#1 knuckles fan in the world

he’s not so perpetually hotheaded that he wants to just smash something!! or an idiot who doesn’t know what 2+2 equals!!!

he grew up ISOLATED from society as Sonic and the others know it. he had NO ONE around him from the time he hatched. Eggman was the first person he interacted with. he doesn’t know why he has to protect the master emerald he just KNOWS he can’t let it fall into the wrong hands.

but who has the wrong hands? he only entrusts its safety to Sonic so he can get it back from Eggman. if Sonic has to use it to beat him, he trusts him to do the right thing even if the first person he trusted stabbed him in the back.

Knuckles, however, DOESN’T TRUST HIMSELF TO USE IT OR THE CHAOS EMERALDS (see his TailsTube appearance). Super Knuckles is a finality and not the first option; if Super Sonic/Shadow/Silver go down, Super Knuckles steps in to take their place.

He knows when to hold back and when to use his full power. He doesn’t rip the tree out to give the Chao fruit in the Frontiers prologue, he just lightly taps it with the side of his wrist. Cutting through the ground to separate the invading robots from himself was unprecedented, but he was willing to sacrifice a little cliff for the safety of the island and its inhabitants. He didn’t know what they wanted but his first instinct is to protect the Master Emerald.

I see these posts on my dash, mostly from teenagers, saying that people over 30 shouldn’t be in fandom, that they don’t belong.

And I just…it makes me so sad for them? Do they really think passion and enjoyment has an expiration date? And especially one coming up so quickly? Do they think they won’t still love pop-culture in ten years, in fifteen years, when they’re adults?

What do we do to young people, and especially young girls, that makes them think after the age of 30 all they’ll care about is raising babies and taking care of their families?

Assuming they even have babies, plenty of women in their 30s don’t.

Guys, you still get to be a person when you’re older. You still get to love things, you still get to create things. You don’t stop being you after a couple decades…instead you get to be more you than you’ve ever been able to be before! Heck, if you’re lucky, you can finally afford decent supplies for cosplay, you can afford to go to all those cons you always wanted, you can decorate your whole house in fandom related things, because it’ll be all yours.

And you’ll get to have friends who are all ages, both younger and older than you would’ve thought. You’ll get to relate just as people, and not have to worry about perceived authority. You’ll get to take in all sorts of different perspectives, and enjoy all sorts of friendships, and age just…won’t really matter? I have friends from 18-70, and I enjoy spending time with all of them…and geeking out about how we all love the same things with all of them, too.

And just because you’re finally the same age as the people creating the content you enjoy doesn’t mean you have to stop enjoying it. It just means you’ve got more personal experience and more years of practice to add to your fic.

Really…getting older kinda rocks.  

So…interact with people in their 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s in fandom–yes, they all exist–or don’t, but please…don’t think you have to give up who you are and what you care about just because you grow up.