#i might've already ruled that out but its worth Looking

[deliciousmicroplastics]

if we're rlly back to square one wrt job search maybe voc rehab would help me afford a Spanish course (not sure abt this one) and some sort of clerical skills (more sure abt this one)

[sonicbible]

Why and How Blaze and Jet Are Related

Blaze the Cat and Jet the Hawk are two of the most popular Sonic characters not part of the regularly returning cast, both hail from the mid 2000s era of the franchise, and both have origins rooted in other worlds whether those are said to be planetary or dimensional in nature. That'd be a pretty solid basis in which to compare the two characters, with them both having strong dynamics with the titular protagonist as well. But the connections don't stop there, from their designs to details in their backgrounds we can see a strange web of connections to the point where it all begins to feel connected.

I feel confident in saying that Blaze and Jet are meant to be related, or at the very least were meant to be at some point and here's why:

PART I: THE BIOLOGY QUESTION

Okay, before I say anything I have to clarify that I don't think Blaze and Jet are siblings. I have not 100% ruled out that possibility, especially considering a certain piece of evidence that will be covered later on in this post, but I still think it's highly unlikely. They're most likely cousins, perhaps even distant cousins. My reasoning is that Jet has basically nothing to suggest that he's part-cat but Blaze certainly has evidence pointing towards her being part-bird.

If you've followed me for a while you'll know that I've brought up the possibility that Blaze is a hybrid in the past, but for the sake of thoroughness I'll bring up some of those points again plus some newer ones I've recently uncovered:

Design elements - It's notable the Blaze possesses a physical detail no other cat character in the franchise shares, her plume-like ponytail. Not only does it resemble the feathers of the Babylon Rogues with its shape and tip markings, it also looks particularly similar to the "feathers" of the Babylon Guardian. She also shares a near-identical color scheme with the latter.

Bird Iconography - The culture of the Sol Empire is still fairly unknown to us, but we do know that phoenixes hold some deal of significance to them. Blaze's personal vehicle is adorned with both a hood ornament and insignia of one.

Blaze also has an unclear and honestly pretty confusing connection to Iblis and by extension Solaris, the winged god of the sun. Soleanna seems to have some reverence towards griffins, perhaps hinting at that being some sort of alternate form that Solaris once took or representative of another god who resided within the same pantheon as him and whose worship dwindled over the centuries. The thing about griffins is that Blaze is essentially one in the scenario that this theory is true, while griffins are usually depicted as having the front half and wings of a bird and lower half of a cat, any combination of bird and cat features could be classified as a griffin under a loose enough definition.

Birds are also a common design motif in a lot of things in Sonic Rush Adventure but that says more about the history of her home dimension than it does about Blaze, not to say it says nothing about her though.

PART II: ALIGNED DEVELOPMENT

Blaze and Jet's debut games were released in 2005 and 2006 respectively and both games were most likely worked on at the same time with Sonic Rush coming out first by virtue of being made for a portable device. Despite this we know that of the two Blaze was conceptualized first via some concept art made to pitch the game and character to SEGA, in this art we can see that her species and fire motif had already been decided on:

But besides that her design is pretty different, the red eye markings and blue eyes are worth nothing however since they might've been carried over to Jet. A lot of aspects of Blaze seem to be carried over to Jet with some of them presumably dropped some time in the development of Jet's character.

Here's various rough drafts of Jet's designs, we can see that even before his species was decided on that there were two traits that were a must to include in his design:

Flame markings on the arms

Pointed-in tip markings

The top-left design could even be a cat!

Now let's look at Blaze's design:

Much more experimentation with her outfit and "hair". We can see some parallels between these designs and Jet's. Both top-right designs share a similar marking in between the eyes and on the ears and the top-left Blaze design has chest fluff, something present in all Jet designs.

Essentially I think the whole conception of Jet was potentially as a companion character to Blaze, maybe their stories were to more directly tie into each other, encouraging someone who bought one game to buy the other. At one point their relation could've been even more apparent and for whatever reason it was decided to draw back on this aspect of the characters, maybe to focus on the individual stories of each game. Sonic Riders is commonly even theorized to take place in a slight alternate continuity and Jet's connection to Blaze could be a remnant of when this wasn't the case.

PART III: DIMENSIONAL DISCREPANCY

There's a fact that gets in the way of this theory that I've intentionally been avoiding this whole time. Blaze is from an alternate dimension and very well shouldn't be related to someone from another one, the mere proposal that her and Jet are related brings up the question of how her parents would even meet. There are three possible answers to how this would work:

oh yeah blaze was in 06 wasn't she - This one's not too far of a stretch but relies on some hotly debated canon. Basically the idea is that the Blaze we see in Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) is the original Blaze and that the one we see in the Rush and later games is her but reincarnated or dimension warped and amnesia-ed somehow. In this scenario Blaze's parents would be able to meet as long as there's Babylonians sticking around on earth that far into the future, but she would also have to be Jet's descendant instead of direct relative on account of the time frame.

Long Distance Relationship - Either the Babylonian parent from Sonic's dimension traveled to Blaze's somehow or the parent from Blaze's dimension took a trip to the other dimension and possibly came back alone depending on who you're imagining had the kid. One of them also needs to be originally from Blaze's dimension since she needs to inherent the crown from them. The way dimensional travel happens is never really explained so there's nothing that can confirm or debunk this being able to happen in the past, but both dimensions seem to be inherently linked. If you want to add some flair to this particular theory you could say that the initial dimensional travel Blaze's parent(s) partook in is what led the two dimensions to be as traversable as they are.

Those Darn Babylonians - A borrowed theory that I won't be able to do justice unless I make this post a lot longer. The way it applies to the topic at hand is that either Blaze's Babylonian parent is one of the last of their kind to travel dimensions, is a descendant of the Babylonians that decided to settle down in the Sol Empire, or is Blaze's ancestor making Blaze barely part Babylonian but enough that those dormant genes can still pop up somehow.

PART IV: OTHER STUFF THAT I DIDN'T KNOW WHERE ELSE TO PUT

Blaze's Extreme Gear - In Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity, Blaze is a unlockable character but not relevant to the story, there are however some very interesting details about her appearance in the game. For one she and her Extreme Gear are unlocked by beating the Babylon Rogue's storymode. Her having a personal Extreme Gear is interesting in of itself, especially since the maker of it is unknown. Since the board is designed with her in mind that would mean Extreme Gear is being manufactured somewhere in Blaze's dimension, perhaps there's someone she knows to go to for an Extreme Gear or perhaps it's something she inherited.

Lamorak and Percival - One of the most damning pieces of evidence and the one reason why I'm not able to 100% able to rule out Blaze and Jet being siblings. In Sonic and the Black Knight, Blaze and Jet's Arthurian counterparts are that of Sir Percival and Sir Lamorak. According to some legends the two knights were brothers and while it has been confirmed that the relations of the original Arthurian characters do not carry over to their SatBK counterparts it's still possible that the relation of the two knights influenced who was who.

PART V: CONCLUSION

This definitely feels like a theory that will be in limbo for quite a while. There's enough evidence that it very well feels like it could be canon, but unless we get another title in the Riders or Rush series it's unlikely that we'll ever get some information that really confirms anything, or hell, even any information that may debunk it. Still, even if all of this turns out to be meaningless and the theory is bogus the connections made do say something about how the world(s) of Sonic have the ability to truly feel alive and full of history, even if that history isn't told to us in full.