#<- gonna be the tag for this!

[bird-inatrashcan]

Yknow what? I'm gonna start giving behind the scenes comments on All That Rises. Because ... well, because I want to, pretty much! I put a lot of thought into this story and I'm not sure anyone could catch all of it, and I would love to talk about my own stuff at length.

So now I'm going to!

Starting off with the newest chapter, chapter 98, "an interlude". This one has a lot of unspoken details, most future commentary logs will likely not be this long.

(Or maybe they will. I like to ramble)

This chapter was written to follow up on a couple of things before we leave the resistance for good, and to show that any previous crumbs were not just random. The monopoly scene was added last and was pretty much just there to help with the pacing, though the core thing I wanted to get across was the absence of Infinite, and how people (in this case Vector) has come to expect seeing him around.

This interlude was actually written much later than the upcoming few chapters! I put it in now to not jump too much in time. In an ideal world, I would have put it right after the meeting. If I ever were to tidy this story up, I'd probably reshuffle it. But as this is published chapter by chapter, that ship has sailed. But I feel like right as Infinite leaves works well too.

Going scene by scene!

First off, the scene with Knuckles. This is following up on something that at least one person has expressed confusion about previously. I'm probably never going to fully explain this one honestly, but I'll keep adding hints and the detectives out there might be able to piece it together. It's simultaneously a genuine headcanon hill I will die on, and also a long-running slightly meta-level joke that might not be funny to anyone else but me. I am my own target audience.

Rouge has her own reasons for interfering, but also she's nosy as hell and she does, deep down, care about Knuckles. She also happens to think he sucks. These can coexist.

Second off, the monopoly scene! I adore how this one turned out, we're already off to a great start with Vector trying to parent but absolutely Not leading by example. He's trying his best. I love him.

Team comp! While I think Vector's characterization in Sonic X is Pretty Crap most of the time, I do like the idea of him (a little more subtly) trying to play matchmaker. He's a detective, after all. He notices these things. I actually started putting them in teams because I forgot you can be more than four people to Monopoly, but then I realized this actually works even better for this angle.

Rouge and Shadow can't be on the same team because someone has to babysit Omega to make sure he doesn't kill anyone. Although I do think Vector could placate him (he doesn't care about winning the game that much) and Charmy would probably also be fine, seeing as they both are ruthless in their efforts to Win the Game, but Shadow is assuming that Vex and Charmy are going to be on the same team, which leaves Knuckles, who would a hundred percent get in a fight with Omega about which properties to buy and they're both willing to throw hands about it. Shadow chose Omega's team because he does not want to play with Knuckles.

Rouge also doesn't want to play with Knuckles. Not only does she think he sucks just like in general, but he's also bad at the game, and Rouge likes winning. The idea of her teaming up with Charmy came as a direct result of me realizing that she absolutely would and I am obsessed. Those two should absolutely hang out. I don't know if Rouge is what is strictly considered good with kids, but she definitely likes them, and I could imagine her finding Charmy absolutely delightful. Crime baby. Teach him to steal. I bet they cheat like there's no tomorrow.

That leaves Knuckles and Vector! Which is another fun mix. I never played Knuckles' Chaotix but I like the idea that they're friends :> They are. Going to lose. Knuckles is bad at strategizing and Vector is too nice to win at monopoly.

Googling how many players monopoly lead me down another rabbit hole though, regarding the monopoly pieces (or 'tokens' as they are apparently actually called) and I had no choice but to incorporate my newfound knowledge into the story. Shadow likes the top hat because it's one of the few original pieces that still remain. I'm a bit wishy-washy on the exact timeline of things because it frankly is just not important, but I usually imagine Shadow's quote-unquote "childhood"-slash-his-first-go-at-life to take place around 1950-60, as that would be fifty-ish years before the debut of the games where his main story unfolds. In either case, I chose the top hat because I knew for Sure that that one has been around the whole time. The battleship is also an OG piece, but with Shadow's whole anti-military backstory, I could imagine it's not his favorite. But it's still traditional! He'll accept it.

Knuckles wants the race car because when push comes to shove he's still a 16-year old boy and thinks race cars are cool. I did briefly consider if he was maybe not a cars person, what with his whole upbringing and love for nature, but yknow what. He's in Riders. He knows race cars are cool.

Charmy also wants to be the race car because he's seven years old and also thinks race cars are cool as hell. Omega wants to be the battleship because he likes guns. Whatever piece Rouge and Charmy end up with is left up to the imagination, partially because I didn't necessarily want to pin this story down to take place in a particular monopoly era and partially because I've already put enough thought into this to qualify me for an as of yet undiscovered diagnosis to add to the pile ... but if it's the edition with the t-rex, Charmy will want the t-rex. Just based on vibes, I could imagine Rouge being partial to the scottie dog. I don't know if Espio has a preference. If he does, he's probably too cool to show it. Silver will probably want to be the cat.

Speaking of Silver - the final scene! This was mostly a followup to the thing with Espio being invisible while looking after Infinite. I didn't have a proper way to implement the explanation, but I thought getting Silver's word that there has to be one would be a decent compromise. I decided to add a bit of insight into Silver's current state because with Infinite as our point of view character, Silver isn't generally shown at his most vulnerable. And also because I love him. ;_;

For this story, I imagine Silver mainly remembers whichever timeline he's currently in, with other timelines feeling more like well-remembered dreams. The main exception is the '06 timeline, which has been almost completely erased from his conscious memory - though seeing as it is his original timeline, it still lingers. All Silver knows is that he has memories he's not sure where came from, and so he chalks it up to being probably just some alternate timeline or other that he doesn't remember so well. In reality, it's just the one.

[melmedarda]

[antennatoheaven]

[stemmmm]

bad youtube clickbait thumbnail that reads "I think I just had a therapy session with a DEMON???"

[duckysprouts]

jesus sensing you spawn into a crowded space 2000 years in the past with a body full of vaccines: God give me strength

[flame-shadow]

hey did you know??? that if you stop stretching and maintaining mobility in your body then it goes away?? things get tight and you can't move the way that you used to??? and when you decide to try getting a stretch routine going that the first week fucking sucks because you keep going 'damn i used to be able to do this no problem' and then you have to switch gears and be kind to yourself and just focus on getting better from here instead of berating yourself for dropping the good habits in the first place??? and your body never stops aging so you gotta keep taking care of it and sometimes you gotta take care of it extra in certain areas because of things that happened when you were younger and it's boring and sometimes hurts but it's so necessary???

i am yelling this at myself right now i am going through An Experience (trying to get into a routine of body maintenance again for my physical and mental health)

[cryoshad]

[brian-kinney-apologist]

I had to do this guys

[eggy-the-boy]

"Friends don't look at friends that way" I think some of you just need to be nicer to your friends.

[candyje11yfish]

everyone together! ^_^⭐️

white bg version + where the poses are from!!

[pyrus-salicifolia]

“Normal” test results are not the relief people think they are. When you wake up in pain and continue to be in pain for hours every day and your tests come back normal you don’t stop being in pain.

[stealingpotatoes]

the illness post is still getting notes (???!! <3) and that means people are still telling me to get better soon, which is really nice but im gonna be too powerful if i get any better

[pouletpourri]

giving myself pomni/gangle interactions since idk when we'll have more of that again

[celestiachan]

i love a character who can't stop dying. bitch you JUST got better what do you MEAN you died again. that's the fifth time this week

If this post stays at the top of the ghost trick and ava and henry stickmin and boxboy tags without a single person being convinced to play boxboy I will become the joker

[quixoticprince]

Guys I don't think this kindly stranger is all that nice But yeah, if Medic confessed about stealing their souls in the next pages I don't think anyone would really care

Based on this post thread