The immediate example that comes to my mind is Surge, Kit and Starline, they are all based on glitched sprites mentioned and discussed around these circles.
Maybe you shouldn't compare cards to wrenches to justify Amy Rose's sudden personality change. I said it's unnecessary and you got affected by my opinion.
I'm gonna be the turd in everyone's soup and say Amy has not changed all that suddenly or significantly in the first place. Unless you like, only played Sonic Heroes for fifteen years I guess.
This place has a lot of different people, but I'm specifically inspired by posts trying to validate Superstars' final boss not on its own merits (if there are any), but on the fact that it was supposed to be in Sonic 3. Regardless, the community is generally very kind to returning or ascended elements that were otherwise forgotten or were restricted to a part of the fandom, like Puyo Puyo, Sonic liking chili dogs, Mighty and Ray, Fang, Tails being a mechanic, and even the perception (though that's not an actual thing in games) that Cream is secretly a badass based on exactly one line from SEGA Heroes. By varying degrees, sure -- and yes, it was negligible. I'm not disputing that. Besides, I'd argue her change in behavior didn't really start with the cards. Her obsession with Sonic started to become somewhat sidelined from Sonic Boom on, I think, and her inclusion in The Gang (alongside her transformation in an action heroine) has been less sudden than you seem to imply. In that vein, calling back to her fortune-telling shtick sounds even a bit contradictory, but it may explain why she doesn't do actual tarot readings regularly and instead throws cards around. Oh, so it's about the personality now Well, get back to me when you decide on what you want to talk about!
Ham-fisted? Sorry, but no. I've already hinted on this in my previous post but I think the cards were a brilliant part of Frontiers. If Amy's story arc in Frontiers is about her realizing that there's more to her life than just chasing after Sonic and that she needs to separate from him to be her own person, then the cards had to be featured front and center, as they were the reason why she started obsessing over Sonic in the first place.
It's ham-fisted fisted because they simply weren't a factor in the series before 2022, apart from in some of the most obscure sources. It's not like Amy decides to turn back to them after coming to an epiphany over Sonic. Amy just pulls them out and does a random reading in the DLC and they form the core of her moveset in gameplay. Even Sonic just randomly talks about them after the Giganto fight. Are you still saying that you don't recognise why people are confused or bothered by the sudden focus on them for Amy? Regarding your reference to CD and the Frontiers trailer both showing the cards blowing away in the wind... All I can reiterate is that those things are both from 2022. Amy's cards were only briefly mentioned in one of the CD manuals before then. It just so happens that unlike many other manual-exclusive plot elements, it they weren't retconned in Origins despite still being close to irrelevant in all the years that followed.
This is something I'm starting to understand less and less as pages go by. Amy's change in personality didn't happen all at once, and definitely not because they decided she was now Gambit. If anything, her being superstitious, girly and having an interest in, quote, a misogynistically given feminine hobby, unquote, is maybe the only tie she still has with her old bubbly, chirpy behavior. So personality-wise it'd be literally everything else that changed, and it seems weird to materialize everything in the cards. But even then it kinda didn't? Not all that much? She's still the girl who cares about the little things and creatures while everyone else is concerned with the Big Guys and Big Problems, and sees kindness everywhere. A trait that's related to the levelheadedness we were talking about pages ago, and that I don't think justifies her lack of crazy inherent powers, but it's still there. What I don't think we've seen lately are her temper tantrums, I guess? Then again, everyone mellowed out in Frontiers specifically. That's the kind of game it is. And by then, we already had years of either Boom or her not appearing at all. Well, besides the comics, but I have no idea what happens in those. Between this and a specific choice for a weapon, I feel these are like two almost completely separate issues people have. And the cards have almost nothing to do with the former.
Yes, I don't understand why Frontiers, a game that explores their cast's inner feelings and worries more than any previous Sonic game, shouldn't focus on the important role tarot cards played in Amy's life. No and no, they weren't the only place where this was mentioned. How obscure do you think Sonic Central was? Or the in-game bio's? SEGA obviously thought this part of her was important enough to be restated again and again. The fact they couldn't until recently figure out how to make it part of her gameplay doesn't diminish on its importance. To reiterate, I think SEGA believes that they can't just retcon something that played such an important part in making Amy go after Sonic. Already done before.
... I'm not against people liking the cards. I thought I made it clear in my post, even. I'm not against old concepts that get inadvertently stated as if they were always relevant getting a new lease- just, I don't like the ahistoricity of pretending they were always relevant, just because they happened to get caught up in some information trawling. It's like acting as if Sonic's always had a defined trait "he sneezes when near danger" because of like, a bio mention, a few frames in CD's intro, and maybe one mention by the Joypolis statue. Like acting as if in the next game Sonic was sneezing on every cutscene and going "why're you finding this weird, it's always been a thing, it's there in 1993".
My two cents? "The cards debuting in 1993 doesn't matter because they weren't relevant until Origins" is a really stupid argument to make when Amy herself didn't become relevant until Adventure. From 1993 to 1997, all of her appearances were either really minor (CD), easter egg cameos (Chaotix) or just roster fodder for spinoffs (Drift, R). And all of these games were on consoles/peripherals that nobody owned. From 1999 up until 2011, the overwhelming majority of people were under the impression that she was specifically created for Sonic Adventure as a new character. And if you're gonna do any discussion about how Amy, her portrayal and the perception of her has changed over the years, this is a massive elephant in the room which you just cannot ignore.
I've been watching too much anime. I thought those reflections on the hammer were a reference. God help me. The rot has taken over.
Japanese fandom scratching their heads when Sonic suddenly starts eating chili dogs in the games, while everyone in the West is like "why're you finding this weird, it's always been a thing, it's there in 1993"? Well, since it was SEGA of Japan who introduced tarot cards to Amy's background, I though I'd look up whether this was done by them out of misogynistic malice as you're implying. Turns out there's a scholarly article on the topic of Japanese women and tarot. https://irl.umsl.edu/history-faculty/31/ Some excerpts: Since at least the 1980s the [Japanese] divination industry, including tarot card services and production, has been dominated by girls and women. One consequence of this feminization trend in the industry is that female preferences have taken the lead in card layout design and tastes in content. Another is that because it is trivialized as a female domain, tarot culture is routinely neglected by scholars despite its cultural heft and economic weight. Historians of the occult in Japan mention tarot as having been present there at least by the 1930s, and for the decades up until the 1970s they were part of a general fascination with the occult. Most of the early decks were created by men. Gradually, during the 1970s, tarot began to be widely appreciated and recognizable outside of the avant-garde realms that were dominated by male writers. Today most female tarot designers, readers, and aficionados point to the fortune-telling magazine "My Birthday" as the key to their passion for the cards. Targeting young girls and teens, "My Birthday" was published between 1979 and 2006 and was nicknamed "Maiba". The magazine frequently contained insert pages of punch out tarot cards on strong card stock that readers could easily retrieve. The magazine also provided guidelines on how to do card readings with friends. Famous tarot readers and card producers sometimes mention "My Birthday" as the inspiration for their career paths. In 2012 the publisher released a nostalgia issue of "My Birthday" that included six insert pages of all 78 tarot cards in beautiful color on heavy card stock. Periodicals such as this, as well as other magazines, books, and manga, were significant factors in the development and spread of tarot among girls and women, and are one reason they became so entrenched in female culture. [Tarot] cards predominantly reflect the aesthetic preferences of female artists and consumers. In some cases the cards are intentionally humorous and playful. Often, they indicate great effort to domesticate imagery and symbolism through use of distinctly Japanese themes, religion, and historical characters. Some are based on characters from the worlds of popular culture, including Pokemon, Evangelion, Gundam, and the Sony Cat mascot. Famous manga creator Mizuki Shigeru (1922–2015) produced a tarot set that features some of the goblins, phantoms, and other supernatural beings known as yōkai that he helped to popularize. Tarot card imagery is found in all types of media and usually reflects motifs that will appeal to different audiences. Many of the cards have substituted animals for human figures, reflecting a desire to sidestep obvious ethnic and gendered portraits.
On chili dogs: man I wish they'd pick something different as Sonic's favorite food. It's in a very weird culinary spot -- I've always wanted to eat it since I was a kid, but I have no idea where to find it. I could probably make it too, but I'd have to taste it first to know what it's supposed to be like. Tex-mex chains tend to be a scam around these parts and rarely serve them. (EDIT: Just looked it up, the only ones I could buy would cost me like $20 lol and chili dogs look significantly simpler than our own hot dogs! Feels like a waste. If there's nothing to them other than a simple hot dog and chili, so no secret sauce or ingredient I should be aware of, I'll just make them at home) So are they actually good?
