3456boidone - Tumblr blog

[3456boidone]

i rlly hope it gets easier soon bc i am fucking losing my mind

[3456boidone]

A whole-ass analysis of Sonic's relationships with women, started by one stupid meme I saw on Discord

Description: Eggman showing a photo of Sally Acorn (from Sonic SatAM, with a design from the Archie comics), Queen Aleena (from Sonic Underground), Blaze the Cat (from the videogames, with a design from one of the 2010s games) and Princess Elise (from Sonic 06), pointing at that photo and saying "Dear Sonic fans: if Sonic is a freedom fighter, why does he keep supporting monarchs? Curious."

I know this is supposed to be funny (and Eggman is being fallacious in order to make his nemesis look bad, which is to be expected), but it actually got me thinking.

We've all seen at least one Sonic fan complaining (either rightfully or not) about writers always trying to shoehorn introduce a human girl as a new love interest for Sonic. This seems to happen no matter what piece of official Sonic content it is, whether it's made in Japan or made by Western authors, whether it's tie-in/licensed media or material directly controlled/overseen by SEGA and Sonic Team.

Well, here's another similar phenomenon, which is why I'm writing this: in so many continuities both Western and Japanese, there's frequently a female character from royalty whom Sonic becomes or already is emotionally close to.

In the Discord server where this image was posted, someone else brought up a good point: Sonic being a "freedom fighter" or any other sort of guerrilla warrior is a thing only in the now-defunct Western continuity (SatAM & Archie, and the British comic published by Fleetway), whereas he's "just some guy doing his own thing" everywhere else. The interpretation of "Sonic is a free spirit" by the many branches of the Sonic series comes into play here, too: "just some guy" Sonic from the videogames and "freedom fighter" Sonic from SatAM are different interpretations of that description of the character's personality (this will be important later).

After looking at that image, I realized something else: in most cases, the fact that those characters are royalty either isn't heavily relevant to the plot or isn't treated as something unequivocally good/desirable.

Sonic SatAM didn't really emphasise Sally being a princess and the heir to the Acorn King's throne. It was in the pre-reboot Archie comic that some writers started focusing on Sally's status as royalty... and also being weird and creepy about it in the process (pre-reboot Archie-Sonic is also the only piece of official content outside of Sonic Underground where you'll see Sonic actively defending a monarchy, albeit this happened only because of Ian Flynn's awkward attempt to create drama, not because he intended to convey a pro-monarchy message through his stories).

The same happened with Blaze: as far as I remember from playing Sonic Rush, her being a princess is casually mentioned a few times, and this happens mostly when Blaze is talking to herself and thinking about something, not during a conversation with another character (there's one specific instance where Blaze's status might be relevant for her character arc, but I'll talk about that later). Something similar happens with Merlina in Sonic & the Black Knight: she's royalty as well (Kinda? I'm not sure which exact position she used to have in Camelot's society before Sonic showed up, but I'm sure it was an important one), but the conflict she's part of is related to a different facet of her personality, and you could tell the story anyway without mentioning Merlina's status.

For Blaze and Elise (and Sally, but only when the writer is not Ken Penders or Michael Gallagher), if any of those characters being royalty is mentioned or focused on, it's not really portrayed in a good way or as something that makes any of them happy. Blaze being "the princess of Sol" comes with the duty of protecting the Sol Emeralds, which led to her isolating herself, and her character arc in Sonic Rush is all about overcoming that and trusting others once again.

As for Elise... Well, there's a reason why, when people try to argue the story for Sonic 06 could have been great if given enough time, they often use Shadow's or Silver's story rather than Sonic's as an example of 06's potential, but still... At least the bones for a compelling story surrounding Elise are already there, and I'm willing to bet it'd be kinda similar to Blaze's character arc in Sonic Rush.

And here's another similarity between Blaze and Merlina. The latter felt she had the duty to save Camelot at all costs, and while it's debatable whether or not Merlina was being emotionally crushed by that self-imposed duty in the same way Blaze, Elise and Sally were, it's clear that her obsession with that duty backfired spectacularly and ended up being potentially harmful to everyone else in Camelot in the finale of Sonic & the Black Knight.

[The only exception to all this, as well as the only case where Eggman may be at least partially right in that meme, would be Queen Aleena (who also breaks a trend here, since she's Sonic's mom in Sonic Underground). But the consensus in the Sonic fandom is that Underground is so far removed from what both the character and the franchise represent that it's not really Sonic content anymore, so it doesn't count.]

Another important thing here is the whole thing about Sonic being a "free spirit", and here's where someone else (in another, different Discord server) said something like this:

This just circles back to being "free". When Sonic writers focus on characters being of royalty, it's usually shown that having to run things in an entire nation, being responsible for the well-being of everyone there, realistically is a difficult thing to handle, especially for someone who's a late teenager or a young adult at most (Blaze, Elise), even without all the magical/mystical baggage that comes with having to guard/protect a source of near-godly power (a parallel universe set of seven Chaos Emeralds, a dormant half of a God of Time) on top of being expected to rule an entire country and care for its people. Sonic is a "lost factor" that characters like Blaze, Elise and Sally need in order to feel a bit of happiness and relief because he's "just there", but he still fights for everyone he cares for when he needs to.

This could also be applied to Merlina, and even the genie Shahra in Sonic & the Secret Rings (shout-out to @silvermun for accurately pointing out the similarity between Elise, Shahra and Merlina regarding their motifs in their respective stories).

[3456boidone]

[3456boidone]

via ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center

[3456boidone]

conversations with my sisters cat

[3456boidone]

The Outbursts of Everett True was a comic strip that ran in papers from 1905 to 1927, wherein the aforementioned Everett True regularly beat the everliving shit out of rude people as a warning to anyone else who might consider being rude. Men have not only been taking up too much room on public transport for about as long as public transport has existed, but the people around them have been irritated about it for at least a hundred years. The next time someone tries to claim that manspreading is a false phenomenon, please direct them to this strip so that Everett True can correct their misconceptions with an umbrella upside the head.

[3456boidone]

[3456boidone]

Currently I am getting my new room together. I'll post a photo of it when I'm finished. This is probably my favourite part about moving. Just making everything look nice.

[3456boidone]

On his feet

[3456boidone]

I'm sorry for not posting. I've been going through a lot recently plus moving. I'll try my best to post in the future.

[3456boidone]

[3456boidone]

I don’t want to blorbotag OP’s post since it has few notes but I can’t stress it enough: Iyami likes to wear lingerie under his clothes. Canonically. Like, as canon as Osomatsu-kun canon gets.

[3456boidone]

Please don’t take me talking about Iyami’s canon fondness for feminine clothing as me lauding it as LGBT+ representation! While I do think that he’s a pretty neat early example of a GNC manga character (Osomatsu-kun started being published in 1962!) and probably one of the first to achieve so much recognition and popularity in Japan, Fujio Akatsuka was a very progressive man for the time he was born and raised in and there was no shortage of other cool early LGBT+ themes and characters in his work, even in other aspects of Iyami’s character!

For example, Iyami has married another one of Akatsuka’s characters, an openly gay man, in at least two separate stories from the 70s and has shared what might very well be the first kiss on the lips between two men in manga history with him!

[3456boidone]

Ikari Shinji & Nagisa Kaworu & Asuka Langley & Makinami Mari Illustrious & Ayanami Rei & PenPen ; Neon Genesis Evangelion ☆ SEGA

[3456boidone]

I don't like bed rotting.

[3456boidone]

god could you just fucking imagine

[3456boidone]

I made a stitch of this shot in episode 46. It’s an AU where Iyami’s a mob boss who illegally smuggles oden with the Matsuno’s as his henchmen.

I just thought everyone looked pretty snazzy here.