#2) most archie stories/‘canon’ universe

[fernsnailz]

Hello !! I’m getting really into Shadow The Hedgehog lately & would love to know what you think are the most important non-game pieces of media (comics, shows, etc) that should be checked out by new shadow fans ? :0

(Also, I’d love to know ur opinions on best piece of shadow merchandise but that’s secondary and just for fun-)

hmmm i'd say check out Sonic X seasons 2 and 3! part of season 2 adapts Sonic Adventure 2's story (with its own variations), and i genuinely think season 3 is a great watch with a fantastic iteration of Shadow.

you could also check out a few select issues/arcs from the Archie Sonic Comics (<- guy who Literally Always Suggests Archie Sonic). Archie Shadow is a bit different from how Game Shadow is characterized, but still a welcome version of the character imo. most of my favorite Shadow stories are in the Sonic Universe companion series, here are some issues you can check out:

Archie Sonic #171: Archie Shadow's introduction and backstory is quite different from the games, this issue follows Shadow as he finally finds the piece that helps him recover his lost memory.

Sonic Universe #1-4: explores some of Shadows origins/placement in the Archie Sonic universe. diverges a lot from game canon, don't worry about it tho

Sonic Universe #21-24 (Treasure Team Tango): i literally cannot keep myself from recommending this arc every time i talk about these comics, very fun story (with a very large cast)

Sonic Universe #59-62, #67-70, #87-90 (The Eclipse Saga): follows Team Dark as they deal with a second Black Comet and the fallout from it. also heavily features Knuckles. unfortunately doesn't have a proper conclusion, Archie Sonic was cancelled before it could be finished.

and the best piece of merch will forever and always be the shadow the hedgehog cheeseburger

[wallbeatjournal]

If they'd have chosen to just be straight up about it, when in the canon timeline do you think is the most likely place narratively for hirarchie to have gone sexual?

i've said before i think season 2 is already a grooming narrative with a subtextual consummation, but if i'm actually script-doctoring what we've got across the whole series to have hirarchie fuck nasty as a shocking and trashy and high-aesthetic plot development, i'm going to argue that it's more satisfying if we don't have an explicit archie cheating plot at this stage in the story. it works better as an emotional affair. (saying this bc to the characters i think it would be first and foremost about the complication of cheating, not bc that's the biggest problem with hiram/archie.)

imo riverdale should have done it as a mid-seasons escalation in season four. give us a season or two to really sit with how unhinged and obsessed hiram is about archie and then decode it in the worst and most extreme bad taste like the second archie turns 18.

putting my season 4 hirarchie proposal below the cut since it got quite long:

the s4 dodger plot is...extremely uneven and feels a bit cobbled-together on the fly by a writing team grappling with the death of luke perry and the in-universe death of fred andrews, and whether it would be respectful to keep being super weird about hiram in the wake of all that. but there are still useful components in the dodger arc - archie is the oliver twist in the oliver twist riff happening*, a boy "orphaned" without reliably engaged, aware parents who was groomed into criminality and doesn't see a way out without a wealthy benefactor. lean into that!

it can happen as hiram starts working out at archie's gym, mysteriously ill in a dickensian sort of way. riverdale's favorite weird incestuous overtones come into play especially hard if we're considering season four hirarchie, when it can really only be largely about fred for archie and holding on to/deepening a relationship with the sometimes-father-figure he has left. archie has been trying so hard to be a good brick in this monument of fred's legacy but it feels impossible because the only tools that come naturally are violence and sexuality and appealing to benefactors, so why not get a little nihilistic-horny with it.

he's also frankly already being a pretty bad boyfriend to veronica this season, it's stale, they're bickering, they don't have emotional intimacy the way he used to have emotional intimacy with hiram during what he probably still unfortunately remembers as their best days......i just don't think he'd be guilt-ridden about fuck-nastying veronica's dad at this point the way he would have been in season 2 when fred's cheating was the big looming legacy beat to avert and goodboyism seemed like an achievable and real thing archie could prove to others.

this is also i think when indulging in fuck-nasty hirarchie would be least damaging/difficult an option for hiram - he's ill and wants to feel vital again, he's ill and he wants archie to remember and honor him when he's gone the way he remembers and lionizes fred (he knows this isn't possible and that makes him resentful and apt to grasp at another form of intimacy that wasn't available to fred). he's feeling aggression towards his daughter, who is leaving him (by going to college) as much as he might be leaving her (by dying of a mysterious illness). it's a big complicated sick emotional motivations stew and both archie and hiram are looking at getting left behind to cook in it while the rest of the core four move forward in life.

and it would be hot. archie and hiram in the gym "personal training" (gone sexual) with weird grief-hate-reconciliation-validation sex would be hot. archie and hiram doing vigilante violence and then making out in sketchy alleys would be hot. are you kidding me?

all of this would make archie even weirder about hiram's illness and tenser in discussions with veronica about what to do about hiram's illness, and i do think barcheating would still happen - it's escapism/avoidance from what's going on within varchie, it's escapism/avoidance from what's going on within hirarchie, and archie is primed to be impulsive. so we still get barcheating fallout but MORE.

does veronica find out archie hooked up with her dad when they all thought her dad was dying? maybe! maybe she feels more sorrow and guilt (irrationally, about being the conduit bringing hiram into archie's life in the first place) than personal betrayal. or maybe she does feel very betrayed and that's an additional factor in everything (especially archie choosing to run away to the military. sorry everyone i know i've disappointed you all deeply and am very fucked up. instead of talking it out i will simply Leave).

all of this fuck-nastyism of course would make hiram's reaction to the barcheating that much more intense and outsized. veronica was feeling her relationship with archie wane already but hiram was IN IT. he's getting well, he's fighting again, he's offered archie a job, archie is about to be his main special interest while veronica and hermione drift and archie would CHEAT on him?? he's only supposed to be cheating WITH him!!!!

and then we segue into season 5 post-timejump when the riveradults are all kind of weird with each other but moving through it, and hiram has been behaving like a jilted ex throwing a temper tantrum for 7 years. and he will certainly continue.

*i think everyone notices but the dickinson crew is mostly named in reference to the gang of thieves who adopts and trains oliver - the artful dodger, fagan, bill. intertextuality, yippee!

[canonmisogynyvictimstournament]

PROPAGANDA

AMY ROSE (SONIC THE HEDGEHOG)

1.) Amy’s characterisation has experienced several generations of misogyny, right from her genesis: She was designed as a girlfriend, but it eas then decided they didn’t want Sonic to have a girlfriend. First instance she’s a damsel in distress that he resents for being there and crushing on him, and this is echoed in the comics. She is then presented as pathetic, chasing and stalkerish, as well as sidelined in the games in favour of other characters despite being very strong. Her stories are often those with the most emotional weight, but the reading is coloured by other characters underestimating her importance there. She then enters a pushy and blind era where she becomes a mockery of her past self. A universe reset rebranded her as a feminist, but that often comes off as a bit pickme, and they frequently failed to hold her femininity and also combat capabilities in hand at once. She is finally getting a bit more stable characterisation and treated a bit better, but I still don’t trust the writers with her. Ultimately, it often felt like the creators didn’t like her, and only had her there because they were made to; and that sucked as a little girl sonic fan.

2.) She started out as the token Girl One in a 90’s property, and her first appearance was as a damsel in distress, which isn’t great to begin with, and she wasn’t playable for a long-ass time outside of spinoffs. The Sonic Adventure games redesigned her, made her playable, let her fight back against her would-be kidnappers, and gave her a major role in saving the world by letting Shadow talk to someone not game with destroying it. Then from Sonic Heroes to Sonic and the Black Knight, and the anime Sonic X, her character was reduced to ‘hehe funny obsessed fangirl is obsessed’ a lot of the time, losing her compassion and a good deal of her social awareness. In Sonic 06, she literally said that she’d sacrifice the rest of the world for Sonic, which, my girl would NEVER in SA2. The Archie comics weren’t kind to her either, as their explanation for the redesign was that Amy wished to become older, so they aged up her body, BUT NOT HER MIND EW EW EW. I’m sure there are other crimes the Archie comics did to her, but that’s not my knowledge base. THEN the writers tried to backpedal in the early 2010’s, but by attempting to undo all the 'crazy’, they took out Amy’s drive and convictions (Sonic Lost World just letting Amy sit and watch Sonic do all the work my beloathed). The Sonic Boom spinoff series tried to pivot and make their version of her a girlboss, but Rise of Lyric was SO BAD. Sonic Boom: Fire and Ice made an alternate version of her a damsel in distress, again, which while technically true to Amy’s roots, does not fit her Boom characterization AT ALL. The Sonic Boom cartoon was a screwball comedy, and they at least lampshaded a lot of Amy’s previous writing problems, but they didn’t give her much to do either, mainly making her 'the sensible one’ whenever Sonic wasn’t available for deadpan responses. They’ve been doing a bit better lately, with Amy usually involved in world-saving matters, and she was prominently featured in Sonic Frontiers, even if she was trapped in Cyberspace. The IDW comics are also treating her wonderfully, from what I’ve seen.

3.) when she was created as a character, she was made solely to be sonic’s love interest. in sonic adventure, they tried to rewrite her and flesh out her character more by making her realize she’s more than her crush on sonic and she finally realizes she’s strong enough to do things without him. sonic team IMMEDIATELY undid that in sonic heroes which came out soon after. they made her entire character in that game obsessed with sonic and based her entire story around him. she was obsessed with him unhealthily in that game because god forbid team sonic let’s a strong female character exist. many of the sonic games took away her quality of being strong without sonic by writing her to only be obsessed with him and not do anything without him. in many modern games, she’s improved more, but misogyny has really screwed her over as a character.

ABBIE MILLS (SLEEPY HOLLOW) (CW: Racism)

1.) Abbie starts out as one of the two protagonists of the show, only to get almost entirely sidelined as early as season 2, getting less and less screen time and allowed no relationships, either platonic or romantic, while the other lead Ichabod Crane has a seemingly infinite amount of them. It got bad enough that her actor wanted to leave the show, which they did by having her sacrifice her soul in the season 3 finale for the male lead to live, and then they ended the show after season 4 anyway, because guess what, it’s a bad idea to entirely sideline and eventually kill off one of your leads!

2.) She was killed by the narrative to advance her white male co-protagonist’s plotline and I’m still mad about it, Abbie deserved so much better. This is an example of racism in the narrative too and it extended to the production of the show, see news coverage:

3.) Look, I only watched the first season but they killed her off the show SHE was a co lead of!! Misogyny AND racism, all rolled into one. I remember seeing the fan reactions and I was so mad on their behalfs. They wrote her off her own show and from what I recall, gave her less and less screentime leading up to that. Truly, she deserved so much better and I will always be upset by this.

[sage-nebula]

Tails ~

What I like about them

Tails fits the definition of a classical antihero. While nowadays we think of antiheroes as brooding types who are willing to do less-than-heroic things to get the job done, in classical literature an antihero was a character who, while heroic, displayed personality traits that weren't often associated with heroes. For instance, a classical antihero might be wrangle with self-doubt where a classical hero is confident. A classical antihero may be physically weak where a classical hero is physically strong, so on and so forth. Frodo Baggins is an example of a classical antihero, and so, too, is Tails. And I like this because it gives us interesting avenues to explore his character from. Sonic is great, but as a traditional hero he doesn't wrangle with things like self-doubt or anxiety. What you see is what you get with him: just a guy who loves adventure. But perhaps in part due to being a literal genius, Tails is a lot more cerebral and there's a lot more introspection with him, particularly given his shortcomings and weaknesses. Exploring the ways he grows and learns to work with his anxieties and traumas, rather than against them, makes his character really interesting.

Also, he is so fucking cute oh my god.

What I dislike about them

His character writing has been, to put it politely, inconsistent over the years. He went through all that growth in the Adventure games just to have it completely ripped the fuck away from him in later ones (particularly Forces). It's not great and most days I pretend I do not see it.

Favourite moment

In the games: Either the moment he threw hands with Eggman when he thought Eggman had killed Sonic in Adventure 2, or the acknowledgement of his issues and his whole arc in Frontiers rolled up into one.

In animation: Either saying that Sonic was his "mom, dad, and picket fence" in AoStH, or the episode in AoStH where Sonic was turned to stone and so Tails spent the whole episode trolling Scratch and Grounder Home Alone style. Again, he is so fucking cute oh my god.

In the IDW comics: Either catching Sonic with the Tornado in the middle of the Angel Island arc, or crashing the airship into Neo Metal at the end of that arc, or when he said goodbye to the Cyclone because he had to sacrifice her during the Metal Virus arc, or when he figured out how to take down Surge in their fight against her in the city, or defending Sonic from Kit, or immediately building guns to go save Sonic in the Scrapnik Island mini series, or . . .

Least favourite moment

Forces 🙃All of Forces. I hate it so fucking much.

Also not a fan of how they made him fight Sonic in the Archie comics. Really, any situation which pits those two against each other is an automatic Nope.gif in my books. I will smack that back button so fast, don't test me.

A situation with this character that I want to see explored more

How he's developing his technology to utilize clean energy! We see that he's using hydro power to fuel the Mystic Ruins workshop in the IDW comics; I want more exploration on how Tails' development of technology is not only not detrimental to the planet, but actually works to reverse the damage that Eggman does. Technology doesn't have to destroy the planet; it can be a clean force for good, too!

An interesting AU for this character

Can I promote my own fic Beyond Oblivion? Because that's an interesting AU to me!

A crossover

I'm still very much in love with my Night in the Woods crossover, where Tails spends an autumn in Possum Springs during his solo journeys. All anthro stories take place in the same universe and this one happens in my head and in my heart even if Sega thinks it could never work in canon. Sega doesn't pay me, they can't dictate what I do.

OTP (or OT3+ etc…. just… favourite ship)

None. In fact, adaptations that have tried to give Tails romances (Archie, Sonic X, Boom) are off-putting to me because they try to give Tails romances. He doesn't need a romance for his story to be interesting! In fact, I think a romance arc for him is far more boring than the alternatives like exploring how he overcomes his inner demons or focusing on the clean energy alternatives he creates to improve the world. And even if you want to explore him with other characters, platonic relationships and platonic love stories are a thing! Tails' brotherly relationship with Sonic, his friendships with Amy and Knuckles—these are interesting stories and romance isn't a part of them. Destroy the heterosexual notion that every character must be paired off for a story to be good.

Other ships?

Nope.

BROTP

His big bro Sonic, of course! Like I said above, platonic love stories are a thing, and the platonic love story in Sonic and Tails finding a family in each other when they were both orphaned has been one of my favorites since I was four years old. I don't think that's going to change any time soon.

NOTP

I wish people who ship Sonic with Tails romantically a very do not ever interact with me, ever, in any capacity. Thank you.

An assortment of headcanons!

I have a lot! You can read some here, and here, and here :)

[ganymedesclock]

The Sonic Series' kitchen sink elements are really... well, "kitchen sink" is a good way to put them. You got Shadow's backstory over here, characters stuck in particular eras or mediums, humans in some games but not others, etc, etc.

All that to ask this: how do you go about harmonizing the desperate elements of StH's various incarnations without doing what Frontiers did?

The short pithy funny answer is 'will it blend?'

The longer answer is. I think a lot of big long-running legacy franchises like Sonic, that have a zillion different branches and continuities and different this-and-thats that sometimes contradict each other and have about eighteen versions of the same story at any given time- think also most superhero media- are really, really fun to get into. People dread and fret if a particular incarnation is mediocre or too weird for their tastes, but I think the fun part of it is there's something worthwhile and interesting in almost all of these. Like I personally don't care for Sonic Chronicles very much at all, but I like Shade's visual design and I thought the alien designs were pretty neat, even if I don't think their lore fits well into the bigger Sonic universe and for the most part disregard them.

And there are zero consequences to me doing so! Basically, the franchise is your oyster. Take what you love and mix it up. This is why my personal longstanding Sonic AU has been what it is- it's not an exercise in me feeling like I'm "fixing the canon" because that's silly, it's not broken, but rather just making myself a fun smoothie out of the bits I really like.

It is so, so, so fun to me, to be in a world where stuff like Sonic Unleashed exists, that we can go, "yeah there was a whole game where Sonic was just a werewolf. yes he also had stretchy arms". The works both official and fannish that I've enjoyed the most tend to be ones that aren't afraid of being a little silly or digging into "worse" installments of the franchise to play with them.

I think it's very important that the Sonic series isn't afraid to be silly. At the end of the day it is a story about hedgehogs in running shoes fighting evil robot armies. This premise is never going to be stodgy and respectable and it doesn't need to be. It absolutely has it within itself to tell both serious and silly stories, and mix them together.

To also answer your question about reconciling, honestly, being willing to take a bunch of silly stuff from odd franchises and glue them together to make a more complete picture works wonders. Like, in pre-reboot archie comics- I'm talking back in the gag-a-day bizarre early stories- they just threw in a worldbuilding detail that Mobius has a colossal number of moons full of weird stuff; when the games have established Little Planet, Lost Hex, and Space Colony ARK as things floating around Mobius's general vicinity, taking that otherwise forgettable detail would line up a bunch of different things, and it lets me be cheeky about the thing where in the game canon, there's a blatant continuity error with the moon having a hole shot in it back in Adventure 2 and then in Shadow The Hedgehog, a game that heavily references the plot of Adventure 2, the full moon is very prominently featured.... with no missing chunk whatsoever. I can go, well, in my personal fanon, that's just a completely different moon!

[sparklingjay]

Hello!

I have a question, because I watched Sonic Prime and I want to know more about the lore of this universe

So my question is: where should I start? I want to know their story and treat it like one universe so it can be more clear in my mind lmao

I'm just new here and Sonic has a lot of versions so I want to have at least one certain Sonic but i dunno where to start

I HOPE YOU UNDERSTAND im so sorry if i made things complicated ^^"

First of all, welcome to the fandom!

That's a good question. Sonic Prime is part of the canon universe. It doesn't really feel like it, though. There are some inconsistencies, and some characters feel a little out of character. (but personally, I don't think it's that bad)

If you are interested in learning the lore in the canon universe, it's best to start at the beginning ^^

You can either play the games or just watch the gameplay on youtube.

I found this helpful chart with the canon games in chronological order on reddit:

Here, you can see what is introduced in these games. Those are, of course, a lot of games, and not all of them are really important, in my opinion. The most important ones are:

- Sonic Origins (it has all the most important classic games)

- Sonic Adventure 1 & 2

- Sonic Heroes

- Shadow the Hedgehog

- Sonic Riders 1 and 2 (not in this chart for some reason but it introduces the Babylon Rogues)

- Sonic Rush (& Rush adventure)

- Sonic 06

- Sonic Unleashed

- Sonic Generations

- (Sonic lost world (it introduces the deadly six but other than that it's not that important))

- Sonic Forces

- Sonic Frontiers

If you know these games, you'll know most of the important lore. I'd recommend reading the IDW Comics, too. They are canon and start right after Forces.

I guess Tails Tube on Youtube is also sort of canon and some stuff on Sonic Channel like the Kabegami cover stories

The Archie Comics (especially Sonic Universe), Sonic X, Sonic Boom, and the murder of Sonic the Hedgehog are really fun to read/watch/play, too, but they are not canon to this universe.

If it is still too much for you, you'll find some good summaries on wiki for the games!

[ottokallenhonkai3rd]

⚜ 𝒪𝓉𝓉ℴ 𝒦𝒶𝓁𝓁ℯ𝓃 𝒸ℴ𝓂𝓅𝒶𝓇ℯ𝒹 𝓉ℴ 𝒮𝒶𝓀𝓊𝒦𝒶𝓁𝓁ℯ𝓃 𝓊𝓃𝒹 𝒪𝓉𝓉ℴ𝒲ℯ𝓁𝓉 2 ⚜

(Part 1) The last important line was: "Oh really? You are such a sweetheart. When I first met you, I immediately felt that we were somehow connected. Yes. I've forgotten everything. But I'm sure that in my past life you were someone you were special to me." - In the side event "Sanka Saga", Kallen slips into the role of Otto and tries to bring her beloved Sakura back to life. It is mentioned in "Sangoline Nights" that Kallen's clone only has memories of Sakura. In Kallen Fantasy, the two are enemies but appear to share a past. - The webcomic "St. Freya High" clearly spoke of the love between Kallen and Sakura. However, this was removed by Mihoyo, because the events in it conflicted with other webcomics and the in-game content. - In "Cooking with the Vallkyries", Kallen and Sakura cuddles and Kallen blushed, when Sakura flirtet with her. OttoWelt: - Otto leans very near towards Welt in "Secount Erruption" and with a grin asks him if he should tend his wounds. - Welt comes pretty close to Otto's face because he whispers his plan in his ear. This makes it seem like he wanted to kiss him but would be too shy to do so. - The fact that Welt is still friends with him despite killing his father and committing other atrocities speaks for itself. - Otto likes to talk with Welt and attaches great importance to his opinion. - He later entrusts Theresa to Fu Hua and Welt. - When Otto act with Kevin and Welt as idols, Kevin and Otto lose resolve. When Welt strengthens this, Otto gets hearty eyes and calls him togehter with Kevin an angel. - Otto later apologizes for Killing Welts father. - Welt could directly distinguish Void archies from Otto. My comparison: Let's just start with the smaller ship. Most of what I could find about OttoWelt could also be viewed as friendship among rivals. In the scene where Otto Welt gets too close... Basically he's kidding him. He probably inflicted the wound himself when he wanted to kill him disguised as a clown. Even when Welt whispers his plan in his ear, he laughs at it at first. Especially since Otto never showed him his good side. Except for this idol side event where all the characters are acting a little crazy. That also explains the heart eyes. With Sakura and Kallen you can interpret more into it. However, you could delete the four samsaras directly, because the right Kallen wasn´t present at all. The "St. Feya High" Webcomic was removed, because the content no longer covered the following webcomics and the game content. And when we go after "Cooking with the Vallkyries"... Kallen's reaction to Sakura is completely normal in the manga universe and is intended to underline Kallen's shyness and virginity. Theresa blushes at her too and any other girl would too. Especially because Kallen was pretty drunk the second time. And leaning against someone doesn't have much to do with love either. Sakura took Kallen's hand. Should she pull them away? And if it´s love, then Kallen loves Otto too. In fact, not much remains of the ship, except side events that have nothing to do with the main story. The rest can be interpreted. If we go through Ottokallen and delete the side events, that Bubble Universe and things with too much room for interference, there is at least one certain thing left: Otto is absolutely in love with Kallen, Kallen would marry Otto in another world. And the scene in GGZ where the two really get married. Ottokallen has more canon material than you think. So don't pretend that our ship was completely invented out of thin air.

[trappedinthenarrative]

RIVERDALE GAY GENE & GENEALOGY

I've traced out the various gay genes of the main Riverdale characters (I only picked characters with significant family trees, hence no Kevin or Toni). There are between 2-4 distinct gay gene variants. I also note the correlations between the gay gene and violence. This chart is only accurate to the history of Riverdale as it exists post-Jughead paradox and pre-Comet. Also I didn't look up anything on like, a wiki, so please excuse any mistakes in generation orders. (Specifically in the Blossom tree, I couldn't remember exactly where Nana Rose and the Cooper split went so I just guessed based on when-ish they would have happened.) I don't mention it in the essay because it wasn't relevant, but I do think that Grandpappy Cooper took his wife's last name after the Blossom schism, which is why there's a Cooper ancestor that looks like Betty pre-schism. This essay hinges on the theory of the town of Riverdale being a sentient thing built upon genre fiction tropes, idealized Americana, and an almighty narrative that can influence the people living within it. The town rewards those who ;play their part and punishes those who stray. In regards to the gay gene, the town sees being gay as subversive and therefore responds with violence, but also uses these "misbehaving" characters to fulfill antagonistic roles within whatever story it happens to be telling. I don't go into it in the essay, but I don't think Kevin has the gay gene, I think he was simply cast by the town into the role of Gay Best Friend.

Essay in picture below:

Unlike in our world, for the sentient town of Riverdale and its denizens, homosexuality is an inherited trait. The above chart shows the family trees of five of the main characters (Jughead, Cheryl, Betty, Archie, and Veronica) and traces the "gay gene" through the generations. These trees are based on a post-Jughead paradox reality in which the Rivervale events about Poppy Blossom, Bitsy Jones, and to a lesser extent, Abigail Blossom, are canonical to the prime Riverdale universe (pre-Comet).

The most documented gene variant is the Blossom variant, first expressed in Abigail Blossom c. 1890's. Supernatural abilities may be a co-expressive trait to the Blossom variant. It seems to only express in the female twin, but clearly the male twin can carry and pass it on. When both twins are male, the gene seems to express itself with only violence, not homosexual behavior (see Blossom/Cooper split in gen 5 and in gen 2 with Clifford and his brother. Penelope Blossom's gay expression (repressed, primarily expressed in violence) is noted here as a separate gene, but as she is an adopted Blossom, it is possible her gay gene IS a Blossom variant because Riverdale (the town) cast her as a Blossom female child, therefore opening her to inherit the Blossom gay gene via adoption. This is only notable as Nana Rose is also a Blossom by marriage, but since she was the same generation as Poppy Blossom, the town did not need another female Blossom to cast as an antagonist.

The relationship between the gay gene and violence shows how the town, which idealizes a hetero-patriarchal hegemony, casts subversive (i.e. gay) denizens into antagonistic roles. Gay denizens who are able to still fit within the hegemony, be it by repression (Bitsy Jones), leaving Riverdale (Archie's Mom), or by becoming a non-threat (Gay Kevin, in his approved role as Gay Best Friend), are not given the violent/antagonistic treatment. Interestingly, the Jones variant, while starting with a non-violent expression in Bitsy Jones, expresses in Charles violently.

Charles is both a carrier of the gay gene (Jones var.) and the "Serial Killer" gene, which he inherited from Alice Cooper (nee Smith). Betty Cooper also inherited the SK genes from Alice, but has an inherited gay gene (Blossom var.) through her father Hal Cooper. So far, Betty's gay gene has not fully expressed beyond subtext and sexual curiosity with Agent Drake.

It is possible that only one of each variant can express within any given generation, which would explain why carriers like Jughead and Betty have not gone beyond subtext (since Charles and Cheryl express their respective variants). If this is true, there is no reason why Archie could not express his variant at anytime.

Veronica is the only main character with no traceable gay gene. I hypothesize that this is because the Lodge family has not been in Riverdale consistently enough to evolve a gay gene expression. Rather, as the "outsider" Veronica can be textually or subtextually gay without a gay gene. Since Archie's mom is the only expression of her variant, and that she only came out after leaving Riverdale for an extended period, it is possible her variant is not a gay gene but an "outsider" expression. This is supported by Archie's lack of textual expression, despite the above stated 'availability' of the gene. "Outsider" expressions are more akin to the LGBT people of our reality, which is to say, not a literal gene.

[cipher04]

Seeking Roleplay Partners

Note: Not replacing any current partners, just always seeking to add more partners.

About Me:

I am 18+ and will only write with partners who are also 18+

Willing to double as any gender, any pairing, any fandom

Prefers writing male characters in male x female relationships (will do AxA when doubling)

Enjoys romance and action in my stories

Laid-back, communicative. I will not ghost you!

Flexible writer, quality posts: post length varies depending on the plot and the post, but my typical range is 1-3+ paragraphs

Attempts to reply every 1-2 days, but will let you know about any unintended absences

Prefers third-person

Willing to play canon characters and original characters

Prefers long-term stories

Most of all, I enjoy writing and collaborating. I consider myself easy to get along with and being able to bring my writing partner joy with each reply is something that drives my passion for this hobby!

Open to nsfw

Bonus: Not required, but I enjoy sibling dynamics. Keep in mind, I'm talking about platonic sibling interactions. If we're doubling with OC/Canon, it could be particularly interesting for our OCs to be siblings. It increases the depth of our world and increases interaction between characters. Again, not required. 

You can add me on discord at fandomfan#0404 or send a chat or message if interested.

Fandoms:

Seeking partners who are willing to play a canon female character. I have plots, pairings, and ideas for each fandom that I list here.

I am not picky. I will not be upset if you do not portray the character with 100 percent accuracy. Please, do not expect that there will be pressure to be perfect. I enjoy it when my partner adds their own twist, anyway

Willing to double and play as anyone you want in return!

Canon characters that I am seeking a partner to play will be listed under the fandom

Fandoms:

Pairings that I am seeking are listed beside the character, but these are not the only pairings I am willing to do. Again, for your half, I'll do whatever you want.

Here is the link to the entire list of my fandoms: https://cipher04.tumblr.com/post/678212321698611200/muse-post

If you will play someone from my list below, I can play something from any of these fandoms if you so desire! There might be others I know about as well so feel free to suggest other fandoms too

Pirates of the Carribean

Elizabeth Swann (Will Turner or male OC x Elizabeth Swann)

Arrowverse

Supergirl(CW's Arrowverse) (male OC, Barry Allen, Mon-El, or Oliver Queen x Kara Zor-El)

Fear The Walking Dead

Alicia Clark (Male OC, Matt Sale, Jake Otto, or Will x Alicia Clark)

Nancy Drew (CW TV show)

Nancy Drew (male OC, Ace, Ned Nickerson, or Owen Marvin x Nancy Drew)

Riverdale

Betty Cooper (male OC, Jughead Jones, or Archie Andrews x Betty Cooper)

The Lost World (1999 TV series)

Veronica Layton (male OC or Ned Malone x Veronica Layton)

Marvel Cinematic Universe

Cassie Lang (2023 film - Kathryn Newton portrayal) (male OC x Cassie Lang)

Outer Banks

Sarah Cameron

If interested, you can react to my post or you can send me a chat. Thanks!

[benis-chillin]

My Sonic eras(updated)plus canonicity system.

So it’s been a minute since I updated my Sonic eras(which are based in canon rather than arbitrary opinions, like most fan era systems operate in this franchise), so I figured I’d give them a quick touch-up, and explain what systems I use to determine canonicity. Those being:

Objective canon(what happens on screen)

Fair extrapolation(looking at the tiny details to make assumptions, but not outright headcanons)

Behind the scenes info(What the current people at Sega say)

Headcanon(we make shit up with no basis beyond personal opinion)

So, let’s go into detail on what each of these mean.

1)Objective Canon

Basically, if you saw it on-screen in a canon work,  this is irrefutable canon. However, there are some caveats to this, and one of those is that this section doesn’t dictate what works are and are not canon, since those are often decided by outside factors that we’ll explain in a moment. Another is that we usually try to judge a work by its original language. Some works in mainline Sonic canon are written first in Japanese, and others are written in English first. The metric you can use for that is by studying dialogue. If the main differences between English and Japanese are the typical tells of English localization(I.e. Stuff like Shahra’s “Did I change my destiny?” in the English dub of Secret Rings, when in context, this was about her altering more than just HER fate), then it was likely written in Japanese first. However, if the Japanese version has WILDLY different dialogue in the Japanese version(Colors, Lost World, Frontiers, etc), then English came first.

Now, if you still like the other dubs for casual playing, that’s cool. I enjoy some games written in Japanese first with the English voices(and vice versa), but when it comes to this type of analysis, you need to get as close to the original as possible.

If you need a resource for checking into these translations, Windii Gaylord on YouTube is a good one to use. She also came up with the above metric for figuring out which language came first via one of her tweets, btw.

2)Fair extrapolation

So this one is a little tricky, but I think I can get my point across.

One frequent complaint about Sonic canon is that it “makes no sense,” or “contradicts itself” in many instances. Heck, even people up to Ian Flynn would make this argument.

And they’re wrong. 

Beyond a few instances in the Classic era, Sonic canon only doesn’t make sense if you either don’t pay enough attention to it, have multi-media brain rot from Archie and shit, or make up the contradictions in your head. The Sonic fanbase is wont to do that last one a lot, with “All of Classic Sonic was put into another dimension by Forces!” or “Unleashed/Frontiers contradicts the Chaos Emerald lore established in Adventure/Unleashed!” 

This type of thinking comes along when you SEEK contradictions, and it’s a loser way of going about these things. Fair extrapolation goes entirely against this idea. Instead of looking for contradictions, let’s instead assume that everything connects perfectly, you just need to find out HOW, without going on any crazy leaps.

For example, in Forces, Classic Sonic is established as coming from another dimension/world, despite coming from the past in Generations, and other games have shown the pre-1998 games to have taken place in the mainline universe.

A loser would scream, “Contradiction!” and rob everyone else of a cool idea, but fair extrapolation tells us that his previous encounter with the current timeline put this version of Sonic into his own dimension/world, and since that story involved time travel, we can assume this means timeline. Ergo, split timeline.

Or, in another case, the Chaos Emeralds are ancient gems with a lot of power. If a battery still has power, I can still use it in more than one device if I choose to move it, yes?

So, logically, the Chaos Emeralds can power the Ancients’ ships in Frontiers, get placed in the guardianship of Chaos in Adventure, and have been used for the Temple Megazord in Unleashed at different points in the long history of Sonic’s Earth.

Ergo, these games do not contradict each other.

If connecting the dots doesn’t require you to outright make up details, then it’s fair extrapolation, and thus not a headcanon. I’ll explain what that is in a moment, but first,

3) Behind the scenes information

Alright, this section requires some harsh truths, so I’m gonna just rip off the band-aid:

Creators are far less reliable than the on-screen canon.

They may try to claim otherwise, but as far as I’ve observed, their knowledge on details can be fuzzy and swayed by a corporation who has even LESS of an idea of what they’re talking about. It’s okay to pick their brains a bit to use as feelers for canon, but they can and sometimes do contradict what’s actually on-screen, so for MY money, they’re tertiary canon that can easily be ignored.

Death of the author is inherent to any long-running continuity, unfortunately. We just have to accept that.

4)Headcanon

This receives very limited use. It’s mainly deciding what your personal order of events is, what explanation you prefer from fair extrapolation on the rare occasion you can get more than one, and other details you may need to fill the gaps with. It is the most objectionable form of canon, thus why it is at the bottom of the list. Also, every time you cite it, you MUST say something to the effect of, “My headcanon is…” Don’t try to push it as fact, because you know it isn’t.

So, with that all established, let’s get our eras established.

1)Classic Era

1991-1997, 1999, 2023

Both the hardest and simplest to explain. Every game from 1991-1997 is in here, so pre-Adventure.  Sadly, the manuals for Sonic 1-3&K, and CD have been retconned by Sonic Origins(I don’t like this retcon, but as it was done through proper channels, I have to accept it by my standards), but the others remain fair game for now.

Pocket Adventure remains as the end of this era, personal headcanon keeping it in the loop because I doubt Sega is gonna make a work that replaces it, so there’s nothing in the work itself to make decanonizing it necessary.

And yeah, you may have noticed that 2023. Yeah, I’m putting Superstars in the main timeline. This may change in the future, but for now, I am eschewing the “takes place between Mania and Adventure” stuff from the creators to cause less contradictions, unlike Sega who seem to be wallowing in causing a contradiction with the “Mania in the main universe” bullshit. Objectively, from the official material, Mania is from an alternate timeline, and any instances of Mania elements appearing in the main universe are continuity errors out of universe, but can be explained in-universe as non-specific objects and locations that exist in both timelines.

I would prefer that Superstars be a split timeline game, personally, but we’re not allowed good things. If Trip ever appears in a comic with the Hardboiled Heavies, then she just exists in both timelines as a pre-Generations thing. No muss, no fuss.

2)Adventure Era

1998-2006,  2010,  2012

Works relatively the same as before, so I will copy and paste. 

Not named after the Adventure games, but rather after Pocket Adventure, which is our transition into it. This era encompasses everything released from 1998-2006, save for Pocket Adventure, Rivals, Riders, and Rush, the latter 3 being folded into the following era. Sonic 4 Episodes 1, 2, and Metal are also part of the Adventure era as their earliest canonical instances. What ends this era is the reset created at the end of 06, which reboots Silver to his new Rivals origin, and either reboots Blaze to be from the Sol Dimension now, or simply makes it so she never traveled from the Sol Dimension to Silver's future(my preferred theory). Since this is a shift in the timeline caused by canonical events, it transitions us into our next era…

3)Post-Solaris Era

2006-2011

Silver and Blaze receive their reboots in the form of Rush and Rivals, and Riders starts up. Covers every game from 2005-2011 that isn't Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog(2006), Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode 1, and Sonic Chronicles, since that game is explicitly in the not-canon zone, and will probably never get out of it. The cause of our next era shift will be explained shortly.

4) Post-Time Eater era

2013-present(?)

Caused by the events of Generations splitting the timeline so that one version of Sonic grew up to be the Modern counterpart, and one is having considerably different adventures like Mania and the IDW anniversary comics, this new timeline SEEMS to be our current era, with all post-2011 games, save for Sonic 4 Episode 2  being in it...Hypothetically. And, for the first time, non-game media like the IDW comics and Prime are in it, so that's neat!

(Btw, if you wanna bitch and moan about Prime being canon, I discussed it here)

However, I should note that as all of these eras are formed in retrospect, we will not properly know when we have left this era until WELL after we have exited it. 

I see two possibilities for our next era shift:

1) Another timeline shift that properly addresses the timeline split, and uses that to smooth over some of the extra contradictions leaving post-Gens Classic Sonic in the main timeline would bring. I have the story ready in my head if you want it, Sega.

2) The revelations of Frontiers go somewhere further in the future, bringing us into a “Discovery” era, and making our years for this period 2011-2022, 2022-2024(these are for Prime), and starting this new era with Sonic Frontiers, Murder of Sonic, and Sonic Dream Team, along with whatever IDW comics follow the events of Frontiers.

(a small mock-up)

So that’s my canon system as it stands as of March 2024. Feel free to discuss, and even borrow elements for your own systems, or just to use it outright. I just felt that having this all typed out in one spot was a good idea. See ya, suckers!

READ MY DUMBASS FANFICTION!

[caprica99]

Shadow and Bone rant, because I need it

Shadow and Bone has some incredible potential, both the books and the show, but neither actually lives up to it.

Alina could have been interesting. Cartographer is a rare profession for fictional characters, but in the books/show she's just a beginner (at 17/20 it's understandable). Make her at least 25 with 9 years of experience in the army, give her a promotion with subordinates she's responsible for and you would get a more interesting character who saw some serious shit in the army, acts like a soldier, and knows responsibility. (And maybe wants to stop the war at all cost, utilizing the Fold maybe.*wink, wink*)

It bothered me that we never saw her using cartography this profession that makes her unique for reaching her goals. In the show, she has dreams about the stag. It would have been interesting to see HER figuring out the whereabouts of the stag by using the stag's surroundings like mountains, specific types of trees, topography, etc. Work smarter, not harder.

Diana Bishop suffers from the same passiveness in the first book of the All Souls trilogy, but she actively uses her science historian background and those passages are the most interesting parts of her POV. Alina's interest in drawing and geography would give her a unique personality, and made her relatable to many (see ADoW and history nerds). Many YA heroines have a specific and useful skillset: Katniss-archery, Clary Fray-drawing, etc. Sadly, her entire personality is running away with Mal.

Mal's character feels pointless to me. The story depicts an oppressed minority group with special powers, and their struggles in the world, the heroine and the antagonist are both part of the said minority group, and he's constantly shown to be a bigot against the Grisha, so what makes him so important to the plot? His tracking skills? Give the job to a no-name tracker and I wouldn't miss him.

At least the show made him more likable, but Archie and Jessie still lack romantic chemistry. However his chemistry with his friends Mikhail and Dubrov was spot on, I really liked it. They showed life as a simple otkazat'sya soldier on the front, and their death was painful to watch. I thought that his friend's death would make a bigger impact on Mal, him wanting to get revenge on the fjerdans and end the war at all cost, and saying that maybe Kirigan's plan actually makes sense would make an interesting narrative. (They are at war dammit, there's no black and white only grey.)

Mal and Alina don't act like soldiers in a war-torn country, they act like American teenagers, and it's annoying. The General and Ivan are the only ones who act as soldiers in a 3 front war. When the villain shows the most responsibility in your story you should rewrite your heroes completely, or make the villain your hero.

The show is better than the books. It's a rare phenomenon but it is something everyone agrees upon. To me, the first book reads like a draft the author forgot to expand. The worldbuilding, the Grisha, and the characters were a perfect base to an original fantasy universe, but it all falls flat. The show made it richer by introducing multiple POVs and giving the actors more leeway (Ben Barnes ladies and gentlemen). But in the end, they had to stick to the books.

This is incredibly confusing to me because we have numerous fanfictions about Alina staying at the Little Palace, embracing her Grisha side, helping the Darkling because his plan makes sense, or changing his plan by coming up with a better one, or having dark!Alina etc... Clearly, this is what book fans wanted: giving Alina agency, make her realize that she had to work with the Darkling because she's Grisha too and they have the same goals but have different methods, let her be Professor X to Alexander's Magneto, ending the corrupt and incompetent Lantsov line, anything would have been better than taking Baghra's words at face value and running off.

Change I like: the whole West-Ravka storyline, it made the General decision understandable. Zlatan sold Grisha to the fjerdans, wanted to kill Alina and his actions could have led to a civil war, Kirigan only acted as a general of his time (not 21 century guys, we are talking about the unforgiving 19 century) and besides we only see the destruction of Zlatans army (BTW they were ready to kill everyone on the skiff) and not the whole city.

Change I don't like: making Alina half Shu. I'm not completely against it, but it was poorly executed. The racism Alina faces overshadows the Grisha-hate, rather than complementing it. Alina acts like being half Shu is somehow worse than being Grisha, eventough there are literal Holocausts going on against Grisha in two neighbouring countries, slavery in another, and the show never addresses it. This is the biggest problem with her character, she never embraces being Grisha, sides with the muggles, and makes her mission to kill the only person who stands between Grisha and persecution.

Would have been good: the show could have made little 5 minute scenes depicting the plight of Grisha in other countries. Either at the beginning or the end of every episode.

Episode 2: the Ice Court

Episode 3: the Shu concentration camps with the experimenting

Episode 4: slavery in Kerch

Episode 5: the Wandering Isle with consuming grisha blood

Episode 6: the Demon in the Woods storyline

Episode 7: Luda+Aleksander

And now... The Darkling/ Aleksander Morozov/ General Kirigan: the most interesting character in the entire series.

In the first half of SaB he was depicted as every soldier's dream general. Sitting and eating with his men, fighting side by side with them, constantly checking on his troops while other generals prefer to attend court. But in the second half, he transforms into a Mustache Twirling Villain TM and makes rather OOC decisions throughout the trilogy. He could have been a generic villain from the start, but why make him then a compelling character with understandable motivations?

In the books, I understood his motivations, but in the show, he was completely right. His backstory shows that he tried peaceful tactics but those never worked out. The only thing that worked against his enemies was power and violence. The price of hesitance was Luda's life (I'm willing to bet they were married). The Fold was actually a mistake born from desperation. He spent centuries in hiding, seeing his people persecuted. Even with the Little Palace and the Second Army Grisha are considered second-class citizens, they can't hold properties. He has to walk the fine line between usefulness and being a threat. He has to bow to incompetent Kings who don't give a shit about the state of the country. If Alina had to go through so much how would she end up? Because it's a miracle that Aleksander still has it in him to fight for the Grisha.

Many bring up Nikolai Lantsov as the Darklings foil ( or Diet Darkling as @ambitious-witch calls him) to show there is an alternative to Aleksander, but it's wrong. Because Nikolai was never part of an oppressed minority group, never had to fear centuries of persecution, he's an actual prince, it's easy to not be radicalized with his background.

Bonus: If Bardugo wanted to create a fictional world with tsarist Russia as a base, the least she could have done is to open a Wikipedia page or a dictionary for the correct names and terms. Starkov is a man's name: Alina Starkova is the correct form. Ilya Morozov, Aleksander Morozov, and Baghra Morozova would be the correct forms.

EDIT: They could have shown the building of the Little Palace and the start of the Second Army. I wanted to see the normal life at the Little Palace before Alina came along, little Grisha enjoying their powers, their reaction if the Darkling comes to see their training (I headcanon he visits the lessons at least once a year), the other teachers, and their reaction to Alina. Alina in canon is good with kids, maybe if she had spent time with little Grisha, she could have embraced her powers sooner. Having met with foreigners (Fjerdan, or Shu) and hearing their gruesome accounts of the foreign treatment of the Grisha would made her willing to fight for their future.

[fernsnailz]

what’s your favourite version of shadow? like characterization-wise

i think my favorite instances of shadow characterization all come from various spin-off materials or games. they all have slightly different takes on the character that serve as an interesting insight into shadow, but i think these are my favorites:

Sonic X (season 3): i mean like. yeah no kidding. Sonic X feels like a very definitive and classic version of shadow, as it's very close to his characterization in Sonic Adventure 2. i really like season 3 because it raises the question of “what makes a hero?” shadow doesn’t consider himself a hero, and for good reason - he understands that he does some pretty heinous stuff for the greater good of the universe (namely trying to kill cosmo). and yet despite not being a hero, he still does heroic things. introducing the character of molly was one of the show's greatest ideas because it shows that some people DO consider shadow to be a hero, and his black and white viewpoint on the topic isn’t the only way to see things - plus, the comparisons between the two characters are a smart way to add some depth to shadow and lead to some absolutely heartbreaking moments. i dunno, Sonic X just has a really strong version of him and it’s fun to dissect his actions and beliefs. and also it makes me cry

Archie Sonic (post-issue 160): archie shadow pre-160 is one of the worst things in the world. but after that he’s pretty good! while archie shadow differs from his mainline counterparts, it’s in a very interesting way - archie shadow is surprisingly soft and a bit less subtle than most other versions of him, and this may be due to the fact that he never really went through the events of Sonic Heroes or Shadow the Hedgehog 2005. hell, he only went through like. half of the events of Sonic Adventure 2. while i don’t consider this version of him to be “definitively” shadow, he’s just so much fun. this take on him allows for some really great character work between team dark and a number of other characters. there’s a reason the treasure team tango arc is one of my favorite sonic stories ever - shadow goes through a very clear character arc in just four issues, and it’s really interesting to see how he gets there.

Sonic Battle: this one’s a bit of a wild card. i’ve never seen anyone talk about Sonic Battle on here, so for context it’s a 2D fighting game for the GBA that features a robot named emerl, an ancient battle android whose abilities grow when he comes in contact with the chaos emeralds. not only that, but emerl only gains character traits and his personality after interacting with the various sonic cast members. he’s a strange mix of sonic, tails, amy, knuckles, cream, rouge, and most importantly, shadow. this game’s version of shadow is really interesting - in terms of timeline it’s certainly debatable on where Sonic Battle fits into any sort of “canonical” timeline (i could make a whole different post explaining why). regardless, shadow has all of his memories back, but he’s EXTREMELY tormented through this entire game because Sonic Battle focuses directly on shadow’s feelings about being a living weapon. and it’s honestly amazing.

shadow spends most of the game trying to destroy emerl because the android is another weapon created to destroy the world, and there’s a number of good moments between the two of them and the other sonic cast members. i don’t really want to give much more away because the end of Sonic Battle is one of the most impactful endings i’ve seen in any sonic game - emerl’s last line in this game makes me cry every single time. if you’re interested, i’d suggest watching a longplay to see the cutscenes or reading the script online because i NEED more people to experience this game. it’s not perfect - the story is told entirely through video game dialogue and limited visuals so it’s a little clunky, but there’s so much good to be found in the character interactions. i love this game

[transneonneko]

Things from Archie Sonic that I would love to see return in the Mainline Games and/or IDW Sonic!!

Recently, I decided to read some of the Archie Sonic Comic, from like issue 186ish up until the first MegaMan crossover and the reboot, mainly because there were some gaps in my knowledge of those stories. Mainly Issues 198 till 235, which I never got to read as a kid and, I have to say, there were a lot of really interesting concepts during Ian's run of comics before the reboot that I really loved. There was a lot of really interesting concepts I love after the reboot too. I wanna celebrate that. A lot of these concepts and story idea I feel really deserve another chance.

So I wanna make this list of stuff I wanna see return in either for stories in the Mainline Games or the IDW Sonic comics. Before we start, I do wanna add somethings. This post isn't meant to be shitting on IDW and being like "IDW would be better if they did this". I really love the IDW comics and universe. I also know that some of these concepts likely can't be done due SEGA Mandates and I'm not gonna include stuff like "Bring back the Freedom Fighters" because I feel asking to bring back characters isn't gonna be very productive, as much as I would like to see their return. Anyways, let's begin.

The Fate of the ARK

One thing that really inspired this list was this scene right her. We'll talk more about Silver's Future later but for now, let's focus on the ARK. I'm gonna assume anyone reading this knows the story of the ARK from SA2 and Shadow. Sadly, the ARK hasn't really been revisited in the main canon since Shadow, despite how iconic of a set piece it is. In the Archie Comics, we get a look at Silver's future and one of things that may have been the cause of how bad things are is the ARK crashed. Sadly, Archie got rebooted before the writers could go more into it but, from SA2, we know that the ARK was set to crash into the planet if all 7 Chaos Emeralds are placed into it, wiping out all life on the planet. This could be an excellent premise of another Silver adventure, whether it be in the comics or games, where Sonic, Silver and some friends have to stop someone from making the ARK crash into the planet.

Expanding the Eggman Empire/Egg Bosses

Something I've always found a bit lacking in the game canon is how the Eggman Empire itself has been presented. In the games, the Eggman Empire is usually just made up of Eggman, Metal Sonic, Orbot, Cubot, a bunch of robots and (recently) Infinite. It's not really an Empire if it's just one guy and a bunch of robots. The main goal is the conquer the world but we hardly see Eggman actually see what happens when Eggman conquers a place, like what happens to the people who used to live there, besides like Colours and Forces, where the Wisps and Mobians are usually just seen being imprisoned. The Egg Bosses are the perfect solution to this and adds so much to Sonic's World.

The Egg Bosses are Mobians who, either willingly or unwillingly, aligned themselves up with Eggman for whatever reason, becoming commanders of the Eggman Empire. This usually comes about when Eggman has taken over a part of the region and the people living in that region have no choice but to join the Eggman Empire, for their own safety. Not only does this make the Eggman Empire feel more than just one person but it also makes Eggman more a villain himself. It able to portray Eggman as someone to be feared and, I mean, this is a dictator and genocider who is pretty much declaring war against the world.

It also brings up some interesting thoughts about the world. Characters like Maw, Thunderbolt and even Nephthys to a degree joined up with Eggman because they felt it was the right thing to do for the sake of the world, or in Nephthys case, to stop things getting worst later on, meanwhile characters like Grand Battle Kukku are plotting to usurp Eggman, with Clove and Beauregard only working for Eggman to protect family or close ones.

As I said before, having these Egg Bosses also makes Eggman look more threaten, both because he's able to look like a "bigger bad" next to these villains he has command of and, because almost all the Egg Bosses hate Eggman's guts, they are cyberized, a terrifying process in which those who work for Eggman are focus to have parts of their body replaced with cybernetics, with either bombs which will blow if they decide to leave or a locking mechanism that will paralyze their entire body, ready to be locked up.

If either in the game or the IDW comic, I would like to see the Egg Boss concept return. It doesn't even need to be the same characters or use the name "Egg Boss." It would help expand the army of the Eggman Empire, as well as provide some fun bosses for the games I think.

Mobians and Humans living together

This was always a weird hangup I felt the series had. In the case of games between Sonic Adventure & Unleashed, Sonic and friends were the only Mobians, humans made up the NPCs while Mobians were reserved for main characters. Then in Forces and IDW, Mobians made up the background characters, so then Eggman is the only human. I really prefer it when they have the two living together, it makes it seems more normal and, honestly, a better solution than the whole "Two Worlds" explanation.

Eggman Seemingly Defeated

Can I just that I love Issues 198-200? In these 3 issues, Sonic and friends Eggman's main base, the Egg Dome. This including fighting on the outside of the base, involving fighting hoards of the Dark Egg Legion soldiers and Eggman in the Egg Phoenix. After dealing with the outside, Sonic and friends raid the Egg Dome itself, taking different directions, with the Dark Egg Legion seemingly retreating, until they reach the center of the base, where they are blocked off by a barricade, which only Sonic can pass through, giving a "Point of No Return" vibe, Dark Egg Legion soldiers lining up and saluting Sonic. Then Sonic reaches the center and finds Eggman in the Egg Tarantula, starting their final battle which Sonic wins. This defeat is enough for Eggman to lose his sanity, seemingly ending the war Sonic and the Freedom Fighters have been fighting their entire life.

Of course Eggman returns but, god, it's just such a memorable couple of issues. There's a real sense of finality to it. I would a sequence like this in the games, something that feels like truly ending the Eggman Empire and defeating them once and for all. Of course, it wouldn't be the end, Sonic games are always needing to be made which would lead to...

The New Rulers of the Eggman Empire

In the comics after the defeat of Eggman, the Eggman Empire is taken over by some of it's Commanders, the Iron Queen and Iron King, who rules the Empire as their own until they are defeated and Eggman's return.

I love the idea that even if the Eggman, there will always be someone there to take his place. The games could do this by having Neo Metal or Infinite take his place. Hell, IDW did have Neo Metal take over but I think what made that less interesting was that Neo Metal wasn't doing it for himself, he was doing it for Eggman. I think this would work well if a concept like the Egg Boss was introduced in the games, maybe have one of the characters part of that group take over OR have a lot of the more ambitious Egg Bosses war against each other to take command, until eventually Eggman returns and puts them in line.

Silver's Future

Silver is one of the most recurring characters, who always joins the gang when his future is in trouble. The problem is that we never see his future besides 06. We have no idea what Silver's future is currently until it's in danger and, even then, we never see it.

We see Silver's Future in both continuities of the Archie Comic, with two different takes. Pre-SGW has a destroyed city vibe, like 06 but less lava. Post-SGW brought a whole new take where people are ruled by a corrupt council where people are put into class groups, and security robots will arrest if you are not at your job at the right time. They even re-contextualize Silver's bracelets as cuffs that the robots can activate. With Silver being my favourite character as a kid, I remember being obsessed with this new world and story, wanting to know more.

I'm not saying they would need to copy this world exactly but it would be nice if they gave us a concrete and consistence look for Silver's Future.

The Heroic Metal Sonic

Right before the SGW, we were introduce to Shard the Metal Sonic. His story is that he was the original Metal Sonic, the one that raced Sonic in Stardust Speedway. He appeared later in the comic, where Sonic made him realized there was more to life than just being Eggman's killing machine. He seemingly died, but was rebuilt to serve as a member the Secret Freedom Fighters.

This one would be tricky to be included. It worked in the Archie comic as they had been many Metal Sonics throughout the series, each one getting destroyed. Meanwhile, there's only officially been one Metal Sonic in the games made by Eggman (two if we count Classic and Modern). Admittedly, Gemerl fits Shard's personality and does need to be used more in the games but having it be Metal Sonic is just a cooler concept.

I think a solution to this is that we have Metal Sonic 1.0 made by Eggman and, in Rivals 2, we have Metal Sonic 3.0 by Eggman Nega from the future. But what about Metal Sonic 2.0? I think we could have a game where after Metal Sonic fails, Eggman builds a replacement, being 2.0, which would give reason to Metal Sonic wanting to revolt, which could lead to a redemption? While I am loving the IDW comics, I do really miss a lot of what both Archie continuities offered. I haven't mention the some other concepts and stories I liked that really focused on certain characters such as Naugus, Geoffrey St. John, Dimitri etc. Maybe I'll talk about that another day...

[canonmisogynyvictimstournament]

PROPAGANDA

AMY ROSE (SONIC THE HEDGEHOG)

1.) Amy's characterisation has experienced several generations of misogyny, right from her genesis: She was designed as a girlfriend, but it eas then decided they didn't want Sonic to have a girlfriend. First instance she's a damsel in distress that he resents for being there and crushing on him, and this is echoed in the comics. She is then presented as pathetic, chasing and stalkerish, as well as sidelined in the games in favour of other characters despite being very strong. Her stories are often those with the most emotional weight, but the reading is coloured by other characters underestimating her importance there. She then enters a pushy and blind era where she becomes a mockery of her past self. A universe reset rebranded her as a feminist, but that often comes off as a bit pickme, and they frequently failed to hold her femininity and also combat capabilities in hand at once. She is finally getting a bit more stable characterisation and treated a bit better, but I still don't trust the writers with her. Ultimately, it often felt like the creators didn't like her, and only had her there because they were made to; and that sucked as a little girl sonic fan.

2.) She started out as the token Girl One in a 90's property, and her first appearance was as a damsel in distress, which isn't great to begin with, and she wasn't playable for a long-ass time outside of spinoffs. The Sonic Adventure games redesigned her, made her playable, let her fight back against her would-be kidnappers, and gave her a major role in saving the world by letting Shadow talk to someone not game with destroying it. Then from Sonic Heroes to Sonic and the Black Knight, and the anime Sonic X, her character was reduced to 'hehe funny obsessed fangirl is obsessed' a lot of the time, losing her compassion and a good deal of her social awareness. In Sonic 06, she literally said that she'd sacrifice the rest of the world for Sonic, which, my girl would NEVER in SA2. The Archie comics weren't kind to her either, as their explanation for the redesign was that Amy wished to become older, so they aged up her body, BUT NOT HER MIND EW EW EW. I'm sure there are other crimes the Archie comics did to her, but that's not my knowledge base. THEN the writers tried to backpedal in the early 2010's, but by attempting to undo all the 'crazy', they took out Amy's drive and convictions (Sonic Lost World just letting Amy sit and watch Sonic do all the work my beloathed). The Sonic Boom spinoff series tried to pivot and make their version of her a girlboss, but Rise of Lyric was SO BAD. Sonic Boom: Fire and Ice made an alternate version of her a damsel in distress, again, which while technically true to Amy's roots, does not fit her Boom characterization AT ALL. The Sonic Boom cartoon was a screwball comedy, and they at least lampshaded a lot of Amy's previous writing problems, but they didn't give her much to do either, mainly making her 'the sensible one' whenever Sonic wasn't available for deadpan responses. They've been doing a bit better lately, with Amy usually involved in world-saving matters, and she was prominently featured in Sonic Frontiers, even if she was trapped in Cyberspace. The IDW comics are also treating her wonderfully, from what I've seen.

3.) when she was created as a character, she was made solely to be sonic’s love interest. in sonic adventure, they tried to rewrite her and flesh out her character more by making her realize she’s more than her crush on sonic and she finally realizes she’s strong enough to do things without him. sonic team IMMEDIATELY undid that in sonic heroes which came out soon after. they made her entire character in that game obsessed with sonic and based her entire story around him. she was obsessed with him unhealthily in that game because god forbid team sonic let’s a strong female character exist. many of the sonic games took away her quality of being strong without sonic by writing her to only be obsessed with him and not do anything without him. in many modern games, she’s improved more, but misogyny has really screwed her over as a character.

ALYS BRANGWIN (PHANTASY STAR IV)

1.) For the short time she's in the game she's the butt of creepy jokes. At one point in order to progress you have to say yes to an old man asking if you want her "measurements" after which she's expected to forgive him because he apparently doesn't have "bad intentions". In the end she's a textbook example of getting fridged, she's the older sister figure to the teenage boy protagonist but shortly before the game even gets to its main gimmick (traveling to other planets) she sacrifices herself to save the cardboard cutout of a protagonist (at the hands of a throwaway villain no less) and her death is purely for shock value (this was a pre-ffvii JRPG killing party members was rare) and to give the protagonist something to be sad about as he goes into space before promptly forgetting about her for 95 percent of the story

[raymondebidochonlifechoices]

Are you confident Bughead will be endgame on this show? That’s literally the last strand I’ve been holding onto, but the thread is weakening. I really can’t believe that they would take this ship, their absolute most popular and loved one, and just end it like this forever. I am so angry with the writing!!

Hey there, anon! It is unbelievable, isn’t it?

What a tricky question you ask! confidence + prediction + the Riverdale writers ... As Jughead would say: yikes!

The thing with these writers is that they use a lot of words without knowing their meaning. “Endgame” is one of them. “New” is another. “Exciting”. “Darkness”™. “Adult stories”. “The message”…

Dangling the bughead “endgame” carrot at the end of one or two seasons of no bughead or -worse- of b*rchie and j*bitha f.e. is not an endgame. The general definition of endgame -outside of chess- is: the last stage of a process. If the process (i.e. the season’s content) isn’t about bughead, then bughead coming together at the very end is not an endgame, it's a peripeteia i.e. a sudden or unexpected reversal of circumstances.

In shipping, endgame is a couple that will inevitably end together (for ever and ever and ever). In order for something to be inevitable, you have to create that sentiment, you have to build the couple up.

There’s an article about the misappropriation of the word “endagame” that I find particularly funny, as it starts by mentioning Riverdale!

Anyway, this is a long-winded way to say that, yes, I do believe that the show will end with bughead and varchie as their main canon couples. It’s just that, like you, I’m so very tired with these story lines. There is satisfaction to be had at the notion of endgame but a seasonful of investigative bughead would be infinitely preferable. For me (and I can only speak of myself) the journey is more important than the destination -even if for the simple reason that -in TV show time- it lasts longer!

Why do I think bughead is still … that word? Everything’s under the cut, so as not to clutter your dash!

1. A lot of people have been theorising that what happened in 5x18 was not the original plot. I agree.

Let’s start with 5x18 varchie.

Their break up came completely out of left field. Its unexpectedness is reminiscent of 4x17. I make fun of how s5 is a reboot of s1+s2’s leftover ideas, so another copy-paste shouldn’t feel out of place, and yet … really? Another repetition? To what end? If the season’s goal was not varchie, b*rchie was already there waiting at the beginning of the time jump! Why abandon that plot? In terms of romantic varchie time, that was extremely limited, since after their kiss in 5x7, Veronica’s divorce kept them apart until 5x17 … Why have Archie being extremely jealous of Chad, Veronica getting involved in all of Archie’s schemes (firefighters, bulldogs), Archie getting involved in Ronnie’s (rescuing daddykins) or Veronica telling her father she chooses Archie over him in 5x17? Also, for those who remember, there was this by the-writer-who-shall-not-be-named.

The reason of the break up is as ludicrous as Veronica moving into Archie’s childhood bedroom (with its effing slanted roof!) on the premise that long term the Andrews’ residence has more room! (By the way, I don’t know what surprised me more: that Veronica thought that Archie and uncle Frank would know who Ina Garten is or that Jughead didn’t.) Why is Veronica astounded by Archie’s involvement in the same activities he has been involved in all through the season?! For f***’s sake, she’s the one that gifted him the fire truck!

Ok. Now let’s give 5x18 j*bitha a try.

For me, 5x18 could either have gone bugheadwards or j*bithawards. J*bitha had some heartfelt talks, a hand touch, a hallucination and a kiss. Bughead had one unfinished heartfelt talk (the only one in the whole season for Betty), two shoulder touches, two hallucinations and Jughead attempting to reconnect with Betty (without specifying what his intent was, it's true).

While I do think that j*bitha is a ship that has been adequately teased, the way they were explored in 5x18 was … not underwhelming exactly (after all, they’re not my ship, so I didn’t have any expectations about them) but … maybe lukewarm is the word? They had but minimal dialogue, only enough to establish that Tabitha’s parents were in town. Then a song where Tabitha initially rejects Jughead, although she had been supportive before. Then another song, where the lyrics were heavily altered and didn’t make much sense anyway (we hadn’t been properly introduced to the Tates) but where the original lyrics were very compatible with Bughead’s history and state of being as of 5x17. The kisses were ok, I have no problem with the actors’ chemistry. But -and this is strictly a personal opinion- Jughead’s flirting scenes (not the make-out ones, you perverts!) with Cora were better and so was the j*bitha kiss in 5x10. For the 5x18 j*bitha to flow, more dialogue and more flirting was necessary (always a persona opinion). So, no, I don’t think j*bitha were supposed to sing what they sang in 5x18.

Production for s5 wrapped up one week after the official announcement of the 5 special episodes for Riverdale and The Flash: “we expect it will take us until Fall 2022 to get back to a regular schedule” was the official quote. Re-organising the cw’s overall schedule didn’t happen overnight. Yes, more likely than not, the writers knew about the specifics of s6a before shooting 5x18-5x19 and had time to re-write them.

2. The couples spoilers for s6 do not make sense plot-wise.

If the end-goal for 5x19-6x1 had been b*rchie, j*bitha and v*ggie all along, these were pairs already happening (except from v*ggie) at the beginning of the time-jump. As for v*ggie, last time we saw them, Veronica pulled a face when she heard that he had had (still has?) an affair with Hermosa. And what about Nana Rose?! (ok, that was a joke! ... or was it? 👀)

The majority of both the fans and the general audience are bugvarchie shippers. Teasing b*rchie and j*bitha as a means of maintaining the viewers’ interest in a will they/won’t they way, only works if the audience finally gets what they want. In this season. Not the next one! There is so much trolling one can take after all. In the space of 1.5 year (4x17-5x19) b*rchie will have been teased ... THREE times (and still lacking build-up)!

I cannot myself see b*rchie, j*bitha and v*ggie as endgame couples. For the audience to invest in them after 4 years of bugvarchie, the writers have to a) give j*bitha an absolutely incredible development that will surpass bughead and the cinematography to go with it (good luck with that) and b) undo Archie’s character (highly unlikely) and/or give Betty a lobotomy (at which point a lot of people will quit en masse, because Archie as The One All The Girls Want just doesn't resonate with the majority).

I have no idea if s6a is an AU or not. But if it’s not, no one will be left to watch 6b.

Can I guarantee a bughead endgame? Of course not. I have no idea how the minds of the Riverdale writers work. But I do think that Jughead and Betty getting back together is more than wishful thinking.

Fervently shipping Jughead/Betty, Jughead/his book and Betty/therapy, sincerely yours, @raymondebidochonlifechoices

I hope you have fun with the Riverdale universe regardless, dear anon. Riverdale has given us one of the most beautiful getting-together stories in s1 and lots and lots of beautiful canon bughead afterwards. Here's to many more! Much love to you!

[ganymedesclock]

Ooh ooh ooh, how about your version of Sonic for the powers thing?

You see, Sonic is fast, because if he doesn't keep ahead of his problems, he'll have to actually think about them, and then he'll have a crisis.

This is partially a fun opener joke and it's also not. I'll let you decide how much of each it is. In the meantime, I'm going to talk about what my reads of various canons inspire in me, and how that informs Worlds AU, a bit more than talking about Worlds AU itself.

So Sonic in the initial game canon, started out with an extremely simple conceit. You can see this mirrored across all of the non-Amy classic characters: Sonic runs, that's his thing; Tails flies, Knuckles punches, Eggman makes robots and also problems, which sort of condenses into one thing considering the role robots have in the classic games.

(that damn caterkiller has cost me SO many attempts at a chaos emerald...)

This sort of got to be a problem as the games advanced. In particular, the Sonic game I started on was Sonic Adventure 2, which pitted Sonic very prominently off of Shadow. At this point, character concepts are no longer about simple capabilities, and every other member of the cast has grown up. (even Amy... though not too much. sorry Amy). Tails is now building robots to go with how his flight allows him to reach unconventional 'tricky' routes; Knuckles is now more of an adventurer, explorer, and even a mystic given his history and relationship with the emeralds. This earthly pugilist sense grounds him in a more versatile skill-set.

Sonic... basically his gimmick was remaining true to the classic formula- he was still the one going fast, popping those shuttle loops, and tumbling through a chaotic universe. Yes, they absolutely polished this and put flourishes on it- now he's grinding rails and flipping on poles, this sense of street-smart parkour that carries him cheekily through any environment...

But he's played off Shadow, where the thing about Shadow, especially in the first game, is Shadow is a person who suppresses most of his personality for his context. Not in an inorganic or badly written sense, mind- but he outright says to Rouge at one point that it doesn't matter if anything he remembers is fake- in essence, that it's more real than he is, and a dead person's wish is more important than his life.

Shadow is a soldier, is an alien, is a bioweapon, is a teleporter and he shoots lasers. We are beyond the days of simple conceits; if he was conceived in the classic era, he'd have probably been either only a jet-skater or a teleporter, and that one conceit about how he moved through the world would've been through everything.

Sonic picks up the chaos control from Shadow- in direct reaction to Shadow- and this is commented on. In this scene, Sonic not only rejects Shadow's unhealthy obsession with context- that where he came from was everything- but mirrors it with an attitude that, frankly, to me, rings just as unbalanced- Sonic basically denies having a backstory whatsoever.

"What you see is what you get!" he says.

And that flew in the classic era. We didn't really have a consistent or strongly-drawn backstory over why Sonic was fast. Most continuities around that era point it to either an accident or a happenstance synergy with an outside force. But we didn't really need a story over why Tails can fly or why Knuckles had spurs on his fists.

But in the modern era... there's context. Many characters have superpowers. And more and more, there was a sense that those superpowers had context and history, whether the outright spelled, like Shadow (he was engineered to be capable of this; if you look at him, he has most of the abilities you'd expect of a boss fight in Resident Evil, minus the squelchy, infectious sorts and the Black Arms imply he could well have those and just not use them)

...or the simply alluded, such as Blaze's ominous comment that her flames are the reason she was always alone.

Sonic... clearly has powers. He's been reframed to keep up with he setting as it changes. But that exchange between him and Shadow- where Shadow looks at what Sonic is capable of, looks at him, and asks, verbatim, "what are you," and Sonic delivers a non-answer so naked and so certain that there's not really anything to say to that.

To this end, while I think it's highly intuitive that they picked the wind as the motif to spice Sonic up to- with its sense of freedom, and with its association with speed- I think there's also something about air in general that connects to Sonic.

Air is... omnipresent. It has an extremely complex seething system high overhead. Enormous paths and belts and spirals of wind curl over us all the time, pushing clouds the size of entire states around like it's nothing. When you look at the sky, it looks stationary. But wait, squint- it's actually moving. It's actually moving really fast.

One of my absolute favorite characterizing moments of Sonic is in Archie Comics, specifically the post-reboot series. To keep context minimal, Tails confides in Sonic that he's losing his memory of a certain incident that affected both of them, and he's worried; Sonic reassures him, typical hero big brother best friend, and gives him a big hug. The scene is warmly lit.

The very next panel is literally in the shadows, over Tails' shoulder and behind his back. And Sonic's expression is... troubled. Telling. We immediately understand from that alone he just lied, and has no ability to 'just remember for Tails'.

Sonic is not a vacuous person. He's not empty, he's not innocent, and he's certainly not just your same good nostalgic friend who never changed or got complicated so you don't have to reevaluate all of those things- the guy you can always count on, just like the sky is always there- but he sure pretends to be all of those things, and tries to keep the stormy weather as far away from other people as possible.

This is given another heroic-sounding-but-actually-concerning context in Sonic Unleashed, one of several games in which Sonic shows a maybe suspicious but profound aptitude for darkness where he guzzles and serves as a very powerful conduit for the energy of Dark Gaia, who is strongly connoted with rage, despair, denial, and other states considered bad for your health.

Sonic asks Chip- who he's just found out is Dark Gaia's counterpart- if it was his protection that kept him from losing his mind the entire time. Chip denies this, and states instead it's that "you never let the darkness win."

The thing is... anger and sadness are actually pretty important to feel. And it's actually not true that Sonic as a character doesn't feel anger- there's a few rather notable scenes in which he really loses his cool, some of them within Sonic Unleashed itself (he actually scares Eggman at the culmination of the Egg Dragoon fight) and in the game Sonic and the Secret Rings he actually achieves a super form powered by negative emotions- and that game also ends on a surprisingly melancholy note, where Shahra, when leaving Sonic, specifically gives him a bunch of tissues, a nod to how they met, and specifically "So you can cry as much as you need to."

Sonic is a good person. But Sonic is also... kind of a liar. He has this powerful connection to these highly destructive and dangerous entities- Dark Gaia, Chaos- and this is a thing he, pointedly, doesn't wonder about. And it's not arrogance, or an inability to consider the possibilities- in Sonic Colors he is very real with himself that he can't outrun a black hole, but only admits that once Tails is out of earshot on the one safe ride away from it- and while gearing up to try to do so anyway.

Wind is a contradictory thing. In the sky, we consider the possibility of ultimate freedom; flight and wings are often depicted as symbols of enormous power and efficacy because the very notion of being able to go wherever you want to captivates us.

On the other hand, though, a state of freefall is terrifying. In the unparalleled freedom of the sky, absolutely nothing can catch you if you fall.

(you know, except Tails, if you're fighting Eggman in Marble Garden- I'll leave)

We can talk about a bolt from the blue, a sudden storm or a just-as-sudden clear blue sky... the mechanisms of the air around us are often very hard to perceive for their superficial simplicity. And on sunny days when the wind lazes slowly through the leaves, it's hard to think of it as capable of hurricane forces.

I guess the note I want to leave this on is, it's pretty interesting how Sonic genuinely likes running, but he also tends to either outrun or fight anything that stresses him out- and "what he is" and "what he's capable of" is something he really doesn't like talking about even if he's happy to show or compete it.