i think abt midoris initial infatuation with his art slowly developing into appreciating yuzuru himself as a person and idol to the point he worries about how he sees him (ex: a bit of home party and in workplace survival rules) sometimes thats a lie i think about it a lot. and yuzuru learning to enjoy art just for the sake of drawing!! seeing the lets try diy story where he doesnt even refute drawing on midoris desk and was only worried that his doodles might cover up the mascot design compared to how discouraged he usually would be in earlier ! stories. everything to me i adore their dynamic if that wasnt obvious by *gestures to basically everything*

and happy pride month 🏳‍🌈

[unicornpopcorn14]

Dazai and his (dis)association with Guns

It's interesting to me how Dazai conically wields no firearms on him, neither in the PM nor in the ADA.

I mean, taking how dangerous both jobs are into consideration, and how he isn't as physically capable as the strongest ability users out there, you'd think he'd at least ensure a safety measure with him at all times.

But every gun he wields in the series is someone else's.

Every. single. one.

Even the handgun he wields in the Azure messanger arc, despite belonging to the agency, he doesn't constantly use:

While in Stormbringer, Dazai uses a tazer gun before meeting Adam and relying on him:

I've had many speculations regarding this pattern (feel free to add onto them), one of them being that Dazai thinks he doesn't even need guns, since strategies are his weapons, his hands alone are his weapons. In a world of crazy abilities, and users completely relying on said abilitis, being a nullifier might be considered the biggest threat, and a pretty sturdy weapon to rely on.

After some thinking, however, I found that while this might be part of the reason, it isn't enough to just disregard firearms as weapons entirely. Dazai's plans/predictions aren't foolproof, and as he'd explained, they are full of uncertanties, contrary to Fyodor's plans.

And Dazai's ability can't be relied on all the time. Having to touch the enemies/maintain proximity in order to activate it is definitely a hindrance. Besides, some enemies can be physically competent without their abilities, some might not even have abilities, but are formidable. Firearms in these situations would be extremely useful, given their range, and a good precaution.

Aside from combat, tw: suicide Let's not forget that a shooting oneself is subjectively the most painless way to die. So if anything, Dazai should be eager to have one on him and even attempt with it. But he doesn't, he never even seems interested in using guns at all in his suicide methods, hence he would have succeeded long ago...

So if it isn't out of unnecessity, then what might be the reason? I mean, having to count on your enemies to have guns in order to use one is rather inconveniet, right? Why can't he just carry the agency's gun or, before that, any of the countless PM's firearms? Well...

Here is what I think: Killing with guns is triggering for Dazai

Let's rewind a little...

15!Dazai is the earliest we see him using a firearm, and one of the few times he does shoot with said firearm, resulting in this fiasco:

He's clearly having a mental breakdown, spiraling, can't stop, and most importantly: can't think straight. This is Dazai's lowest moment in the whole series.

Thing worth mentioning: in the manga/lightnovel, Dazai does stop after shooting the man one time (basically killing him) and pauses, before he continues again and again and agian...

So I believe the triggering factor is either the death/corpse itself, or how the recoil felt.

We can't exactly determine what it might be, since remember, this is before Dazai even joins the Mafia. He's known Mori for mere weeks at this point. Whatever Dazai's going through in this moment has to related to his past prior to the mafia that we have yet to (or might never) see.

You'd get why Dazai, a person whose greatest ability is his mind above all else, would never wish to go through a moment where he can't keep his thoughts in check. Where he'd lose control.

And you know what's crazy? Dazai seems to avoid that outcome since then, as This is the only moment we see him actively kill someone with a gun in the series.

18!Dazai, through his (abusive) teaching moment with Akutagawa, shoots three times in hopes the other finally uses his ability defensively. There is a cause, and a motif, that a gun has to be involved in. And he knows Akutagawa is going to succeed in repelling them, he knows that won't kill him. Which is why wielding a gun is safe along with shooting it.

While in the ADA, in the instances Dazai wields a gun, he doesn't even shoot:

And that checks. Each one of these example were mere empty threats, but now I see that, as much as it's a threat to whoever he's pointing the barrel at, he's also under the mercy of it. Which means that every time he's used a gun since fifteen was a means to scare and not kill, if only to avoid the worst outcome which is losing control.

Dazai's sanity is on the line whenever the trigger is at the tip of his finger...

So why would he carry guns when he never even plans to shoot? When properly putting them to use threatens to send him into a breakdown, to overthrow his entire line of thinking?

One moment out of control might cost him his plans, his objectives, his subordinates, the lives he wishes to protect. And unless there is a motif for the gun (other than of course, killing) using it is a threat looming over him.

[thankstothe]

Some notes on Wilson's marriages/divorces, and how he met House:

• House didn't just meet a freshly divorced Wilson. He met barely married Wilson, who just got notified about his #1 divorce by a lawyer, not his wife

• Wilson walked around with papers on hand, long enough to give House a chance to sneak a peek. The same day he received the news. (there's a chance it was some sort of middle step in the divorce procedure, but "just served", checkmate your honor)

• House 100% knew that when he bailed him out. No, I don't have any concrete evidence besides "it's fucking House"

• House had Wilson observed the entire time to know he didn't open the papers. The divorce lawyer prob gave him an idea of what it is, and he was just marinating in the suffering juice

• House had to be nosy and stealthy when he checked the package Wilson clung to, he saw what's written on it

• They didn't actually talk at the conference itself, so House did it silently too

• There was a law firm address on the papers, and you couldn't just google shit then. House's had to remember it to investigate it further, or he already knew of the firm (or it said "BLAH LAW FIRM BLAH HERE'S YOUR DIVORCE PAPERS, LOSER", which is possible)

• Wilson likely opened them in a hotel room (or he looked at the package sadly/angrily there too), needed a drink, and House was at the bar

• House was watching Wilson at that conference, then at the bar, then meltdown over the song, then the whole fight and the mess, then the detention, and was like yeah I'll bail that

• "First words you ever said to me." This is when they first talked, Wilson was in jail and the one in need

• Ok alright, hear me out, if House didn't know what the papers were at the time of bailing. There are 2 paths for him to find out

• Wilson STILL had them on hand in jail

• Or Housey saw them at Wilson's hotel room. Yeah

• It's been over the decade since they've met and they both vividly remember the details of that drunk night (I get why for storytelling purposes. Still... Much to think about)

• That conference is either the last one, or one of the lasts, House attended. And that one was already boring to House without Wilson. 15 years prior to s06e06 "Known Unknowns", can't do the timeline magic I just eyeball it

• House also introduced Wilson to Cuddy pretty soon, since she was a witness to the levels of despair he was apparently in

• House might've pestered Cuddy to hire him, or she chose to do so herself (whenever she was dean). Maybe House chased away some poor oncologist to make an opening. Even if House isn't as obsessed with Wilson at the start of season 1, he's always plotting

• There's the brother thing too. Wilson still fresh out of med school, still divorcing, still guilty af and looking for the brother in Princeton, so he was happy to work there

• Prior to that, Wilson was working 2 jobs to support himself and Sam and was ready to follow her to Baltimore

• The divorce and meeting House happened in 1991, the same year USSR completely fell apart. Just thought I'll throw that in #educational

• Wilson was married, non-fraudulently, for 12 years total

• Marriage #1 has only lasted 1 year

• That means every marriage House was present for has lasted longer #math

• Wilson found a way to get fulfilled while in the marriage

• Now he's got a needy bitch with infinite problems and who will slurp any poison he has to siphon

• I'd argue House is what made Wilson bearable at home

• At the same time, House is what kept Wilson away from home, ultimately contributing to the divorce

• Wilson himself describes his marriages as crappy - he doesn't really need help destroying them. House still helps~✨

• Timeline gets wonky, but there couldn't have been much of a downtime between marriages, a couple of years max

• "Fell in love at the wedding" - whatever the fuck that means for Wilson

• Either Wilson met Sam through that wedding, and she also aimed to work in medicine - how they've connected. Or they went there as a couple, both being med students? Got high on emotions and jumped into marriage

• Wilson speedruns relationships once he's in them, so it could've gone "hey that was a nice wedding, how about we have our own?"

• He fucking sucks at proposals, his looks and general air of niceness carried him all 3 times, I will not be hearing any objections on the matter

• When Wilson talks to Cameron about cheating. He says, "I have (cheated). I always told them"

• "Them"

• It's could've been every marriage (#1, #2 and #3). If boy managed to sneak in cheating in his 1-year lightning marriage #1, while he was studying + 2 jobs (now I don't doubt his time management skills, but it's still a hassle. On the other hand, all that stress couldn't have been helping)

• Or it could be #1 and #2, or #1 and #3. But #3 is pretty much a certainty (he flirts with nurses on screen, House is also there), and it's "them", so why would he randomly stop in the middle? Don't think so

• What's most likely is - #2 and #3. When arguing with Sam (#1) again she didn't mention or allude to the cheating, her problem was that Wilson didn't communicate ANY emotions to her, she even admitted to House she made the most mistakes in that marriage, let's say there's some truth in that

• Wilson either didn't tell Sam about cheating, she didn't have a problem with it, or he lied to Cameron

• OR he didn't cheat on Sam

• He started to cheat after the first divorce AND his marriages started to last longer, which is funnier too

• He could've started cheating prior to House entering the picture, but much more likely - after. Divorce and/or House are the cause

• Speaking of. Meeting House is very tightly linked to the #1 divorce. Every time Wilson would think back on it, he would have to think about all the turmoil and getting bailed by House. And vice versa - every time he'd think back on meeting House...

• "I met someone who made me feel funny. And I didn't want to let that feeling go." Another Cameron talk. Ur honor, there's something on that wall

• btw, he is STILL married while meeting House, so if you hilson 1st-night-fuck truther, that meeting is his cheater origin story in a more practical sense. He then could've really meant all the marriages, but then he lied about telling Sam/Cameron, he might not count it since he's divorcing to tell Sam

• Ultimately, he's a huge liar, and I'm wasting my time. What I'm saying - nothing is really off the table with this guy in terms of hcs

• Aftermaths of #2 and #3 aren't really talked about like #1. It must've been really nuclear

• House says neither of them recovered from (#1) divorce to Wilson's face, Wilson doesn't contest that in any way. Even tho House didn't know Wilson before the divorce he usually right on the money with these things

• After the divorce #2 Wilson got 3 legged cat

• After failing to secure marriage #4 (#1 part 2) he got a diabetic cat

• Just like the thing he has with missing phone calls, after every divorce, consciously or not, he might expect a savior to bail him out

• After and during #3 he crashed at House's, then surfed hotels, then moved in with a dying patient, then Amber's, then House moved in with him (still Amber's)

• Maybe his wives kept taking properties in the divorce, and he just stopped getting them

• Man frankly didn't have a home for a while (HOMELESS BUT NOT HOUSELESS)

• Then Wilson finally commits and gets the place for himself and House, from Bonnie (#2)

• Wilson adamantly remains on good terms with his ex-wives (but not random exes. One helps House with a prank, House kept tabs bc of course)

• But Wilson thinks they hate him. Did he ever pay attention to them?

• While spending all the time with House, then cheating, telling his wives about it, Wilson gave them more attention and emotions to delay the divorce

• He also learned how not to get attached in marriage, to not get destroyed by the divorce (excellent gambit if you expect your marriage to fail)

• He has a better support system now too. Can't believe House is your support system, fucking lmao and ouch. Cuddy is his only other friend we see, maybe Stacy at some point (he kept in touch with after the incident)

• All his other friends and family we hear next to nothing about, at best they're surface level

• In season 5 he's only visited by the coworkers/House's team + Cuddy <- all that is pretty much House's tolerance circle

• House is pathetic, but Wilson is something else entirely

[shadowxamyweek]

What The Fuck Do You Mean They Gave Amy Rose an Eating Disorder

Alright. I said I’d talk about why I think Amy has an eating disorder, and so here I am, ready to throw down.

Disclaimer! 

Let me explicitly say- there’s nothing wrong with exercise and there’s nothing wrong with going on a diet. Not intrinsically, anyway. If you’re being smart and healthy about it, you’ve got good people supporting you or you’ve got your own good mental supports to make sure you’re not hurting yourself, that’s awesome. I am not saying these things are evil. What I am saying is there exists a very dark and obsessive undercurrent to *any* sort of health choice due to cultural expectations that, if a person is not careful about, they can get sucked into.  

Trigger warnings!

This is very 'Dead Dove, Do Not Eat.' We're gonna be talking about eating disorders and self harm. It's right here on the tin. If you don't think you're gonna be okay reading this, then don't. I want you to be safe. I believe I've tagged this appropriately, but if I've missed something, please let me know.

What even is an eating disorder? 

Broadly speaking, it is any behavioral condition characterized by abnormal eating habits. Some eating disorders stem from physical difficulty with eating that becomes psychological, while others originate due to psychological issues themselves. There are eating disorders that occur because people just wish to be in control of something, those that originate due to side effects of medication, those that occur due to side effects of other psychological conditions like anxiety or depression. 

This is to say- not all eating disorders are due to an obsession with body image. 

However, it cannot be understated just how many people develop an eating disorder because they are obsessed with body image. 

I am of the opinion Amy falls into the latter category, that she is obsessed with body image and, due to that, has an eating disorder.

So what’s going on with Amy? 

Let’s look at Sonic Battle (2003). It’s a PVP fighting game for the Game Boy Advance, picking up the plot directly after Sonic Heros and introducing us to Ermel (who would die and come back as Germel). Much like the previous games, you would have a singular plot that was divided into sections. We will be focusing on Amy and Cream’s chapters within the story. 

Amy Rose (X)

Cream (X)

Battle is what introduces us to Amy’s boxercising. Originally, she started it to get stronger, Cream citing Amy’s desire to keep Ermel safe after briefly getting kidnapped. However, once she realizes she can lose weight via this method, she becomes obsessed. Cream talks about it, seeming visibly uncomfortable with Amy’s fixation on losing weight, but we don’t really get much in the way of details until we actually fight Amy and see this weightloss obsession in action. 

In the Amy chapter of the story, she takes Ermel back to her apartment to train. They set a goal of 5 KOs, then 10. Amy feels faint, citing lightheadedness. Ermel leaves her alone in her apartment.

The next time you see her, only a few moments later, Cream is there. Turns out Amy was so lightheaded she had to go for a liedown. Cream says she’s worried about Amy. Specifically, she says she’s ‘burnt out,’ from overworking herself. Amy promptly comes back from her short break, stumbling into the room, to which Cream exclaims they can’t keep going because Amy can’t walk straight. Amy tells Cream she’s fine, and proceeds to start another goal of 10 KOs.

After that, Amy wants to keep working out, but she’s reaching her limit. She’s unable to speak more than a word or two without gasping for air. Insisting she can keep exercising, she tries to excuse herself to ‘change tactics’. When Cream follows her, it’s revealed that Amy’s been wearing excessively heavy weights on her arms and legs during this entire training spree.   

Amy says to go for another goal of 10 KOs. Cream, visibly upset, says that Amy has lost her focus on training. Still, you fight her anyway.

After this, Amy collapses. 

She is able to pull herself together after a second, rushing off with Ermel to keep fighting in search of the Chaos Emeralds. Cream seems relieved that Amy’s alright, saying, ‘she’s the strongest woman I know.’ 

The relief does not last long. After you finish Amy’s chapter, you switch to Cream’s. It opens up post boxcercise with Amy congratulating Ermel on getting strong. Cream noticeably stays very quiet during the exchange. 

Then, Amy asks, ‘how much did I lose today?’ 

Ermel tells her that she’s burned 1000 calories during their workout session. If she wants, she can lose a kilo/2 pounds-ish per three days if she is able to keep this up, but she will have to eat only 700 calories a day max and drink 4 liters/ 1 gallon-ish of water a day. Amy gets very excited. She also says she’s going to purchase some ‘super diet-machine.’ to further her progress. She thanks Ermel for helping her get closer to her goal. 

After a bit of a back and forth, Cream says to Ermel that Amy is really getting into this dieting. When Ermel asks, ‘Is getting thin good?’ Cream explains that Amy wants to be thinner so that Sonic might like her back. Ermel, understandably, doesn’t get it. Cream replies that, sometimes, a person will do anything for someone they love. Ermel stays silent, and Cream says that one day, they may eventually understand. 

(I swear there’s an additional dialog option if you go back to Amy’s place to talk to her where Ermel suggests she eat nothing but lettuce leaves, but I have misplaced my own copy of the game and cannot verify this. As such, I am not going to use it as evidence, but I do ask that if anyone DOES have the game, fact-check me on this please. I’d like to know if my memory is correct or if this is just a fabrication due to… everything mentioned above.) 

So okay, that’s the beats of the story. Now let’s talk about dangerous exercise and diet culture:

Exercise and Eating Disorders

Boxercise feels like a direct parallel to stuff like Jazzercise (60s-80s) or Zumba (00s-10s), which is just normal exercise with a twist of some sort that make it palatable for mass engagement/marketing. These different fun and exciting methods (and they can be- they can be fun- I’m not even gonna lie.) of workout were often sold as a way of both gaining strength and losing weight, but the losing weight often becomes their focus. This game even calls out the ‘this will make me stronger’ to ‘this will make me thin and desirable’ pipeline that can happen in the culture surrounding these sorts of exercise methods, unfortunately fostered despite whatever intentions their creators or individualized mentors had. There is nothing wrong with any of these styles of exercise. However, overexercise can be a hallmark of an eating disorder, and a culture of obsession that can surround fad exercises promoting extreme weightloss is dangerous. (X) (X)

It’s not new. The culture around these fad exercise methods might create a special sort of vortex, but look closely, and you'll likely pick up a few people with the same mindset at any old gym. ‘If I just keep pushing, if I just keep going, if I ignore the pain, I’ll be who I want to be.’ That’s how people get permanent injury, from Jannet going way too hard at pilates to Keith pushing far too much weight. 

Speaking of weights- We are lead to believe that Amy has been wearing weights this entire time. I don’t just mean for the fight mentioned above. Think about it- she takes them off during that massive workout/fight, but when did she put them on? We don’t see it. We’ve been with her nearly the entire time. This reads to me that she has had them on the entire day, not just for her exercising. 

It should be noted that wearing weights in this manner for an extended period of time can lead to damage (X) . As an aside, I have found no studies on the matter, but at least half of the people I know who have also had an eating disorder at one point or another intentionally weighed themselves down in some manner thinking they could burn more calories by doing whatever it was they were doing. This includes wearing training weights all the time, overfilling backpacks and carrying them around, and other things.

It’s not the exercise that is bad, it’s not the method that is bad, it’s not most of the community that is bad, but there is (and has always been, and will always be, unfortunately) a portion of it with this dangerous obsession with body image that a person can get sucked into if they are not careful.

Due to the evidence above, it seems clear to me that Amy has gotten sucked into this mindset. 

That’s just a part of it though. The restricted eating is where it gets really solidified for me. 

Diet Culture and Eating Disorders

Now, obviously I’m going to be going off of human numbers, so if you wish to counterargue that ‘oh well they’re smaller/different species of course they’d need less calories’ that’s fine- feel free to do so- but just understand I personally don’t think the text was written with that sort of calculation in mind. 

The average human body, even if it is a body largely at rest, needs about 2,000 calories a day to help maintain good health (X) (PLEASE ignore BMI it's a bullshit method of measurement). Various fad diets or crazes have come and gone across the centuries, with focuses on trying to achieve whatever body type was popular in that moment. 

‘This will make you sexy. This will make you wanted. This will finally make someone love you. Before, you were unlovable. After, maybe you’ll have a real chance.’ 

Noticeably, in the fad diets of the 90s into today, the focus for a lot of people attempting to lose weight has been ‘restrict your caloric intake.’ That’s not a problem until you start cutting out foods with nutrients the body needs to survive and/or getting to under a 1,000 calories a day (X). 

Despite what a lot of popular caloric or generalized eating restriction diets will tell you, if you keep your body from energy, it will go into protection mode. Protection mode is where your body acts like it is starving, because it is, thus slowing down its stash of burnable energy. Your average caloric burn then DROPS. This causes it to become harder and harder to lose weight the longer you starve yourself, which creates a vicious cycle.

Furthermore, if you are both working out and dieting, you need good caloric intake when working out in order to help facilitate building muscle. If you don’t eat properly while working out, you don’t build the muscle you should and, in fact, you can lose muscle or cause permanent damage since your muscles won’t have the tools/energy to repair themselves after workouts. 

Crash diets/workouts like this are also not sustainable. There have been dozens of studies on how losing weight too quickly can be bad for the body, but beyond that, the mental tax of trying to maintain a non-maintainable lifestyle of limited eating/ overworkout often ends in a massive rebound (a rubber-banding if you wanna call it that) due to lethargy or mental fatigue (not helped by the lack of food.). That plus a brutalized metabolism will cause people to gain the weight they lost back, make it more difficult to lose, and might ultimately result in the person gaining more weight than they had previously. Again- vicious cycle. (X)

But the dieting industry, the diet culture doesn’t really care about that. It largely doesn’t care if its product or concept or whatever hurts you. Its job is to make money. 

Because here’s the thing- Most people have a part of themselves, however small, that would love to change. Most people would like to be liked, to be needed, to be desired in some capacity. Due to this, a person's self worth is often tied up in some part of themself, often something that is visual, often something that, if given the opportunity, they’d change. 

How does continued hunger relate to mood? 

The concept of being ‘hangry’ is pretty well known. (X). Be hungry long enough, you get physically unwell, and you can unlock a special sort of anger that only comes with being hungry. 

Not just that, but being hungry for extended periods of time can also cause issues with mental clarity (X).

It goes just beyond hangry though. Food and nutrition have long been understood to affect mood and mental well being, though not to the scientific degree able to be achieved today (X) . To summarize as simply as possible- your gut biome, which is dictated largely by your diet, directly impacts mental and physical wellbing. If your gut biome is maintained as it should be, then you overall will have a healthier mental state and overall feel better. If your gut biome is poor, due to undereating or lack of intake of needed nutrients, your biome will start to wither. This will directly impact your mental and physical wellbeing. (X)

I’m not going to dwell on this for terribly long, but I want to bring it up in correlation with the previous two sections because who amongst the Sonic crew is often labeled as being emotionally unstable and prone to moodswings? 

Amy Rose. 

Who is often fingered as having outbursts of volatile anger? 

Amy Rose. 

And who do we see starving themselves in game and working themselves past the point of exhaustion? 

Amy Rose. 

Listen, I confess this one is a bit of a stretch. It’s more of a continuation from the two other points that I sort of wanted to point out. If you can understand the previous arguments for her overworking and underfeeding herself, then this one feels like a natural third component in that and, as such, I felt it should be at least mentioned. 

What I Personally Have Seen in Regards to Eating Disorders in Media while Growing Up.

Thank goodness so much has changed. I remember eating disorders taking up whole episodes in television series, whole issues in comics, whole books in novel series, and it has largely evaporated. The problem is still around, because of course it is, but it is far less of a joke now than it use to be. 

When I was growing up, there were a lot- and I mean a lot- of stories that said, ‘Oh, if you were just a little better, someone would love you. Someone will notice you. If you were prettier, cooler, thinner, buffer, whatever- people would notice you. Someone would love you. Maybe even that specific person you wish could love you back.’ 

‘If you just tried a little harder, maybe it’ll happen.’

And you saw this in the real world, in the marketing, in the fashion, everywhere. Advertisements pushed that if you didn’t fit this very specific, narrow, palatable concept of beauty, then you weren’t worth anyone’s time. 

When this was portrayed in media, it often manifested directly into characters doing insane things to change themselves. Sometimes it was their style of dress, or their personality. Oftentimes, it would manifest in them trying to get buff or be thin.

With a lot of stories, the character often came to the conclusion of, ‘Hey, just be you. You’re good as you- don’t do things to impress other people. Don’t be who you’re not because you feel you have to.’ 

But it was a coinflip as to whether or not the story would prove that to be wrong or true. 

Worse still, even if the lesson was still ‘just be you,’ the whole ordeal was often portrayed as a joke. 

Specifically, women- girls- working out to exhaustion, starving themselves, was portrayed as a joke. 

If the goal of the story was for comedy, and the end had the character revert back to who they were previously, it can usually be put into one of two categories: 

‘How could you be so stupid? How could you believe you ever needed to change? How dumb are you to fall for social pressure like that?’ 

or-

‘How could you be so stupid? How could you believe you could change? You’re not strong enough to change. You’re too you to ever be liked.’  

On that note, let’s back up and return to Amy.

I’m the sort of person that’s got a narrow focus when it comes to Sonic properties. Specifically, if it’s not game canon, it’s not canon to me. 

However, in understanding that other canons exist, other properties within the Sonic universe exist, I won’t ignore them. Even if I don’t think they’re canon, if there is a throughline within, I cannot help but to notice. 

So it’s with this in mind that I ask you: Do you know of Sonic Spin and Dash?

It’s a manga. Put out in the early 00’s, it was a little series of comics that focused on Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Shadow, and Eggman having arbitrary interactions. They’re largely cute and lighthearted. I couldn’t tell you officially what the official age demographic would be for them, but I’d have to guess something fairly young. 

Volume 6 is titled, ‘A Maiden's High-Tech Diet.’ In it, Amy freaks out about having gained 3 kilos/ about 7 pounds. Despite the fact that she’s a growing girl, this deeply upsets her. She asks Tails and Sonic not to eat (in front of her? At all? Unsure.) while she’s trying to diet. Eggman shows up and offers her a solution- a diet machine that will help her achieve the weight and look she wants so deeply. 3 days later, Amy approaches Sonic again. 

She’s emaciated. Wobbling in from off-stage, unable to even speak a sentence without pausing, she asks Sonic if she’s looking thinner. 

Let me rephrase- she’s asking if she looks ‘thin enough’.

Eggman, via his dieting ‘robot’ which really is just a mech he’s hiding inside, asks Amy and co. to perform more insane tasks to weaken them and cause them to be too exhausted to fight him. However, even during this, Amy has other ‘slimming’ products that she’s bought which she uses to defeat Eggman.  

In the end, everyone exhausts Eggman, causing him to give up his scheme and leave. By the end of all of it, he himself is looking thin, having worked off much of his weight in this charade. 

It’s just played off as a joke. 

Alright, but that was early 00’s. How’s Sega been about Amy now? 

Well, this hasn’t really come up in games again, thank goodness. I reiterate- times have changed, and I’m very glad about that. That doesn’t mean this sort of thing is entirely gone, however. This image is from Sonic Channel in 2022 (X).

The image is accompanied by this caption:

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“Otome Straight!” Emmy is passionate about boxercise , saying it's perfect for dieting

Indoor training on rainy days is perfect! Bouncing the punching bag and working up a good sweat with Emel's support

"Mom, do your best. Ato Sukoshi."

 Let's keep a healthy body with training for the rainy season !

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Once again, we have this focus on dieting and food reduction. Again, not a bad thing- perfectly normal- but the reason I take pause is because of the crossed out icecream picture. 

@mysuperlaserpiss - I hope you don’t mind, but I wanted to bring up your comment on that initial post I put out.

…Yeah. Yeah, I 100% agree. 

So when conversations around eating disorders comes up, one of the first things to discuss is, ‘what is your relationship to food?’ Essentially, it boils down to: do you see food as fuel and that it is a normal thing to have, or do you see it is something you have to earn/avoid? (X)

Amy beating the shit out of a punching bag sporting a crossed out picture of icecream, talking about dieting, smacks of, ‘you see food as something you have to earn/avoid,’ to me. It’s as simple as that. This appears as though she’s beating the desire for certain foods out of herself. Simply put, that’s not healthy. 

Okay, so what? 

Man, I don’t know.  

I don’t know, alright? I don’t know. 

I’m biased. I was inundated with the idea of ‘you need to be better’ from a young age from all angles. I am strong, but not appealingly buff. I am not what I'd call heavy, but I'm most certainly not appealingly slim and doctors have always bitched about my BMI (which again- terrible system to work off of). Not that long ago, I was hiding weights under my pant legs even in the dead of summer thinking the extra weight on me when I moved about my day would help me burn calories. Not that long ago, I was walking around 30km/18 miles a week on top of doing several hours of intense exercise, all while only taking in around only 500 cal a day.  I am constantly combating the idea that I need to deserve to eat, but if I eat, I won’t be loveable. Yeah, I’m doing better- significantly so- but I am a biased, untrustworthy source to write about this and I recognize that. I am biased because I’ve been through it. I am biased because I have lived this very specific, isolating nightmare, and no matter how much better I am now, there are still days where all I can manage is a couple hard boiled eggs and maybe canned low-sodium fish. 

I don’t know what to tell you. All I know is what I’ve been through, and when I look at Amy, when I look at her storylines through the games, I see a portion of me that I never would ever want to see in anyone else.

I see someone desperate to be wanted. I see someone disoriented and angry from lack of food. I see someone hurting themselves thinking it's normal to do so. I see someone trying and trying and trying so hard to fit this idea of ‘perfect’ and falling short.

There’s a lot of conversation right now around Amy’s character. How she was presented in early games vs now is significantly different, so of course it would be. Sega seems to be trying to bring the characters into a new age, both in terms of the 2020’s and in terms of the characters' age themselves. There are those that say that Amy’s new presentation is due to her becoming older and more mature, while others argue that she’s become a shadow of her former self.  

I can see both sides of the argument. Of course I can- I’ve been with this characters since almost the beginning. Still, when I look at the changes in Amy Rose, when I look at how happy she is, how energetic and content, my knee-jerk reaction isn’t to start wagging fingers. 

It’s just, ‘Ah. Good. She’s eating.’ 

[lbhslefttiddie]

immediately she regretted asking

[polin-erospsyche]

This post was inspired by a comment from an anon in my ask box. They mentioned that if the Queen hadn’t interrupted Polin's wedding, they could have had a beautiful wedding night (if you’re the anon and you’re reading this, hi! And also, I know this isn't everything, but I'll touch on the rest. Small disclaimer: this got long and I’m sorry).

I agree, that could have happened. But honestly, I'm really glad it didn’t. Don’t get me wrong, I would have loved to see it, but I don’t think it would have been good for them. The intimate scenes we did get tell an overarching story and serve a purpose in the narrative. We’ve been told that these intimate moments are a way for them to communicate, so let’s unpack that.

The first intimate scene is about them discovering each other in a new, intimate way, moving from friendship (which had already started to happen in the carriage) to a lover relationship. This moment is crucial for Penelope's story and character development. From this, she grows in confidence and self-awareness. She expresses this to Colin multiple times, such as when she says, “with the confidence you’ve helped me find this year,” and later, “You’ve taught me to hold my own. You have shown me I’m capable of pleasure beyond imagination.”

From that intimate scene onward, Penelope starts to come into her own power and that includes her sexual power. Colin shows her a level of love and care beyond what she ever thought possible, breaking down the belief system she built around herself. She was ready to sacrifice her dreams of being loved and held for financial stability, a mindset ingrained by Portia. Colin helps her see that this doesn’t have to be the case, chipping away at her long-held beliefs.

Let’s now move to the scene in the alleyway, which links back to anon’s comment. Anon suggests that this is the moment they start repairing their relationship post LW reveal. That following this scene they were in a good enough place to enjoy their wedding night if the Queen hadn’t crashed the party. Yes. And no. 

And oh my god how I’ve longed to discuss this scene but I never quite knew how to approach it. At this point in the show, the narrative is like a tightly wound ball of yarn with so many threads to pull at. So, let’s attempt to pull at them. 

First of all, they’ve entered a whole new playing field. And they’ve entered this playing field while being “the oldest of friends really” so they have ammunition against each other. Pen has hurt Colin by lying (hiding the truth from him time and time again) about her identity. She has let him go on and on about his despise of Lady Whistledown. About his dreams of being an author. These were things he told her in intimacy. Those were things he told his best friend and the person he fell in love with. Not the woman who hides behind her column and has done so much wrong to his family and loved ones. 

There is a separation between the two. For Colin, in that alleyway, there is still just Pen his best friend, Penelope the woman he loves and on the other side of that there is Lady Whistledown, the woman he vowed to destroy. He expresses that when he says “so then you do not need Lady Whistledown anymore”. What he fails to realise at this point, and he cannot be blamed for that, is that Lady Whistledown is an integral part of who Penelope Featherington is as a person. That her alter ego is not just a mask she wears but a crucial aspect of her identity, giving her a sense of power and agency in a world that often limits her as a woman. Something that Pen has slowly come to terms with when she says that she no longer needs to hide behind this alter ego but that does not mean there is no value in it, something that she also explains to him after the Queen has crashed their wedding breakfast. 

Now I say that he cannot be blamed for his refusal of recognizing that they are one and the same because he is still holding onto his misbelief, which is that to be loved and to have a value he must protect what he loves and be useful. Part of that is saving and avenging the people he loves from Whistledown. He has given his word to Eloise, to Marina indirectly, to himself and I’m thinking to Pen silently after what she’s written about herself. He finds himself, due to his misbelief, between a rock and a hard place: “the person he vowed to destroy is, in fact, the person he vowed to protect, and there is no separation between the two” (not me directly quoting myself lol). To this you add all the shame over his writing and his envy of her success and you have a recipe for disaster. 

So essentially, in that alleyway you have Pen who is already well along her character arc and Colin who is still gripping onto his original, unchanged self. This represents a power imbalance. What I love throughout this season, and I might write something about this one day, is that Pen and Colin are never quite on the same level both literally and figuratively. There is always one ahead of the other. This, in the long run, is another recipe for disaster because they are never quite equal. That is UNTIL that butterfly ball when they’ve gone through their character arc respectively. That is the moment they fully come together. They become a unit. They are no longer fighting against each other but with each other and for each other. 

But to arrive to this moment they need to do it separately. They need to be able to work on themselves before they can fully be able to work on their marriage. Genevieve says it well “there is no such thing as true love without first embracing your true self”. For Penelope that is becoming Penelope Bridgerton, an amalgam of the best parts of Whistledown and Penelope Featherington. For Colin that is deconstructing his hero complex and fully believing that he is enough just by being exactly who he is. And that has not happened in that alleyway. Truthfully the surface has barely been scraped in that scene because she essentially shuts down his demons for an instant by saying that she loves him. However, the issues remain. 

So yes, we can speculate all we want. If the Queen had not interrupted their wedding, they might have had a wedding night and they might have had a talk about everything afterward. However, the lack of acceptance of their true selves would have driven them up a wall at the next problem, which was how to handle Cressida.

And I think that is why Polin season is actually so beautiful. It is not just about Polin. It is about marriage and how hard it can get, and how you have to work on yourself to fit around the person you love without sacrificing yourself in the process. It is about choosing each other every day, through the ugly as well as the beautiful, through the hard parts as well as the easy ones. It’s choosing to have faith that you’ll work and figure it out without an assurance that it actually will, but if the love is there, then it just might. That is the story they chose to tell through Penelope and Colin.

First gif made by my bestie @polinsated 💕