#Shahra

[siggiedraws]

wonders all under command

[star-stages]

Sonic and Shahra in the mountain of handkerchiefs ✨🩷

[risziarts]

I headcanon that Sonic doesn't know about a lot of vulgar gestures

[mythgendered]

leading members of the My Favorite Obscure Sonic Characters Club

[thecalvinistkat]

I think my copy of Sonic and the Secret Rings is a little different, but I’m not complaining!

[sonicthetarot]

Sonic the Tarot Update #6

Heya! We're going to keep this update briefer than usual. Here is the preview of our Wands suit! The Wands suit traditionally represents one's consciousness and core values and is visualized as Sonic's allies in Sonic the Tarot.

Our lineart phase is almost at a close, so look forward to the Pentacles suit preview next week! In that post, we will also discuss our current timeline for those interested in production technicalities. Thank you!

[sirpyes]

Shahra the ring genie 💍🏆

[halloweencatsart]

Sketch dump part 4: Sonic Time

[negativespace06]

a bunch of unfinished drawings/doodles

[fyeahsonicthehedgehog]

[sawniko-ko]

"Did I change my destiny...?" 🕯

"It's okay...It's not your fault." 🕯🕯

Spent a lot of time on this one! Game has major flaws but it was my introduction to modern sonic growing up, so this cutcene really hit me back then 😔

[red-tree]

"Happy Pride Month 2!! sonic edition"

[skyransketches]

got hit with a the urge to redesign a character of mine so. look at my silly lil concept sketches

kind of wanted to give Shahra a more bird-like look, so I pushed some of her features and made some pattern changes. I'm liking the look so far ^^

And here's her old look!

[risziarts]

Sonic and the Secret Rings

[bumblekastclips]

KYLE CROUSE: Alright, here's one from Lord Van Oskuro! "Cream gets a hold of Shahra’s ring. What are her wishes, taking the limitations of the genie of the ring into account?"

IAN FLYNN: Oh, goodness. What were Shahra's limitations? No phenomenal cosmic power, but she did summon up a whole bunch of tissues that one time. Um... KYLE: [laughs] IAN: I imagine Cream would keep it fairly innocuous and low-key. She would like an ice cream, please. One for her, one for Cheese, and one for Shahra. You know, she's going to share everything, of course. Oops, she forgot to clean her room! "I wish for my room to be clean now, please!" Everything ends with a 'please,' and a 'thank you,' mind you. KYLE: Mhm, mhm. IAN: Well, she wanted a special treat after dinner, but mother said 'no.' She wishes she had that treat, please! Well, now that she has it... that's naughty, she wishes it would go away, please. She knows better, she should do better than that. KYLE: She's too nice! IAN: Maybe she-- Maybe she gets a moment, this epiphany, this broader worldview, and goes, "Wait... I can help everyone! I wish Dr. Eggman was not so mean anymore!" and Shahra's like, [inhales sharply] "Kinda outside of my power level..." and Cream's like, "Well, that's okay. You tried. Thank you anyway!" And Shahra's like "I must protect this child with everything I have." KYLE: [laughing] I mean, except she didn't even try at all. She didn't try anything. But, y'know... Cream- Cream will forgive. Cream forgives, but she never forgets. IAN: [as Shahra] "I'm sorry, Master Cream, but we're on your last wish." [as Cream] "Oh, that's too bad. Well, I wish we can be friends forever!" and Shahra's just sobbing, "Oh, God, she's such a precious source of light in the world!" KYLE: [chuckling] Oh no! Oh no... precious baby.

[mashounen1945]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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