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Name headcanon: The Acorns, D’coolettes, Rabbots, and Prowers are Acorn Kingdom noble families. Rotor is smallfolk and an immigrant, so his family doesn’t have a name. Upjumped smallfolk gets you “Chuck the hedgehog” gentrifying into “Sir Charles Hedgehog” on “the smith -> the Smiths” logic. Amy lives in the UF - “Rose” is an Ellis Island name.

Is it unreasonable to think Sally and the Freedom Fighters maybe shouldn't come back? At least not in exactly the same form. But it would be nice if new characters were created as Expys that are more inline with Sonic design conventions. Like Rotor/Boomer is the only one that had a proper Sonic name. I personally can't think of anything that would work for Sally, Bunny, or Antoine though.

People always bring up the naming convention thing but like... that’s not a hard rule? There are Sega characters that don’t follow the Name the Animal format. Miles “Tails” Prower, Amy Rose, Charmy Bee, Dodon Pa, characters with only one name like Tikal or Infinite, any of the robots. Even if they did have to change their names to Sally the Squirrel, Antoine the Coyote, and Bunnie the Rabbot, who cares

As for whether or not they should come back: I don’t want them to swoop in and overshadow the IDW cast, and they would definitely need some retooling to fit in the Modern Sonic world, but I don’t see any reason why they couldn’t be around as occasional members of the supporting cast. I think some fans can be annoyingly pushy about it, and the IDW comics are doing just fine so far without them, but they’re fun characters with a MASSIVE legacy in the previous comics (nearly 300 issues in the main series alone is nothing to sneeze at), and the creative team at IDW has a lot of history with them. I don’t think it’s a thing that NEEDS to happen, but it would be cool if Sega ever caves and says yes

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While hunting for the Remington thing, I came across the answer to the Marine’s accent question: 

“Unfortunately, Marine's accent fell prey to projects in motion. In the advance English script we received from Sega Marine didn't have her accent yet. It was later incorporated to align with her regional accent in the Japanese. If we ever bring her back, she'll be throwing around as much Aussie slang as I can stomach.”

https://web.archive.org/web/20131213192050/http://www.bumbleking.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=515&sid=53f291585a9de4bf8499f7b7f4bde6e4&start=30

Immediately after the dramatic return of Knuckles’ (supposed) arch nemesis, we get… a Sonic Rush Adventure tie-in story introducing Marine the Raccoon! Archie Sonic is truly a land of contrasts

Funnily enough, Sonic and Tails crash landing the Tornado kind of makes this seem like it’s taking place in the middle of the current arc, but no. This is happening at some other nonspecific time. However, contrary to what I assumed, this is still considered a part of the regular Archie canon, unlike a lot of the later game tie-in stories. This is, in fact, our first look at Archie’s Sol Dimension. (Johnny shows up to fight our heroes at the end, too, but I’m not going to post that just for the sake of not posting literally every page of this backup. We’ll see plenty of Johnny later)

But here’s the elephant in the room that a lot of y’all have surely noticed: Marine doesn’t have her thick, stereotypical Australian accent! Which uh… kind of makes her a lot more tolerable. Oops. I can’t help but wonder what the story is here. Either Sega once again failed to share sufficient notes with the crew for a game tie-in story, or Marine’s accent was only decided on late in development. This issue released in the same month as the game, so it’s entirely possible that the English script was a long ways from being finalized when this little story was written and drawn. (For that matter, the blurb at the end of this story even calls the game “Sonic Rush 2.”) Either way, Marine will have her usual speech mannerisms we all know and love (or hate) next time we see her

Also I love that first panel where Sonic and Tails look zooted out of their minds. Tracy had fun with that one

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I'd like a story where Tikal is concerned that Knuckles spends all of his time guardianing and isn't hanging out with his friends (like Opposite Day Locke), but she's not sure how to connect with him since she's a one thousand year old Force ghost, but she asks Vector and he says "oh yo, he's into music" and then Tikal and Knuckles have the rap battle from Zombieland Saga.

Do you think Tikal should have stuck around in both the comics and games as a re-occurring character? I see her used in such short bursts and I always feel that she has so much untapped potential as the casts resident guide to all things spiritual and historical.

I like Tikal and wouldn’t mind her showing up in spirit form every now and then, but I also feel like using her too much might make her feel less special. Tikal is a character people like because she has a compelling and very self-contained story in Sonic Adventure, and if they had her show up more often it could easily turn her into the boring lore dump character

This might seem kind of weird from a fan perspective, but sometimes characters have their time in the spotlight and they get one story with a beginning, middle, and end, and that’s all they really need. In a series like Sonic that’s notorious for forcing supporting characters to stick around even when the writers don’t know what to do with them anymore, characters like Tikal or Chip who get one solid story and then bow out in a dramatic, memorable way are kind of a precious commodity

I mean, it’s probably better to wish a character had more appearances than it is to be sick of them

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I'm always imagining a scenario like

Knuckles: Long time no see, Sonic. Say hello to the Chao-

Sonic and Vector, already high-fiving: Yoooooooooooo!

Vector: Where ya been, Sonic?

Sonic: It's been ages, dude!

Knuckles, who was feeling proud of himself for making friends and wanted to be smug: What. You know each other?

Sonic: Yeah dude we had a band.

Vector: I've still got the shoes somewhere.

Sonic: Bro, is that Mighty? I haven't seen you since prison!

Knuckles: ]: (

Thanks to Sonicfan32 and Sonic Paradise, in Jan. 2019 I found out about Sonic the Hedgehog’s band sprites. This impressed me so much that I decided to do a big homage for the 3 dads of Sonic: Naoto Ohshima-san, Hirokazu Yasuhara-san and Yuji Naka-san and the fans that love removed concepts.

Year 199X, here are The Red Kicks! 🦔 🐇 🦜 🐒 🐊

The Red Kicks was formed by Sonic. He was very excited to make a mark in the music world. Of course he proposed his sneakers to be a key symbol for the band. Sonic prefers to create songs about never give up and freedom. 

Mach is a proud guy, he usually shows off his talents, but deep down he’s a good friend, he also has a good sense of humor. Sometimes he fight with Sonic over trivial things.

Sharps is very famous, sometimes he is even more popular than Sonic with some fans, they like his sharpen coolness. He is not known for being very talkative, is more a reserved type but when he needs to rock, he rock.

Max has a chill attitude but things don’t go well when you finally make him angry. Usually he has a lot of patience when the group discussed. Max has a very strong sensibility to compose and create rhythms. The music flows through him.

Vector has a fleeting and interchangeable passion with music and money. He was the first to join the band and the first to withdraw. In the present he still remember the good times with The Red Kicks. We can see a similar spirit with his partners at the Chaotix Detective Agency.

First part of my homage (¼)

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a writer who writes the most fucked up “dead dove: do not eat” problematic pairing and fully tags and warns for the content they create will always be worthy of more respect in my eyes than people who call others weirdos because of who they ship. This is because a writer who writes disturbing things but gives me plenty of warning about them has demonstrated, regardless of what happens in the fic, that they value the consent of real people, and that they value my consent to see such content and will always offer me the option to avoid or withdraw. On the other hand, a purity cultist who demands I explain my trauma and exactly why I might be drawn to dark content, regardless of whether they’re the purest fluff writer to ever write, has demonstrated a lack of respect for my boundaries and the attitude that they are entitled to whatever they want to take from me. 

There are a lot of things that bother me about purity culture, but I think the most disturbing is that it clouds the very definition of consent, and then teaches this confusing version (you must consent to deep dives into your trauma and how it affects you for the benefit of strangers who have already decided you’re a bad person, and not consenting to that automatically makes you an abuser, also no one can consent to reading or thinking about disturbing content ever because thinking about it means you want it irl) to young, vulnerable, and often traumatized individuals, thus making it harder to understand their trauma and easier for them to ignore the real warning signs of abuse (like demanding that you agree with the abuser otherwise you’re literally the worst and most harmful person ever) because it teaches that abusers only come in one type, and that all abusers are “nasty shippers”.

This is especially dangerous because real life abusers teach their victims that the abuse is happening because the victim is a bad, evil person. One of the diagnostic criteria for PTSD is literally “Places undue blame on themself or others for what happened”. Teaching traumatized people that consent is a luxury only “good” people are allowed to have is incompatible with support for abuse survivors. tl;dr a writer who tags “dead dove: do not eat” has demonstrated respect for the necessity of consent. A purity cultist who sends anon hate has demonstrated a lack of respect for consent. 

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I 100% get wanting a particular candidate and supporting that candidate until the last possible moment, advocating for someone who will be the best outcome we could get…but like I also get tired reminding ppl that there’s gonna be someone in a political position no matter what 

Like the whole “you want me to vote for the lesser of two evils when they’re both garbage???” trend in social media is so fucking tiring because like, yes, obviously vote for the lesser of two evils, because if you don’t then the greater of the evils gets the position. There isn’t a third option in this situation. It’s either “shitty person that may allow other people to advocate for you” or “shitty person who would throw you and everyone you love under the bus totally unchecked,” and like yeah, I get it that that sucks and you’re not at all excited about it, but that’s the reality of the situation

Not voting for the “lesser of two evils” is not a neutral stance. Vote for the person who would give you the greatest chance at being seen and being heard, even if that means just voting for whoever won’t nominate a trashpile to a Supreme Court position and push for camps at the border 

Like DEFINITELY push for the best candidate in the primaries. But like, don’t fuck off and fuck it up for everyone during the fed election bc you get caught up in the social media “if something’s bad, then it’s all the same level of bad and you can’t choose between any of them or you’re bad too” rhetoric. It is obviously, obviously not the fuckin same  

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Like wtf we gonna do if Trump gets elected another term bc ppl like “I don’t wanna vote for the lesser of two evils!” Like how do you help when the perception of cause/effect gets so warped in the puritanical good/evil two-side dichotomy that ppl would allow that shit to happen? How do you help when ppl seem bent on not helping themselves bc they’re caught up in the image, the fashion of being the “good guys?”

And yeah I know it’s more complicated than that and there’s a lot (a LOT) of issues w voter suppression and a lot of other mixes into it but like how do you not become hopeless when half the social media bullshit you come across is just a bunch of reductionist bullshit that seems to forget that if you don’t vote against the shitty option, the shitty option is gonna get it, since there is no “none” or “revote” or “better luck next time” option? Like I get it’s hard and complex and frustrating, but it’s also all of those things when you see ppl share stupid fuckin memes and snappy one-liners and know that those ppl would just let the same asshole win a second time

I just really, really don’t want this to be a repeat of 2016 and I’m really, really not sure it’s not going to be

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I do think it sucks to blame ppl who are like "I don’t like either of this options and I don’t like that the system will only allow two bad options" when like. People who unapologetically support trump are turning out in such great numbers. Like if someone refuses to pick between two sexual predators you can’t call that a morally poor decision

That depends on how you frame a “moral” decision in this situation. The problem here is the perspective that’s painted by stan culture, by cancel culture–that to support someone is to support the things they’ve done in the past, and is also the means to the end in itself. But that’s not what the presidency, or any office of government, is–you’re not supporting a politician, you’re supporting their advocacy of you and the results that can be attained from their representation

I’m not going after Trump supporters right now because like, I imagine anyone who follows me by now realizes that I am not a big fan, and even if they don’t, I imagine most of my followers are themselves liberal bc why would you follow me otherwise haha so just bashing Trump followers would be like…pointless. It would be an echo chamber. It wouldn’t do anything. It would feel good, and we’d all pat ourselves on the back, and there would be nothing to act on and no introspection and no step forward. And I’m not “blaming” people for having trouble with the fact that it might be a shitty decision–I get that! But discussions like this do need to happen within communities of ppl–we aren’t a hive mind, we don’t have to just band together for the sake of making sure everyone feels good. We have to deal with the reality and what could result from our own individual actions

So here’s the situation: on one hand, picking between two accused sexual predators for the highest office in the country obviously sucks. On the other hand, this isn’t an opt-out–either the blue candidate or the red candidate is gonna get it, and we know who the red candidate is. Does that system suck? Absolutely. Is that still the reality? Yes. And I don’t know if you can call it a morally good decision to allow someone into power who committed all of the shitty, evil things we said he was going to do last time, and who would absolutely shift and grab power in whatever way he can, and who has a cult of personality that would follow blindly and allow it to happen. The consequence of a decision is also important in weighing morality, and I think the impact from another Trump presidency on the lives of many people who need healthcare, who aren’t being treated like human beings bc of what they look like or where they come from, far outweighs the personal bad feelings someone might have from being reminded that there is no way to avoid that from happening unless the other candidate wins

Again, no political office in the US is a “congrats for being a good person.” We don’t vote people into office just because we like them. They aren’t celebrities. And while it sucks that someone shitty might get the presidency, the reality is that good guys like Bernie Sanders will still be trying to do work in Congress, and if we have another red president and a stacked house/senate, he won’t be able to do anything. In this situation, a dem president would at least allow the people you want on your side to do the work they need to do; it would allow for a Supreme Court nominee who would protect your hard-fought liberties from being squashed again; it would prevent the sort of bullshit Trump had implemented against poor people, immigrants, lgbtqia+ people, etc. 

So like, I’m not saying it’s not a shitty decision, and I’m not faulting people for being morally conflicted about it. But it has consequences, and those consequences may change people’s lives for better or worse, and I think the greater moral decision here is whether or not it is noble to allow someone who would love to build a dictatorship to remain in power just because our heads are too stuck in the way it should be that we can’t react to how it actually is. Passivity is not the right answer here. Even if you hate the choices for president, still show up to the polls, and at least vote for all the other options in your favor to give ppl like Bernie a fighting chance, wherever they are on the ticket

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Inktober 2019 - Day 18 - The Guardians and the Queen

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he’s actually doing the tail thing from the games

Hooray! Sally and Bunnie get to do something!

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Definitely works best on a Robotnik who’s been abusing a Snivley for years versus one who just bullies some funny robots. The glasses come off and it’s a Ratigan moment, “oh shit, he’s worse inside than expected”. I’m willing to indulge the red eyes because Metal Sonic also has them, so it’s like oh, they’re robot eyes.

What way you like seeing Eggman’s eyes portrayed? Regular blue eyes, or the black eyes with a red iris?

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Rouge is very Faye this issue. This was a very Faye plan.

I feel like this whole issue is just an excuse to remind readers that Sally, Bunnie, and Antoine are all fucking cool and I’m here for it

Anyway, so all this was an elaborate ruse on Rouge’s part after all! I mean, of course. Why would she give away the Master Emerald? In reality, she just wanted to prove to Knuckles that she can “be a good girl and play by the rules”

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I think it’s a valid reading. I agree that Penders meant Locke to sincerely believe he would never hurt Knuckles, but he wrote a character who had already hurt Knuckles more than anyone else in his life - who believed in his greater good SO MUCH that he used his wife and child as test subjects, and cared about their suffering SO LITTLE that he remained totally unrepentant and unmoved when each of them confronted him, offering only evasions and the demand that they should just see things from his perspective. The controlling patriarch Karl wrote was there in all of Lara-Le’s flashbacks, as was the man who viewed his family as his tools with a place in the world that was his to approve. Even Locke’s fear of his son’s power was something originally created by Ken Penders.

Ian’s characterization of Locke was, as with everything he writes, a combination of all available precedent. Locke had attempted murder before. He’d sacrificed Knuckles before. He’d tried to flee from having to confront his relationship with Knuckles before. And he’d (eventually, claimed to have) realized his errors before. Ian’s (and Karl’s) invention was only the conclusion that if broken out of his cushy Illuminati bubble and actually forced to make a choice between his family-destroying devotion to the greater good or his out-of-his-control failed-science-project son, Locke’s choice would be his greater good until the last possible second. Given that the sacrifice Ian gives Locke is the only sacrifice Locke ever makes (that doesn’t take the form of “this hurts me more than it hurts you”), Ian’s own words are actually the only evidence we have in all of canon that Locke WOULDN’T sacrifice his son to stop Enerjak.

the only time locke is out of character in that story is when he’s talked down by julie-su because he’d never change his mind because of a female and not because of facts and logic

Ever wonderd if Ken saw read some of the comics when Ian first got the job? Ever thought of how he might of reacted to knuckles standing up for himself and "finally" (in our own words) portraying his dad as a crappy father and a terrible person?

I can’t remember if Ken actually read the early issues or just heard about what happened secondhand, but he HAAAAAATES what Ian did with Locke, Julie-Su, etc. He’s publicly declared it all out of character and “non-canon,” and the creative differences there are a huge reason why he pushed to get the copyrights for his characters and kicked off the whole legal battle

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Don’t know what could be done with M as her own character, but as a prop she’s not a bad addition to Eggman’s status quo: The powerful, unflinchingly loyal bodyguard in opposition to hapless lickspittles Orbot and Cubot or backstabbing goblin Snivley. Being almost just an extension of Eggman himself, she could sort of stand in for a personal physical threat posed by him, staring people down in negotiations while he’s talking, or looming over Snivley when he’s getting ideas (direct threat is often a bit of a hole in Eggman’s repertoire when he’s not driving a vehicle, especially since they stopped giving him SWATbot derivatives). 

This might be my personal taste, but I’d dial M way up until it became funny: Having her stomp through concrete walls and facetank oncoming traffic, having Sonic and Eggman make puns and then counterposing them with M’s intense unreaction, having Eggman order her to do extremely menial, device-like tasks like look up words or be a paperweight which she will just do because she 0% cares. Take out the trash with eyebeams. Heat up coffee eyebeams.

I remember thinking M was really cool as a kid and being upset that she got tossed aside, do you think she could have been used for something significant?

I get a lot of asks like “do you think they could’ve done more with this obscure character” and like, yeah, the writers could do anything with anyone if they really wanted to and Sega allowed it. This goes for any character you could ask me about

Any character, no matter how weird or obscure, could theoretically be brought back and turned into something interesting with the right writer and the right angle. I mean, a few years back, DC made Batman readers care about Kite Man of all villains

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Sounds like a pitch for an Evangelion-themed episode of The Venture Bros. Episode one of Evangelion, but that line of UN tanks totally trashes the Third Angel. The rest of the series is just Gendo Fawlty holding on to his Illuminati funding with both hands while trying desperately to keep his gigantic wife from finding out that their secret plan to save mankind by turning their family into super robots was dumb.

i still can't believe the big threat that prompted locke to microwave the baby was a giant frickin robot.

No one has ever had to fight a big robot in the Sonic franchise before. We’re gonna need a special microwave baby for this one

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I hate this because I immediately know how many people would consider a possessed Vanilla the Rabbit with scary eyes and razor sharp teeth a turn on