#or for people to start thinking 'damn why does he WANT Eggman to be such an irredeemable asshole

[emblemxeno]

As someone who loves how cringe and fun Sonic is, have you SEEN how edgy Shadow is? He got flipping doom wings in the latest game and they went ALL in on it! And yet he's beloved people LOVE the edge of that hog. But it also kind of reminds me of people fighting over Movie Sonic and saying he's cringe and quips too and have these people seen 90's Sonic? That's his thing. He's like Spiderman he never shuts up and idk I feel like it's something to be said about fandoms now, they want thing to be deep and have a "morally gray" message instead of fun whimsy and fiction at the same time relate and attach to something instead of enjoying something.

3H's message was bad and I'm tired of pretending it's not, the whole game's world revolves around the backstory of a race who they just throw away because the red emperor is a girl, it's like the weird side thing they do in Awakening going to Walmart that has nothing to do with the main story but it's the whole damn game. What 3H does well and why it continues to dominate is how it gets you practically para-socially attached to the cast, and that's not a good thing it's like there are people who are stans to their celebs or people who will ride or die for their brand, 3H somehow hit that group and frankly it's a little disturbing how well it did how insanely attached people are to that game and cast, I'd love a psychological study on it tbh. Because you know what game does "you do what you can when everything is falling apart" well? Conquest which is my favorite for that reason. It's not perfect but the message to me about bonds over blood and how there is no justice in the world but it's the little things you do and the choices you make to get by, most people aren't going to lead a massive revolution they don't have the power, you just want your loved ones safe. Does it do it perfectly? No but nothing does, replaying it right now in this time period though makes it hit...so much harder to me. And everyone shits on that game despite making a hell of a lot more sense than 3H

Sorry for rambling in your inbox but to end this off, reality fucking sucks let has have whimsy, let us have cringe, let us have ultimate edge, let us have fantasy and stories that are just there to entertain us, crazy designs and uniqueness, because right now it's all we have

SPEAK LOUDER! SHOUT IT FROM THE ROOFS!

I think there's a lot of nuance lost in how media can be categorized. Like, Shadow is stereotyped as the prime "Edgy McEdgelord" character, but from my perspective, being a cringe edgelord isn't what Shadow has ever embodied (aside from when the social media market team for Sonic leaned into those perceptions, god that era is insane looking back at it).

Shadow's story is genuinely sincere and trying to be something memorable, heartfelt and really fucking cool. How it was presented in SA2 is exactly why he got so fucking popular. The warts started showing when extraneous aspects started to affect it, such as the amnesia subplot in Heroes and Shadow 05, the kind of forced gunplay and weaponry in Shadow 05 (it only made sense in 06 after he became an agent), and whatever the hell his Boom characterization was.

Shadow Gens (and I heard the movie version of him as well) leans into being sincerely fucking cool. It's edgy, but not tryhard. It's effortless. It's full of sauce. And the Sonic series itself embodied that from its inception! A simple yet unfortunately poignant story of saving the environment and liberating oppressed groups from the greedy and selfish ambitions of a tech bro (though at least Eggman has massive fucking charisma)

Thank you for bringing up Spiderman because I agree so much that Spiderman is on the same wavelength as Sonic (I even have plushies of both!), that I get weird vibes from people who say they hate them. Like, everyone's thoughts on Sonic games or Spiderman media are valid, but hating them as characters? They're just little guys making jokes, helping people, and living as themselves!

And again, you hit the nail on the head with the parasocial aspect, because I think at a point where someone starts envoking behavior of celeb stans, things have gotten really fucking dour. A central point of interactive media like video games is that there's an intentional degree of separation from the makers of the art and the audience who consumes it.

There are points to be told and lessons to be learned from stories, but they are still things we individually should recognize as things not to attach our personhood to. The FE fandom can't unanimously agree with the fact that the genocide of a particular race is bad, for example, because too many people have aligned their social presence with one of 3H's factions. And that's a real huge fucking issue! Were we not making progress IRL by trying to counteract the idea that victims don't have to be perfect or wholly pure in all intentions/actions?

Some things, like the morality and motivations of joining a war, are nuanced. But starting a war, as someone with a high position of power and control, with no prior motivation other than "correcting" the world (read: setting it back to "how it should be") due to the idea that they think it's only their's to lead, isn't nuanced. It's something that most rational and empathetic people can understand is evil.

Comparatively, the conflict between Elusia and Brodia is better written because it's effective to understand just from what the game gives you, and leaves no room for petty factionism. Elusia is being corrupted by Fell Dragon followers, including the king, so Brodia is taking steps to stop it. However, Brodia is hurting a lot of civilians in its expansion, and using this "keeping you in check" excuse to justify not bettering its behavior. It's because of the country's historical war profiteering that may have sent Elusia down a course of enthrallment by the Fell Dragon faith in the first place.

Boom. It's easy to swallow, shows both perspectives, doesn't excuse Elusia's actions in the present, nor handwaves the historical, implicative problems that Brodia helped foster. And it resolves well in the ending where Diamant and Ivy guide their kingdoms to better futures.

You don't need to explain every perspective, thought process, or ethicality to the letter for a story element to be effective or well written. You just need to write it well.

[expresso-bean]

The Man Out of Time [A ShadAmy and Silver Story]: Chapter 13

Pairing: Shadow the Hedgehog x Amy Rose

Description: It has been seven years of peace following the grueling war with Eggman and his army. Though it took time to rebuild what they have lost, life for the Freedom Fighters could not be better. Whether it's finding love or trying to run from their past, celebrating post-war times has been different for each of them.

Will anyone believe the mysterious hedgehog's cry for help? Or will he be left to fight for his future alone? Read to find out!

Warnings: None

Word Count: 1k

POV: Silver the Hedgehog/Third Person

!! I do not own any of the art/gifs/borders used in my chapters. All credits to the rightful owners !!

Masterlist ❀ Ch.1 ❀ Ch.2 ❀ Ch.3 ❀ Ch.4 ❀ Ch.5 ❀ Ch.6 ❀ Ch.7 ❀ Ch.8 ❀ Ch.9 ❀ Ch.10 ❀ Ch.11 ❀ Ch.12

"Whatever, Chaos Control."

In a blink of an eye, both of us were in back in Amy's living room. I felt great knowing that Shadow had heard my calls for help, and it felt even greater to know that he cared about me in one way or another, whether he admitted it to himself or not.

"Shadow?"

Shadow turned to look at me from the bottom of the steps. The look he held wasn't one of anger or annoyance, but of concern.

"If you are about to ask to see her I suggest you hold your tongue. She is still resting and I'll be damned if you want me to wake her for something like this."

"Woah, calm down. I stare at her room for a couple of seconds and you think I want to talk to her at a time like this?"

"Be serious," Shadow had his teeth clenched in either anger or jealously. "Just because she trusts you and gives a damn about your life does not mean you know her as I do. Keep your distance and we will get along fine."

"Then what gives you the right to push people away for her. I feel guilty enough that I'm here, and even more guilty that I have to put her through this. You have no idea what I feel or who I am! So don't tell me what I can and cannot do!"

"At least I know what is best for her! You didn't even know her in your time!"

"That's why I am here! To make sure she lives to see the future! But you don't care about that! All you care about is that I am here and she cares about me now! Stop thinking with your jealously and start thinking with that 'oh so logical' brain of yours!"

I stormed away from him and made my way into the kitchen preparing to make myself a glass of chocolate milk. As I reached for a glass a memory began to play in my head.

--

A young Silver was running through the halls of his barren home, he giggled as he watched the toy rabbit he was playing with float in the air, covered with the mist of magic he calls his telekinetic powers. Unbeknownst to him, through Silver's laughs, his father's sobs rattled the walls of his room. Shadow was clutching the framed picture of his deceased wife, Amy Rose. The picture was taken in a field of pink wildflowers in mid-spring, right when they were at full-bloom. Amy was standing there in a red spring dress and a peach, wide brim hat. Her happiness shines through the smile she gives to the camera.

"You are more beautiful than any flower in any field." That is what Shadow had said when he took that picture.

A little over a year later, everything in that photo would cease to exist. The field would be destroyed. His Rose would die soon after. The memory of that day made Shadow cry harder into his free hand.

Silver passed by his father's room and heard the awful noise of sadness that seeped through the thin, wooden door. Usually, his father never let sadness run through him, and instead displayed an array of love and happiness whenever Silver saw him. To hear him so sad confused Silver.

"Papa?" Silver dropped the rabbit he was playing with and frowned. His little fingers tapped on the door, trying to get it open. But it was to heavy for Silver. "Papa? Papa, are you sad?"

Silver tapped on the door a little louder. The crying suddenly stopped. He heard silence then followed the shuffling of footsteps.

"Come in, Silver. Papa is alright."

Silver smiled as he excitedly opened the door. 

"Papa!" Silver ran to his father and engulfed him into a big hug. Shadow wrapped his arm around his son and used the other to pet his quills on his head. "Papa, were you sad?" 

Silver felt his father tense at the question, then he heard him sigh. 

"Yes, my son, Papa is sad. But it's okay, Papa will be okay. Don't worry." 

Silver looked up at his father and smiled brightly.

"Really?"

That smile made Shadow break inside; it was just like his precious Rose. Tears dropped down Shadow's tired face. 

"My son, you look just like your mother. You have her loving heart. Her beautiful eyes. Her bright smile." 

Silver looked confused as to why his father was crying. Usually, he would smile when he talked about the boy's mother, but this time was different.

"Papa?"

Shadow dried his tears and picked his son up. Silver giggled his father placed the young boy atop his shoulder. 

"Mommy loved you very much my son. She will always be with us." Silver simply nodded his head. He had wished he had met his mother, and every time he heard of her, it made him feel sad. Shadow took notice of this and walked towards the door. "Hey, what did I say about being sad? Only Papa can be sad around here."

"Why?"

"Because sad boys don't get chocolate milk."

"Chocolate milk! Okay, I'll stop being sad! I want chocolate milk, Papa!"

Shadow chuckled at the bouncing boy on his shoulder as he walked towards the kitchen and towards the refrigerator. Shadow put Silver down to prepare the two glasses of chocolate milk. Meanwhile Silver watched excitedly as his father poured in the chocolate syrup into the glasses and stirred them, making them a rich brown color. Shadow passed one glass to Silver and kept the other to himself.

"Hey! I thought sad boys couldn't drink chocolate milk!"

"But I'm not sad."

"Why?"

"Because, I have you here with me. That is all I need to be happy."

"Me too! And even more that I have chocolate milk."

"Always remember, my son, remember how much your father loves you."

"I love you too papa!"

--

I smiled through the tears running down my face, and I watched them as they dropped around the glass of chocolate milk.

"Rest easy my dear parents. We have a long road ahead of us."

[randomthefox]

Why do some people dislike the characterization from Frontiers?

They will say stuff like:

"But Amy already shares love with the world! It doesn't make sense for this moment to be sad!"

Me: You don't get it. Amy is going to be own hero and not rely on Sonic entirely anymore. She will help and heal others, even if that means she won't see Sonic that much anymore.

"Knuckles HAS been off of his island to do fun things! It doesn't make sense!"

Me: You don't get it. He's struggling between duty, and happiness. How can you live your own life and not be selfish? He is the last of his kind, but does that mean he won't get the chance to live how he wants? This next chapter for Knuckles is going to be interesting.

"Tails did stuff on his own! He defeated Chaos and Eggman! It doesn't make any sense!"

Me: You don't get it. Tails is going to find out what he'll be without Sonic. He called himself a "burden" to his best friend; now he needs to find the confidence to let go of that pain by proving to himself he is amazing. Overcome the fear of failure he had in Forces, and realize he isn't a "side kick" but a best friend who is the coolest. He is going to find out who to be without Sonic, because there might be a day....when his best friend won't be there.

But nope. SEGA and Sonic Team and IIzuka are stupid. They wouldn't put ANY god damn thought into the story and characters, right? Why do they think this? BECAUSE THEY DON'T GET IT.

Yeah honestly the complaints about the writing in Frontiers always seem really stupid to me. Like they're inventing things to complain about for lack of anything genuine that's bad about it.

I can understand not really jiving with the way Frontiers is handling its story. The game is very slow paced and dialog heavy and introspective, it's characters mostly just talking about their feelings. If that's boring to you I totally get that. If you prefer the more story light and action oriented plots of Sonic Heroes or Sonic Colors, or if you prefer the more theme focused stories of Sonic Adventure and Adventure 2, or if you'd rather be along a roller coaster that's more about the situation the characters are in like with the storybook games or Sonic Forces, or if you're more down for the vibes of an experience like you get out of Sonic Unleashed. Then that's totally fair.

Personally I'm up for whatever Sonic wants to do regardless of what it is lol. And Frontiers being more navel gazing and dialog oriented is something I can be very engaged by. If it doesn't engage you then I get that - we all have different tastes. But when you say it isn't a matter of taste and start acting like the writing of the story itself is lacking, that's when I'm gonna be holding your reasoning to scrutiny and often the complaints about Frontiers do not hold up under that scrutiny.

Amy and Tails's character stories in Frontiers are about them wanting to set out on their own and figure out how to define themselves separately from Sonic. And you can't really argue against the fact that they're both very much satellite characters who are defined almost entirely by their relationship with Sonic. Realizing due to the experience of cyberspace that they kind of don't like that about themselves and wanting to strike out on their own to figure out who they are when Sonic isn't in the room seems like a reasonable character conflict to explore from where I'm sitting.

Knuckles' story as far as I'm concerned is addressing a hole that has existed with his character ever since the ending of Sonic Adventure, where his story concluded with him deciding ignorance was bliss and he was content with just living as a guardian for the master emerald without getting embroiled in the wider world around him. There was never really a direct in text explanation for why he's going and running around doing stuff with Sonic instead of guarding the master emerald after that. You could argue that them finally addressing that is too little too late but I say better late than never.

You could nitpick by saying that Tails and Amy spend PLENTY of time on their own without Sonic around so realistically this shouldn't be a question they're burdened by and that Knuckles obviously DOES leave his island to go on adventures so having him address the limitations of his guardian duty is a moot point. Obviously it's very meta writing, it's the characters sort of confronting their narrative roles rather than acting like three dimensional individuals who continue to exist whenever the camera isn't looking at them. But since when has being meta automatically been a bad thing? Sonic has always been meta from the very beginning. And going in a different direction with the narrative to have the characters confronting the way they're conventionally written as an in universe attribute of their characterization is a fun experiment for them to take to coincide with a video game that is experimenting with a new system of gameplay.

If that experiment didn't really work out for you, then that's okay

But that isn't a problem with the story.

[egg-emperor]

Seeing people try to speculate that Eggman is going to become good or stop being a villain after Frontiers , it's so obvious they're just packaging what they WANT to happen as if it's a sensible estimate of Sonic Teams decisions. Anyone could see by actually looking at the content of the Games, let alone the official social media content, that Eggman isn't going anywhere and he's not going to stop being THE villain. But they want him to not be, and because that's what they want they'll reject reality and assert their desires as fact as if that'll bring them into reality. And then when they're proven wrong they pretend it never happened so they never have to admit they have no idea what they're talking about, and then go right back to doing the same thing all over again =P

Yeah it's all wishful thinking :P All the people I knew who were believing and praising an Eggman that simply does not exist in the games, already had those nonsensical beliefs about his character looong before Frontiers ever existed. I'm talking over a decade for some of them. When they've wanted to believe or have something changed to that preference they've had for so long, or at least just want it hard enough even if they've only been a fan for five minutes, of course they're gonna believe it's finally happening/they're getting proof of it being what they want. It's always stemming from wanting to something to be true for so long that they believe it or being new and completely misinformed.

That's why I don't think Frontiers is to blame for this. People always wanted nice Eggman, people always wanted wholesome Eggdad, and people always wanted Eggman to become a better person. So when the game at least explores one of those themes in the form of him getting a daughter but in an in character way instead of the wholesome kind they want, people are just going to see what they want, ignore what makes it different and in character instead, and say it's something completely different as they dreamed of instead. Same goes for anything else they can twist into seeming like he's becoming a better person. But it requires so much ignoring and denying key moments, details, writer commentary, and downright facts that go against it, and that's what they do.

And I get it, when all the people doing that are the loudest voices in the fandom, it can seem like that's what the official media is really going for because how can so many people get it wrong, right? That's why I myself was tricked into thinking that they were taking Eggman in directions I really would've disliked. But when you shut out what all of the fandom is constantly screaming in your face, trying to drill into your head, and telling you how to think and feel about it constantly and let all the official stuff speak for itself instead, you'll see that it's not what they're saying it is at all. Eggman is still very obviously a bad guy and he will always be in the games. He's one of the most iconic villains ever!

And at this point I really couldn't give a damn about fans insisting otherwise at this point, they don't get a say in what the actual canon is and nothing they say can change what's really true about it. When I'm left to my own devices playing the games and seeing and analyzing what is actually happening in it and what writers say without considering what random people online are saying, I really enjoy what I see and I know that Eggman isn't going anywhere, so I'm happy and that's all that matters. Not caring about what the fandom is saying has been very freeing, I've been happy and at peace ever since I started going out of my way to avoid it and just focus on all the games, including Frontiers.

And now I actually really love how Eggman's role and the implications of his actions and dynamic with Sage require deeper thought and analysis to fully understand because I love doing that shit. Though I would argue that MOST of it is extremely in your face obvious, when you aren't letting the voices of fandom drown it out. Could they have rephrased certain lines and emphasized certain aspects a bit more to avoid confusion or make that wishful thinking a little more difficult? Perhaps. But even when they depict something in the most solid undeniable in your face ways, people still take away something completely different if that's what they want to see. It's always happened with Eggman.

That's just what the Sonic fandom does and we should all know that by now lol. The games, their stories, and their characters are great and they'll always be there to enjoy and will keep all the things we love intact, so what fans are saying that isn't accurate to it at all but will have no say or power in changing the actual media itself is of no concern to me anymore. I'm blessed to love game canon and its Eggman and while the most popular fanon version is waaay different and people are acting like Frontiers supports it, the truth is that canon is still exactly all the things I fell in love for it for and fans' wishes and misconceptions don't take away my beloved Eggman in the games, he's here to stay! 💜

[omegafan101]

Oh boy, Sonic the Hedgehog Annual 2022 is out and it’s absolutely amazing so I guess it’s time for me to share my thoughts on it and gush about every story. Here we go! Spoilers below!

Guardians

Starting off with a Blaze story! I absolutely love how the Annuals give some time for some supporting characters to shine without hurting the story too much. And speaking of supporting characters who need a chance to shine MARINE IS BAAAACK!

Okay, full disclosure, I have never actually played Sonic Rush Adventure, hell I haven’t so much as watched the cutscenes. So the extent of my knowledge about Marine is from her appearances in the Archie comics, and SonicSong182′s use of her. So, I don’t know why people don’t like Marine, but I love her and am so glad Blaze’s very own Tails has finally made another appearance!

But of course the real meat of the story comes from a character interaction I had somehow never thought of!

It only makes sense that Blaze would go to Knuckles about her worries with being a guardian, the two don’t know each other well but they share the same role. It’s a very nice little talk that shows Blaze’s character growth with actually taking Knuckles’ advice because she WANTS to be around everyone again. Also love how Knuckles acknowledges that leaving Angel Island to help save the world is always a gamble because I think everyone was getting fed up of him leaving it behind so often lol

I also just love the implication that Blaze invited Marine to join her on her little vacation. Understandable that she’d wanna stay behind but I hope we get to see more of her again. SPECIFICALLY because I want her to meet Silver and finally form that fantasy team.

And hey I guess this means Blaze is gonna be sticking around the main crew awhile! GOOD! I love Blaze, she’s a wonderful character and I’m so glad Ian found a natural way to put her back into the story again without having to jump to constant dimensional stakes.

Uh... This would be the point where I jump to the next story but I just gotta take a moment to absolutely GUSH about Adam Bryce Thomas and Joana Lafuente’s artwork!

LIKE LOOK AT ALL THIS! IT’S SO FUCKING PRETTY!!!

Also some appreciation for how fucking cute Blaze is when she smiles we love a girl who’s learned it’s okay to be happy

Weapons

ALRIGHT I’VE STALLED LONG ENOUGH YOU SEE MY NAME, YOU SEE MY PFP, YOU SEE THE COVER I CHOSE TO USE, IT’S TIME TO TALK ABOUT THE OMEGA STORY BABY!!! (oh yeah and Gemerl’s there too)

I kid I kid, I love Gemerl and couldn’t be happier that he’s been added to the main lineup of Sonic’s friends, really thought everyone forgot about him after Advence 3.

So hey, we finally get that sparring match Omega and Gemerl teased and OH

LOOK AT THEM GO!

We love a good fight that doubles as a moment for characters to get a better understanding of one another. That’s some good ass shonen shit right there.

I love how Omega really does see the potential in Gemerl, one who has gone toe to toe with Sonic and was pretty damn even with him, and offers him to join his side in actively destroying the Eggman Empire. But on the other end of the spectrum, yes Gemerl WAS built as a battle robot, but more importantly he was built as a successor to Emerl and was made to evolve. And he has greatly, gaining a genuine care for his new found family and perhaps even some form of emotion.

Now, I wanna talk about this panel right after.

So, Omega and Gemerl don’t have... Eyes or a mouth, so they can’t really convey any emotion with their face. But I’ve been known to read far too deep into Omega as a character, and something about the way he looks here is getting me to think he is genuinly taken aback about Gemerl’s statement.

First of all there is his face, which again, can convey no emotion, but he does have the head piece which can be angled to look like eyebrows. Often he’s seen at such an angle that he looks angry or threatening, but here it makes him look kinda wide eyed.

The second most damning piece of evidence is the fact that he is not on guard. At all. Omega is a robot built for destruction, who loves to fight, and is currently in a sparring match. But he is standing with his arms at his side staring at his oppent. He gets on guard in the very next panel but that’s awfully slow to him.

My two cents? Well, I think Omega takes a bit of what Gemerl says to heart, because, aside from breaking off Eggman’s ranks, Omega HASN’T evolved. He is still destructive, he will still destroy anyone who gets in his way, and he still may have some aggression towards Sonic. By all accounts, he is still Eggman’s creation. Now if Team Dark were friends like they’re supposed to be I could bring that up but Sega sucks now so--

Do I think this’ll lead anywhere? Probably not, and I’m likely reading too much into this, but I can always pretend that Omega is more of a character than he actually is, can’t I?

Anyway, I love how these two just beat the ever litting bolts out of each other and then carried each other back to Tails and Belle.

And at long last, we got some brobots in the house.

(Hey guys, your little sister, Belle, is also over there... Wanna include her...?) I’m constantly in need of Omega being Belle’s big brother I don’t care how OOC it would be.

Hero Camp

In all honesty I don’t have too much to say about this one, it’s cute, it’s fun, I find it funny that Cream feels the need to go to a camp to learn to be a hero after all the shit she’s been through.

Also this panel

I don’t know why but I love it. For some reason I cannot hear Cream’s usual voice reading this, I think it’s just cause it’s not quite as nice as she usually is which you know what good for her.

Also LOVE the fact that the Restoration HQ has all this shit lmao

Anyway, Cream’s fun, Orbot and Cubot are funny, this was a nice little story. That’s all.

Future Growth

Oh you thought we were only getting an excuse for Blaze to stick around? THINK AGAIN!

Looks like Silver’s here to stay! Which I’m very glad about, time starts getting fuckity if he always comes back when his time is in crisis. It just makes no sense.

But at long last, we get some Rivals 2 acknowledgement

Good choice of character to talk to Silver, writers. I’m proud of you.

Anyway I love the line of “Everything’s okay, but I’m not.” Silver’s always been an anxious mess, and it makes sense that he would feel like he’s doing something wrong if he doesn’t have something to save. Not to mention, with so much time spent with everyone in the past, he’s made some lasting friendships that he can’t have in his own time. I guess this means Silver will be sticking around, because he wants to. Which is nice.

Also this

Anyone with this little ship must be very happy.

Another Grand Adventure For Jet the Hawk

First off, Jet’s room.

Oh good lord there’s so much to point out here. I think my favorite part is the picture of him and Sonic with Sonic’s half very poorly torn off. Also happy birthday Jet!

But enough about Jet cause we’ve got WHISPER CONTENT!

I’ve missed her. Please come back to us soon Whisper (i know she’ll be in an upcoming issue with Surge it’s just nice to see her here).

And now we’ve got Whisper, on Extreme Gear, shooting a badnik from it, and with her oh so rare moment of yelling because Jet is just THAT annoying.

This story is very fucking good I highly enjoyed it.

Also love how she never got Jet out of the badnik’s hand that’s pretty fucking funny, like is he gonna be okay?

A Rough Patch

Been too long since we’ve seen this idiotic duo, and I love how they have a big break up over rhyming. Rough and Tumble are so fucking good.

This grouping is so odd I love it. Someone really realized Rouge and Tangle sounded similar to Rough and Tumblr and decided to roll with that and I respect them for that.

These two are so fucking dumb I love them

They are lucky they’re so strong because I don’t think they’d get anywhere in life without that fact.

Anyone stealing Rough and Tumble’s rhyming gimmick is like when Ash and his friends would steal the Team Rocket motto it’s so much fun.

However I am legitimately upset that Tumble didn’t cap off the joke by mentioning that “mangled” and “Tangle” is a slant rhyme like come on it was right there!

And hey! Rouge has a Chaos Emerald now!

I wonder if I should be keeping track of that. I’m pretty sure this is the first one we’ve seen since they were used at the end of the Metal Virus, but I could be wrong.

Conclusion

I want more. Honestly 2023 Annual cannot come sooner. I love these things so much, the differing art styles, the weird character matchups, the chance for less important characters to get a story to shine. It’s all so much fun!

Overall I don’t think it’s quite as good at the 2020 Annual, but that was telling tales in between all the Metal Virus chaos so it’s kinda hard to beat.

Also I just realized Shadow was absolutely no where to be seen in this, I don’t think he’s made an appearance since issue 36 in fact. We’re coming up on a year and a half since Shadow has been in the comics, it looks like Ian is really keeping his word with not writing Shadow stories if Sega is gonna be so awful about his characterization, and frankly good for him! I would rather not have Shadow in the comic then have the awful version of him Sega has forced upon the writers.

But this one had all the fun, goofy, character driven antics I so crave and even gave us Silver and Blaze has longer staying characters and the status of one of the Chaos Emeralds (if we’re keeping track).

And most importantly, OMEGA GOT A STORY 10/10

No seriously, I loved this, it’s not perfect, I probably won’t remember the Cream story by the end of the moneht, but it was fucking great to read overall.

9/10

[beevean]

I am sooo sick of hearing the "It's for kids!" excuse. I get that children aren't going to notice or care about minor animation/art errors, overthink the complexities of politics or real life issues, or loose sleep over every single plot thread not being tied up or every corner of lore being explored. But it's not an excuse to make your characters look like complete idiots, or not try to tackle more mature subjects with some class. I don't want to hear it when fucking Big Bird learned about death all the way back in the early 80s. Metal Sonic and Eggman are repeat offenders who WILL come back to start shit, and Sonic just letting them go without even keeping an eye on them makes him look really fucking stupid. And that's not getting into the creepy implications of Sonic wanting Eggman to stay as Mr. Tinker.

It's antiquated, because by 2022, we had plenty of cartoons aimed at kids that dared to tackle complex issues. Why did Friendship of Magic gain such a massive fanbase and pretty much revolutionized cartoons after the late 2000s slump? You think they were all horny for the horsies? Or maybe it's because Lauren Faust fought against the idea that things aimed at children or girls didn't deserve as much effort as other media?

It's ageist, because you're implying that children are too stupid to understand anything more complex than black and white morality.

It's insulting towards your critics, obviously, but also towards your fans - whether you mean it or not, you're implying that they're also stupid for caring so much about something aimed at children. And if you're not, if they get to praise the "depth" of your writing, then you're a damn hypocrite.

It's insulting towards the games, the series you're now working for, sneering at them for being "simple" and for not growing together with its audience (nevermind that the Sonic series has wide appeal and it's not strictly for kids).

It's insulting towards yourself, because really? You are more willing to admit that you're writing a stupid story rather than conceding a point? How fucking petty do you want to be?

It's cowardly, because nobody asked you to insert Mr. Tinker's subplot, or turn Sonic into a priest, or create Surge. Since Mr. Tinker was introduced, you communicated that you wanted to write a deeper story. Don't you dare backpedal from that.

It's a blatant lie, because I've read IDW since Issue #1, and I did not dream the horror show that was the Metal Virus arc, and I did not dream Surge and Kit whose backstories are rooted in realistic, nauseating abuse. That's what you consider a "children's fantasy"?

All of this because Flynn couldn't consider the idea that people had problems with his writing. Much like he seems to think that the only people who aren't happy with Starline's anticlimatic death are stans who wanted him to have a happy ending. He had to make a complete fool of himself and insult everyone involved with his stupid comic (heh, I get to call it that and know it's Word of God <3), because he's a mediocre writer who only had the biggest, most unfair stroke of luck in existence to get to the place he's in now, and he's not used to people not getting in line to prostrate at his feet.

This asshole brushes off Sonic and yet is working on the next big game.

I hope he gets burned out as soon as he's done with Frontiers. Or better yet, that he does something so indefensible that his fans will start to treat him like they treated Pontaff.

[loudlypanickinginvenezolano]

Fallin down, little bit of chapter one.

Sonic started noticing certain things, as, how caring is Shadow, how pretty is Shadow, how HOT is Shadow��� And, oh, would you look at that?

Apparently he has a crush.

Where Sonic is thirsty and Shadow doesn’t have a clue.

Sonic didn’t feel proud for how long it had took him to realize it, but damn it.

Why was Shadow so pretty?

He was no genius like Tails, or as good in social-handling like Amy, but he had always prided himself in not being as stupid nor as blind as many people thought he was. Sonic was quick, he had to be quick, and picking up things about the people around him was, and always had been, a must.

That being said…

He usually didn’t dwell too much in this kind of thing. Why would he, right? There usually were more pressing matters at hand, so, unless he was thinking about himself, because hell, self-love was important, all right? Or if he wasn’t picking someone to spend his night with, why waste the time? He could admit, quietly, certain facts about his friend’s appearance occasionally, more in a passing manner than actually focusing on it, so, him not realizing the pretty thing sitting right in front of him was a mistake he could be forgiven for, right?

It just…felt weird. Actually being aware of this, giving the time to think about his friends or rivals appearance, it…it wasn’t something he actually did, like, what good would that do for him?

It felt strange, the idea of going from “What the hell, Knuckles, can you please stop getting bulkier?” or “Fuck, Why does Amy looks so good when she is actually using her hammer for other things besides threatening me?” or “Oh Gaia Eggman please turn around! My eyes, my poor eyes!” and very little’s “Shit he/she/they is so cute” sprinkled around to actually acknowledging them, and checking out his friends.

But, there was that thing that just has to have happened to everyone, at least once, as Sonic refuses to be the only one that has gone through it. That one where you notice one thing, and then there is also a second thing, a surprising third one, and even a fourth! You just…keep finding things, little details that seemed inexistent before but that now that you can see them in action you just need to ask yourself if you are freaking dumb or just that blind.

Of course, he would like to announce that this doesn’t apply to socks, as he had been unpleased to discover.

Just, where the hell does his laundry thinks it is going? He needed his special socks, for Chaos sake! It wasn’t even that messy around… not anymore, at least.

Don’t laugh, don’t laugh, he is pretty aware of how weird his next statement was going to sound, most of the time he wanted to cringe himself while remembering it but the first thing he realized and did made him think more about this case… Shadow had a cute tail.

He hadn’t been checking the other`s butt, he can swear! It hadn’t been in purpose, in any way! They just, well, kind of had a very rough fall during a fight. He had been whining quietly, dizzy and disoriented even though the ebony`s body had kind of cushioned his landing, when he picked himself up and just, looked.

And looked for a bit more, staring and blinking in shock because.

Oh my goodness, oh, my, dear.

It was white fluff.

Actual, white fluffy fur in the underside of Shadow`s ebony tail. He could see how tiny smears of white and some red also showed up in his left inner thigh, in the underside of one knee, and, well, middle. Cute, little markings they were, almost completely lost unless you searched for them with a good eye.

It looked just so, well, fluffy, and was such a pretty cute thing his hands ached just to squeeze it or touch it and see if it was so soft as it looked.

Oh man.

The thing wiggled a little as the ebony stirred, and suddenly a breathless Sonic was on his back, Shadow reacting even on his confused daze and rolling them out of the way of an attack Sonic hadn’t…Hadn’t even noticed?

Oh, so that was why it perked up in the first place.

The movement wasn’t appreciated by his stomach, however, neither for his still aching head. Rolling in the ground and injuries where things that you really should try not to mesh.

Also, Shadow spines weren’t joking around.

“Uuugh. Let’s just-just…destroy that thing, all right? it really is on my list, now. For real this time! It’s going down, Totally…” Sonic plopped down on the ground, giving up in trying to stand. His arms felt too shaky, and his vision was slightly blurry. He groaned, lifting up his hands to rub at his face, fingers digging in his eye sockets and thumbs massaging the side of his face. Not cool. Totally, not cool.

“I can’t believe you fell on top of me as if I was some kind of damn cushion, and you still managed to dangerously hit your head, what the hell, Sonic?” When the only thing he got as answers were babbles and other non-intelligent sounds, Shadow sighed, feeling somewhat despaired towards his friend. he couldn’t even tell if the blue one was seriously going to faint or was just messing around! He glared. Yes, yes, not a new thing by any means, no surprise here. Being honest, by this point it was a trademark move on his part, and yet, what else could he do but lightly purse his lips (No, He wasn’t pouting. He doesn’t pout, Rouge.) and glare in displeasure? Well, thinking about it, there may be other thing. “Though, I don’t know… I wonder if the change is that big, actually...You are starting to sound the same as ever.”

“No sass, no sass, pleeease, I can’t take the sass now! Don’t you have mercy for a fallen man?”

“Nop.”

They did end up saving the day, a bit dizzy and injured, indeed, but it wasn’t that much of a hardship. Weirdly enough, it wasn’t Eggman who they were battling, but a mad barista that decided they had have enough bullshit and went mad set in destroying as many establishments of the cadena they worked for. And well, a few customers that were just disgustingand that Shadow may or may have not tripped on their way down the stairs.

It wasn’t like anyone would really dare to question him if he did.

Turns out, they could seriously kick some ass, and that brand was shit as fuck with a lot of greedy dickheads fat bastards commanding, as a fuming Shadow so lovingly put it.

Sonic always had been aware of how vicious he could get when mad, but boy. Sonic for a moment thought that Shadow was going to whip out a gun and join the lynx in the destroying spree. He had been absolutely livid, face made on stone and ruby eyes blazing in fury, with just the hint of bared fangs peeking from his lips.

He wasn’t…used to seeing the ebony like that, even with the years of fighting together they shared.

And Chaos send help, he turned then, piercing Sonic with his fiery stare as he asked what he was planning on doing, because, Sonic was going to do something, wasn’t he?

As he babbled for an answer, Shadow scowl deepened, almost becoming a snarl, crossing his arms over his chest which just made Sonic speak even quicker thanks to his nerves.

Why had he even asked, in the first place? Easy peasy. Sonic had more pull on the social media than Shadow, they weren’t…afraid of him, exactly, and kids loved him completely. Even if it was uncomfortable for the hybrid, it was going to be easier to actually gain something if they worked together… He just wished he didn’t actually needed to ask him… or you know… Hadn’t said the last part.

Shadow sometimes was such an idiot… had it been too impatient? Insecure?

Maybe threatening? Sonic was rambling, after all…Oh man, he really

hoped it hadn’t been insecure…

Once everything was contained and kind of wrapped out, Shadow actually sued that people and somehow managed to get Sonic to “start” a movement on the reds about their abuse towards their employees and their disgusting high priced products of low quality. Sonic was just the face of it, basically, as Shadow was the one really putting an order to everything and doing the researches and calls, together with the lawyers, even if most of the conversations were held by Sonic.

Soon enough, they had a big pile of evidences and incriminating stories, and people were actually paying attention and well, mad.

[krystalreverb]

Wallflower (Fic Preview #3)

“Thanks for dinner, Shadow.” 

“We both live here, Sonic, we both contribute.” Shadow said, taking the empty food trays and putting them in the garbage bin. “How’s your head?” He asked.

“Eh, feels like I’ve been hit by a bus, but I’ll live.” Sonic replied. “I’ve been smacked around by worse.” 

Shadow sighed deeply. “I think it’s time we all got a little more sleep. Naps and unconsciousness don’t count. We need real, healing rest.” He announced.

“Yeah, you’re right. Tails, if you wanna crash here, sleep in my room. I ain’t goin’ anywhere, my ass and this couch have a relationship for the next few nights until I can get up the frickin’ stairs again.” 

“Are you sure, Sonic?” Tails asked. “You’re okay sleeping on the couch?” 

“Yeah, seriously, it’s fine. Go upstairs, both of you. Get some rest. I’ll be fine down here.” Sonic said. 

“Okay, Sonic. If you’re sure.” Tails headed back upstairs, followed by Shadow. About halfway up the stairs, Shadow stopped, looked back at Sonic, and sighed. 

“You look pathetic.” He stalked back down the stairs, and gathered Sonic up in his arms.

“H-hey! Put me down, Shadow, I’m not a baby, ya know! What do I look like, an invalid?” Sonic protested, wriggling to be set free.

“Shut up.” Shadow carried Sonic upstairs and opened the door to his own bedroom. “I need to keep an eye on you, make sure you’re not about to go and try and do anything stupid while you’re this beat up.” Shadow laid Sonic down on his own bed. “You’re staying with me until you heal up. I won’t accept no for an answer.”

Sonic huffed. “Alright, fine. I’ll behave.” He said. He scooted over so Shadow could also fit in the bed. It was a queen size bed, big enough for two fully-grown humans, so it fit the hedgehogs just fine with room to spare. Sonic liked a big fluffy bed and had somewhat recently replaced both beds in the apartment with plush queen sized beds. Shadow didn’t complain; the previous bed he had in Club Rouge was harder than a wooden plank and offered zero support for his back. It was more of a cot than a bed, and when he had moved in with Sonic, the first night’s sleep he had was so incredible he had thought to himself: I am never leaving this place.

“Thanks, Shadow.” Sonic said quietly. “You and I both know that the couch sucks. I just can’t seem to get around to replacing it.” 

Shadow shrugged. He sighed. “Sonic, you brought me into your home when I had nowhere left to go. Making sure you don’t get your fool self killed is the least I can do to repay you.” 

“Man, you keep bringing that up like I had a choice in the matter. Shadow, I would have never left you to sleep out on the street. My door was always open to you, Shadow. I just didn’t want to force it because you’ve got trust issues and stuff. I didn’t take you in with the expectation of repayment, Shadow. I don’t want you to repay me. I didn’t do it for your gratitude.” Sonic said. “I took you in because you’re my fuckin’ friend, because I care about you and your wellbeing. That’s why I referred you to a therapist, too. Speaking of which, have you been keeping up with your sessions? It’s your responsibility to pick up the phone when she calls. I’m not your mother.” Sonic asked. Shadow sighed.

“She calls me once a week.” Shadow replied. “So far we’ve gone over my traumatic childhood and the whole locked-in-stasis-for-fifty-years thing, and also the falling-through-the-atmosphere-and-losing-most-of-my-memories-upon-impact thing. Thanks to hers and your help, I do remember most things now, but I still have trouble with my short-term memory. Finding my keys is like pulling teeth, but I remember where I came from and who I am now.” 

“Good. I mean, not good about the short-term memory thing, but good, you’re talking to her. You need to keep talking to her, okay? She’s literally paid to help you work out your issues. I have a therapist too.” Sonic said. “So do Tails, and Knuckles, and Amy. We all have psychological stuff goin’ on. Everyone in the world does. There are people who are literally paid big money to help you. It’s their job to help you. You just have to let them do their job.” 

“Right, right. I know. I just can’t help but feel… obligated to help you.” Shadow said. “Just… let me have this. I feel like I need to help you. Just… let me help you right now.”

“....Okay, Shadow. Go ahead, nurse me back to health. It’ll do you some good too.” Sonic acquiesced, leaning back on Shadow’s pillow. Shadow nodded. 

“Let me start by changing those bandages. You’ve got soy sauce on them.” Shadow pulled a first-aid kit out from underneath the bed and began unwrapping Sonic’s bandages. His hand brushed a particularly nasty burn on the back of Sonic’s hand, courtesy of a blaster bolt. Sonic winced and hissed in pain, his hand jerking and seizing involuntarily in Shadow’s.

“Ssss! Ahh! Easy!” 

“Sorry!” Shadow quickly took the burn relief ointment out of the first-aid kit and gently smoothed it over the area. Sonic’s hand tensed up and he bit his lip in pain, but kept as still as he could while Shadow wrapped a fresh bandage around the wound. “Christ, Sonic, you really got yourself in a lot of trouble out there. You’re getting sloppy.” Shadow huffed, unwrapping the bandage around Sonic’s forearm. There was a large gash in his forearm, stitched together by the surgeons at the hospital before Shadow picked him up. Shadow picked up a cotton ball and the peroxide. 

“Hey, shut up. I can still run circles around you, Faker. And anyway, it’s my job to kick Eggman’s ass, that’s always been my job. And I won in the end.” Sonic shrugged. “Sure, he beat me good at first, but I always win in the end. No matter what Eggman throws at me.” Shadow began dabbing the peroxide on Sonic’s gash, and Sonic twitched and hissed again in pain, but let Shadow clean his wound and rewrap it. 

“I just wish you’d think before you risked your hide!” Shadow exclaimed. “It’s like you have no sense of self-preservation.” 

“Look who’s talking!” Sonic retorted. “Shadow, you have a really bad martyr complex. You think you’re the only one with the world on your shoulders. Look at me, Shadow. I mean really look at me.” Sonic reached out and grabbed Shadow’s head, yanking it towards him so Shadow was looking him in the eyes. “Shadow, I give a damn about you. You are my friend. You can share your burdens with me. Now, if you’d be so kind, please finish changing my bandages, because I think I’m bleeding through some of them.” 

Shadow nodded and began patching Sonic up. After Sonic had been patched back up, Shadow climbed up in bed next to him, flicked off the light, and the two of them went to sleep. Shadow stayed up just long enough to ensure that Sonic was sleeping soundly, looking over at him to make sure he was still breathing. Sonic’s chest moved up and down with deep, steady breaths. Satisfied with the status of Sonic’s alive-ness, Shadow settled down and drifted to sleep himself.

[gale-gentlepenguin]

Gale Reviews: Sonic the Hedgehog (the Movie)

(Thank you @knightsweeties​ for the art)

Sonic runs onto the big screen, after a horrible design and awful original trailer, the Studio went back and redesigned the blue blur and delayed the movie.

Was the hedgehog’s makeover worth the wait?

Was this a Sonic Boom! or a Sonic Bury it Underground.

This Review Will have spoilers so

Read at your own peril

-The movie starts of with the climax of the movie, with a freeze frame and Sonic catching us up.

-Little Sonic is adorable and I would die for him.

-Longclaw’s design seemed a bit out of place for the movie, but she was a good character and glad she was created for the film.

-WERE THOSE ECHIDNA ASSASSINS!? DAMN!!!

- The rings act like warps, thats pretty cool.

-(10 years later) Green Hills, I see that reference

- Sonic loves his small town, he loves his friends that don't know are his friends.

-Okay, this movie does a good job showing how loneliness affected Sonic. As well as the reason why he makes so many Pop culture references. He has a mental dynamic with everyone in town.

-Tom, the cop aka ‘Donut lord’ is kind of a fun character that wants to be a street cop in San Francisco.

-Is that Sanic!? The old guy drew Sanic!

-His wife Maddie is supportive, and a vet. She also was also pretty.

- The seen with the cakes made me chuckle.

-Sonic wanted to play baseball and get a high five. I feel for him.

-The government agrees Robotnik is an asshole, but he is useful. That is fair.

-Jim Carrey literally played the role of the egotistical Eggman/Robotnik. I can believe this is close to the Eggman from Sonic X. Wacky but deadly. This is what I imagine as Eggman before Eggman.

- Ben Schwartz voice and acting just work for sonic. Sure he sounds Like every character he acts, but it works for Sonic’s attitude. So its fine.

-Tom traqed sonic resulting in the Rings ending up on the roof

-The entire scene where Eggman gets punched is wonderful, 

-I like Agent Stone, I feel like Eggman doesn't appreciate him enough. He tries.

-The Stop at the bar was fun.

-Quick silver sonic scene. (not as good as the Quick silver ones, but it was still fun to see)

- Sonic and Tom bonding.

- Maddie has a sister the disapproves of Tom, shocker. The niece Jojo is adorable.

-Sonic’s reasoning for being pissed at Tom is fair. I am glad they didn't make it a whole misunderstanding separates them route. kudos

- Sonic verses robotnik tank version one

-Sonic verses mini tank 

-Tom verses unicycle bot

-The TINY BOT was the most effective.

-Maddie NOT panicking and talking to Tom about this whole thing. Damn, I respect the hell out of her for being able to deal with this. RESPECT

-Jojo giving sonic his trademark sneakers is adorable.

-Sonic and the pupper.

-WHY DID THEY LET SONIC DRIVE!?

- Why did they get allowed UP THAT TOWER?! Also, the scene with the duffel bag. 

-The heartfelt Goodbyes interrupted by Ro-butt-nik.

-First time calling him Eggman.

-Sonic pushed Tom and Maddie off a building... didn't see that coming but damn.

-Quick silver scene two but then Eggman reveals he can move faster thanks to the power of the quills.

-Epic chase ensues

-Egypt, franc, china and then back to green hill. It was pretty dope. Also the locals and designs are all pretty good.

-Green Hill is a ride or Die place.

-Power of friendship and sonic getting stronger as he gets emotionally stronger

-Sonic sending Robotnik to the mushroom planet.

-Sonic gets his high five.

-The government’s reward is the most realistic thing in this movie.

-Sonic lives in the attic now. Thats kind of cute.

-NOW EGGMAN LOOKS LIKE EGGMAN. Very clever.

-And the credits look like the classic sonic 1. That is so.

-Midcredit scene: OMG OMG OMG OMG YES! HE APPEARED! PLEASE LET THERE BE A SEQUAL! I need SONIC 2!!!!!

_______________________________________________________________________

Overall the movie is good. It isn't spectacular, it isn't bad. It is good. It is something that people who do or don't know sonic can watch and enjoy. Its great for kids. The sonic fans will get a lot of fan service out of it.

The movie is set up to seem like a lot of the movies that try to do the animated partner and human. But it knows where to keep the focus. It has good heart, and the comedy can make you chuckle.

The redesign SAVED this movie, I can't see the emotional scenes working with the old design.

I do think it is a bit too safe. It plays it too by the numbers, I think it could have gone a bit further with the comedy and the action but it did do what it needed to do.

I honestly feel bad for any movie trying to compete with this one.

I will probably be seeing it again.

I give the movie an 8/10

If I wasn't a sonic fan. probably 7/10.

[naivesilver]

Vecpio Week - Day 3: Vacation

"Do you think we ought to tell him to stay away from the water?"

Vector cracks an eye open. "What?"

Honestly, he hopes that the matter at hand doesn't require too much of his brain power. He was about to doze off, lulled by the sound of the waves crashing and by the warmth of the sand he's lying on; he's having a hard time even processing Espio's question, half asleep as he already is.

Espio doesn't repeat himself, though. He just raises both eyebrows and inclines his head towards the sea, so Vector has no choice to push himself to a sitting position, groaning, and look at whatever is going on.

The beach they're in is almost empty, with only a couple other people and their kids wandering around. To call it a beach is perhaps an exaggeration, to be honest - in truth it's more of a glorified stretch of dirty sand, stones and pebbles overlooking the sea, where the tide doesn't bring in seashells but rubbish and the occasional piece of algae. No one in their right mind would choose it over the prettier, more expensive beaches further down the coast, except someone as penniless as the Chaotix are.

No one would walk down to it now, especially, not when the war has been over for such a short time. Everyone is still rebuilding and counting their losses, and the three of them aren't any different in that regard. If anything, between rallying survivors for the Resistance, proper fighting and cleaning up the mess afterwards, they've been busier than most people, with barely a moment of respite.

The need for a break is, actually, the main reason why they're on the beach now, even if said break is nothing more than a couple hours spent at the seaside. Surely no one can begrudge them that, not with all the hard work they've been putting in. Besides, though it's not summer yet and therefore no one's wading through the water, the sun is shining bright, and he and Espio are cold-blooded reptiles; they surely need to soak in the sunlight to keep their health up, or at least, that's the official excuse they're planning to use if they meet anyone of their friends.

Charmy is not roasting under the sun beside them, though, and that's what Espio directed his attention towards. Instead, Charmy is...Vector isn't even sure how to call it. Not swimming, because the kid never gets more than knee-deep in the water; rather, he waits for the small waves to crash lazily at his feet, and then he darts back towards dry land, shrieking with laughter. The cycle repeats endlessly, with Charmy returning to dip his feet in the sea only to run away again, as if the tide were a monster he has to escape from, seemingly never tiring of doing the same thing on a loop.

It's a perplexing enough game, but so are most of the the kid's games. Espio's comment seems even less reasonable now that Vector has seen what it referred to. "Nah" he replies after a moment. " Why should we? He's not even causing us trouble, for once."

Espio snorts, but the frown doesn't leave his face. "Have you taught him how to swim? Because I haven't, and I don't remember anyone else bothering."

Ah, so that’s what it is. It's his mother hen instinct coming out swinging. "He's not even swimming! Look, the sea's basically flat. Even if he falls in, I've got plenty of time to get him out before he drowns. I'm a great swimmer, if you'd forgotten."

"As you say." Espio doesn't push the matter further, opting instead for laying down on his belly, his head resting on his arms.

Even so, though, he's facing the sea, and his eyes never leave Charmy, watching the kid like a hawk.

Vector watches him instead, frowning all the while. He's pretty sure he's missing something here, but he doesn't know what it could possibly be, casting a shadow on such a nice afternoon.

It's true that the war has taken a toll on all of them. Even if they've defeated Eggman, it's hard to get used to such a threat looming over their heads. The sea itself is likely still full of ash and debris, and perhaps that's why Charmy's staying out of it, freezing temperature of the water aside. Traces of the fighting mar every corner of the city, after all, be them fallen buildings or handmade posters calling for lost relatives to be found.

They were lucky, on that sense, though. He and Espio both know that, and Charmy as well, though he's too young to realize the extent of it. They've been hurt and scarred more than once, but at the end of the day they always came back to the cramped storage-room-turned-emergency-bedroom in the Resistance base, with its even more cramped bed and the cot that Charmy kept ignoring in favor of crawling in between them. Even their house is still standing, aside from a hole in a wall they'll fix once they're done rebuilding other people's homes. They made it. They’re alive.

There were a few close calls, of course, more than they’d have liked, but there always are, when one gets involved in saving the world as often as they do. Considering it was a bloody war and not the usual skirmish with a robot that takes Sonic five minutes to solve, it’s a miracle they’re still more or less hale and whole. It could have been any of them razed to the ground by that guy with the mask, or trampled by Eggman’s robots, or locked up and tortured as it’s rumored Sonic was.

If after surviving all of that they were to lose Charmy by drowning, it would be...well, a very dark joke on life’s part. Also a damn magic trick, since it’s literally impossible for it to happen. The kid is only a couple feet from them, to the point that he keeps splashing them with damp sand as he runs back and forth. If he so wanted, Vector could reach out and snatch him away before he goes any deeper than the inch or so of water he’s currently kicking around in.

So either Vector’s really missing something, like a tsunami warning on the morning weather forecast, or Espio’s been thinking too much again, and that’s never a good sign.

Espio is a worrier, that’s a given. Vector will begrudgingly grant him some useful idea now and then, but mostly, what he does is nitpicking perfectly good plans and think about things that might never actually happen. Sometimes it’s funny, because there’s nothing more hilarious - more endearing than watching him  fuss and get worked up over nothing, but there are times where Espio gets stuck in his own brain, going in circles around stuff that no one else would deign of a second thought.

If that’s the case, and he’s still thinking about the war, ruminating about what sort of bad stuff could happen to Charmy, then Vector’s duty is to help him. That’s his role, usually, as boss, as partner, as a sensible person who has no intention to spend his life brooding: he gets Espio out of his own head, even if he has to drag him out kicking and screaming.

Most people would probably try to use words right now, to comfort and reassure, but Vector has always been one for more proactive solutions, so he takes off his shoes, drops them next to Charmy’s, and then gets up with a grunt that draws Espio’s attention.

The chameleon looks at him with a puzzled look on his face. “Where are you going?”

Vector gives him a wide grin. “To keep the brat from drowning. You coming?”

Espio stares at him for a moment, wide eyed. Then he smiles, small and barely there, but genuine, which is exactly what Vector wanted. “Go ahead. I’ll be there in a minute.”

Vector nods, starting off towards Charmy. If Espio prefers to stay behind and watch, then so be it, as long as what he sees doesn’t remind him of the war, or work, or whatever impending doom he might be picturing. Vector himself is, after all, devilishly handsome to watch, even as he’s wading through wet sand to play with a little kid.

Besides, it’s not as if there were another war coming for them, right? They’re safe. They’re gonna be okay, all three of them.

As long as Charmy stops long enough to tell him just exactly what kind of game they’re playing, that is.

[gay-yosuke]

alright its time for me to post about sonic now. nobody asked for this.

personally. i think that the decline of sonic games is. well. nonlinear of course but its a combination of a lot of things that have been present for a while. i started thinking about this because i had knight of the wind stuck in my head while i showered and i thought “yknow i dont think the storybook games were that bad” and it evolved from there. readmore’d cuz its a longass post

first off. one of the things that was present in the games people consider “bad” is eggman NOT being the primary antagonist. i mean. fundamentally this makes sense. eggman has always been the primary antagonist in the games since the beginning, so suddenly introducing these throwaway villains is kind of a shot in the foot. what comes to mind is sonic lost world and the zeti because its like. sega wants us so badly to care about zavok and the rest of them but its just kind of difficult when theyre from yknow. sonic lost world and, fundamentally, throwaway villains. now i thought about this because. sonic lost world ISNT objectively a bad game i dont think. it has bad parts and i think those bad parts are mostly linked to the zeti being the primary antagonists. now this isnt saying that any game with eggman as the primary antagonist is good (ill get to forces later) but it plays a part.

now i couldnt entirely tell you when “eggman ISNT the primary antagonist” first turned up. i would assume sonic adventure because of chaos? which funnily enough links into my next point. the introduction of a secondary antagonist who either a) becomes a primary antagonist in the same game or a later game they’re part of or b) is meant to be some kind of counter to sonic. you could say it started in sonic 3. since knuckles acts as a secondary antagonist for most of the game. funnily enough though hes actually one of the only that stops being an antagonist in the same damn game. hes like “wait a second ive been fucking tricked” and turns to sonic’s side after seeing eggman doing his bastardly actions. so i’d say it actually started in sonic cd with metal sonic. he’s a reoccurring antagonist (the good kind) and was made with the sole purpose of Beating Sonic. in sonic heroes he becomes a primary antagonist in the true ending and whatever. in sonic adventure there’s chaos who becomes the primary antagonist in the true ending as well. now again. none of these games are BAD because of this aspect. sonic 3 is good, as is cd, heroes, and i think sonic adventure has its moments. but again this is just another piece to the puzzle.

the next thing i think thats sort of added to the decline is the fact that. well. corporations. yknow how it is with game design. as a game design student i know that theres fucked up shit going on in a lot of places and sega wanted to make sonic like mario. nintendo knows they have brand loyalty, just like disney does. nintendo slaps mario or pikachu onto something and it’ll sell and they KNOW that. sonic, less so, because hes yknow. got Controversy. sparks arguments about good and bad games. im particularly thinking about sonic boom here because that game had such potential that was stripped away not only by corporate greed (it being forced to be published onto the wii u, which, ill be real with you, i forgot existed) and hardware limitations, but by a lack of commuication within the actual company about WHERE the game was being published to. also dont get me started on how sega shafted the storyline. thats for another day.

overarching plot in sonic games is kind of fun in my opinion. i like a story i can get invested in. one that makes sense and like. you know. adds to the game. and this is the part where i talk about sonic forces.

sonic forces is kind of the culmination of a lot of these things. its a pander to the audience who loves classic sonic (as in, putting classic there for no reason as a nudge towards sonic generations), it features a secondary antagonist who attempts to become a primary antagonist (infinite needs work) and like. objectively id say that the phantom ruby is a bigger antagonist than eggman is. all the things that he does is down to the phantom ruby, and i dont entirely know how the phantom ruby even like. started existing. but we’ll just skip over that for now.

so eggman has infinite who he powers up with the phantom ruby and he becomes the metal sonic-esque character of the game. he’s meant to be sonic’s direct counter which is shown with infinite beating sonic at the start. but infinite just kind of. exists. as a throwaway villain. and the thing with throwaway villains is that infinite creates clones of some other villains (zavok, shadow (????) chaos and metal sonic) and that kinda confused me like. okay so you create fake versions of all these villains who turned against you for various reasons and also metal sonic??? who you could just create again??? but im going on a tangent.

the one thing i listed that forces didnt really feature was eggman not being the primary antagonist. i liked that he was the primary antagonist in forces. i just wish the story was better. and now i get to talk about story problems in sonic games. and as a writer, youre not getting spared.

ive talked abt sonic forces and story. i havent talked about other games and their story. sonic 06′s story was weak because it was trying too hard. the storybook games were good because the story was THERE. sonic gets put into this position of being a character from myths and characters we already know are filling the other positions. it was fun. sonic lost world, i dont really know cuz i never played it but from what i understood, eggman took the zeti’s planet and controlled them with a magic conch, and then the conch gets broken and the zeti fight back?? i dont know why the zeti hate sonic or why they roboticized tails but whatever.

fundamentally. sonic games are go fast. stop eggman. platform. of course eggman can be substituted for other antagonists like in adventure’s case where it becomes stop chaos. everything else in it is adding to the story (or in a lot of cases where its trying too hard, it detracts from everything) and like. adding different things is kind of fun sometimes. people didnt like the clunky controls of the werehog but i thought it was fun having the differences between daytime and nighttime levels. i think werehog had potential.

its less related but i also kinda wish they did what they did in sonic x and had sonic exist in a world with a lot of anthro animal characters instead of humans. i think forces did that okay. a lot of games have human characters like 06 and adventure, and it kind of blurs things. it doesnt make it a bad game if theres human characters but its still kind of. weird.

but anyway this wasnt clear or concise at all i just had some thoughts. i thought some of the marketing for sonic forces was funny like the welcome to the eggman empire video so you dont have to take anything from me.

[bisexual-medal-alex]

I’m seeing a lot of criticism and hate on this latest issue of IDW Sonic, specifically with how they’re treating Dr. Eggman and Dr. Starline. I wanted to offer my own counter argument to the table and explain why I personally don’t think they’re being handled badly.

Well I say that but when looking at it from a first glance it seems like they’re really making him more of a self-defeating moron than any of the games ever did. It’s been established that Eggman’s tendency to outsource his schemes to some sort of powerful force tends to lead to it blowing up in his face just when he’s reached peak overconfidence. Even in most of those situations though he’s taken more precautions to keep said powerful force under his control and when it does blow up in his face he does recognize it. The way Eggman is being portrayed so casual about the possibility of his own failure is pretty comical (pun not intended).

But this isn’t the first time Eggman has been depicted as self destructive, especially in the comics. In both the Archie comics and the Fleetway comics Eggman/Robotnik has at one point reached a breaking point where too many defeats at the hands of his furry blue nemesis where he started to get very sloppy with his schemes and apathetic to the idea that his own forces would take a heavy loss because of his actions. Granted both of these incarnations of the character went through years of failure to get to that point but then again since the IDW comics is canon to the games and since they take place directly after Sonic Forces where Eggman was upping his game desperate to get a win, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume that Eggman here has finally reached that breaking point where he just wants to win damn the consequences.

Then again that’s assuming this is still the same Eggman. See I’m not 100% convinced that the Eggman we’ve been following for the last 20 or so issues, the Eggman who uses to be Mr. Tinker and who Dr. Starline has been fanboying over is the REAL Dr. Eggman. I’m convinced that this is some elaborate plan by the real Dr. Eggman who used the Phantom Ruby to create a duplicate of himself to lure people into a false sense of security but then Dr. Starline mistook him for the genuine article and conditioned him into assuming the mad doctor’s role.

You might be wondering how this is possible since Mr. Tinker clearly retained memories of being Doctor Eggman in his subconscious and he acted fully independently after he showed up in that little village?

This is just me theorizing here but I think Eggman left him those subconscious memories on purpose so that Sonic and friends would buy the ruse. The Phantom Ruby also reacts to the user’s subconscious desires to create its elaborate illusions so its possible that Eggman put them there intentionally or accidentally when he made Mr. Tinker. Plus all of the duplicates of the villains Infinite made in Sonic Forces were able to act independently, they just couldn’t be anything more than henchmen since they were create by Infinite’s single-minded drive for conquest whereas Mr. Tinker seems like a much more complicated creation than that.

The one problem with this theory of mine is the issue of Metal Sonic. How did Metal Sonic trigger Mr. Tinker to have actual memories of being Eggman if he’s just a holographic construct? Even accepting that’s what he is I’ll admit it’s a big stretch to say that the hypothetical “real” Eggman in this scenario embedded this construct with enough memories to drastically switch personalities.

I don’t have a good explanation for this, it really does poke a big hole in this theory of mine. But I do still think it’s a strong possibility since the setup for it is there in the early issues and it would explain why Eggman is so uncharacteristically careless. Mr. Tinker didn’t want to be Eggman to begin with, maybe he wants to fail deep down. He clearly has some remorse about what he’s left behind as this issue has shown.

I don’t know if I’m right. The pieces of the puzzle are there and that setup in the early issues to too obvious to ignore for me. For all I know the writing team originally intended Mr. Tinker to be a Phantom Ruby double but then Sega vetoed that idea and this is the genuine Doctor that we’ve been following. It wouldn’t be the first time Sega has meddled with this comics’ writing and imposing their own arbitrary characterization (Shadow anyone?)

As for Doctor Starline honestly this one boils down to personal opinion but I do not think he’s being ruined and in fact I actually like that they’re setting him up for him going on his own villainous path. I’ve heard some people say they’re just turning him into Snivley 2.0 and I don’t think that’s an unfounded criticism. On paper they have a similar characterization as someone who started out idolizing Eggman but then grew bitter after secondhandly observing their failures and being treated like a lackey and as a result grew a treacherous side. Also if you read their arguements next to each other they sound very similar.

But I don’t think it’s entirely a fair comparison, I think the two characters differ greatly in terms of their own skills and how they came to work for Eggman. Snivley was Robotnik’s nephew and since they were both rejected by their own kind Robotnik took pity on him and made him his chief henchman. It was only after years of abuse and standing in his uncle’s shadow that Snivley started considering overthrowing his uncle and whenever he did strike out on his own he always just copied his uncle. He is a technological genius in his own right but his most successful schemes are the ones where he gets someone stronger to do his dirty work and when they fail he’s always quick to hide behind someone else to avoid the full consequences.

Dr. Starline on the other hand is clearly on another level than Snively. A lot about his backstory and origin is shrouded in mystery but it’s obvious that he has the capacity to be a full on threat if he worked alone. He is enough of a scientific genius to create a working portal gun on his glove, he was able to single handedly get all seven Chaos Emeralds and he even came close to beating Sonic and Silver in his first run in with them. All that’s holding him back is his own fanboy adoration for Eggman, he put all of this effort and energy to become a credible threat but he’s choosing to play second fiddle for the mad scientist.

Actually recently his adoration has been turning to cynicism similar to Snivley. But unlike Snivley it’s not because of years of abuse and a inferiority complex driving him, rather it’s more out of a glass-shattering “never meet your heroes” revelation and a desire for better efficiency that he’s working towards undermining the big red egg.

So yeah to sum up I think (or at least I hope) there is a good reason that Eggman has been acting OOC in these recent comics and I actually like the direction Dr. Starline has been going in. Wherever the comics end up going with all this I have faith that I’m going to enjoy them.

[tev-the-random]

A casual Sonic Forces rewrite + some headcanons, because why not

Part 1 – Infinite and Episode Shadow

Just a warning: none of the images used here belong to me! They all belong to SEGA – the game screenshots, the official art and the comic pages.

Next Part ->

I have yet to see the Sonic Movie, because the universe seems devoted on not letting me do so, for some reason. Being as desperate for Sonic content but as determined to not receive spoilers from the movie as I am, I decided to go for the next coolest thing: writing really long and random posts about a game that came out three years ago and no one cares about anymore.

This shall be fun!

(Update: as of posting this, I have finally watched the movie! But I don’t want to throw this away, so I’ll post it anyway. We can have a nice talk about the movie later.)

*“Fist Bump instrumental” intro plays*

*“This is Our World: a New Hero” plays in the background*

I’m the type of person to always try and see the best in every game, and Sonic Forces is no different. Despite its obvious flaws, I love this beautiful game! Mostly the concept of it is one of the coolest things I’ve seen this last decade, but the execution… lacks on a few things. I mostly just fill in the gaps with my imagination and enjoy it nevertheless, but, upon going through the tag and seeing that some of my concerns were shared by other people, I decided to try my hand at rewriting Sonic Forces juuust a tiny bit. Just for fun!

For this first part (and I have no idea how many parts we should have), I’d like to share some of my ideas about…

*Infinite’s Theme plays in the background as I try hard not to sing along*

Oh, my poor jackal boy, what do we do with you? Despite being so heavily promoted and having an undeniably awesome theme song, Infinite’s backstory and general development throughout the game came out as lacking, having the self-proclaimed edgelord become a laughingstock amongst most fans. Nevertheless, I still love Infinite, and it saddens me how much wasted potential he had; it’s like they were trying to write a really interesting character, but gave up halfway through.

So yeah, let’s talk about it. And let us begin with his origin story.

I believe you are all familiar with this scene:

I… I want to defend my boy here, I really do. But honestly, the way this was portrayed, it just sounded like he was throwing a childish tantrum. It seems as if his entire motive for becoming a villain was “Shadow beat him and called him weak”; dude, you’re not the only one: Shadow does this to basically everybody who’s ever crossed his way! We’re not given a reason as to why Infinite gets so bloody offended, nor are we given a reason why we should care.

So, how can we fix this? I think we should firstly focus less on “I’M NOT WEEEEAAAAK!!! URRAAAAGHH!!!” and more on:

It doesn’t need to be – and I don’t even think it can be – as sad of a situation as the Rivaille Squad in Shingeki No Kyojin or anything, but I believe that showing us that Infinite lost something important would already do wonders to his backstory.

The simplest way – that is, the way that doesn’t majorly change how things go, but does give the jackal a clearer motive – to do this would involve the ever so humble inclusion of two new cutscenes and one new in-game battle, plus a few tweaks to some already existing scenes.

Episode Shadow begins not with the usual reading introduction, but rather, with Shadow’s voice. “I was a couple of months before the Doctor took over the world. The first time I encountered him… I didn’t know what he would become.” Then we open with what used to be a couple of months prior (aka where they presented Infinite’s memory, aka where they screwed up), so we’ll go through things in a chronological order instead of having a flashback inside of a prequel, because that’s confusing AF.

Now, instead of starting the Mystic Jungle level immediately, we should get a small cutscene: Shadow gliding through the jungle, cool camera angles/lighting and all – maybe something similar to the opening scene of Episode Shadow in Sonic 06? –, on his way to invade Eggman’s base as a voice coming from the hedgehog’s communicator reminds him about his mission (yep, that’s some subtle exposition to the audience so we don’t think Shadow is there just because). My idea for said mission would be the simple task of retrieving a Chaos Emerald (yeah, remember those?) from Eggman. Nothing too serious; just another day, another emerald stolen like usual; we’ve seen this before, there’s no need for a long dialogue.

As the black-and-red blur crosses the screen, the camera pans to a group of people hiding above in the trees: Squad Jackal. Infinite is not among them. One of the jackals asks “where’ the boss?” to which another one replies that he’s on the other side of the base/talking to the Doctor/whatever and they have no time to waste; their mission is to take down the intruder and protect the base. We get something in the lines of “the boss is counting on us. Expect no mercy, show no weakness. Let’s go!” and the camera fades out as the squad drops from the trees and runs after Shadow.

I believe that having the phrase “show no weakness” – or any possible reference to “I’m not weak”, really – appear earlier as seemingly common and then have it become something the character gives a lot of importance to due to consequences and parallels sounds a bit more interesting than having Infinite’s inferiority complex come out of nowhere.

The Mystic Jungle level plays as usual, except the dialogue in the background doesn’t say that “the Defence Squad has already been completely annihilated”, but rather that “the Defence Squad is on the case. They’re the best mercenaries there are, Shadow won’t stand a chance!” because Doctor Eggman is naive like that.

Once we reach the end of the level there’s another change: a boss battle against Squad Jackal. You see, we don’t want to hear the squad was taken down like some sort of lazy exposition, because it feels incomplete; we want to participate, we want to be the protagonist and see with our own eyes just what is Infinite’s squad. This gives faces and voices to something that will become an important plot point instead of just telling us “yeah, this happened or whatever”. This could also play as some sort of sympathy point for Infinite, because we, while in control of Shadow, took down his squad; it makes the villain’s animosity towards Shadow and his general anger at least a bit more understandable.

The idea is that this battle should play as some sort of field fight – that is, differently than most boss battles in Sonic Forces, this is not a racing track where you attack your enemy while running, but rather a large secluded area, much like the one we get in the fight between the Custom Hero and the DeathEgg Robot –, where squad members would attack individually in different patterns before going for a group attack. The individual jackals would have both projectile (perhaps something like a wispon, knives or some Eggman invention to keep it family friendly enough?) and close-ranged attacks, while the group attack would consist of this mass of wild jackals changing at you, trying to run you over. The opportunity windows could be either the moment when the opponents switch or band together for the group attack.

(I don’t know, maybe some of you can think of better ways to fight the Jackal Squad? This is just a random idea! I’d like to hear different ones!)

Once the fight is over, we get another cutscene: Shadow stands among the fallen jackals – don’t worry, they’re… sleeping… yeah, there’s no visible blood, they’re not dead… except they’re totally dead – and looks around for a second or two. His expression is indecipherable, and he soon leaves without saying a word – one might say he feels bad for them, or maybe he doesn’t give a damn; we leave that open to interpretation. Not a moment passes and we get to see the leader of the squad arriving at the scene. The camera moves in a circle around him as he looks at his fallen comrades in shock. How did this happen? They were the strongest, how could his whole squad be dead? This is a rather touching moment, where Infinite sticks his sword (because in his origins comic he used to have a super cool red sword and I want to pretend we have a reason for it not existing in the game) to the ground; there’s a feeling of anger and vengeance going on as we get a closer look at the last standing jackal. He clenches his fists and faces the direction of Shadow. “Expect no mercy, show no weakness,” he says in an infuriated, strangled voice. He starts to run and the camera fades out.

(Look at his sword and his squad, man. I do wish we could have seen them in the game…)

When the camera fades in again, we get that exact same cutscene from the game. Blah blah, “destroyed my squad”, blah blah, “ultimate mercenary”, a legendary ass whooping and Infinite falls to the ground, weak, pathetic and defeated.

Now, I’d like to add just a few lines to their dialogue, because this:

Doesn’t really sound like Shadow to me. I mean, man: you beat this random guy to the ground, called him worthless and pathetic out of nowhere and then you just leave? I know Shadow is rather apathetic and he’s supposed to be savage and all, but this just felt kind of out of place…

So instead of going full rude mode, what Shadow actually says is:

‘You’re part of the Defence Squad, aren’t you? Why would a bunch of mercenaries work for the Doctor? What is he hiding?’

‘The doctor paid well enough to not have his secrets spilled,’ Infinite retorts while trying to get up. He’s too hurt to do much, but he’s still willing to fight. He looks at Shadow with fiery eyes as he continues, ‘My squad… you took them down like they were nothing… why wouldn’t someone as strong as you be a mercenary?’

‘Mercenary work is for the weak,’ the hedgehog states matter-of-factly. ‘I’ve sworn to protect, not to follow the dirty line of work you did.’

This blows Infinite’s mind and he simply stares at Shadow, dumbfounded. He murmurs, ‘weak? How dare you, I’m not… We’re not weak! We’re the squad o-’

‘Where’s the Chaos Emerald?’ The jackal’s statement is completely ignored. However, Infinite is having none of this, so tries to attack Shadow once again in a fit of rage, only for the hedgehog to give him a signature roundhouse kick free of charge.

(Image merely illustrative)

‘What a waste of my time,’ Edgelord Number 1 says, aware that he’s not getting any useful information from this. He steps closer and Edgelord Number 2 flinches, ‘here’s some advice: don’t show your face around me ever again, or else I will finish you.’

And with that, Shadow teleports away, leaving Infinite to his existential crisis. He wasn’t able to avenge his friends; he wasn’t able to protect the base; heck, he wasn’t even able to hold his title of ultimate mercenary! How useless of a leader was he? Were mercenaries truly weak? Everything they’ve done… was it all worthless? Show no weakness… what did it even mean? They were all defeated, and Infinite can’t shake the feeling that he’s to blame for it. Wasn’t he supposed to be the best?

‘What is this? I’m…’ He looks at his hands, which are trembling ‘I’m shaking? I flinched? I... We failed… How pathetic… All because…’

Infinite stops as if he’s just gotten a moment of clarity. He then gets up and starts walking inside Eggman’s base. ‘I’m not weak,’ he says in a decided, chilling whisper; it’s almost scary. The view is set at the entrance, right in front of the jackal so that he starts blocking the light from the outside as he slowly walks towards the camera - while saying in that scary voice, “No mercy, no weakness”.

(I can totally see Liam O’Brien delivering this line perfectly…)

Then the last expository narrating happens about the same, except that Shadow narrates it – giving continuity to the fact that he was the one who started narrating this episode for a reason I will talk about later –, so we change a few words to match his speech more; it’s all in the third person and very husky and brooding, but with a subtle note of dread (oh, if only Jason Griffith would voice it… No disrespect to Kirk Thornton, but he just doesn’t hit Shadow’s perfect voice like Jason did; for me, at least. His Orbot voice is fantastic, though).

Now, instead of having Infinite looking forward for a few seconds before he gets the Phantom Ruby out of nowhere and places it in his chest very anti-climatically, we’ll do something different: as soon as he puts on the mask, he starts walking away, and we change settings to a dimly lit room, where we see Infinite from behind, fitting the frame perfectly. Following the beat of the background music, the camera changes to a close shot of his masked face as he’s holding the Phantom Ruby, which is glowing, reflecting on his mask and giving us a beautifully red-lit scene; it’s possible to hear very low, indiscernible whispers coming from the jewel. We then hear a small, evil chuckle from the masked jackal – he already sounds rather different from the guy who stuck his sword to the ground in honour of his friends earlier. The screen goes black, the whole “I was… Reborn!” thing dramatically happens in Infinite’s echoing voice and the not-flashback is over.

(I know this last part was quite specific and oddly detailed, but I had the scenes very clear in my head I wanted to try conveying how intimidating it looked to me o3o)

Ok, now that that’s done, prepare yourselves for an intermission. And by that, I mean prepare yourselves for a long analytical commentary on what I just wrote.

*”This is Our World: Phase 2″ plays in the background*

(Who is Shadow working for again? I don’t even know, man…)

Shadow isn’t just the guy who called Infinite pathetic. He’s the guy who killed Infinite’s squad (his friends) without any apparent remorse – and to be hypocrite as to say he’d sworn to protect when he just did something like this (yeah, Infinite doesn’t know any context of Shadow’s life, so of course he doesn’t understand what he meant); the guy who ruined everything he had going with his new job as leader of the Defence Squad; the guy who put him several levels under what he thought he was; the guy who questioned his entire way of living and the guy who put him under a lingering threat; “don’t show your face around me ever again” feels more intimidating now. Not only that, but, despite how Infinite might hate Shadow, he recognizes him as strong, admirable even – “why wouldn’t someone as strong as you be a mercenary?” Remember that Infinite himself is a mercenary; to actually acknowledge someone would be good at something you’re good at, specially someone you don’t like, has to be a sign of admiration, albeit a frustrating one. All of this puts a lot more of weight on how Infinite thinks of Shadow and why being stronger than the hedgehog is so important to him.

I made it so that “expect no mercy, show no weakness” is something like the Jackal Squad’s motto, their philosophy. I like to think it means that they should never count on someone’s mercy, for their enemies won’t spare them; they should always go into battle aware that they might actually be fighting for their lives. At the same time, they should always stand their ground and never let anyone think they can take advantage of a squad member. This is what the jackals live for. But seeing as Infinite’s world has just been shattered and he failed hard on everything, he revises his mentality. “No mercy, no weakness” is what he’s going for now, as he wants to be above everyone, he wants to effectively be the strongest and for people to know that; he will be the one who doesn’t spare others, and he won’t be weak at all. Never again would a failure cost him that much, for never again would he fail.

To have Infinite place the Phantom Ruby on his own chest in Episode Shadow contradicts the opening scene of the main campaign. Remember the episode is a prequel to Sonic Forces’ main game, so it shouldn’t be completely detached from it; things must make sense when put together. As the main game begins by showing us Infinite inside of a tube in Eggman’s lab, we can assume one of two things: he’s either a robot/biological experiment created entirely by the scientist, or he’s a guy who’s been experimented on, thus Eggman was the one who placed the Phantom Ruby on him. With this in mind, it wouldn’t make sense to show us Infinite doing something if you’re going to tell us that he couldn’t have possibly done it on his own. But to have him hold the ruby as someone who deeply desires its powers and who listens to its ominous whispering? Not only does it line better with the aforementioned scene, but it also makes Infinite seem more prone to the ruby’s power (instead of just… you know, “random angry dude”).

As this intermission has gone on long enough, I’ll only make a brief commentary on the Phantom Ruby: I like the idea of the ruby being somewhat alive and exerting influence over Infinite. Now, I won’t say it’s the kind of influence where it justifies his horrible behaviour or the awful things he did. It’s less “mind-control” and more “that best friend who always encourages you and never calls you out on your bullshit”. Its grooming Infinite’s ego and just nudging him to keep making bad decisions, to keep shutting himself in this new reality where he’s all powerful and above everyone else. So it’s the jackal’s pride, spite and grief, along with Eggman’s overall encouragement and the Phantom Ruby’s influence all put together that, in a general sense, make Infinite what he is. (I can go into more detail about this idea once I make a Part 2.)

Mission Accomplished: “angry bitchy boy turned edgy, OP and unimpressed” changed his status to “tragic boy turned edgy, bitter and extremely power-hungry”.

Intermission’s over, let’s get back to the story!

With Infinite’s backstory slightly redone (or rather, shown under a different light), I could stop right here. But I don’t want to, oh no! I say we take this a few steps further and just finish Episode Shadow! Yeah, I told you this was going to be a long post.

*”Battle with Infinite: Second Bout” plays in the background*

Ok, now we cut to a few months later, where Episode Shadow would originally begin. Rouge comments that Omega was on recon mission in that “unknown base of operations that seems to be totally outside the chain of command for Eggman’s army” (whatever that is supposed to mean) when he spotted an unidentified masked person with strange energy readings and an unknown battle ID. Omega reported a “large scale troop” and… that’s it, he just stopped talking. Rouge then talks about that “new weapon” Eggman was supposedly developing and sends Shadow to the base to investigate along with Omega. She makes a remark about how they should get the entire Team Dark together for this (“It should be fun”), but Shadow dismisses the idea, saying that he’s enough on his own. “Omega said the same thing. You two go together like chilli and hot dogs.”

We can keep this at the whole “dialogue on screen” thing. I don’t really mind and it sure spares the budget.

The City stage plays as usual, except the dialogue in the background changes a bit, because Team Dark bickering (or just talking in general, I love this team so much) is my jam.

‘E-123 Omega here. Extermination proceeding without incident. No problems to report.’

‘Omega!’ Rouge exclaims, ‘Why have you stopped responding earlier? We- wait, extermination? This is supposed to be a recon mission, what are you doing?!’

‘I was spotted. Priorities conflicted; therefore I decided to eliminate the enemy altogether. New Mission Objective: Defeat Eggman.’

‘But you can’t go making a scene like that!’

‘See, this is what happens when you send the giant killer robot for this kind of op,’ Shadow sasses. And I’ll imagine Jason’s voice for this too, thank you.

‘I have several reports of recon missions where you retaliated, Shadow.’

‘I might have to join you boys soon enough. I turn my back for five seconds and this happens…’ Rouge comments in a tired voice.

Omega is ready to start robotically recounting the reports of failed recon missions where Shadow retaliated, but he is suddenly cut by static and the vague sound of the Phantom Ruby. Rouge tries to contact him again and we get small bits of his original lines here – “All sensors offline”, “Casualty report”, “Unidentified system intrusion. Emergency withdrawal!” and “I am E-123 Omega, the most powerf-sjfpstswq”, that stuff – before his communication is completely cut. Shadow asks something like “what’s going on?”, but his communication with Rouge is cut as well. We play whatever’s left of the level in silence (except for the sweet background music).

(Oh yeah, this happened or whatever…)

Now, I know the next scene is a screen dialogue again, and I know I just said I don’t mind it, but watching this:

… Is so bloody uncomfortable. This feels dumb. This is so dumb. I feel like they robbed us an epic scene in exchange of some awkward reading with absolutely no context. What the hell is “!” supposed to mean?! What did Infinite do?! If I wanted to imagine the action scenes all on my own, I’d spend my time daydreaming! What, did they not know what to do here so they just threw in some random lines to fill the gap between this and the next level?!

… Sorry, I got a little carried away. This simple scene frustrates me a lot by not existing. So yeah, we’re throwing in a cutscene.

(I just noticed how salty this post is getting. This was not my intention at all, I still love this game, oh dear…)

Shadow reaches the edge of the city and encounters a dark silhouette hovering just above the flames that cover the ground; there’s debris scattered everywhere. The figure has its back turned, and the world seems to glitch ever so slightly around them.

‘The world’s most powerful robot is no more a challenge than crabmeat. Even the Doctor’s most daring designs can’t compete with my power… It is without peer,’ the figure chuckles to themselves.

Shadow starts approaching silently, analysing the situation. Despite this being Omega’s location, he can’t see the robot.

‘Wonder how easy it would be to end this entire planet. Don’t you…’

Suddenly, the voice speaks close to the hedgehog’s ear:

‘…Shadow?’

He turns around to see that the unknown person has appeared behind him, which throws him off. The hedgehog takes several steps back and puts himself in a fighting stance.

It’s hard to see past the jackal’s mask, but he seems amused as he looks down on Shadow. Twistedly so.

‘How wonderful to see that our not-so-tall, dark and brooding guest has arrived. I’ve been waiting for you, Shadow~’

‘Tell me what you did to Omega. Now,’ the agent demands.

‘Oh, come now, Shadow. Our long-awaited reunion and still you spout such nonsense.’ Infinite floats down to stand a few meters away from his enemy.

‘I don’t know you,’ Shadow states. The masked jackal tilts his head, but doesn’t say anything, so he asks again, ‘what have you done to Omega?’

‘Only what is ought to be done when someone stands in your way. Weaklings like E-123 Omega are of no consequence, don’t you agree?’

‘The only thing of no consequence is that big mouth of yours.’

Shadow launches himself at Infinite, who easily avoids his attack. The jackal starts laughing manically.

‘Ah, I suppose you would think so,’ he states. ‘After all, it’s not so funny to be the one losing the battle, is it? I am Infinite. You say you do not know me, and yet I remember you so very well… I’ve lost all I was, I’ve become what I am because of you. Savour that thought as I return the favour.’

Guess what happens? That’s right, we get another boss battle! I think it’s only fair that Infinite gets to have his rematch with Shadow. Besides, it establishes a comparison with the “old” Infinite and how much stronger he’s now – from Shadow’s perspective, that is.

I have no idea how this battle would play out. Maybe something similar to his second battle in the main story (no, don’t worry: we’ll talk about the exceeding amount of Infinite battles in the next part), with the 2D layout. Let’s say Infinite is surrounded with his Red Cubes of Doom while he’s not attacking, so you can’t touch him. Maybe he makes the fire glitch and get closer to you at some point. Maybe he makes clones and you have to defeat each of them to get to the real guy, I don’t know! Tag your ideas, I’d love to see them! ^^

Anyway, once the battle’s over and Shadow “wins” (because Infinite is not defeated, he’s just done with this fight), the jackal might say something in the lines of “I suppose I’ve let this duel go on for long enough. I have other matters to attend to, Shadow the Hedgehog.”

We get back to the cutscene and Infinite is glitching a bit, quickly recomposing himself, laughing. Shadow is panting.

‘What’s the matter, Shadow? Can’t take down a measly jackal anymore?’ The masked one says sarcastically. ‘It seems like I’ve overestimated your strength. You’re no fit to be a mercenary at all.’

There’s a beat and Shadow realises what this is about. He looks at Infinite, frowning. ‘It’s you… Defence Squad Jackal…’

Infinite stares at the hedgehog. He doesn’t seem to be as amused anymore. His golden eye’s glowing under his mask, and so is the Phantom Ruby on his chest. A tense background music plays as Infinite answers dryly:

‘Yes.’

‘I’ve spared you, but now you’re going too far. It’s time to finish this! Chaos Spear!’

The spears of light simply go through Infinite as if they didn’t exist. Shadow goes for a spin dash/homing attack/kick to the face or whatever you can think of, but the masked villain glitches out of the way with ease and lands an almost perfect copy of Shadow’s roundhouse kick.

The hedgehog glides across the floor, almost falling over. Infinite scoffs.

‘This new “me” has limitless power. I have no mercy; no weakness! I am the true ultimate force that will tear this world apart, and what may have worked to bring me down before…’ the jackal starts floating again; thousands of red cubes start dancing around him and, as he raises a hand, they all group in the sky not far above them. ‘… No longer does.’

(Why yes, this is a reference to Mephiles the Dark and that time he destroyed the Sceptre of Darkness!)

Infinite throws his “Take THIS!” and Shadow does the “!” – which is him frantically trying to get out of the way as the thousands cubes of doom come crashing down on him.

The screen goes black.

Scene ends.

The Virtual Reality level should play as usual from there. I don’t even want to change the background dialogue, because I really like it: it’s confusing, it’s weird, it’s unsettling and it slaps Shadow in the face in a way that we rarely see. I love it! (Although, I do think the gameplay should have a tiny little bit more of 3D parts. We love Green Hill, but we also love the freedom to move on more than two directions when playing as the Ultimate Life Form. But it’s cool)

After that, we could get another cutscene (we’re full of cutscenes, huh? Well, this is a hypothetical rewriting with a hypothetical budget. Also, Episode Shadow is more of an exposition episode anyway). In this cutscene, we would start with some shots of different known locations: Green Hill, Chemical Plant, Crisis City, Mystic Jungle, Kingdom Valley, Babylon Garden, you name it! And all of these places are somewhat “corrupted”; they’re glitching out, full of those red cubes, and there’s just this ominous atmosphere in them, as if they’re abandoned, desolated despite looking roughly the same as ever. We then see a black-and-red blur cross the screen, and a short narration takes place:

“I’ve been here for longer than I can remember. This… alternate reality, this fake world. There seems to be no escape. Rouge and Omega talk to me occasionally…”

We see Shadow leaning against a wall. His communicator plays only white noise, then Rouge’s voice comes in; it’s strangely echoed as it calls out to him. Shadow throws the device far away and sighs.

“… They’re fake too. No matter where I go, no matter how much I run…”

Shadow is skating through Pumpkin Hill or something, when the world suddenly starts to glitch out massively; we hear the Phantom Ruby’s noise and suddenly, we’re on the ARK.

“It’s like this place was made to torture me. Although, I wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case.”

‘I’ve moved on from this a long time ago,’ Shadow says to the void of the Universe as we hear gunshots in the distance. He’s not being completely truthful. ‘Putting me through this scenario dozens of times changes nothing. Don’t you have anything more creative at this point?’

There’s silence, except for the shouts in the Space Colony. A voice calls out to Shadow, and he promptly ignores it, albeit with a pained look in his eyes. He’s visibly tired, almost hopeless, if one could ever describe Shadow the Hedgehog that way.

He sighs.

‘Alright, how do I get out of this one?”

We then get a start of a short level in the ARK. Don’t worry, it’s not one of those hellish mazes that usually haunt every ARK level there ever was; this is more straight forward, with doors closing all around you so that you know where you shouldn’t go, and some G.U.N. robots trying to kill you, simple thing.

The catch happens when you’re halfway through the level: as you’re crossing a long corridor, the game begins to “crash” – in the sense of you losing control of the character, the visuals beginning to glitch and the soundtrack going weird, all in a way that makes the soul leave the body of the player for a terrifying four seconds of “HOLY SHIT, I BROKE THE GAME”. But nope, you didn’t break the game: the Phantom Ruby is trolling you. We soon find that out as the signature noise plays and the glitching effect on screen disperses to show a new scenario: Mystic Jungle. The real Mystic Jungle. Congratulations: you get to play in a totally different zone for the rest of the level.

‘My head…’ Shadow murmurs to himself. ‘That was too quick; this can’t be right, it- ugh, why is it so bright here? Where are all the red things? This place seems too normal… is it… am I back in the real world?!’

We then finish the level, get our nice score and head to the last scene of the episode.

Shadow is going through the jungle, taking in everything that isn’t an illusion. He passes by a red sword stuck to the ground and leans against a tree, still a little out of it, still struggling to believe that anything is real anymore. The hedgehog then takes his communicator – surprisingly intact; hadn’t he thrown that away? – and tries to make contact. There is static for a moment, when suddenly…

‘Shadow? Oh my- Shadow, is that you?!’

He’s startled for a moment, but so relieved to hear Rouge’s normal voice again.

‘It’s me, Rouge. What’s the situation? Where’s Omega?’

‘Omega? We lost contact with him months ago; the Resistance says he must have been shut down after the Doctor took over!’

Shadow raises both his non-existing eyebrows in surprise, barely holding a gasp. He then frowns.

‘Shut down? Resistance? What do you mean “the Doctor took over”? What the heck happened?’

‘What happened? What happened?! I should be the one asking you that! You’ve been offline for six months! Everyone keeps saying you’re working with Eggman and Infinite, and I couldn’t contact you or Omega, I thought… I thought we’d lost you for good…’

‘Nonsense,’ Shadow states. We start hearing voices in the distance, and the hedgehog starts looking around while still talking ‘I’ll tell you the details later, it’s long story. What’s the current situation?’

‘Shadow…’

The (Tired) Ultimate Life Form spots something from behind the trees. Still in hiding, he looks closer only to see the Custom Hero holding the prototype Phantom Ruby they just found and talking to Tails and… Classic Sonic, much to Shadow’s confusion.

‘… We’re at war.’

Shadow takes a moment to process what’s just been said. He doesn’t even pay attention to what Rouge says next (neither do we, as the background music starts getting louder than the bat’s voice). He still watches the avatar, Tails and Classic Sonic as they leave; he focuses on the Phantom Ruby.

‘Meet me in the City. I’ve got a lot to tell you,’ Shadow says.

And with that, he leaves, the scene fades out and Episode Shadow is over!

*”The Light of Hope: Menu Version” plays in the background*

Now, a few more analytical notes before we close this ridiculously gigantic thing:

The immediate reason why we have Shadow being stuck in the Virtual Reality for six months is to indicate to us why he doesn’t show up earlier in the main game. It’s not like he was being useless this whole time and just decided to show up whenever it was most Ex-Machina of him; much like Sonic, he was trapped by the enemy. A mental trap that put Shadow on survivor mode for months without any way of communicating with anybody; with twisted versions of his friends trying to get to him and remind him that, hey, they’re still out there, probably in high danger; with these illusions mocking him, reminding him of painful memories, isolating him in familiar places… I say: if you want to emotionally hit a character, hit them hard. And this experience is bound to leave Shadow with some emotional scar, alright.

(Ever heard of conveniently coming out of nowhere?)

Shadow is bound to lose his sense of reality and sometimes it should be hard for him to acknowledge that this is the real world. I hope I can showcase some of his reactions in the later parts of this o3o

The Virtual Reality isn’t all glitchy by mistake. No, no: Infinite is perfectly capable of making a “perfect copy” of the real world, but he doesn’t want to. He wants Shadow to know this is a fake world and to know that he’s completely trapped in it while his real friends and allies are out there doing who-knows-what in a world run by the enemy. He wants to throw Shadow off-balance as much as he can, because he’s spiteful and doesn’t just leave the hedgehog to the side without a second glance.

In the game, Infinite says that they didn’t really have time to tune his power yet, so we can tell putting Shadow in the Virtual Reality was more of a practice of sorts. But man, I think this is too much of a cool concept, so I’ll say Infinite did put his power to the test before all of this; because Eggman, sir: you don’t simply throw your super-secret, amazing, unparalleled weapon in the battlefield without testing it first. This is something that can be inferred, it doesn’t need to be directly told, it just- I’m telling you this right now, ok?

I know Shadow is supposedly “over” this conflict with what happened in the ARK and it probably feels over-used to add it in again, but… it’s a thing the games haven’t tackled in such a long time, I feel like this would be a nice call-back. Besides, Infinite would want to know what would bring distress to Shadow; what happened in the ARK isn’t exactly a secret, especially if he’s working with Eggman. And Shadow can be as “over it” as he wants: it’s still a scar that will never truly leave him. Even if he watches it happen dozens of times, it’s still at least a little bit of an emotional rollercoaster.

ALTHOUGH! I also think this ARK level could be easily replaced with some other random level if you want to argue that Forces happens in Mobius or something, where Gerald and Maria and G.U.N. maybe never existed and whatnot.

What brought Shadow back, you ask? Well, it probably has to do with a certain someone spontaneously activating a Phantom Ruby. Maybe the avatar was thinking of Shadow and how it’d be nice to have him on their side again? Maybe they were thinking of undoing Infinite’s evil deeds? Maybe the raw power of the Phantom Ruby prototype being suddenly activated by the Custom Hero just crashed something another Phantom Ruby user did, like magnetic waves interfering with each other? Who knows?

I also find it important to show the Custom Hero here not only to show that there’s a connection between Shadow’s sudden freedom and their actions, but also to establish the tiniest amount of early familiarity between Shadow and the original character. Then maybe (maybe) I’ll give them a bit more of interaction in the main game, because it’d be nice to have a cool interaction with Shadow; and as endearing as his smile after the avatar does their thing with the sun of destruction is, it feels like it comes out of nowhere, if you think about it…

(I mean... Does he even know who we are?)

Infinite’s sword stuck to the ground goes completely over Shadow’s head, as he has no idea what that is or who it belonged to or what it means. It’s really just there for the viewer to reminisce the beginning of the episode and have a slight existential crisis.

When playing the main campaign, we get some pretty convenient information from Shadow once he finally shows up. Episode Shadow should give us a sense of how he knows those things. Want it or not, he did spend a long time studying the Phantom Ruby’s power far more closely than anybody else – well, maybe Sonic spent almost as much time as Shadow in a similar state, but that’s something to cover in another part.

The fact that Shadow is the one narrating this entire episode is supposed to allude to him telling Rouge exactly what happened during those six months he was gone. But if you want to read it as him talking to himself in the Virtual Reality as he slowly descends into madness, then be my guest!

I don’t know if it’s noticeable, but I’ve tried to tune Infinite’s cheesiness down a bit. I don’t think I can rid him of it entirely – after all, he is somewhat of a pompous, edgy, over-the-top character in general; he’s a full-on drama queen 24/7 and the only character cheesier than him is Sonic. Now, what we do with Infinite is to at least give a base to what he says. Also, I wanted him to sound a bit more like he lets the power get to his head. Oh well, I surely hope we’ll be tackling more of Infinite in the future!

Episode Shadow is extremely short, even for a DLC. I mean, it’s about only 20 minutes long – even less, if you’re good at it! With the addition of the cutscenes, the small changes, the boss fights against Squad Jackal and Infinite, and the added levels, the episode shouldn’t get overwhelmingly longer, but longer enough for it to feel more satisfying!

And with that, we’re done! I hope you enjoyed this massive thing. Despite me really liking Sonic Forces, I do think a few things could be improved. It’s not like it will happen, but rewriting is a lot of fun!

And why, no: I don’t take myself seriously.

[egg-emperor]

Sometimes… characters don’t need a dramatic and traumatic history to become a villain… You can be a bad person in many different ways and something bad happening to you doesn’t automatically cause you to become a bad guy at all… and just maybe… Eggman has always been an asshole that felt entitled to his world and his greatness because of his grandfather’s significance and the inspiration he had on him was based on his importance, not his good deeds.

I don’t know about you but it really isn’t hard to picture him thinking that his intelligence is underappreciated and that he wants to go the extra mile to be hailed as the genius he is. He could do that through doing what is considered the things but he doesn’t. Instead, he’d rather do it in his own way, which is by forceful means with the power and rule of his empire. If anyone doubts him he remains confident and certain in his ego that he’ll take the world for himself. And while it isn’t his main goal in doing so, it will also prove all those people wrong.

It’s right there in the games as a whole lot of the pride he takes in being Gerald’s grandson is evidently because of his significance, which was the sole reason he looked up to him. What, with the way he’ll say “that’s MY grandfather” and how he wanted to be as great and as recognized as him as a great scientist in history.

And wanting to be just like him doesn’t necessarily equal him wanting his accomplishments to be as selfless and kind-hearted as Gerald’s deeds. It has never been establihed that Eggman does the things he does in order to get some type of revenge for him either. Instead, he just expressed confusion towards him wanting to destroy the entire planet and seemed much more appalled that included his own death too rather than others. 

His desire for revenge is directed to Sonic first and foremost because he gets in the way more than GUN and anyone else. He has his own personal reasons for disliking all of them, because they’re all obstacles preventing him from reaching his main goal. But he never lets them truly stop him. 

He also doesn’t want to take over the world to benefit anyone else in general, he’s doing it for himself and the fact that he wants products of his work, his amusement parks and everything he owns to be all over the world, his face plastered on logos all over everything. You know, because he wants to be above everyone else and to acknowledge his greatness.

If you think about it, Gerald is more canonically shown to be what a bunch of headcanons want to perceive Eggman as. His work was all about helping people and bettering the world, creating the ultimate lifeform in working to cure Maria, etc. But in the end, as his projects started to backfire, Black Doom tricked him and GUN took away everything that was important to him, it turned into malice. He died with the desire to take his anger out on the planet but ultimately helped save it from the black comet with the help of his previous deeds and the way Shadow ended up being able to carry out what he was really intended for since the beginning. 

I think that’s fantastic because they are not the same. I think it’s a lot more intriguing if he and Eggman have a lot of differences between them, that way comparing them is also far more interesting.

As for Eggman, he seems too self-absorbed to have ever cared about how others are affected by anything he does. I personally can’t see him ever thinking otherwise. It appears that the Sonic bible especially has a big influence on the headcanon that his intentions were once pure, but it’s obviously not canon and very flawed in multiple ways. I wouldn’t want any of it to be at all lol

Basically I see his past self as him being the proud, arrogant kid that wanted a lot of attention for his intelligence and effort, that his ego was always present and grew so large that he went mad with his power and desire to own the entire world. I’m not saying that everyone has to agree, but that’s definitely the impression I’ve gotten from his behavior and inspirations in the canon.

[another-sonic-blog]

My ShadAmy Completed FanFiction Master List (Updated)

From oldest to newest:

1.First Impressions

Synopsis: On a normal day, Amy found Shadow hurt in the woods after battling some robots that were under Lyric's command. They soon after became good friends and both having an emerald each, decided to embark on a mission to find the last remaining of the Chaos Emerald and stop Lyric's evil plan. Will this mission cause love to bloom between them?

A/N: My first (After I came back to the Sonic fandom.) ShadAmy fanfic and probably the cringest.This story was just crazy but due to popular demand, I created the 2nd book.Although I don't like this story anymore, I thank everyone who liked it wholeheartedly. It's because of you I continue writing.

Link: https://www.wattpad.com/story/127115810-first-impressions

2.Wrong Impressions

Synopsis: Sequel of "First Impressions" I strongly recommend to read the first part before reading this.

    It's been one year since Sonic disappeared. During this year, Shadow began to wonder if the feelings he had for Amy were real or even worth fighting for. Amy is sure that Shadow does not love her as she knows that the black and red hedgehog has no memory of their past together. Then, an opportunity rises within the boom team to get their Sonic back, will this new mission help recover the broken ties between the hedgehogs? Or will this cause the total downfall of Amy and Shadow's relationship?

A/N: The sequel of the 'First Impressions. It was ok, my first and only book that has Amy and Shadow's point of view.

Link: https://www.wattpad.com/story/164016491-wrong-impressions

3.10 Days

Synopsis: Six months after Sonic's death, Amy was captured by Eggman and Infinite, who order Amy to give them the Chaos Emeralds in which were in The Resistance possessions. If she dared denied their request, they will annihilate the whole resistance and top it all, if she fails her mission, she would be instantly killed by just pressing a button...Shadow who is working under Eggman for "his own purposes" was designed the mission to join the resistance and watch over her. Amy only has ten days left to live on this planet and Shadow's feelings towards Amy may bloom into something else.

A/N: I always find myself thinking ...why is my writing so cringy? HAHA, People enjoyed it and happy. I was slowly improving.

Link: https://www.wattpad.com/story/140726636-10-days

4. Meeting at Night:

Synopsis: ShadAmy Switch Roles AU. Amy Rose better known as the Ultimate Life Form created by Doctor General Robotnik never really thought about anything else but living her life to the fullest. Loving Sonic The Hedgehog in secret was one of her deepest guilty pleasures. However, she never thought that she will be headed in a mission with no other than Shadow The Hedgehog, or better known as G.U.N.'s top agent in order to save the person she loves the most.

A/N: The shortest story I've written, only 8 chapters. I enjoyed writing the AU, however. It was interesting to write about Shadow and Amy's reverse roles.

Link:

https://www.wattpad.com/story/147054685-meeting-at-night

5.The Dark Prince

Synopsis: Shadow the Hedgehog coped with his feelings for Amy Rose by drinking a cup of black coffee every day at the coffee shop she owns. He kills two birds with one stone, satisfying his addiction for coffee and successfully maintaining a conversation with his love interest. Everything was going as usual until one-day G.U.N's Commander was found dead and the main suspect is no other than Amy Rose. Shadow is now forced to leave his job as a G.U.N agent and help Amy prove her innocence. And along the way, Amy is starting to realize why everyone is falling head over heels in love with "The Dark Prince."

But some things are just not the way they seem.

A/N: UF... UFFFFF!!!!! The Dark Prince, wow, what a story. I enjoyed writing it so much. It had its cringy parts but damn, it was fun! I remember I was taking a plane to Germany when the idea came to me.

Link:https://www.wattpad.com/story/186396891-the-dark-prince

6. That Make Us Two

Synopsis: Switch Bodies ShadAmy Boom!

Shadow and Amy hate each other, but if they want to get their perspective bodies back, they must first embark on a mission together.

Can love repair the circumstances that were broken by hate?

A/N: I absolutely enjoyed writing this! It was different from what I usually write but it good I guess.

Link: https://www.wattpad.com/story/195901587-that-makes-us-two

7.The Change

Synopsis: Nothing changed when Amy found out that Shadow had a girlfriend.

That was a lie.

She regrets not telling him how she feels about him but now it was too late.Her best friend, Shadow, was happily in love with Maria the hedgehog and Amy hated herself for not being able to be happy for them.Now Amy and Shadow's relationship will go through an unavoidable "Change" that they will never forget.Will Amy tell Shadow how she feels or will she just go through the change and let herself forget?

A/N: The first story that was translated into Spanish. It was based on an ff I read some time ago. I completely enjoyed writing this! I recommend :)

Link: https://www.wattpad.com/story/204901993-the-change

Extras: ShadAmy One-Shots:

Link: https://www.wattpad.com/story/171938783-shadamy-request%2B-one-shots

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Well, I think that's it, for now. All of these stories are completed, so stories that are in progress are not here.

Have you read some of my stories? If so, which one was your favorite? And if you haven't read any, please come by and read! It's free~

Happy reading!

[tammyhybrid21]

Are we allowed to spill spoilers from the Sonic Movie yet?! Because I have so many emotions about it! And I have a major theory/idea about what that energy that Sonic is creating/charging throughout even is!

And no folks, that is not just simple electricity.

Okay just in case I shall hide under the Read More. 

But first off, I LOVE this movie! It feels like all my dreams of Sonic on the Big Screen are finally real! And honestly, for all it’s predictability, I think that’s kind of the charm. We know what the plot will be, we know how this will go. It’s a Road Trip movie. So if you’ve seen any of those before you know... you know where this is going. But it works, it’s fun.

Second, the Human characters. And not just Eggman/Robotnik. I... surprisingly liked them. Tom and Maddie. Donut Lord and Pretzel Lady. I-- really unabashedly love them. Like, I genuinely get why they’re here and why they matter and it’s not like you need them sure, but they make sense, fit organically and honestly. I care for them. Also Donut Lord Tom punches Robotnik twice and it works, and there are just some of the best interactions between them and how antagonistic Robotnik is and I just unabashedly love them.

Also, no stealing Sonic’s light.

But Robotnik definitely steals the whole movie. If there’s an origin story for him already, I’m sorry but this movie surpasses it. Robotnik is by and large the most fun thing on the screen and absolutely every scene he’s in is the best hands down. Also, evil villain playlist! And the Badniks label along with another villain staple self destruct. Also, I’m sorry but his first reaction to seeing Sonic is PRICELESS. 

On that note, GIVE US MORE AGENT STONE SEGA! He’s hands down, one of the best people Robotnik’s bounced off in terms of Villainy aside back in SatAM with his nephew, and I want more. Also Stone comes with a side of no backstabbing which is always appreciated.

Then the star, the heart of the movie. Sonic! And yes, this is definitely his best presence in the modern age. Will likely never beat out SatAM Sonic in my heart in terms of the portrayal-- but that’s more a case of First Wins I think. But like-- this Sonic is literally a lonely baby who needs so much protection and there are THREE big scenes I really want to talk about in regards to his skill set, powers and abilities in this movie. So, let’s talk about that huh.

First off, let’s talk about the first time we really see Sonic’s abilities. And no, not as a Baby-baby. I mean the time we first see that electric effect. Yep, we’re here to talk about the Baseball field. First off, that game hits hard seeing Sonic that lonely, and the thrill that drops into sad rumination and then the running. 

Now here’s a little fun fact about that, you notice the way the energy is building and gathering, being drawn. Well here’s something else. ALL the way back in Sonic Adventure we got something fun from the Emeralds and their lore.

"The servers are the Seven Chaos. Chaos is power... Power enriched by the heart. The controller is the one that unifies the Chaos. "

That’s RIGHT! Tikal’s prayer, the Chaos emeralds... and also-- Someone go look up a video of Shadow using his Chaos Blast. Because you’ll notice some... similarities.

Gather Energy 

Static Electricity around and through his fur and spines

Dramatic arch of body with a shout

Energy bursts out around with rippling electric waves and dissipates the further away it goes.

Yep! YEP! I think right there. We saw Sonic use his very own Chaos Blast! One supercharged by his emotions and honestly. That’s exactly how Chaos energy works! 

Secondly, as much as I want to talk about the bar fight scene-- that’s not the next time we see this energy charge. Nope! That’s right, next we’re talking about the Car Chase scene. Also-- I have... more than a few things about Sonic’s upset to say, but those can wait until later. So-- Sonic is working himself up and we get why, but then boom energy encasing him. And it’s emotional.

And then we see him launched and what happens next! SPIN DASH! Which tells me something I’ll be honest. It tells you a bit of how they’re doing that in the games. Also explains energy trails. 

Buuut that leads me kind of into the next things I want to talk about. And hey! It even includes a Robotnik scene. And that music. DAMN, Can I just take a moment to appreciate that for a moment. Because DAMN! GIMME! GIMME! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7EGMBS6nXI

This song! And the scene accompanying it are just! ICONIC! Like come on, Robotnik is so deliciously evil, and let’s lead in straight to what makes this so necessary. He’s studying Sonic’s spine there. SPINE! Spine not quill, and oh man! Robotnik dancing and the flow, perfectly timed. But the thing that sticks out the most...

POWER ANALYSIS: UNLIMITED

Now... why does that sound familiar. Because of something Tails says when you rescue him. “They have Unlimited Power y’know” at the start of Sonic Adventure, and how he’s working to harness that power for his plane. Which also leads into the next scene directly, and the next use of Sonic’s power.

First off, the way Robotnik uses the spine. Very reminiscent of the early games and using the small animals to power his machinery, whiiich btw, I do believe those are chaos creatures considering how they interact with Chao, but that’s neither here nor there, but-- what’s the next big moment with Sonic’s power.

THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP! Which cheesy as hell, but this is a kid’s movie and again-- Let me spin you around to the first point. The biggest and oldest point. “Power Enriched by the heart!” The Chaos Emeralds literally run on power of friendship, if not being used for the negative energy! So you know!

Also-- as a final argument.

Robotnik speaks about detecting a pulse of energy similar to the original blast when tracking into Tom’s house. Now that could be speaking about Sonic himself-- but-- here’s a fun detail. The Warp Rings... are one of the only ways you can access the actual Chaos Dimension in the games, and thus can be imagined to run off it as well. And Sonic, who knows how long prior used one. Sooo if we imagine that’s what Robotnik was tracking there--

Sonic’s energy is the same as the Warp Rings, thus Chaos Energy.

I rest my case.