#admittedly he wasn't that heroic but he died like a hero

[mira--image]

Here's the future Raph playlist, fourth of the bad future series! Feels satisfying to have all the brothers posted now XD

These playlists are stories meant to be listened to in order. For each, they start at the start of the apocalypse, and end when the character dies.

In his playlist, he starts off heroic and powerful, glad for his strength, but the longer the apocalypse lasts, the more his strength scares the people around him and himself. Coupled with the pressure to keep them all safe, it's almost too much.... until little Casey Junior is born. Raph shelves everything to help care for him, becoming himself again, but knows he'll have to fight again to keep him safe. If only his next battle wasn't his last.

I had to follow fannon for this one and make a lot of tough decisions! I chose to end it when he dies as himself, and not include any potential cybernetic future, to leave it flexible for interpretation. I also chose to have him die when Casey is too young to really remember him, aligning with Casey's lack of reaction to him in the movie, but not have him die before Casey is born so we still get that wholesome Papa Raph content.

Song-by-song plot below!

The apocalypse has started, but Raph's got this! It's time to be a hero! Admittedly a more... violent hero, but that's out of necessity.

The resistance is made, but it's not as perfect and idealised as he'd imagined. People are starving and afraid. Worst of all, they're afraid of him. If he only fights harder, saves more lives, surely they'll get over their biases.

Raph gives his all to the war, but loses himself along the way. Picking up the pieces, he reminds himself of why he fights, and who he is.

Little Casey is born, and joy returns to Raph's life. He takes time to be with him and get away from all the violence. ofc, something just like this and hometown smile are there cuz of @tapakah0's animations >w<

His moment of peace can't last. The resistance needs him to fight. Why does he get the feeling he won't make it home?

:D

[sammysdewysensitiveeyes]

Making RP-related jokes about shape-shifters messing with Shaw made me realize.....there really aren’t that many all-purpose shapeshifters associated with the X-titles, which is weird, since it seems like it would be a common power.

There are lots of characters who can transform their bodies in various ways, but most of them are very specific transformations, like Wolfsbane and Catseye going into animal form, or Colossus’ steel form, Emma’s diamond form, etc.  But in terms of all-purpose, turn into any other person/animal shape-shifting, I would list:

Mystique, the obvious and most famous (also best)

Copycat, mostly a Deadpool character

Changeling/Morph - mostly either dead or an Exiles character, but is super versatile with shape-shifting in Exiles

Benjamin Deeds Morph - a specific kind of shape-shifting where he mimics other people, and also exudes some chemicals that cause people to automatically like and trust him - I don’t know if he can take animal form.  Barely seen in the past few years.

Random - apparently can change into anything, but most makes giant arm guns, barely seen since the 90′s

Meggan - a unique type of shape-shifter who is also empathic, and her body transforms in response to other people’s perceptions of her, as well as her mood and the environment.  She doesn’t seem to do the “pretend to be another person” kind of shapeshifting, but maybe that’s because she didn’t initially have very good control over her powers, and I wasn’t sure if she could turn into an animal, but her bio confirms that she can.  She also has elemental powers and other abilities beyond shape-shifting.

Then, there are a couple of mutants who have shape-shifting as one of many abilities, but don’t often use it, like Apocalypse or Mr. Sinister, who probably wouldn’t be considered as “just shape-shifters.”

Honestly, out of all of these, Mystique and Meggan are the only ones with shape-shifting as a primary power that are commonly used, and Meggan is still strongly associated with elemental powers and magic.  I guess writers want to put their own twist on transforming mutants rather than making a character who is “just” an all-purpose shape-shifter, but there are actually not that many out there, especially compared to the many telepaths, or telekinetics, or fire mutants, etc.  

Obviously, this just means that Mystique reigns supreme as the best shape-shifter.

[crusherthedoctor]

Infinite, Eggman, Shadow, Sonic, Tails, Amy, Knuckles, Silver

(I apologize for dumping so many characters in here, I just really want to hear your opinions on them!)

Let's see if I can think of a divisive opinion for each of them...

Infinite: I think he succeeds as a deconstruction of Mephiles-type villains, whether that was the intention with him or not. (I think it genuinely is, unlike what Flynn likes to say about Scourge being a "parody".) They could have admittedly done more with him, and you could argue that the focus on him took away much needed time for Eggman and his conquest, but despite all that, I still like the guy, and it's probably a secret act of mercy that he's apparently not allowed to feature in IDW.

Eggman: Obvious one incoming: I prefer Eggman to actually be a villain, and a competent villain at that. This should not be a controversial statement, but here we are.

Also, while Jimbotnik is still widely beloved, I'm aware that more fans have been getting vocal about their issues with this portrayal for his differences to Game Eggman... not me though. I still wholeheartedly love this portrayal, because I believe he's similar where it counts, and the differences that do exist work to said portrayal's benefit, even if they wouldn't work as well for Game Eggman. Compare that to something like SatAM Robotnik, where I just cannot see Eggman at all.

Shadow: I'm not convinced that the Vegeta!Shadow mandate actually exists, since he wasn't all that Vegeta-esque in Forces or even TSR. With all the discussions that have resulted from it, I don't think I've ever seen any proper confirmation that didn't come from the mouth of either Flynn himself, or someone else who coincidentally has a bone to pick with SEGA.

Also, I feel that even before ShtH came along and shoehorned Black Doom Ten Packs a Day Man into it, Shadow's backstory already veered a tad too close to inappropriate territory, namely with the way certain elements were executed. Maria getting capped by the military and Gerald being executed by them is a tad too specific for a franchise like this, compared to if Maria died to her illness, and Gerald blamed G.U.N. for cutting off the funding to his efforts to create a cure.

Sonic: Certain problems that people have with Pontaff!Sonic - namely making jokes when he should be getting serious - have existed long before Colours came along. It's one thing to argue that it became more frequent by that point, but to say it never happened at all in the previous games is pure nostalgic bias. Even Unleashed was guilty of this on more than one occasion.

I also feel that people have been exaggerating how morally grey Sonic actually is. Yes, he's willing to make tough decisions regardless of how he may be judged for them, like in Black Knight. But he's still unambiguously heroic, always striving to do the right thing even when it's not the easy one, and a legitimately nice guy all the same. Occasionally making hard decisions does not automatically make him an anti-hero.

Tails: Fans that say he shouldn't be able to do as much as the big guns (Sonic, Shadow, etc) because he's "just a kid" have been influenced too much by the DBZ era of Sonic. Like it or not, Tails is the Luigi of the franchise, and he deserves to be treated as such. He's proven that he can accomplish just as great achievements as the rest, with or without a super form.

Amy: I acknowledge the importance of Amy's crush on Sonic, but I also find it to be the least interesting aspect of her. I'm much more endeared by her interactions with other characters, her endless optimism, her much-forgotten skill with tarot cards, etc.

Knuckles: I don't think the plot needs to revolve around Angel Island or the Master Emerald to justify Knuckles' appearance, but I DO think you have to be more thoughtful about whether his appearance makes sense beyond "there's a bad guy, go stop them", compared to characters with more freedom like Sonic and Eggman. Otherwise you end up with an '06 situation where he's got nothing to do, and his most triumphant moment is going the wrong direction.

Silver: For the love of god, stop handcuffing Blaze to him. Pretty please?

As well as that, one reason why I've never been all that enthusiastic about Silver is because his entire schtick creates a massive roadblock with no easy solution. This franchise is no stranger to characters with similar hiccups (Knuckles and Angel Island, Blaze and her dimension), but it's taken up to eleven with Silver due to the time travel factor. Do you have him time travel to justify his presence every single time, in order to stop yet another threat that's destroyed his future, thereby making him look like the biggest failure ever? Or do you have him cut out the middle man and stick around in the present, and risk fans complaining about losing what made him unique?

There's a lot of clutter with Silver that I can't be bothered with, and on top of everything else... meh.