#confession: i actually used to love a sonadow fanfiction that almost sold me to the pairing

[beevean]

I just don’t get Sonadow. Maybe it’s because I view them more as rivals so much that I don’t see how that will shift their relationship to lovers at all. I do like seeing small moments of these two bonding when Sonic isn’t as snarky and Shadow isn’t as closed off but that’s it. No hate to people who like Sonadow but I just can’t see them together as a couple.

I'm the last person you should ask then 😂

Gay rival ships are, by far, the most popular ships in a fandom, it's just facts - Drarry, Sasunaru, Narumitsu (for a value of rivals from the third game onward), Kazumaji (also more or less), just on the top of my head, fans see two men glaring at each other and their collective braincell goes "but what if they kissed tho 😳"

(I'm not superior to this btw. I've also fallen in the same trap. Gay rival ships are appealing for a reason)

Anyway... I don't care for Sonadow because I simply don't care for their rivarly.

Maybe it's because I played Heroes and ShTH before SA2 so I just have never experienced the hype around the character, but I think Shadow is the weakest rival for Sonic. The two... smacktalk a little? They've fought... three times? Four if you count the non canon endings of ShTH? I don't feel the connection, I don't feel the intimacy, I don't feel the deep personal bond that characterizes rival ships. Their parallels are weak (I can't see Shadow as "Sonic but dark", he's just Shadow, his unique person), their rivarly is barely there, the closest thing to a bonding moment they have is when Shadow compliments Sonic for pulling off a Chaos Control with a fake Emerald. My favorite banter of theirs is still "Not you again" "Nice to see you too" in ShTH, but as funny as it is, it's not enough to convince me that the two think of each other as special.

This is why I much prefer Sonuckles and Sonegg. Sonic and Knuckles walk the line between friends and rivals, and the two clash under many aspects: speed vs. strength, freedom vs. duty, chillness vs. hotheadedness... but they care for each other, and you can tell because they help each other even after they just fought for a silly reason. As for Sonegg, they're by far the closest enemies and their relationship is quite unique, they absolutely are as close as rivals tend to be, even if they genuinely hate each other and there's next to no fondness between them unless you consider eggman's bio in origins canon. Hell, at this point even Sonurge makes more sense, at least Surge has the excuse that she's programmed to be obsessed with him!

(just to be clear, I don't always ship with the objective of seeing two characters fall in love. I can appreciate a non-romatic ship too! But Sonadow is often depicted in a cute romantic way, so...)

I don't see any of that in Sonadow, and I wonder if I just missed something lol. But considering that a lot of people ship because ~aesthetic~, even if it doesn't make sense (there are some popular ships I can't stand for this reason...), I just stopped to be bothered.

Sonic and Shadow becoming close friends and allies? Absolutely a development I love to see. Them falling in love? Why? They can absolutely appreciate each other as people, but there's that spark missing. Them just having a fuckbuddies relationship? Not nearly enough tension for that IMO. Shadow's best bond is with Rouge and you can't change my mind :)