my high school english teacher would often critique our literature analysis work by pointing out: "you're treating these characters like they're real people. They're not. They're characters". And it took me a long time to understand what he meant by that. Because I always thought "isn't that the point? That writers want to write characters to be so three dimensional that they act and feel like real people?" but that's not it.
Characters are tools a writer uses in service of a story. Of course characters can be written with depth to the point they feel real to us, but they exist in service of their narrative. Something real people aren't beholden to at all. When discussing characters, I think it's easy to accidentally see these characters as "real people" and not extensions of the author's beliefs. Tools for a narrative. Means of storytelling.
a couple of people are misunderstanding me saying "extensions of the author's beliefs" by interpreting this very literally. I don't mean that a character's beliefs are always one to one with their author (and therefore the character's actions are being condoned). I mean this in a far more general sense.
A character could represent the dynamic opposite of a writer's beliefs and the writer could either make the story prove the character wrong, or make a narrative where a villainous character gets away with their crime as a tragedy. Characters can be utilized in so many ways outside of "obvious mouthpiece for the author's beliefs". That is still an extension of the author's expression and beliefs.
So, Sonic’s been kind of the driving force of Sonamy recently. Let’s analyze that.
I’ll show Sonic having feelings for Amy in almost every media aside from Fleetway and the few cartoons she isn’t in. I’ll also present the “whys” in more detail then just “Amy calmed down.” While that’s part of it, I’d like to add my own can of worms. And possible headcanons too. Bear in mind I never grew up with Sonic, so forgive my mixed opinions.
While I love Amy having a crush on Sonic like the energetic sugarplum she is, nowadays Sonic’s oddly been the drive of their dynamic. Any examples of it beforehand? Let’s look outside of the games first.
Sonic X
This Sonic takes more time to himself. He’s introverted, so his feelings for her isn’t displayed as obviously as the others. In fact, most people think he didn’t like her in this show because of how much he runs away. He even manipulated her by flirting in one episode. In my opinion this show has Sonic running away from Amy more often than not. Hot take: Sonic and Amy never had a real conversation either. They didn’t…talk like they do now. Unless you count,
“Oh, Sonic I love you!” “Ah! C’mon, Amy. Knock it off!” No, it wasn’t constant but still common.
From my point of view, the conversations were short lived to none existent. It was the same in the earlier games too. Compared to how they talked to other characters or now, you might be able to notice. At least until Sonic And The Black Night where he talks to both The Lady Of The Lake and Amy. The two would also have visual gags of Sonic getting aggressively hugged by Amy. Or Amy falling on her face while trying. Aside from one moment in Sonic Riders where Sonic put Amy in danger, it wasn’t good or bad. Just cartoony for lack of a better term.
Maybe I’m just insane. You decided.
Anyhow, their dynamic in X is clearly built on actions. Like Amy giving Sonic a seashell bracelet and Sonic giving her a rose. Those little things. While I do prefer them being able to hold longer conversations, I don’t mind how X handles them. But let’s get to Sonic’s crush. I assume in Sonic X Sonic is conflicted. He’ll run away from Amy or try to pull from her on most occasions and others Sonic would constantly hold onto her when he doesn’t have to. For a long period on time no less. Amy’s the same way. One moment she’d be head over heels and other she’s bashful. Goes to show how young they were I guess. I have no clue as to why Sonic liked her back because there wasn’t much to go off of. Except the bracelet moment or her general kindness like feeding him one time. She was a bit much to him and most characters back then.
It’s possible Sonic just liked her and that was it, but I’d imagine due to all of the hand holding and small reciprocated gestures were enough to convey something was there. Straight forward and simple like the show itself. I headcanon this Sonamy being where the boyfriend gets dragged into a relationship and is fine with it. This version of Sonic’s attraction seems to be chaotic pink hedgehogs apparently.
Sonic Boom
Should I even explain it? Might as well because not only do I have something different to say, but these two haven’t been brought up much. Sonic and Amy’s romance mostly is played for laughs. Not saying their love for each other means less because of that, but the humor is the main reason they exist. Much like why in the main canon they started out the way they did. Regardless, I’ll dive deeper into Boom!Sonic’s affection for Amy to the best of my ability.
Boom!Sonic is egotistical, so whenever he thinks Amy’s crushing on someone else, it bothers him. Apparently he’s the only one she’s allowed to like. No “Radical Speedsters” or “Celebrities” can take her attention away from him. Like in Sonic X he tries to keep his crush to a minimum. Even though both him and Amy are terrible at it.
The moment in “Fortress Of Squalitude” a episode where everyone is a bit rude to Amy, close to the end Sonic says, “We may have a hard time saying it Amy. But…well you know.” Then she responds with, “Yeah, I know.” It’s such a sweet moment. Not as powerful as most moments with them but for Boom it’s very nice. Sonic and the others still value her as part of the team, but it’s Sonic who expresses it out loud. Goes to show how much he cares about her for even attempting to open up in this instance. Didn’t even have to finish the sentence. Amy understood perfectly. I also noticed how much he tries his best to impress her. When he needs to return her book back, finds her hammer in Archie, (Vector did it in the show and Sonic got jealous) shows off randomly or dreams about her, and stopped racing to get her some eggs in one episode.
The funny thing about this Sonic is how much of a people pleaser he can be. Especially since the towns people are very spoiled and ungrateful. He wants to be needed and that’s possibly why he goes out of his way to do special things for Amy like go out on picnics, implied dates, and comforts her. She’s very take charge in Boom and Sonic has no problem calling her out when he needs to. Much like Amy in the show and games. Sonic will even put effort into doing things he doesn’t feel like doing for her. How honorable of him. Sure, sometimes he tries to make her jealous and isn’t perfect, but he tries. I believe Sonic likes Amy because again like Sonic X Boom isn’t canon, so more outright reciprocated feelings are allowed in this case. Not to mention the dude likes being shipped with her in the show. Which is a win in my book.
Sonic enjoys bugging Amy much like a playful boyfriend. He probably admires her leadership, but I’m saying this by observation. It could be for anything. Maybe he thinks she’s cute when she’s mad and finds her temper amusing. It could also be for her stubbornness. Some people like each other because of how much they can relate to their partner and in Sonic Boom’s case they’re two cuts of the same cloth. Although still different, due to the show’s theme, they carry the same condescending, slightly self centered, hotheaded, stubborn, and humorous traits. But they’re still good hedgehogs with a heart of gold and usually makes reasonable decisions. Not to mention they’re both equally shy about their crushes. In Sonic Boom, Sonic and Amy is that married couple who doesn’t get along much, but when they do you’ll understand why they stay together.
Reboot Archie Sonic
I haven’t read the comics (unless you count watching a few dubs and internet reviews) but I’ll give my limited thoughts. Luckily there’s not much to say. Although most people believe it was unintentional, I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch that someone from Archie thought it was a fun idea to have Sonic crush on somone in this reboot. Maybe it’s unintentional but it doesn’t seem that way.
I’m basically using this part of the post to ramble about how Reboot Archie’s Sonic still manages to be a casanova. He’s like a mixture of his old self and how he is in the games. That’s also why he acts the way he does around Amy. Could it also possibly mean he’s meant to like her canonically too? Reboot Archie did have to follow a more accurate way of writing Sonic after all. Anyways, let’s run down the list of Game!Sonic if he was allowed to be down bad for Amy like they’re already dating. Which is how I view this continuity. It’s basically if Boom and X had a weird fusion and this version of Sonic’s crush was the result. Except here he manages to be more bold and upfront. He knows what he’s doing. Here’s a run down.
First of all, THIS. No joke, more of these interactions would send me to the moon. I would explain why but the panel speaks for itself.
Sonic says, “I was worried about you.” Which he hasn’t admitted to her before this to my knowledge. He states this by giving her a side hug. Along with other out of nowhere physical affection and flirting. Not to single out Sonally fans. Sonic and Sally clearly have a close connection people appreciate and I respect that. In any case, Sonic and Amy in Reboot Archie also matches energies so much. They’re both clearly running off the same brain cell. You’d think they were together. They’d be a chaotic couple that’ll do the most outlandish things and somehow manage to survive them. After willfully risking their lives they’d do it again because being normal and safe is boring. I promise you, this version of Sonamy would be a huge force to be reckoned with.
-I’d also like to mention my friend Salty showed an example of Sonic being jealous of Knuckles coming with Amy on a mission and it’s brilliant. Dude gets all bratty about it too. Archie!Sonic does not play around. The post in question.
Sonic Prime
Already talked about this in another post, but I want to mention it again. Prime!Sonic is the most sensitive version of the character, so it’s no surprise he displays his admiration for Amy freely and out loud.
This moment says enough on its own. Sonic’s like this throughout the entirety of Prime and even changes the tone of his voice when speaking to or about her. It’s so authentic and adorable and makes him stand out against other variants.
Amy’s crush on Sonic in Prime is up to interpretation, but I don’t think she likes him in that way personally. Like other characters, Amy tends to be done with Sonic’s childishness. Guess she thinks he’s probably too immature to be boyfriend material whether she has feelings or not. Sonic on the other hand, acts how you wouldn’t expect. I personally see him as his own interpretation, so I’m fine with it. If he wants to have goo-goo eyes for Amy in Prime, it’s cool.
Prime!Sonic has it bad and I wouldn’t be shocked if he’d be the one wanting to go out on dates. Maybe he’d cook dinner for her sense he cooks in the show. I’d imagine Amy declining at first, but does it after his constant begging. They’d be swapped version of most emotional to least emotional. Prime!Amy would be a girlfriend who feels more like a parent than a partner.
Unleashed/Black Night
No one can bring up Sonic Unleashed without the lovely Amy meeting the Werehog scene. I love how Sonic didn’t like Amy hugging him, but right after she left he solemnly mopes around for probably the first and last time. He’s never in any game slowly moped around disappointedly before. Proving he only has certain reactions when it comes to Amy Rose. At least in some continuities. Unleashed gives you a choice to go on a date with Amy or not. Then the next game Sonic Team followed through with it, but ended up having Amy mad at Sonic for missing it. At least Sonic tried. Not to mention his reaction to The Lady Of The Lake and him flirting is fun to watch.
See how Sonic still likes her back but it isn’t because she’s “calmed down?” She’s still the same excitable love strucked Amy. There must be something more to it. Other than the obvious answer with Sonic Team wanting to do something with the pear. I have no idea why but having multiple hints even in the past must’ve been done for the fun of it. “We created this love interest but then railed back to Sonic not reciprocating her feeling. But we still want to market them as a couple in some way.” This franchise never cease to confuse me.
Amy encouraging Sonic in one of the cutscenes could’ve been where he started liking her back. Not in the way he does now, but he admired her none stop compassion and might’ve wanted to return the favor. “Eh, she’s sweet. Maybe a date won’t be so bad.” The fact he went out of his way to get her a chilidog and flirted with a different version of her should tell you enough. Of course it would take a while before anything else happened. 
IDW/Sonic Frontiers
Yeah, after issue 2, Sonic’s never felt the need to run from Amy. From the comics to Sonic Frontiers there’s a lot of moments of Sonic being somewhat emotionally candid. Not by much, but close. I believe Amy’s the reason for that in a way. Sonic’s not afraid to hang out with her anymore. He even hugs her back on some occasions. “Ames” was a nickname from fanfics and Boom which became canon over time and he occasionally calls her that.
Sonic wishes to share an umbrella and spend more time with her. He also gets excited to see her more often. It’s like Reboot Archie but slightly toned down. At least up until the hard to trigger lines from Sonic Frontiers. The same game where he outright admits to being worried about Amy and smiles back at her with a Coco looking between the two. Then he supports Amy’s decision to leave etc. We all know where we are now.
Crazy how the more you look into this franchise the more tiny details you notice. It’s also crazy how much Sonic’s been into the love interest he originally was already supposed to love. To me, Sonic had a crush on Amy in Unleashed but fell in love with her in IDW. What makes Sonamy gripping though is how unique it is compared to most romantic relationships. Leaves it to be more entertaining whenever something unexpected happenes. It keeps you engaged.
Why Sonic Crushes On Amy?
1. Amy doesn’t want to slow him down. Obviously because of IDW issue 2’s love confession with Amy saying “I can’t change you. I don’t want to change you.” Amy joins Sonic and he includes her more often because of that. His speed is no match for her persistence anyways.
2. She shows compassion and love for those around her. Not just to Sonic, but everyone. She’s the definition of soft hearted. Even for people Sonic and his friends would be weary about. Think about now in the recent comics and games where Sonic’s trying it out. I do think it should be more of Amy’s thing then Sonic’s but it just goes to show how much she probably inspired him. Who knows? Even in the past he had respect Amy for her tenderheartedness.
3. Amy’s energy matches Sonic’s. Though sometimes she can be overly enthusiastic compared to him. Even before now, Amy’s always been adventurous and that’s probably something Sonic liked from the start. Not in a romantic way, but in a respectful way. If he were to have a partner he’d need someone to keep him grounded and be on the same level. No exceptions.
4. Her loyalty. No matter what Sonic does (including times she disagrees) she’s one of Sonic’s most loyalist companions. Obviously other characters are too, but Amy has her being a long time childhood friend/Sonic 06 and Unleashed going for her. 06 for trusting Sonic over Silver and Unleashed for still loving Sonic despite his transformation. Heck, before she knew who the Werehog was she wasn’t disgusted. Amy’s commendable for that.
From all these points here physical attraction isn’t included. What I like about both characters is their crushes don’t stem to how they look. Though it is worth mentioning Sonic has called Amy “Radiant” in TMOSTH, but that’s probably the closest we’ll ever get to an outright physical compliment. From Sonic at least.
- Side note thanks to @saltynsassy31 again, Sonic and Amy’s dynamic can be summed up as not a relationship but rather a situationship. Yes, it’s a real word. What does it mean? Basically two friends who has crushes on each other but doesn’t do anything about it. Just a fun detail for you guys.
Why Did Sonic Run From Amy In The Past?
I’ll make this quick, but the reason Sonic ran from Amy wasn’t because he didn’t like her. On the contrary. Sonic always could’ve ran at his normal speed to get away from her. Sonic’s the fastest thing alive. Why would he let someone he “didn’t like” catch up to him? I personally think he enjoyed the thrill of the chase. It’s why I believe he misses it nowadays. Though I do understand Sonic didn’t often treat Amy like a friend. Not in a way I can understand at least. Not that I think their relationship was bad, but from what I’ve seen, it was more told then shown due to Sonic and the gang not including her on missions. Amy normally had to catch up with them which was a running gag. Especially in SA2. It might be why some prefere her in stuff like Reboot Archie, Boom, IDW, and Frontiers. Because Amy’s friends includes her on adventures now. At least in my opinion. Correct me if I missed anything.
Final Headcanon
Since Sonic in the games has been the one to push the Sonic side of Sonamy much more then Amy does for herself, I’d like to think in most cases (especially as their dynamic grows) Sonic would start carrying other versions of him traits like trying to mess with her.
He’d want to get her to chase him more often and Amy would probably ask once or twice, “What’s going on and why are you acting weird?” He’d definitely play it off as him fooling around. Sonic doesn’t know much about romance, but he does know what Amy likes. Maybe he’d ask her out or go on a bunch of traveling missions. Anything to get her to pay attention to him again. After all, there’s been examples of the guy feeling ignored by her in and out of canon. It’s possible.
-There’s also a consistent detail where Sonic’s finally ready to open up but has to deal with Amy doing her own thing. Or when he’s face with different variants of her, he’s flirtatious with them. For the fastest thing alive, he has terrible timing when it comes to making his mind up.
Conclusion
Welp, there you have it, darlings. Examples of Sonic crushing on Amy more than some would think. It’s a Sonic character analysis and Sonamy post all in one. I know there’s more, but I think this gathers examples from the actual content.
it feels like the sort of unforced error that should be obsessively postmortemed for the next fifty years, a catastrophe that should utterly delegitimize the society that made it happen, but instead everybody’s like “oh yeah, that. lmao, that was crazy”
I have to add to this because I was teaching a text about this topic to a bunch of post-2003 undergraduates recently and each time I do so I experience the same sense of disorientation.
This is a war about which the accepted, mainstream consensus is that no one is able to explain the U.S. decision to invade Iraq. The people involved in that decision are unable, in retrospect, to explain or justify it. In almost every postmortem of this decision, you will find some reference to the fact that Richard Haass, who advised Colin Powell at the State Department in 2001-3, has said that he “will go to [his] grave not knowing” why the U.S. invaded Iraq. George Packer, in The Assassins’ Gate, describes the invasion as “something that some people wanted to do.”
This is a war that destroyed a country. It created ISIS. It destabilized the Middle East. It killed a minimum of c. 200,000 people. It displaced millions more. It resulted in devastating losses to the cultural heritage of Iraq. And twenty years on, no one is able to explain why it happened.
It seems to me that there are several important lessons here.
This is a war about which the accepted, mainstream consensus is that no one is able to explain the U.S. decision to invade Iraq.
Probably because everyone involved in producing and disseminating that "mainstream consensus" was involved and culpable in that crime, and instead of opening themselves up to criticism or their careers to repercussions for their monstrous behavior it's easier to just pretend that it just happened, somehow.
George Packer, in The Assassins’ Gate, describes the invasion as “something that some people wanted to do.”
"Some people." We know who these people are.
Established in the spring of 1997, the Project for the New American Century is a non¬ profit, educational organization whose goal is to promote American global leadership. The Project is an initiative of the New Citizenship Project. William Kristol is chairman of the Project, and Robert Kagan, Devon Gaffney Cross, Bruce P. Jackson and John R. Bolton serve as directors. Gary Schmitt is executive director of the Project
Some of these names might be familiar, like John Bolton, some less so, like Robert Kagan, even though this piece of shit, his brother, and his wife are still at it, having a direct hand in the current war with Ukraine.
In essence, The Project for a New American Century is a policy document laying out the intention and rationale for expanding America's hegemony as sole global superpower into the 21st century. It lays out in no uncertain terms why the US went to Iraq: [emphasis added]
In the Persian Gulf region, the presence of American forces, along with British and French units, has become a semi¬ permanent fact of life. Though the immediate mission of those forces is to enforce the no-fly zones over northern and southern Iraq, they represent the long-term commitment of the United States and its major allies to a region of vital importance. Indeed, the United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.
Iraq and Iran both are identified explicitly as obstacles to US domination in the region.
Over the long term, Iran may well prove as large a threat to U.S. interests in the Gulf as Iraq has. And even should U.S.-Iranian relations improve, retaining forward-based forces in the region would still be an essential element in U.S. security strategy given the longstanding American interests in the region.
And repeatedly the authors express anxiety over the fact that their plans for domination are on a time table as the regional powers they're looking to dominate are trying to develop deterrents, especially nuclear.
Potential rivals such as China are anxious to exploit these transformational technologies broadly, while adversaries like Iran, Iraq and North Korea are rushing to develop ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons as a deterrent to American intervention in regions they seek to dominate.
Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and North Korea are all set up on the chopping block because they represent threats to American/NATO interests. Elsewhere in the document they point out that such a transformation in American power and posture as they're prescribing might not be possible absent a "Pearl Harbor" like event, which they got in the form of 9-11.
And twenty years on, no one is able to explain why it happened.
No, they're just not willing to say the quiet part out loud. All these bastards know full well why it happened and who was responsible, but saying so not only implicates themselves, but the entire US government.
This was intentionally manufactured by Facebook. Facebook implemented it’s “accountability culture” starting with its rule about only using your real name and photo on its service and encouraging you to disclose other information in your profile, and from there it just got normalized. It was entirely to gather data for advertising purposes, but now we associate that level of openness with “accountability”. Entire generations are now being raised with this as the norm. Privacy is no longer a priority, or even really seen as an option.
This is to your detriment. Your privacy protects you from predators of all kinds. You really should be guarding it carefully. Disclose what you feel is important on a case by case basis, but even your mental health status and beliefs are exploitable by big business and small-time bullies and abusers alike.
Even if you’re not overly fussed about what people know about you, just understand that not everyone has the luxury of feeling the same. Some people have stalkers and abusers they’re trying to evade, or don’t want to attract new abusers into their lives by being that vulnerable and open again. Some people have extreme social anxiety. Some people are protecting other people in their lives. Some people just don’t want their grandmothers to find their smutfics. Some people are Internet privacy advocates who keep their details private as a political statement and as a matter of principle.
You are not entitled to anyone’s information, and you do not owe anyone yours. You are allowed to just be an anonymous username until you feel safe to disclose more.
I think they ignore that vriska tried to repair the friendship with Aradia after she killed her because you know, she killed her.
honestly i could go on a rant about what happened between the drama of Aradia, Terezi, and Vriska but that’d be super long and all im gonna say is
vriska pushed tavros off a cliff
aradia was pissed and wanted to teach vriska a lesson, even though terezi told her not to
aradia summoned the ghosts of trolls vriska had killed to haunt her
trolls vriska HAD TO KILL or else you know, spidermom would die and she’d be culled
vriska was upset by this, p much started crying
doc scratch manipulated vriska and tricked her into thinking killing aradia was the best option, and encouraged her to kill both Aradia and Terezi
Vriska listened to him, killed aradia and blinded terezi
Terezi was like “oh shit no” and tried to murder vriska
in one panel of terezi thinking about killing vriska, she thinks “Its almost sad how easy its going to be”
Terezi felt no remorse for what she was about to do to Vriska, which was murder her through Doc Scratch
Terezi informed doc scratch that Vriska had one of his Magic Cue balls, which made him LOSE HIS SHIT and he exploded the cue ball, right as vriska was looking into it, causing her to lose an eye and an arm
Then, later, they start playing SGRUB
Equius Makes Aradia a cool robot
vriska desperately wants to make it up to aradia, so she plans to deliver equius robot to aradia herself as a gift
equius sees vriskas plan and dosnt let her do this
Vriska then explains that all to aradia, who dosnt care
Aradiabot then beats the shit out of vriska in the flash “Make Her Pay”
thanks aradia
if u dont believe/remember this just read either Vriskas, Terezis, Aradias, or Doc Scratchs wiki page. i think doc scratchs page has the most info about it
While some of this is true, plenty of the rest of it is either out of order or phrased in a pretty different way from how it was portrayed in-canon!
Vriska pushing Tavros off a cliff was a legitimate attempt on his life. Yes she was manipulated into it by Scratch, yes she never really wanted to do it, and yes she regretted it later, but it was a genuine attempt to kill him that left him crippled - in a society where being crippled was a death sentence. She left him liable to be culled at any minute.
Aradia as Tavros’s friend was -quite understandably- quite upset about this. She summoned the ghosts of the other (largely innocent) troll-children Vriska had fed to her lusus to force her to literally face the consequences of her actions and those they’d hurt. NOTE: Vriska is never seen or mentioned trying to feed anything other than troll children to her lusus, and Terezi was only ok with her feeding evil ones to it. Vriska, however, sent them indiscriminately to their deaths because Alternia is a horrible society where compassion is largely considered alien and useless.
Vriska was upset about this, but she did not ‘p much start crying.’ She was frightened and angry, and because of her upbringing and lack of foresight, her immediate response (even though she claimed not to be interested in doing it) was to kill Aradia. Scratch didn’t say 'Hey, I have an idea: Kill Aradia’, he said 'Aren’t you going to kill her, that’s sort of your thing lol’ and she went with that because she feels that’s the sort of thing expected of her. It’s also notable that she used another person - one of Aradia’s friends - as a literal puppet to do this, and thought nothing of it whatsoever. It wasn’t just a case of a poor fightened babbu lashing out, it was a case of her starting something, not being able to deal with the consequences, and being unable to stop it escalating. As is an enormous theme with her fascinating and multi-faceted character.
Terezi wasn’t blinded till after Vriska had had her arm and eye blown off.
A thing you failed to go into detail about was how, in spite of everything - Terezi didn’t want to kill Vriska. Not really. She wanted Vriska to give her any sort of reason not to, and contacted her specifically asking for just that. Rather than admitting that she’d fucked up immensely and deeply regretted her actions, Vriska covered up her regret and panic with bravado and bragging about how she’d killed Aradia and crippled Tavros all by herself. At the time, she showed no regret whatsoever, and so Terezi told Scratch about the cueball, which he then blew up. This paints Terezi in a decidedly better light than if she’d simply set Scratch on Vriska without a care in the world.
Vriska -did- seem to want to make up with Aradia, however, the way she went about it clearly demonstrated that she’d learned very little from the whole affair. As far as she was concerned, giving Aradia the robot-body meant that they were 100% even and could go right back to being friends. She didn’t stop abusing Tavros, even though she knew it bothered Aradia even as a ghost, and she didn’t truly apologize for what she’d done to Aradia either. And when Aradia (likely under the influence of angry emotions she hadn’t felt since she died) beat her to death - Vriska held no grudge towards her whatsoever. In her eyes, this meant that they were even again, and she seemed genuinely puzzled on the meteor when Aradia (and many others) wanted little to do with her, because she seems to think that everyone thinks the same way that she does. This is also seen in how she genuinely seemed to think that blinding Terezi wouldn’t impact their friendship in the long-term - her way of 'making amends’ there was by friendly contacting her and saying 'Well we’re even’, plus saying that she’d have permanently psychically enslaved Tavros to be her 'assisted living slave’ after being blinded.
Vriska’s long line of mistakes aren’t just a case of other people doing mean things to her and her reacting - it’s showing how her very flawed view of the world poisons her relationships and her actions. Vriska Serket is a character who literally cripples, blinds and kills people and still expects them to like her because she’d still like them if they did the same to her - as seen by how she still wanted to be friends with both Terezi and Aradia after they respectively crippled and killed her.
Saying 'Well they did this so she had to do this back, can’t people just fucking forgive her already’ is the same trap that Vriska herself falls into when trying to justify her actions. It ignores that A) in every case, she was the one to start it and B) nobody owes her forgiveness or friendship.
She’s a very complicated, interesting and FLAWED character, but that all just gets thrown out the window if you try and lay the blame for all her actions on others. Hell - Vriska herself admitted to Meenah that she now understood why people would have been so exasperated, horrified and disgusted by her actions after she got a faceful of Aranea’s grandstanding egotistical crap. Without that little epiphany, she’d have continued repeating the same mistakes that she thought she’d learned from.
TL;DR, the FLARP revenge-cycle cannot honestly be summed up as a sarcastic 'thanks aradia’
Something I haven't really seen mentioned and I think people may want to bear in mind is that while artists are the most heavily impacted by AI visual medium scraping, it's not like the machine knows or cares to differentiate between original art and a photograph of your child.
AI visual media scrapers take everything, and that includes screengrabs, photographs, and memes. Selfies, pictures of your pets and children, pictures of your home, screengrabs of images posted to other sites -- all of the comic book imagery I've posted that I screengrabbed from digital comics, images of tweets (including the icons of peoples' faces in those tweets) and instas and screengrabs from tiktoks. I've posted x-ray images of my teeth. All of that will go into the machine.
That's why, at least I think, Midjourney wants Tumblr -- after Instagram we are potentially the most image-heavy social media site, and like Instagram we tag our content, which is metadata that the scraper can use.
So even if you aren't an artist, unless you want to Glaze every image of any kind that you post, you probably want to opt out of being scraped. I'm gonna go ahead and say we've probably already been scraped anyway, so I don't think there's a ton of point in taking down your tumblr or locking down specific images, but I mean...especially if it's stuff like pictures of children or say, a fundraising photo that involves your medical data, it maybe can't hurt.
If you do want to officially opt out, which may help if there's a class-action lawsuit later, you're going to want to go to the gear in the upper-right corner on the Tumblr desktop site, select each of your blogs from the list on the right-hand side, and scroll down to "Visibility". Select "Prevent third party sharing for [username]" to flip that bad boy on.
Per notes: for the app, go to your blog (the part of the app that shows what you post) and hit the gear in the upper right, then select "visibility" and it will be the last option. If you have not updated your app, it will not appear (confirmed by me, who cannot see it on my elderly version of the app).
You don't need to do it on both desktop and mobile -- either one will opt you out -- but on the app you may need to load each of your sideblogs in turn and then go back into the gear and opt out for that blog, like how you have to go into the settings for each sideblog on desktop and do it.
This is an excellent vintage meme. The mixture really brings out the best of both components.
A 2007 I’d imagine. What makes this meme especially fascinating is the textwork. This was made during the short length of time between memes not yet having their defined outlined-Impact text. The Impact has obviously been included, but still uses the one-toned coloring that would be commonly seen with a variety of fonts.
I imagine this would usually be used behind the “spoiler image” feature, making the best of its abilities. Truly an intriguing meme.
Fuck it we ball. @burgundystriker - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
stormborns
origamiaround
turnnoffyourmind
pixelskylines
snowghoul
andulkaphoto
2087
