#i really wanted to make her feel like how the sonic franchise would handle a shark character LOL | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bronyinabottle · 3 years

Text

G5 MOVIE THOUGHTS FOLLOWUP - THE ANCIENT EQUESTRIAN ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

SPOILER WARNING: THIS WILL GET INTO SPOILERS FOR THE G5 MOVIE EVEN BEFORE THE BREAK. IT HAS BEEN JUST OVER A WEEK SINCE THE MOVIE PREMIERED. BUT IF YOU STILL HAVEN'T SEEN IT, PLEASE SCROLL PAST THIS.

This is something of a follow-up to my thoughts on the movie. My thoughts on the movie were generally positive. Though much like the movie itself, the positive thoughts were on what it’s doing on it’s own merit as the start of a new generation of pony media. As someone who had followed Generation 4 from all the way in the middle of Season 1 to the ending of Season 9, the connection the G5 movie makes with the previous generation in the opening scenes are enough that it’s necessary to give a perspective from a G4 fan’s point of view. Again, I do want to say that G5 will be within it’s right to not have to answer so many plot things at once and try to stand on it’s own by exploring the characters and this new Equestria first.

That said, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the longer none of the questions G4 fans will have are answered. There is a huge elephant in the room with the unanswered questions from G4. And It is Hasbro’s fault in the first place for telling us it’s the same Equestria, There will be fans that are annoying about it from multiple angles, and there will probably be times where people who just want to enjoy G5 on it’s own just outright snap at anyone who wants their answers about what happened in between G4 and G5. Even if the person who asks the question is just genuinely curious and not being demanding there be answers. This is just the kind of thing that all fandoms that have timeskip sequels, especially ones where it overrides a happy ending where discussing with other friends can get dicey.

HAPPY ENDING OVERRIDES AND ALICORNS

Until we get an official answer from the show itself, we can only theorize with each other. Though theorizing about a happy ending override, regardless of how long it’s been and/or how sensible the theory is can start some heated discussions, Cause many were content with the happy ending of the original. While no realistic story ever has a happily ever after, a story within a fantasy land such as MLP’s can be an exception.

Let me give something of a comparison by bringing up another show. Avatar: The Last Airbender is perhaps my favorite show of all-time. And while it’s true I didn’t like the sequel series Korra as much as A:TLA. It wasn’t because of some happy ending override with at least half of the main cast from the previous series deceased. The Avatars themselves are just as human as the other characters in the world. Avatar’s still a fantasy world when all is said and done, but the way the world building is done still made it feel like it it was possible for the world to be in danger again by the time the next Avatar is grown up, most known Avatars had challenges they had to face. The Avatar series blends some form of realism but still manages to provide a fun fantasy world. It’s a case where it’s believable that the main legacy of Aang’s time as the Avatar aside from defeating the Fire Lord where he created Republic City would have it’s own fair share of problems that would be left to his successor to solve. Aang in turn was finishing the war that Roku failed to stop. So while I have my criticisms about Korra, none of those are related to the way the world is after the timeskip. It reasonably makes sense in the context of the Avatar universe.

In contrast, there isn’t much we know about the past of G4 and it’s a much more idealistic setting then in Avatar. Yes, ponies die with what I assume are human-esque lifespans for the exception of the Alicorns. But Friendship is Magic is a setting where the power of friendship is literal magic power that can save the day even when things look bleak. As a result it can get very sappy, but FiM is the kind of show you watch to put a smile on your face rather then go to for a multi-faceted plot. Most episodes of FiM are the kind of thing you see in a lot of other shows. But what brings most of it’s fans back even for the most overdone plots is the characters and their interactions. FiM’s lore is a lot less straight forward, and sometimes may feel not as consistent given there were so many different writers over the long span of time. That said, there is something about the series that sort of ties in heading into G5 and that’s G4’s history, and especially Alicorn lore. We don’t get a lot of either even back in G4, as the most we get is the founding of Equestria was through the Hearth’s Warming Eve story, and the knowledge that Alicorns like Celestia and Luna are at least older then 1000. Which is a huge gap compared to the Avatars that no matter how powerful, have similar mortality to our own. Throughout G4’s time, the debate about Alicorns have raged throughout the whole time even before things got really heated upon Twilight becoming an Alicorn in Magical Mystery Cure. Some went with Celestia and Luna being the only immortal Alicorns while Cadence and Twilight were somehow lesser Alicorns that aren’t immortal but maybe at least still a longer lifespan then their normal pony friends and family. Though as of Season 9, that may be turned on it’s head when in The Last Problem. Twilight eventually grows to Celestia-size as Celestia and Luna even retire to let Twilight succeed them. If Twilight is somehow a lesser Alicorn, why did she grow to Celestia’s size? Why did Celestia and Luna retire in the first place if they knew Twilight will not be as long lived as they are? Perhaps part of the reason G5 has as many questions as it does is because G4 itself created questions it never promised to answer.

That said, the implied length of Celestia and Luna’s rule still presents G5 with a problem that will be asked everywhere. Even if we go with the possibility that most of the Mane 6 have passed from old age, you still have to answer something about Twilight. If Twilight is also dead, how long did she live? Did she at least have an over-1000 year reign as Celestia did? Was perhaps Luster Dawn chosen to be her younger co-ruler if Luster herself ascended at some point? The kind of things that might actually force G5 into a corner when it comes to Alicorns despite the fact G4 never had to, especially now that Sunny may have just become one herself. This is once again, another of the traps Hasbro put the writing team through by having them put it in the same world. G5 thus not only adds questions about what happened in between the Generations, but also now has to inherit what remained unanswered in G4. That is a VERY tall task on a team that will likely just want to do their own little fun pony show. It’ll raise expectations too high, and there will be annoyed fans regardless how they spin it. Which could have all been avoided if they set it up that this was an entirely new world, or made G4 a fictional story (With all the references to it being mainly merchandise for a really meta look at things) in the G5 universe. You’d still have people complaining about it not being as good as G4 probably, but the approach they went with added more gasoline to the fire whenever G4 Vs. G5 debates happen in the MLP fandom. And inter-fandom generation fights are never fun, just ask the Pokemon and the Sonic fandoms how that turns out (Even though there’s no Generation number count for the Sonic franchise. You could say Gen 1 of Sonic was the classic era. Gen 2 was the Sonic Adventure Era. Gen 3 was the “Dark Age” Sonic 2006-Sonic Unleashed era. Gen 4 the Sonic Colors and Generations era. and Gen 5 the current Sonic Forces and Team Sonic Racing era. And then of course there’s also the different TV shows and comic books that also have their own fans that can be at each other’s throats).

There isn’t going to be an easy solution to something that will no doubt have fans on the edge on their seat even if they will be left to hang on that edge for a longtime before G5 starts to give some answers. I think I’ll at least bring up 3 things that will probably be part of the discussions of just what happened between G4 and G5

(More after the break)

1. AND THEN EVERYTHING CHANGED WHEN THE FIRE NATION AN UNKNOWN THREAT ATTACKED

With G4 being considered Ancient Equestria. It’s probably safe to assume this is at least 1,000 years after G4. And 1,000 or more is a really, really, long time. Where anything could of happened, including *GASP* a villain actually winning at some point (Or at least, did some lasting damage even if they were ultimately defeated). Though I think even with that possibility, there has to be a sense that the villain didn’t defeat the Mane 6 while the other members aside from Twilight were still alive. If Twilight was at some point defeated. Perhaps the villain struck when Twilight was most vulnerable. You could also have it that Twilight somehow sacrificed herself to defeat a large threat. She saved Equestria one last time, but at the cost of even her long-lasting alicorn life. With the populace left on their own to continue life without Twilight, but the loss of their longtime leader too much for Equestria. Thus a slow decline happened.

As for who the threat was it’ll probably be a while if we ever know. Perhaps the real Grogar showed up at some point and was truly a harrowing threat to deal with. Or something entirely new. Maybe it wasn’t even a villain, but a catastrophic natural disaster. Whatever it is, if this is the case. We’d have to deal with the sad thought of something being too much for even Twilight to handle

2. TWILIGHT BECAME DEPRESSED/JADED AFTER HER FRIENDS PASSED. POSSIBLY EVIL TOO?

This would basically be the cliche sadfic ending. Where after everyone of the Mane 6 has passed. Twilight just never felt the same afterward. Though I do feel like there is the slight counterpoint that maybe Twilight would still have Celestia and/or Luna (maybe, again we’ve never ever gotten full confirmation of how long Alicorns live. Just assured that it’s more then 1000 years) and she’d most certainly still have a full grown Spike and any of her friends descendants. Death is always a sad reality, but you have to wonder if Twilight would have prepared herself by the time that comes. Twilight would have not gone as far as she did without the rest of the Mane 6. But while I’m sure it would be a tearjerking moment, it’s not like Twilight wouldn’t have other friends she made throughout the generations. Celestia and Luna also must of gone through the same thing living for more then 1000 years, yet they seem pretty fine. So while the subject of “immortality blues” is prime for sadfic material in the fandom. It feels like there’d have to be more nuance then that, if this were the reason the time between G4 and G5 led into each other.

Supposedly, this theory is picking up some form of steam. To the point that a head canon is rolling around is that it was actually Twilight who sealed the magic away in the first place for one reason or another. Essentially making Twilight, in a huge plot twist, a villain in G5 or at the very least someone who took the magic with them into some form of Limbo very similar to Starswirl and the other founders during the Season 7 finale. I… personally don’t know how I’d feel about that. They’d have to be very careful with the execution of such a twist. And I’d want more nuance then simply Twilight getting sad about the deaths of her friends. At the very least, it’d likely eventually get to a point where this villainous incarnation of Twilight is reformed and probably becomes a recurring character from then on. But the writers will have to tread very carefully if this is the direction they take.

3. G5 IS AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT UNIVERSE/TIMELINE. JUST FOR THE MOST PART THE MAJOR EVENTS OF "ANCIENT EQUESTRIA" STILL HAPPENED

Perhaps this last one really gets into a more desperate side to deflect any possibility that the ending of G4 could of deteriorated into what the world becomes at the start of G5. I know there will be plenty that will be too frustrated with the lack of satisfactory answers that they annoy people in the comment sections, getting into situations where sometimes the only answer to those people will be others that just want to watch G5 as a fun show with a “cope”, “read a history book”, or “deal with it”. But honestly, there can be a case here. As I mentioned in my thoughts in the movie. There are visual details on characters and/or lore that while they may seem minor, to the point that even if they do ever answer important questions such as what caused magic to disappear and/or what happened to Alicorns like Twilight. That the staff may ignore completely because they think it’s too small of a detail to bother including. But the most nitpicky fan can and will latch on small excuses into why it can’t be the same.

Let’s begin with the one-sided Cutie Mark. Again, while it’s true that previous generations made this a tradition. And it was only on one side on the G4 toys as well, as the actual reason it was on both sides in the G4 show was because it was easier for the flash animators. That said, it’s still a big pony design inconsistency. Because regardless of it was only to make things easier, it became a staple because of how long G4 lasted. So it was still so weird to see early screenshot and artwork of G5 characters with grown ponies with no mark. When that wasn’t possible in G4, as it turned out it was because the one-sided cutie mark returned. But one side as opposed to both sides is still a significant difference. Similarly, the horns and wingtips being a different color then the coat may also be a significant difference. Of course I know it can be just waved off as art style difference, as the art direction is no longer based on what Faust wanted the ponies to look like. It’s still plausible enough for someone to discredit it as truly in continuity with G4. Cause even for those that are on the side of “More then 1000 years is a long time, anything could of happened” it’s a lot harder to argue against inconsistencies such as cutie marks only being on one side unless they switch gears to the meta explanation of “G4’s double sided cutie mark was not intentional, at least at first”. But from what most people saw in the G4 show, G4 ponies had marks on both sides. And the G5 ponies don’t. It’s again, quite nitpicky. But it’s enough to start a case that at the very least, the ancient past of G4 is not 100% the same G4 we saw in the show.

Speaking of not the same G4 we saw in the show, another possibility is that G5 actually came out of an alternate timeline. Where perhaps the last two seasons did not happen. If perhaps it’s a timeline where major events in the show either ended anywhere between the end of Season 4 or the end of Season 7, then it starts to feel a little more possible. (Supposedly, the tree of harmony in it’s Season 9 form that might counteract it. But then again it had none of the treehouse architecture and was all wood. Which ironically may lead into it leaning more that the G4 show isn’t the same continuity). If the events of the Friendship School nor everything else that leads to the ending we saw in The Last Problem. It’d be a lot more palatable because the pretty much implied world peace ending with non-ponies in the mix included is discounted. There’d still be questions even in this scenario, like did Celestia and Luna still retire in this timeline then. And regardless if they did or not, the show would still be burdened with the question of what happened to the Alicorns. But it’d at least solve the most pressing question with the peace of The Last Problem being squandered. Because perhaps in this timeline, the Mane 6 never went that far. Perhaps it would imply some sort of indirect failure in that case. But this is perhaps a scenario they had a similar foreign policy as Celestia did. Not really hostile to anyone, but not intervening even in ways that could be helpful. Heck, if we go far enough in saying that G5\s G4 (As confusing as that may sound) was different from what we saw in Friendship is Magic, what if there were differences even early on for one reason or another? With how vague the connection is, we only know that the Mane 6 were friends and Twilight still became a princess at some point. From there. potentially a lot of other things may have gone differently other then that.

Again, saying G5 is a completely different universe/timeline is probably always going to sound like a desperate way for people who cannot possibly believe the ending of G4 eventually led to the start of G5. And I’d understand why that’ll annoy people who just want to watch the G5 series on it’s own merits. But it really wouldn’t be entirely the fans to blame for that attitude. G4 lasted a whole decade, many got attached to the characters/world we saw that had about the happiest ending it could possibly be. It should naturally make people unhappy that in a few ways it’s stomping over a happy ending for this fantasy world that many watched to escape from the realities of the real world.

Even with the long time allotted of 1000+ years or more, that’s made complicated by the implied long lives of the Alicorns from G4. Only opening up that can of worms further by seemingly making Sunny an alicorn. There’s a debate on whether this form is permanent, but if it’s NOT permanent. That arguably adds yet another addition to the list of reasons it may fall out of continuity. The only time we had a temporary Alicorn transformation (outside of Animation errors, or dream sequences like Big Mac’s) was when Cozy was an Alicorn after receiving some of the magic from Grogar’s bell. But even in that case, Cozy’s wings were not more like a glowy hologram like Sunny’s wings seem to be. And even if it is permanently on Sunny now, the design for Alicorns is too different. Adding onto the one-sided cutie marks, and different colored wings and horns. So the G5 writers may actually be stuck in a lose/lose situation when it comes to Alicorns after the ending of the movie. I think whether Sunny is permanently an Alicorn or not, they may not elaborate enough about it. And it’ll be among the headaches in the comment section (Though may at least be a reprieve from the political discussions G5 are going to have on occasion I imagine.)

Hasbro chose to try to say this is the same Equestria, and a new show needs conflicts to solve. But from the perspective of some G4 fans… it forces a world they loved, to get torn down into arguably a more divided world then even the Hearth’s Warming tale. Which said tale seems to have been implied to be from before Princess Celestia and Luna were around (Based on the lore of the unicorns being the one to raise the sun and moon) and thus yes. Somehow, if everything that happened in G4 is canon to G5. Then the world peace in The Last Problem in just a thousand years or so become worse then even Celestia’s sole rule.

RESPONDING TO “READ A HISTORY BOOK”

I’ve mentioned before, you can try to point to World History to point why this is a realistic take. But again, we don’t have an ancient civilization from 1000 years ago that we look up to as the pinnacle of peace in the world (Like I said, the Golden age of Ancient Greece and/or Rome still had slavery and brutal wars). That has literally never happened. What was shown in the Last Problem very much looked like it was that for Equestria. I feel it’s a terrible interpretation of time, especially in regards to the context that the leaders of Equestria tend to live for at least more then 1000 years to imply things would just go backward like that.

CONCLUSION

The movie on it’s own merits is a good start for the generation, though at the same time. It’s going to have some hard questions that’ll often be no-win situations for the writers. They can choose to ignore the G4 questions, understandably trying to tiptoe around as many cans of worms as possible which would allow them to do whatever the heck they want with G5. Maybe even getting a few stragglers frustrated with no answers to just shrug and continue watching anyway if the show entertains them enough. Or they can certainly try to at least give some answers on the biggest questions (What happened to the magic, and/or what was the fate of G4’s alicorns) but risk having an answer that just adds even more questions.

The movie is a decent start for a new generation if you only view it as a pilot for a new series, but if you view it as a sequel to Friendship is Magic. There are certainly problematic issues with that currently. Maybe the special in Spring, or the eventual Series will cover some of this but it does leave fans waiting a while for answers that they’re not promised to get, or at least not as quickly as they’d like. Remember when I mentioned that I may view some of this similarly to how I was about Starlight Glimmer after her sudden redemption at the end of Season 5? With many questions I wanted to know about Starlight before I could really accept her as a recurring character? (And not really fully coming into terms with her until I expanded on her myself in a story for I Dream of Twilight Sparkle) This may be how I have to view the connection of G4 and G5.

They can go one of two routes: At least try to give as much of a clear explanation as possible. Even if it’s one that doesn’t exactly answer everything, at least giving a good try may help with those who have questions remaining in relation to G4. If instead however, they go the Season 6 Starlight route of just about ignoring all the questions fans have, it’ll make things frustrating for many. At least with Starlight, she wasn’t the major focus in every episode. That said, Season 6’s job was to endear us more to her reformed character. Now with G5’s setup, it may be running well into a corner where they must try to answer what happened in between G4 and G5 or else you end up making a lot of fans lukewarm or worse to your series. Starlight’s reformation and then lack of ability of Season 6 to explain more about Starlight to us was a divisive moment. And G5 involving G4 brings over the same kind of feeling but on a larger scale because now it’s in the very premise of the generation’s plot, it’s less avoidable compared to one character. Because even when it comes to episodes that will not further the plot and it’s just a fun friendly moment between the members of the mane 5, this movie is how they met and thus the not fully explained premise would always be looming over like a large shadow. It probably doesn’t help that they’re basically starting with a reformed Starlight-esque moment when it comes to introducing it’s premise AND on top of that something similar although certainly with at least a lot less backlash then with Alicorn Twilight since it came so soon. Though I do have to think there will be people who think this was way too soon to be ascending Sunny, since at least we got to see Twilight’s journey to Alicornhood (Even if you weren’t a fan of the episode she ascended in). Sunny arguably does earn her Alicornhood through implied years of working to unite the ponies. But it can still feel too soon when you had 2 1/2 seasons worth of episodes before Twilight did, while Sunny did so within one movie.

Someone’s ultimate thoughts on G5 might end up being what they are looking for in this new generation. If they’re looking for just about everything new. The movie provides plenty of that with new characters, new locations, and a more modernized world compared to G4 Equestria (Even if G4 Equestria had it’s own fair share of electronics it looked like, such as video game machines). If you’re in this for the G4 references. Aside from the very beginning of the movie, you’re kind of stuck doing a where’s waldo for most of the movie. And no guarantees you’ll get much more then that later. As I said in the trailer thoughts, the G4 stuff could very much be just Hasbro trying to bake it’s cake and eat it too. With a world that feels like it should be it’s own thing, but they didn’t want to commit entirely to that. So they shoehorn G4 in as the ancient past without giving a proper explanation to how point A (the end of G4) got to point B (the start of G5). It’s only been about a week since the movie premiered, but there is just so much to digest. And for those looking for answers to the G4 elephant in the room, may feel like they get nothing but metaphorical tummy aches for a long time.

I’ll end this off by having a message to both people who already feel like they’ll be fans of G5, as well as people like me who were fans of G4 and have concerns about where G5 may be doing to it’s legacy.

For the G5 fans, as I mentioned in the trailer thoughts. I still hope that it turns out ultimately good. I don’t know where things will go from here but the G5 movie taking in context that it’s basically a really long series premiere, had some genuinely enjoyable moments. At the same time, I hope anyone in the G5 fanbase can try to understand why G4 fans have the concerns that they do. I’ll repeat, G4 lasted a decade and was the absolute peak of MLP’s popularity. There will be a lot of people attached to that world, and understandably upset about the implication that it got torn down into how the world is at the start of G5. If they’re really annoying about it, I can understand why you couldn’t hold the urge to snap at them to “Get over it” just try not to snap at the ones who are just asking curiously. I’m personally not going to spam comment threads with “THIS DOESN’T FIT WITH G4!” or “HASBRO ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS PLEASE”, but I would be lying if I were to say I’m not just as curious about what those type of fans want to know too.

And as for G4 fans like me, if G5 ever upsets you in some fashion. It’s ok to stop watching and just stay quiet whenever you find yourself in a conversation about G5 and only participate in G4 matters in the fandom. This is a natural evolution of a fandom’s lifecycle where eventually a direction a franchise is taken to a place some others don’t like. So you’re only left to mainly talk with those who prefer an older generation and/or incarnation. Just because G5 has started and even though Hasbro says it’s the same world as G4. You can still do G4 content by itself and ignore G5. If you still have the inclination to do stuff with G4, do it. Generation 5 is not stopping people from still drawing the G4 characters, or writing more stories about them, or even if you don’t feel you’re that creative. Support artists who are still drawing G4 ponies, and/or rewatch some of your favorite episodes of Friendship is Magic that give you a smile. MLP has lasted since the 80s, and while for the most part to Hasbro it’s to sell toys. Toys, and the shows surrounding them’s purpose is to make the people watching or playing with them smile. From the little girls in the 80s to the much more diverse both gender-wise and age-wise fandom that came out of G4. The cute ponies are supposed to make us happy, and it’s ok to get back into a comfort zone if perhaps a different part of Ponies don’t give you the same feeling or even upset you in some way. Also as a vice versa to my message to G5 fans, try as best you can not to provoke those enjoying G5. If the G5 movie and/or episodes makes them as happy as your favorite G4 episodes/movies you should let them be. Many of us had to deal with that crap just for daring liking a pony show at all early on in the fandom. Try not to add to the toxicity as best you can. G4 is not going to be forgotten, the fact Hasbro decided to try to make it in the same universe actually has the side effect of making sure of that. Cause maybe you have fans that enter the MLP franchise through G5 curious about what happened in the past. And thus, they can be led to watch the previous generation. New G5 fans could potentially also become new G4 fans and friends. In other words, friendship… is still magic!

#mlp #my little pony #g5 #mlp g5 #netflix #my little pony the next generation #my little pony movie #generation 5 #g4 #mlp g4 #generation 4

21 notes · View notes

latin-dr-robotnik · 4 years

Note

You mentioned western localizations messing with Amy. Can you elaborate if you don't mind?

Of course!

I think the first thing to keep in mind throughout all of this is that I was referring to the old notion of “Amy is a psycho girl chasing after someone who isn’t remotely interested in her”. This is the big impression Sonic games (and I guess to some extent Archie Sonic, but I don’t want to get in there) left on fans during the 2000′s, and it comes mostly due to two main reasons:

The differences in western culture versus japanese culture (how we see relationships in general, the actual tropes surrounding Amy, etc.)

How the actual localization process was handled for each game, like the way Amy acts toward Sonic and other characters, how the games play said acts (cute vs annoying) and the way Sonic reacts to her presence.

It’s no secret that localization works during that era were spotty at best (that’s why you hear Ryan’s Sonic yelling “teriaaaa!” in SA2, or the general weirdness surrounding SA1), and while I personally don’t blame the people that worked on localizing the games (after all, the overall quality of videogame storytelling was pretty shaky back in the early 2000′s), I can’t ignore just how damaging those works ended up being for the canon. For example, cutegirlmayra talked about the differences between japanese and western Sonic for years now, take this quote from her post, a quote that I believe nails this whole thing on the head:

America treats Sonamy much like they do their franchise, a meme or joke to be poked fun of. Whereas, with a much more refined atmosphere, Japan treats Sonamy as an endearing and lovely couple. Though both resign to say they can’t really see Sonic ever ‘settling down’ or really being focused on romance. And,… that makes since to me. Knowing who Sonic is. But even that doesn’t mean he can’t have a crush XD (The heart wants what the heart wants, lol!)

More recently, stuff like “Unfortunately, I’m not inconvenient for my girlfriend” came to light, and that’s one of many examples where japanese Sonic was way ahead of its western self. This particular quote is from Sonic Battle and in the english version you don’t get anything remotely similar to that, instead Amy is left to look like she’s a crazy stalker, or that Sonic doesn’t accept her advances to a degree (that’s one major problem, how western Sonic tends to feel like he’s actually rejecting Amy while she keeps on trying.) It’s not coincidence that Sonic Battle is regarded as one of the worst portrayals of Amy in a Sonic game.

If you start digging on what the creators actually intended for Amy, you'll find lots of good intentions toward her and the framing of her dynamic with Sonic (which isn’t the only aspect of Amy, mind you, but my claims about western localization originally came from a SonAmy post so I naturally focused on that, sorry haha.)

For example, last year I looked into how Sonic Unleashed handled SonAmy, and while my initial research was pretty sweet (the english version of Unleashed!Amy is really good if you spend time talking to her), the real kicker came as soon as we (me and cutegirlmayra) started looking into interviews with ex-Sonic Team writer Shiro Maekawa and cross-referencing information regarding the actual writers that were involved during that 2000′s era. The result? There was an entire council at SEGA of Japan dedicated to approve the way Sonic characters were presented in all official media, and they approved all of the key SonAmy moments back then, even more that western audiences didn’t get to see (more on that below.) Most if not all the japanese Sonic writers involved in that era (Maekawa was both a writer and part of said council) left around the end of the decade, after Sonic Unleashed (2008) and Sonic and the Black Knight (2009), and ever since that most of the problems shifted from “this is how SEGA of America is localizing Sonic games” to “this is the very poor state of Sonic writing in general”, so, dead end for now.

Then you have situations like with Sonic X, a show handled by Sonic Team and the official Sonic writers of that era working in some of the most iconic episodes... just to see their work censored by 4kids in America and the subsequent dubs that used that version as a basis (from what I’ve heard not all dubs are censored, though.) That’s why you’ll see fans imploring you to watch Sonic X in japanese instead of the english dub, since the series was a lot more involved with the pairing and the general simbolism of some of its touching moments (they used actual love songs for them, for crying out loud), which led to some funny facts, like how the Latin American Spanish and the French dub both ignored the mandate about muting Sonic’s words to Amy in Episode 52, leading to moments like Sonic promising Amy he won’t leave her again (LatAm) or just straight up telling he loves her (the french were on fire with that one.) Sonic X was the one true vision of Sonic Team, and the way it was butchered for western audiences is still baffling to this day.

So, what’s the deal with Amy then? In theory she’s a cheerful, happy-go-lucky girl with a very strong sense of justice, super-determined to help anyone in need (even enemies like Metal Sonic) and, depending on the situation, pretty impulsive. She’s particularly loyal to her friends, and she acts like the emotional support of the group. You’ll see her filling that role regardless of how good or bad the localization is (SA2 Amy helped Shadow realize his true purpose, Heroes Amy is the beating heart of her whole team, Unleashed Amy is the only one who doesn’t lose hope on Sonic when Perfect Dark Gaia rises); yet the ways by which these traits were shown in the games varied a lot, and that’s how we reached a point where a good chunk of the fandom thinks Amy is a stalker. Japan portrayed her acts as cute, as very respectable traits of a great female character; the west portrayed her mostly as a nuisance the gang had to carry around, even to the point of misinterpreting some of her quotes that aren’t actually bad (for example: “If I had to choose between the world and Sonic, I would choose Sonic!“ in Sonic ‘06.) And while this is no longer the case, nowadays there’s a whole different discussion surrounding making Amy better by making her “more mature” (which is also another topic raised here in the west, like, this whole discussion never ends! haha)

I feel like I got lost and came back several times while writing this reply. At the end of the day, it’s a long topic to tackle and I think the best I can do right now is forward you some more information. My friend beev did some great work translating my own Spanish articles tackling the Japan vs Western differences (it’s pretty much most of this reply.) And then there’s @skull001, he’s very vocal about the ways Amy’s character was messed with (including stuff like Amy being missing from the back of Advance 1′s box, the Sonic X english dub or the fact SEGA is still reluctant to count her as part of Team Sonic), and if there’s someone I’d listen when it comes to knowing pretty much everything about Amy, it’s gotta be him... and cutegirlmayra, of course. I hope this helped, though!

#ask latin dr robotnik #sonic the hedgehog #amy rose #sonamy #sega #hannahcbrown #i'm sorry this took way too long to write haha

123 notes · View notes

ordinaryschmuck · 3 years

Text

Top 20 BEST Animated Series of the 2010s-4th Place

To anyone who plans on making a reboot of their favorite show in the future, you might want to take notes on this next pick. Because if you ask me, this next series that I'm going to talk about is the best example of how to do a reboot properly.

#4-Ducktales (2017-2021)

The Plot: Scrooge McDuck is the richest duck in the world, who made it big by also being one of the greatest adventurers of all time...ten years ago. Sadly, after an unfortunate accident with the family, Scrooge is forced to live the life of a normal businessman-er-duck. Up until Donald Duck asks Scrooge to watch over his nephews: Huey, Dewey, and Louie. What starts off as a single day of babysitting soon turns into a life of adventure as Scrooge gets back into the adventuring spirit to show his new family what the world really has to offer.

Now I want to make one thing clear: As of the moment of me writing this review, I have seen a total of zero episodes of the original Ducktales. That being said, despite my limited knowledge of the series, I still think it’s fair of me to point out how this is hands down the best reboot as of late (and I’ll explain more as to why that is later). And besides, from what I’ve heard from fans who have watched the original, Ducktales (2017) is a pretty faithful adaptation of the beloved franchise. The reason is that I believe this show remembers the two most important rules of making a reboot.

The first rule of a reboot is to try something new while still being faithful to the source material. Doing something like that is simple as a writer just needs to keep what the fans love and change what they hated. And trust me when I say that the writers of Ducktales (2017) knows how to do just that. For the most part, the show is about a family going on crazy globe-trotting adventures while still learning that family is the best adventure of all, much like the original. As for the characters, most of them keep their fun personalities. Scrooge is still a stingy miser with the heart for adventure, Launchpad is still the lovable idiot who can’t fly a plane, and Donald Duck still remains the one who gets stuck with all the bad luck. Then some characters have their personalities/roles revamped into something that improves upon the original. The best example is Fenton, who is still the wannabe superhero but is now a scientist in this show, wherein the old one was just Scrooge’s accountant. This way, both the hero and the man-DUCK-who’s behind the mask are equally capable of saving the day. There’s also Mrs. Beakley, who was originally a nanny that nagged Scrooge’s ear off for putting the kids in danger. In the reboot, she’s treated more as the anchor of reality to the more oddball characters, who also used to be a kick-butt super spy in her younger years. It is still the same role, but a different interpretation.

Now, some characters receive grand changes to their original personalities. But from what I’ve heard, those changes are made for the better. And there are no characters that need it more than the children. More specifically, Huey, Dewey, and Louie. This show does something that I’m eternally grateful for, and that’s giving each of these three their own distinct personalities and quirks. For years I couldn’t for the life of me tell the triplets apart. They had the same design, the same voice, the same personality, and the only difference people had to go off of are their different colors (which really didn’t do much to help). Here, they have different designs, voices, and now defining character traits for each of them. Huey is the smart and responsible boy scout, Dewey is the annoying attention seeker, and Louie is the best character in the entire show, and I WILL FREAKING FIGHT YOU ON THAT! And let us not forget the most appreciated change: Webby. From what I’ve heard, fans hated the original Webby, as she was nothing more than just the stereotypical girl of the group. Here, she’s given an actual personality and a fun one to boot. Webby is the ecstatic thrill-seeking adventurer who is skilled in combat training (thanks to her grandma) and is (of course) a socially awkward girl who wants to make friends. Like I said, this show took the idea that the fans hated and changed it into something that they’ll love. Which makes sense why the writers mastered this because they themselves are real fans of the show.

It is clear how much the writers are fans of the Ducktales franchise as they filled Ducktales (2017) with many references. And not just references to the original series but also references to the classic comics by Carl Barks and even the NES video game from the 1980s (seriously, this show will make you feel things about the “Moon Theme” you wouldn’t think was possible!). Even the show’s animation seems to be a homage to both the cartoon and comics. Not only do the characters and backgrounds have a more comic book style to them, but the characters also work on a mix of realistic and cartoony logic. And let me just say, it is refreshing to see characters in a Disney show have cartoon logic to them since Wander Over Yonder got canceled. And it’s not just Ducktales that the series reference, but even classic Disney movies (of course) and other shows in the Disney Afternoon lineup. And when it comes to these references, it’s more than just a subtle wink to the fans. The writers actually go out of their way to write a story around these beloved characters, so people who don’t get the joke won’t be one-hundred percent lost. For instance, without giving anything away, the writers found a brilliant way to reintroduce Darkwing Duck in this universe that feels right for this famous character. And if you ask me personally, these are the best ways to handle references for a reboot. Make them work within the story, even if you don’t fully get the joke.

This brings me to the second most important rule of a reboot: Make a quality product even though it is based on something else. Let us pretend that the original never existed. Would Ducktales (2017) still be as good as it is now? Personally, as a person who has never seen the original, I think it is.

This is another show that mixes slice of life episodes with adventure ones, similar to My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. And just like Friendship is Magic, both are equally interesting because the characters themselves make them so. No matter what situation the Duck Family are in, the audience will care about it because the characters care about it. In fact, I think Ducktales (2017) handles the mix of slice of life and adventure much better than Friendship is Magic. In MLP: FiM, the adventure-based episodes force the characters to stick to their simple personality traits to move the story forward, and character-based ones help them grow. In Ducktales (2017), because the characters regularly go on adventures, they grow as characters no matter the situation. For example, my favorite episode is “The Great Dime Chase” where the main plot is Louie finding Scrooge’s #1 dime after accidentally spending it. While in that same episode, Dewey and Webby try to solve a mystery around the boys’ mom. We get a great lesson about the importance of hard work and a fascinating plot of an overarching mystery within the season, all taking place within the same episode. Both are interesting, neither feels as though it overshadows the other, and the characters develop along the way.

Another thing this show mixes well is comedy and drama. A lot of shows recently tried way too hard to find that perfect mix. Ducktales (2017) is one of the few examples that nails it. The comedy is hilarious, the drama is endearing, and neither feels like it’s prioritized over the other. The show starts off with this mix as well, where others that I’ve talked about seem to start off as purely comedic only to take themselves more seriously later on. That isn’t entirely a bad thing, but I feel as though Ducktales (2017) is the best way to go about the method. That way, fans won’t be complaining about how much “better” the show used to be in its first batch of episodes, much like Star V.S. the Forces of Evil.

Unfortunately, while I recommend this show, it’s not without its fair share of issues. Or rather, issue, as there really is only one problem I have with it. And that problem can be summed up with one name: Dewey Duck. For the most part, I dislike Dewy. Because he’s nothing more than a Ben Schwarts character. No disrespect to Ben Schwarts himself, but lately, it feels as though he only plays the one character from time to time: The egotistical attention seeker slowly and surely learning to be a better person who realizes that not everything is about him. That’s the character he plays in both Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), and it’s the character he plays here. And the thing about these characters is that they’re not as lovable as Ben Schwarts thinks they sound. In fact (and, again, I mean no disrespect to the actor. I’m sure he’s a lovely person in real life), every single one of these characters comes off as kind of annoying rather than as the lovable rapscallions I’m sure they’re meant to be. However, there is one thing worth mentioning about Dewey. While he’s portrayed as annoying when used for comedy, Dewey is surprisingly a compelling character when used for drama. The thing is, he’s rarely used for dramatic moments and is meant as a source of comedy. Hence why I said I disliked him for the most part.

Other than that, there aren’t really that many problems with the show. Well, there are, but they’re mostly nitpicks that the series more than makes up for. Is it weird that the kids are voiced by adults? Yes, but the actors do a great job at being sincere and have great comedic timing than any kid could have. Are there changes to characters that fans might not enjoy? Probably, but I have yet to have seen anyone that has annoyed me as much as Dewey has. Are the villains just evil for the sake of being evil? Yes, but that’s not really a big deal. In fact, a villain doesn’t need a heartbreaking backstory as to why they’ve become so evil. They just need to have a great personality that’s fun to watch, which every villain in the show has (aside from season two’s antagonist who’s basically a Disney surprise villain. And I hate them with a fiery passion). Does it feel as though the show suffers from “too many characters” syndrome? It sometimes does, but each character has such a fun and unique personality that I find it hard to forget most of them.

So really, Ducktales (2017) is the best reboot in recent memory. This is crazy, seeing as how lately it feels as though Disney doesn’t even know how to properly reboot their own movies to save their lives. This is why I feel as though people should take notes on what Ducktales (2017) does if they ever feel like rebooting something they loved as a kid. Because this is more than just a retelling of the same story that people know by heart. This is a fantastic show with even better characters, stories, and tone. Whether you’ve been a fan since the beginning, or a part of the new generation of viewers, odds are you’ll be screaming Whoo-Ooo with every episode.

(Also, a word of warning to those who haven’t watched the show yet: Beware the theme song. Trust me when I say it’ll be stuck in your head until the day you die)

#top 20 of 2010s #ducktales #ducktales 2017 #what i thought about

13 notes · View notes

crusherthedoctor · 4 years

Text

The Lutrudis Hadeer Characterization Masterpost

A while back, I made a big post about the thought process that went into the design for Lutrudis, as well as her name, species, and choice of weapons. In the midst of doing a bunch of other stuff (like the Eggman Sweet or Shite review, which is definitely still coming guys I swear, please don't leave me D':), I recently figured I could do the same for the character's... well, character, and provide some further insight into how her personality was shaped together. Cause why not, right?

Obviously, we won't be covering literally every single personality trait that Trudy has, like her hobbies and whatnot. If we went over all of that, we'd be so far into the future that Tumblr's search system might actually start working again. No, we'll just be keeping it to the central ingredients that make up the overall package.

1. A cool head? In my Sonic OC?

The recurring cast in the Sonic universe is filled with fiery, hot-blooded sorts in one way or another. Sonic might as well be the love child of Mentos and Diet Coke with how full of energy he is, Knuckles and Amy are both prone to letting their temper do the talking, Eggman... is Eggman, and the list goes on. And while there are a number of characters who are more low-key or even outright introverted by comparison, they still tend to exhibit a trait or two that makes them more in-line with the rest of the crowd, be it youthful excitement (Tails, Cream), a fiery temper (Blaze), or the odd bit of cockiness (Shadow).

So what better way to help make Trudy stand out... than by not really having anything like that at all? Contrary to most of the hot-blooded cast, it takes a lot to truly enrage her, and even then, you'll be lucky to get anything past tranquil fury. She's not particularly hammy either - flowery with her language at times, certainly, but not hammy - nor is she a cocky type, even against the weakest or most ridiculous of opponents, and although she does grow as a person over the course of the story she's involved in, all of this remains fairly consistent.

That's not to say that Trudy is not a passionate person. Far from it, in fact. She has a lot of passion. She just shows it in a different way than the average Sonic character.

2. Lutrudis? More like Unsureofdis.

Uncertain characters are also somewhat rare in Sonic's recurring cast (at least in the game universe), and just like with the previous point, even when they're there, they'll usually have something to counter it. Blaze may have been a bit insecure before meeting and befriending Sonic and Co, but as mentioned, she’s got a fierce temper, and even when she started off on her own, she felt that only she could take care of the threat of Eggman and Inferior Eggman Nega. Likewise, while Silver may have doubted himself about Leslie the Crack Dealer’s Iblis Trigger ruse cruise, he still got cocky when he had Sonic on the ropes, and he could be quite full of himself in the Rivals duology as well.

The point being, they still tend to show some semblance of the same “yep, I'm the one for the job, no questions asked” confidence and swagger that nearly everyone else has, no matter the flavor. Trudy, suffice to say, does not have this mentality. Trudy accepting Sonic and Co's help in dealing with sinister affairs in Viridonia without any haughty protest on her part isn't just because she knows they can handle it, or because they're Sonic Heroes and they'll show 'em the real superpower of teamwork... it's also because she's genuinely not sure if she would be able to take care of the matter on her own.

When she saved Cream from the wrath of the Wraith for example, she wasn't thinking “This looks like a job for Miss Hadeer!”

She was thinking “This could very well get me killed, but I have to help the poor bunny somehow...”

In other words, Trudy doesn't consider herself to be some sort of destined protector who has to do this herself. She constantly second guesses herself, and frequently believes her friends are more qualified and competent than she is. Her only reason for doing her best and helping out regardless is simply because she wants to.

3. A light at the end of the tunnel.

For the sake of tact, it's not shoved in your face relentlessly, but reading between the lines, it can be easy to get a sense of melancholy from Trudy. Particularly due to past experiences, she does indeed have an element of depression within her, and this can occasionally show in her body language and facial expressions, even if she's currently feeling positive emotions.

And yet, notice how she continues being a friendly pony. Notice how regardless of her experiences, and her thoughts on said experiences, her actual behaviour is (mostly) free of bitterness or cynicism, and that she doesn't hide the joy that her new friends make her feel. She's not outright ignoring her experiences or pretending they don’t affect her, because they clearly have affected her, and she's never ignored her scars (metaphorically and literally, the latter being a permanent side-effect of her condition), but she knows better than to let it consume her, so she tries her best to look at the bright side of life even during the darkest days.

It's Sonic's opinion that Trudy's inner spirit is a lot stronger than she thinks, with or without his help. Her refusal to give into misery and lash out at the world foreshadows that he's not unjustified in that belief. That, and it ties into the franchise’s usual taste for optimism and idealism against the odds.

4. Hadeer? More like Hadork.

So, everything thus far helps set Trudy up as a mellow, down-to-earth sort of personality. So far, so good. However, it's still the Sonic the Hedgehog universe we're talking about, filled with many colorful characters of all shapes, sizes, and eccentricities. When a franchise has a larger than life cast in a larger than life world, the characters who are meant to be grounded often risk coming off as boring and could end up easily overshadowed, because the creators or writers often neglect to give them any quirks of their own, usually out of fear that it'll disgrace the character's gracefulness. In fact, I personally feel this was a common problem with Sally, in both SatAM and Archie (mostly pre-reboot admittedly).

IMO, these writers are just being plain old silly. Just because a character is quirky doesn't mean they forfeit all their dignity altogether. Like a lot of things in life, you just have to balance it out, and that's what I did (or tried to do...) with the green equine.

So yes, Trudy is elegant, but she's also a really goofy dancer. Yes, she's gentle and motherly, but she also goes back and forth between being a heavy sleeper and being an insomniac. Yes, she serves as a warmhearted auntie figure for Cream (and a big sister figure for Amy), but she also spends a quarter of her time looking like a ninja with the way her bandana covers her face (whether it be due to cold weather, strong scents triggering her sensitive nose, or doing it in the presence of villains as a mildly theatrical way of visually conveying her disdain for them).

And of course, in the right situation, she can be just as much of a dork as the titular blue hedgehog is.

Which leads me to my next point...

5. “You might know everything I'm going to do...”

Trudy was created with the intention of having a character who is actually like Sonic himself in a lot of ways, but it's not apparent initially.

This sort of yin-yang contrasting routine has been done before a few times in the series, with Knuckles, Shadow and Blaze being the most obvious examples. But with them, their similarities are easier to spot from a distance. Knuckles is more earth than wind, but you can tell he's as stubborn as Sonic is. Shadow's methods and outlook differ, but you can tell he's still a mirror of Sonic (cause you know, he looks like him). Blaze is more distant, but you can tell how she can easily be just as worked up and angered as Sonic.

With Trudy however, if you take her at face value, you would think she's the exact opposite of Sonic. She's an introvert, he's an extrovert. She's got a calm temperament, he can get impatient even at the best of times. She's quite fancy, he's more rough and tumble. She takes things slowly, he leaps ahead without a care in the world... You would think that, outside of them both fighting for good, they would have nothing in common, and that their dynamic would be more akin to Sonic's relationship with Sally, which although they were friends, their relationship could often be somewhat rocky due to their differences in... basically every area and opinion imaginable.

But then you get to know Trudy, and the unfolding of the adventure reveals the rest of what she has to offer. The aforementioned soldiering on in spite of any depressed moments is in itself a small hint that Trudy shares Sonic's philosophy of never giving up. She believes that most people are good at their core, and while she won't excuse especially evil people or actions and will punish them appropriately (albeit with regret that it had to come to that), she's willing to give a chance to those who are willing to take it, just like with the Blue Blur. Not only does she NOT find Sonic's jokes and hijinks annoying, she actually has a similar sense of humor herself. And while reasonable people generally tend to loathe injustice and oppression, Trudy shares Sonic's uniquely intense contempt for it, and believes in one's own personal freedom just as much as the hedgehog does, let alone freedom in general.

In short, Trudy is what you get when you take Sonic's deeper qualities and general outlook on life, and apply them to a more introverted and taciturn personality. The exact same beliefs, but from a different perspective, so to speak.

6. A different kind of intelligence.

Tails and Eggman are the resident kings of scientific prowess in Sonic's world, and it goes without saying that I wouldn't want to do them a disservice by having Trudy one-up them in that department. But that doesn't mean your character can’t be talented in other areas, right? Contrary to what all those Mary Sue tests dictate, your character can in fact have a high IQ without intruding on an official character’s territory.

Therefore, Trudy is pretty good at innovation and craftsmanship in her own right, but whereas Tails and Eggman do it through technology, her field of expertise is more to do with arts and crafts, and to a lesser extent geology. For example, both her bow and her whip were crafted by the lady herself, using nothing but her decorative knowledge and flair.

Outside of that, she tends to know a fair bit about a lot of things in the world, largely attributed to her photographic memory, meaning she's bound to have a few answers no matter the subject of discussion. Granted, she's unlikely to be the absolute number one expert on any of those things, but she's at least a useful jack of all trades in that regard.

7. Feeling a little horse.

I very much approve and flat out adore the idea of Sonic characters having characteristics that remind the audience of what species they're supposed to be, so I made sure that Trudy had a wide selection of little mannerisms that would reveal her for the little horsie that she is. These include, but aren't limited to...

- When she’s fascinated or concerned by something, she’ll lean a little forward with her hands close to her chest, which subtly mimics the act of prancing.

- When she wakes up, she briefly stretches her arms and legs (albeit not too recklessly so as to risk straining her sensitive limbs).

- Her tail has a number of quirks. If she's happy, it might slowly swish to and fro. If she's REALLY happy, it might flick...

- And if she doesn't approve of someone or something, it might stiffen and raise a little bit, as if to helpfully inform the bad guys where they can kiss, if ya know what I'm saying.

- When she's being affectionate with her friends, she might give them the ol' nuzzle.

- When she's in a playful mood, there might be a little skip in her walk, the anthro equivalent of trotting.

- When she's annoyed, she might humorously let out a snort that sounds identical to a real life horse snort. And while she certainly doesn't neigh in the traditional sense, when she finds something hilarious or Sonic's making her laugh with his antics, her laughter can't help but take on a neigh-like touch to it. (The latter was actually a headcanon suggested by @darklightheart, and I immediately agreed with it because it's cute and funny in equal measures.)

Naturally, she gets all shy and embarrassed when the neigh-laugh comes out, thinking it sounds silly. At least Sonic finds it endearing.

Note that I'm well aware that some of this differs from how real life horses react to certain things. (Eg: tail swishing tends to happen when a horse is agitated rather than happy.) But I freely admit that it's more for the sake of giving the character that extra bit of soul than it is for utmost accuracy. That's the way it goes with fiction sometimes. :P

Interestingly, Trudy tends to get Sonic indulging in a funny hedgehog characteristic of his own. That being, he might curl into a ball if Trudy's being particularly... ~complimentary~ towards him.

And there we are! These are the core elements that make up Trudy’s characterization. If you ever wanted a general list of what makes her tick, then hopefully this post will help in scratching that itch. And if it doesn’t, then hopefully it still proves that more thought was put into her than Scourge. :]

#Lutrudis Hadeer #Sonic Character Design

30 notes · View notes

vedj-f-bekuesu · 4 years

Text

Ninjago Unpopular Opinions

Following on from my watch of the entire old series (combined with already having seen the last two series), I have enough material to work with to make a sort of unpopular opinion list. Some of these are lightweight, some of these are...uh, not so much.

These aren’t in any particular order, this is more of a “I’ll just put them down as I remember them” sort of deal. That’ll be why they appear so messy.

-Even after all this I prefer the newest seasons to the older stuff. There have been a surprising number of good to great older seasons, but I just love that hit of S1/S2 campiness with the more developed writing of later seasons.

-Cole sucked as a leader, aside from in the pilot episodes. In the series proper he varied from complete meathead I hated (first part of S1), to having the same mentoring personality as everyone else (S1 - S2), to being consumed by the love triangle which made him pull a really shitty move (I don’t need to tell you what that refers to). He eventually gets ironed out in season 4, but Lloyd had already taken over as leader at this point. And rightfully so, even if Lloyd’s material got knocked from season 3 as a result.

-I couldn’t really warm up to Ronin that much for some reason. I get the reason why he’s popular, since it was pretty obvious he was supposed to be like an off-beat mentor figure to Nya, but...I dunno, unlike with Dareth, it felt like his skeevy moments were more off-kilter, plus I didn’t really like his arc in Skybound (even if that was written out of reality). That being said, his was strong in Possession even with said moments. Maybe I just need a future appearance to see how I ultimately swing with him.

-I mentioned this in my Hunted overview, but I think Skylor’s just bland. Part of the problem is that she’s mainly just wedged in as an action girl and doesn’t have too many moments to interact outside of that. That’s mostly reserved for moments where she acts as Agony Aunt (which is fine, that shows that being supportive is in her nature), but she needs more to work with. And as an obvious offshoot, if Kailor is the intended endgame it sucks in its current form. They don’t have chemistry or a decent dynamic.

-The other Ninjago ship I don’t particularly like out of all of them is...actually Geode. Yeah, Rebooted obviously wasn’t good for it considering the love triangle, but what actually did more damage to it for me was Skybound. It went so far in trying to oversteer back that it beat you over the head with the fact they were making Cole and Jay best friends after said love triangle (made really obvious when Jay is worried about Cole’s reaction to him seeing Nya in his reflection in both Possession and Skybound, when Cole isn’t even phased when he’s told). It was just really off-putting.

-Jay is a better big brother figure to Lloyd than Kai. Yeah, Kai’s true potential moment in Rise of the Serpentine hinged on realising he (and the others, mind) were supposed to protect Lloyd, they all spent Legacy of the Green Ninja’s first half being Lloyd’s proper mentors, Zane’s death prompted Kai to hover with thoughts of the Green Ninja again (which seemed to me for different reasons to being envious of power at the start, although its handling was very clunky after that), and he had the first episode in Possession which was arguably the strongest showing of a dynamic with Lloyd, but Possession didn’t have much about it outside of said episode, and the show seemed to just forget it from that point beyond some very, very fleeting and sparse bits. In the more modern seasons, it feels like Jay’s stepped up to be more supportive of Lloyd on a more consistent basis (which would make sense with the common fanon that Jay is the youngest of the original Ninja, he’d be closer to Lloyd’s age). It’s something I kind of want tapped into in a proper way at some point.

-Sensei Garmadon is a bit overrated. Just a smidge. When he’s good, he’s good, but most of the time he’s no more interesting than Wu would be in the same position. And I feel like they didn’t really develop his fatherly bond with Lloyd too well despite that being what his character was there for. Again, aside from moments where he was really good.

-Most underrated season of the old batch for me was the last minute shock, March of the Oni. I did enjoy Day of the Departed (which has a worse reputation), but I can understand why someone wouldn’t like it considering how bare it was. March of the Oni is far from my favourite season but I thought it came together really well, so the fact it’s generally panned legitimately confuses me. I guess Hands of Time would be a contender too, but I think opinion on that has swayed in its favour after the new seasons came out (and Secrets of the Forbidden Spinjutsu would be here if I included the new batch) so that’s why it’s edged out.

-Most overrated season for me was undeniably Tournament of Elements. It’s not my least favourite season, but Rebooted and Hunted are pretty maligned to begin with, while Tournament of Elements is usually considered one of the top ones. It starts strong, has an interesting premise and there are ideas that are executed well. The thing is that the elements that people tend to praise the season for are ones I actually think the writers dropped the ball on, hence why this ended up the toughest season to get to the end of, even more than Hunted. It’s a shame, but it’s just not for me.

-Best ninja suits...honestly, I don’t really notice the suits unless they’re really bad, because I’m used to franchises where costume changes mark radical permanent redesigns, and are not just par for the course of the brand (it makes perfect sense with a toy brand who want to sell you the same characters over and over again but still). Not counting the S11 suits since they weren’t part of the old batch, I guess I’d honestly say the ZX suits, maybe? They’re simple, but they’re cute and very distinct. Also Sons of Garmadon Cole channelling the Movie costume was a very good move (and arguably looks even better ripped up in Hunted aethetically), and Kai’s suit was bleh in Sons of Garmadon but its overhaul in Hunted was way better. Also, just as a wildcard, Rebooted Lloyd looks like a more finely tuned ZX suit. Actually, just one last bit on a tangent to note a difference the show makes to the figures that demonstrates the figures’ limitations. For Kai and Jay’s S11 suits, their figures invoke similar feels (because underneath the accessories they do have a lot in common), whereas they feel very different in the show because while Jay sticks to the figure and looks snug, Kai has a lot exposed around the neckline, as if his gi is hanging loosely on the shoulders and should join Cole in the “For fucks sake it’s an ice realm wear a jacket please” club.

-Worst ninja sui--what the hell happened to Cole and Nya in Hands of Time?! Nya’s main issue is that it’s trying to work too many colours and they just don’t mesh well. I think this was the time they were partially adapting the movie’s change, but they were clinging onto her having red to both represent Samurai X and her ties to her brother, but they should have just picked one or the other because it just doesn’t work the way it did in Skybound. And Cole’s outfit is just hideous. Its balance of colours and accents is all off-kilter, and to top it off the shoes just don’t work and somehow look like socks with sandals. I didn’t know that was doable with a whole suit. Finally, on a general note, I’m not a fan of when the suits are all very similar bar some very, very minor differences. One could argue that it makes them look more like a team, but I prefer the individual personality to come out.

-It’s hard to judge the best and worst episodes, honestly. The seasons from Tournament of Elements onwards are done so tied to each other that picking an episode is rather difficult outside of designated finales (or the odd Jay-focused/Zane-focused episodes that happened in seasons 7, 8 and 9). I guess for best I’d say stuff like The Quiet One, or The Fall, or Grave Danger, or stuff like that would be up there. Worst episodes in those seasons are even harder, because usually it’s how arcs over episodes are written that get to me, not individual episodes. This all being said, it’s much easier to do this with the more episodic first three seasons, and to that end I would still say that Tick Tock is my favourite standalone episode still, and Home is still my least favourite. For all the times the writing has dropped the ball, nothing has legitimately pissed me off more than what this episode did because it’s in its own category of bad writing.

-There have been some concepts thrown in that, while they definitely wouldn’t work out in the long term, make for interesting snippets of what-ifs. Like, I loved the bit where Jay was a show host and got around the stage using his lightning powers. That seems like such a natural fit outside of his ninja identity I wish I’d thought of it. Imagine Bradley Walsh using lightning to get around the studio, that would be metal as fuck.

-On the other side of that coin, the bizarro Ninja are the single most overrated concept in the show. I don’t like Scourge the Hedgehog to begin with, but he at least had some efforts to make him unique (that fell flat, but eh). The bizarro Ninja are the equivalent of Evil Sonic; cliche and undeveloped. They’re not even useful for the cliche idea of framing the actual Ninja since even though they’re seen doing delinquent behaviour, this is never addressed. Heck Nadakhan was more effective with this idea. Thing is that I can’t blame the show at all for this. While the concept is naff, the show itself treats them as they actually were; Garmadon’s puppets and the scheme of the episode. Aside from bizarro Jay’s behaviour to Nya being full of unfortunate implications, there is no greater purpose for their existence, and the show never tries to do it again. It’s really the fans that have inflated their appearance in this case because I guess the idea of “take this nice character and give them an evil version” is just so appealing to the teenage demographic. Screw that, corruption is way more fun and interesting.

-What I can blame the show for is the single worst execution of an idea, because to this point I still consider Kai’s green ninja “arc” in Tournament of Elements to be the single worst executed arc (yeah, even worse than the love triangle, but that one is still bad). The sad thing is it managed to convince me that it wasn’t such a bad concept when they explained it by being an offshoot of his depression following Zane’s death (before that I was very sceptical it could fit it in naturally after the last three seasons). But then it was used once when Skylor tried to get Kai to stab Lloyd in the back during the skating match (which Kai completely rebuffed and seemed over his depression-rooted negative vibes on Lloyd), and once more when he was overcome by the power of the staff. The latter is especially infuriating since this would have been the perfect opportunity for a character moment. Like, Lloyd and/or Skylor could have fought to get Kai out of the trance of the staff and see that his friends mean more to him than having power. It practically writes itself and is a perfect set-up. What happens instead is that Cole is technically the one to save Kai from himself as he rams the Roto Jet into the chamber and makes the rocky serpentine structure come crashing down on Kai. Maybe interesting to read into if you want a Lava reading of the show, but in that moment is just a wasted opportunity. Come on!

-Actually, also talking about other bad concepts, I don’t miss those weird energy dragons they could summon starting from Tournament of Elements. The dragons in Rise of the Serpentine/Legacy of the Green Ninja were fine because they had a logical reason for being there and actually were integrated into the plot (so you got to watch them being maintained and having moments with the ninja). The energy dragons in Tournament of Elements existed for one character as a plot thing (Zane’s, because he always had the good plots in the earlier seasons), but then everyone else suddenly could do it too and they became convenient plot devices and nothing else. Airjutsu I was more okay with because it seems more like a tool they’d use and could be integrated better, but I can also see why that stopped being used (outside of that one bit in Prime Empire).

-The Elemental Masters are both over-hyped and underdeveloped. The normal civilian cast really got the shaft once the series decided it wanted to explore this lore, yet the only ones I really got interested in in any way were the villain EMs and Karlof. And even Karlof is overlooked by the fandom, by the looks of it.

-Jay actually came off the best in the Rebooted love triangle. He’s not entirely perfect, but he is essentially the biggest victim as a result of it in that season, and what Nya and Cole did either bordered on or was outright callous for different reasons. I think if people gave Jay the biggest shtick for Rebooted’s events, it’s influenced with how Skybound botched trying to patch it up.

-The movie was a net positive influence on the show. Aside from me preferring the designs of the movie anyway, it forced the characterisation to actually pick a lane for each character and stick to it, mitigating a lot of the haphazard characterisation issues. The inconsistency in later seasons is tone instead, which is maybe why people thought the characterisation was inconsistent between Sons of Garmadon/Hunted and March of the Oni/SotFS (when really, they weren’t that different if at all). The show also made a good call in ignoring movie Zane’s characterisation; as much as I enjoy it in the film, it really didn’t gel up with what the show had done with him, so trying to force it in would have been more of a characterisation jolt than any of the early season stuff.

-I’m generally fine with Jaya and Pixane. The former I can see why people would be off about it because there have been some badly written periods for them, but I think on the whole it manages to hold it together. The latter was written in surprisingly smoothly given the circumstances, so it’s no wonder I don’t see discourse about it.

-Oh yeah, I don’t get Wu/Faith as a ship. Like, she was the cool drill instructor/aunt to everyone, including Wu. This is a quick one because it’s just a very small aside.

-Also I can’t really get behind Polyninja either. If the characters had a fairly even spread of interaction and moments between each other I could, but the spread ends up like lots of moments between Cole and Kai varying from little moments to huge dollops, and Cole and Jay having a whole best friends affirmation arc due to the fallout of the love triangle, to Kai and Jay having barely anything to work with and anyone with Zane getting a couple of table scraps occasionally. It’s not even enough.

-Following on from that though, Zane feels the least integrated with the group dynamic in general. He’s has some of the best plots and stories in the show, but nearly all of them have been focusing on him solo. And not even SotFS or Prime Empire helped with this one. Hopefully MoM can smooth this one out a bit.

-Finally for this post, after going through all those seasons I still prefer Nya’s movie voice to her show voice by a significant margin. Sorry Kelly Metzger.

I think that’s it. I’ve actually been on this for a week but I’ve been allowing time for more thoughts to come to me, because there have been a lot of thoughts coming in batches. I think I’ll leave it at this though, because I think most of it is covered pretty well.

I have at least two more text posts like this planned, but they’re not strictly about the old seasons so I’ve left them for after. I’m looking forward to them though, because they’re on specific topics and that is my bread and butter pudding.

#ninjago #vedj-f talks #rambling is second nature to me #it's also my first nature

28 notes · View notes

sonicfanj · 4 years

Note

Hi! I saw your response from a post related to idw! Amy from the last number of the comic. For some reason I don't feel satisfied with the way idw is handling amy and your response got my interest cause you mentioned really good points. I don't know if you want to continue to talk about the topic but if you do I would love to read more about your point of view Thanks for reading

I rant quite a bit about how IDW Amy has been handled as a good deal of it is a betrayal to her character concept which you can hear Kazuyuki Hoshino explain himself here.

https://youtu.be/0nzxRoIX4QU?t=2315

Sorry I can’t embed in an “Answer”, but the general gist of it is, Amy was created as a character who was to be the Minnie Mouse to Sonic’s Mickey Mouse, but as Sonic is not that type of character they needed to mix it up. As was very true of the early franchise where traditions were turned upside down for the time such as Tails being a nerd and athletic enough to keep up with Sonic while Amy was both a girly-girl and a tomboy at the same time, Sonic and Amy’s relationship was inverted from guy chasing after the girl to much less commonly seen girl chases after guy trope. So Amy could actually survive in a role as the love interest of the main character where she had to the chasing of a character always seeking out his next adventure and challenge she needed to have the energy, good cheer, and optimism to never give up chasing him and the willingness to partake in and love his lifestyle.

Early on you would see this in the Japanese manuals so naturally they were missed outside of Japan, but localization and not bringing content out of Japan (no less cases of Amy erasure by SEGA of America with her even having several scenes cut from the western airing of Sonic X removing a lot of her humanizing scenes showing she was a well meaning girl but acts on a foundation based on having the necessary energy to keep chasing Sonic unendingl) still did not stop that foundation from appearing in the games that brought her into the forefront of Sonic stories. The Sonic Adventure games.

Now there is a lot here that could be unpacked, but I’m going to focus on two moments.

1) At the beginning of her story Amy laments her boredom and pines for Sonic to be in her life again so she can enjoy excitement again like she did back when he was around. This out of the gate shows you that Amy detests being bored, yet IDW has her actively announce it at one point while doing Restoration paperwork, and also has Sonic have to practically drag her out on an adventure.

So not only is she betraying her character by refusing to do what she was created to do, with even her great handling in issue 2 has her actively reject her own character function, but when she is pulled out onto an adventure what is her reward? Well of course the start of the Zombot crisis, in which she gets to see herself maim someone and then see Sonic infected with the same stuff. From there her role in the entire arc is to just be a mouthpiece for how bad the crisis is on a global scale. Yet her character foundation states this should not be the case.

At one point during the Zombat arc we see Cream after losing Cheese and Chocola have to cheer up Amy who can’t herself understand how Cream is able to smile. Yet before this point, Amy’s history has always shown her to be the one who keeps people optimistic, who doesn’t let people get down, who always has the energy and ability to believe in Sonic saving the day in the end and is able to smile because of that. So again, not only is her character down and betraying who she is supposed to be, but a character she should be cheering up is instead cheering her up. Who Amy is and the foundation for her character is completely absent, and again, Amy is sitting still instead of taking action and going out into the world and doing her best in her way. Her adventurous spirit and get out and do something attitude are completely absent.

2) Now, the other line from the Adventure games which shows a problem with Amy just growing lifeless in a dark room is from Adventure 2 where aboard the Arc she complains about how the boys always leave her behind. She’s there because she wants to be and has done everything she can throughout the game to keep up, and started by infiltrating Prison Island and acquiring a key card to Sonic’s cell. She is demonstrated to be proactive and again has a love for adventure and a desire to travel with Sonic. Yet again this is actively ignored in IDW to plug her into a role in the Zombot Arc meant for Sally Acorn during the Archie New 252 run.

Ian Flynn has on record stated that the Metal Virus Arc was originally meant for Archie starting at or a little after issue 300. It was inspired by the “Metal” skins from Sonic Heroes and would have seen the Freedom Fighters tested against the horror of the Arhieverse version of Eggman like never before. At this point though a problem becomes abundantly clear, and that’s that you have a role to fill where Sally Acorn is absent in a more gamecentric setting. How Amy ended up in the roll is in part due to Ian Flynn typically righting characters and only really being able to use Amy, though he has admitted it’s not a role he believes she should have. Yet SEGA OKed it and for the Zombot Arc Amy has had to become Sally Acorn. Instead of being the cheerful girl who chases after Sonic and does her best to keep up with and help Sonic she has become the girl in charge he checks in on. Instead of being out in the field leading through motivation, encouragement, and example, she has become a war room tactician. These roles all fit Sally to a tee and she is a character designed to be able to serve the purposes of those roles and thrive in them. It is what she was made to do after all; lead a desperate group of mismatched people through an impossible situation. That is her core role and part of why she doesn’t work for the games where the narrative is simply where is Sonic now and what is he getting involved in. But for the Zombot Arc she was perfect, yet Archie’s bunglings put an end to that and to force his story into only the second story arc of a new comic before the characters had room to grow and become established with distinct identities in IDW, he took Amy and shoved her into Sally’s skin in what is one of the worst ill fitting results I’ve ever seen. She is at almost no point in the arc given even a single moment that speaks from the foundation of her character as she can’t for the sake of he plot. The plot needed Sally Acorn, but Amy was the only one available to fill the role, and as is typical when Sally is needed, Amy gets mistreated, misused, and winds up getting nothing in the end except more comfortless stress and worries with none of her actual character there to show she can actually smile through it all.

The funny thing is though, Amy’s actual character makes it into the Zombot Arc. It’s one of the best written scenes in the whole arc and occurs at a point when Sonic really needs that traditional Amy spunk to put the spring back in his step. In fact, the way the whole scene is written it is likely had the story been told in Archie it would have been the moment when Amy fell to the Metal Virus. And I would not have been mad in the least. In fact, I would have been eagerly anticipating Sonic’s eventual victory to see her faith rewarded and her sacrifice rewarded. Unfortunately though the scene was handed off to someone else, and I have had a hard time appreciating the character since as a result.

You see, in IDW there is a very energetic character who shares most of Amy’s core traits. Energetic, optimistic, and almost always full of good cheer. Where they differ is in their secondary traits, or more accurately the traits they don’t share with Amy. Being romantic, in love with Sonic, childish, occasionally bratty, and very old-fashioned girly. Those five secondary traits are completely absent from this character, and as a result, anytime they do something Amy would based on the otherwise same foundation they get praised where Amy would have been derided simply for being Amy. But the peak of it is again a moment that felt 100% like it was meant for Amy but as she was assigned to be Sally couldn’t have it. And yet, no one seems to notice, but rather cheers the entire scenario because Sonic needed that hug and physical contact. He needed those words of a faith that is placed solely in him. He needed to see that ability to smile and stay optimistic even when infected, and keep giving their all with boundless energy, good cheer and optimism. He needed Amy Rosy, Rosy the Rascal, the pink hedgehog girl who has followed him as best she can since Sonic CD. But instead, Amy’s very foundation and role was cheered not when carried out by Amy, but instead when carried out by relative new comer with none of the history or even reason to have faith in Sonic like he needed in that scene, Tangle the Lemur. And the scene was cheered even more due to the love that Whisper the Wolf has as her despair at losing the first friend she allowed herself to have since she lost everything just drove it completely home for everyone. And don’t get me wrong, the issue was brilliant written. Just enough was done to make sure you knew it was Tangle and not Amy at a casual glance. But I don’t look at scenes that scream Amy at me from the start casually. Her and Sonic are easily my favorite characters, so when I see her role being played by someone else you can bet I notice. And Tangle played it brilliantly.

But what did Amy get as a reward for playing Sally’s role in this issue? What else? She had to play the role of the incompetent villain. They barely saved anyone. Another town was lost on her watch. She had hold Whisper back from going out to try in vain to save Tangle. It would have been quite engaging to see Sally challenged as a leader of people and crisis manager as she specializes in it and this arc would have been great to see her character deconstructed and see what really makes her work. Instead, Amy was given her role when she has no business having it, and is shown to be completely worthless after a scene that reads like it was handcrafted for was played out by another character. And of course, that other character when finally cured even gets another huge hug, while Amy is left watching the skies to despair.

It’s hard to see Amy as being treated well by IDW when you really break it down, but because she has been stripped of her character and generally sidelined, her detractors are pleased and as new fans don’t know any better they can’t see what is wrong no less call it out. She played her role in the plot as written so time to move on. She doesn’t matter beyond that, though fans of Amy Acorn/Sally Rose have surely been born as a result, and as an actual Amy Rose/Rosy the Rascal fan that hurts as one of my favorite characters will continue to be slowly killed off as her heart and sole is siphoned out of her and only a shallow doppelganger is left in her place.

Thanks for the Ask anon. I hope that rant and breakdown wasn’t too long or cynical, and that it clearly illustrates why at least I’m not happy with IDW Amy. Maybe even it will help you reflect and see why you aren’t satisfied with her either.

Of course though I rant quite a bit about the franchise in general and have a whole list of other rants of mine you can track down by dropping ‘rant’ into my blog’s search bar. Though that won’t connect you to these four from twitter (though one is kind of segmented)

https://twitter.com/kokoloko45/status/1284905784531398661 (Quite a bit of ranting in here though you have to fish around through the replies to find it)

https://twitter.com/JoshTarwater/status/1283088147576795137 (this one I go off quite a bit about the depreciating meta narrative of the IP)

https://twitter.com/JoshTarwater/status/1254439910422925312 (And this one I go into where I see Amy’s character as mishandled and the necessary steps as I see it to put her back on track)

Thank you again anon, it was a pleasure to answer, even if it did get me riled up again XD

4 notes · View notes

doctorguilty · 4 years

Text

ok you’ve all been waiting for it my thoughts on the sonic movie!!!

under cut cause long

so overall! I really liked the movie! I think it sorta landed pretty in the ballpark of what I sorta expected quality-of-plot wise and how much I’d be entertained by it. which is satisfying!!! I’m going to like, stream of thought this, starting with some criticisms which are gonna be kinda hefty cause im critiquing something I care about

so right away I really disliked the “record scratch so this is me I bet you’re wondering how I got in this situation” opening like I’m not sure if it was intentionally a self aware joke on that being cliche and dumb but it does like, really frustrate me cause my philosophy for most stories is Start your story where it begins!! which made the backstory infodump more frustrating on top of that, like, I think that’s an easy mistake to make to want to spill your Backstory right away but it’s not necessary! the audience doesn’t NEED to know immediately what sonic was like in his homeworld and his tragic separation from it. we already have the audiences suspension of disbelief in play because they know they’re watching.. a movie about sonic the hedgehog in the real world. I think the backstory stuff would have been much more impactful as a flashback later on, especially when sonic’s whole arc is how lonely and isolated he is. it would be a better punch in the heart to later on be like so by the way as a child his guardian probably died and sent him to earth for his own safety. so that was like AUGH you blew it

next up that i think was unnecessary like, completely, was establishing that sonic already knew the main cop guy and his wife (omg I already forgot their names..because they were not memorable but we’ll get to that fjdsg) and like, secretly immersed himself into their life that’s ?? odd to me? I think it would have been fine to just have sonic be like attached to the whole small town and he thinks the cop is cool and calls him donut lord, and that’s the extent of it like cause the problem is later down the plot when sonic finds out cop guy is leaving green hills and flips out about it.. I’m like, not sure if I believe sonic, immersing himself in their life, had NOT known that was a thing cop guy wanted to do like he NEVER heard about that??? but that’s like whatever

I don’t really like the cop guy as the protag human like. oof he was very bland and I’m trying to figure out how to put this into words............ I feel like a character like him isn’t someone the audience can really connect to. this guy has a virtually perfect life with a house and a dog and a job and a wife, his Conflict is that he wants to move to california and see more action and save people, but the WEIRDEST thing about it is that the prospect of leaving his little town behind isn’t really shaking him up at all. it shakes SONIC up later, but up until that point.... the cop just has legit a perfect life and it’s kinda sad because sonic appearing in it physically becomes something that immediately has the effect of “starting to ruin it” and thats why the cop is so like, mean about things at first.

see I don’t really like that it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. if I were to rewrite this keeping the general ideas in mind, I would have opted for a ... paul blart crossed with judy hopps. a guy who’s life isn’t all in order, maybe not living in trash but he doesn’t have a wife, he DREAMS of being a cop and saving people, but he doesn’t quite have what it takes physically/mentally or maybe he’s too afraid to even try. he loves his rural town but thinks like, maybe if I move to the big city I’ll find myself maybe he’s offered a job there for something boring and is like resigning to a boring life idk there’s a lot you can do but you get the idea! a lonely underdog with big dreams. so when Sonic comes into his life, its WAY more impactful to paul hopps.....judy blart...... that Sonic pleads for help saving his life and this sudden adventure isn’t ruining his life either.

then LATER when we get to sonic being upset that paul hopps wants to leave, it’s less this awkward confrontation “how dare you wanna live your already in motion dreams somewhere ELSE because people love you HERE” (like .. oof bad take tbh) it would be a much nicer “why do you want to leave your home to become a hero when everyone here already sees you as one” and instead of the shabby like “well I guess I’ll stay because i crossed off saving someone from my bucket list” paul hopps would feel fulfilled he saved sonic and I actually you know what? I’d change up the whole scene with the turtle to be at the end where paul hopps becomes a cop in green hills and he like, saves a turtle crossing the road and is like! that’s what its all about being a hero! like thats cute and resonates with an audience, the message like, being a hero just means being kind and doing the right thing, which is way more suitable for a sonic movie when the sonic series has always been a campy power of friendship thing.

in a similar vein, the cop being a lonely underdog would give him a better connection with sonic, so that even if he was annoyed by him at first he’d later have the understanding they’re one in the same, you know? connections people!! themes!!!!

anyway but enough of that au

so the last thing I’m like iffy about is how robotnik was handled. like jim carry is funny and stuff but it felt like a bit of a mess like, this character is repeatedly reminding us what a hard ass I’M SUPERIOR THAN YOU MY IQ IS HUGE but then being super mega goofy, like I’m all for eccentric scientists but it felt kind of disconnected? and idk like not to be that guy but man.. i remember when sonic 06 came out and everyone hated how eggman was slimmed down to what he looked like in that game jfkdfsgksdj like my brain really doesn’t find a fully slender bodied eggman palatable like......... let my mans be fat ... WHICH tbh I’m a little nervous because at the end of the movie we see this implication that robotnik is turning more visually into the eggman we know with the stache and bald head but I’m worried they’re gonna also go with “and he also gets fat” cause I don’t like that sort of thing, you know?

i think that’s all for my major criticisms!! but otherwise like! the movie was genuinely really fun and goofy and it felt very in spirit with the sonic franchise!

if you read bogleech’s post I agree with him whole heartedly that this is the best characterization of sonic. it feels almost like?????? the characterization he was MEANT To have but he always ended up going TOO MUCH in the direction of confident and cocky and being too cool and successful about it? I love sonic with that hyper teenager-like personality, it’s incredibly charming and cute, like I never Hated sonic as a character but he was defs like... lower on my list of characters in the franchise I found interesting. I felt like I could connect with movie sonic a lot and like! i’d want to be his friend, you know? I really really want to see more of him like that!

I also agree big time that the movie had the best use of bullet time I’ve ever seen! I’m like omg?? WHY hasnt that ever been a mechanic in a game?

and overall just like the cuteness like............I literally almost cried when the little girl gave sonic her shoes like AAAAAAAAAAAAA WEEPS............ and the end with sonic getting his own room thats so super cute too!!!!

oh and the post credits scene with tails was SO FUCKING HYPE like, people in the theater audibly gasped and started being like YESSSSSSS tails looks really great!

so like YEAH dabs ,, being a story snob aside it was a fun and cute movie and I’m glad to hear it trumped detective pikachu for a video game movie I’m glad it’s brought some attention to the sonic franchise! like while it’s cool in some aspects that Nerd Culture is mainstream now, it’s absolutely exhausting the HUGE focus on that is marvel and DC and all that stuff........ like theres nothing wrong w/ liking that but its like.. hm.... idk how to explain it but................. as someone who was bullied a lot in school for liking things like sonic.. like I guess stuff like that people usually see as lame stuff for babies??? superheroes are more like, macho and palatable to adults?? it’s been a good experience for all my normie coworkers to ask what I did for valentines day and I tell them “I saw the sonic the hedgehog movie” and I BRACE myself reflexively to be laughed at but not a single person did they were just like oh cool! how was it? like it really makes me appreciate I got to at least grow up and feel a little more accepted!

so THATS my thoughts feel free to comment and discuss!

#seth speaks

6 notes · View notes

skull001 · 5 years

Text

To me, the "classic trio" of Sonic, Tails and Knuckles will always be an incomplete team that only exists because $ega/$onic Team wants to pander to the juicy S3&K no$talgia as much as possible. At the most, the only team I see in it is just Sonic and Tails with Knuckles shoehorned as a third wheel.

I remember years ago when one person at the Sega forums commented how Amy had nothing to contribute, which is a statement as full of bullcrap as what the once manager of the Sonic 4 brand, Ken Balough, once said of how "Sonic, Tails and Knuckles are all the franchise needs.

Just from pure aesthetics, I always liked how Amy's mere presence softened the primary colors of Sonic, Tails and Knuckles in such a ways that pretty much mirrors how her character can bring harmony to the group.

As a member of the group, Amy is not just the heart of the team, but also it's moral compass. This is because out of all characters, Amy is the one who instead of seeking justice, retribution or revenge, what she wants is for everyone, even those who took a wrong path in life, to be happy. Her heart is always in the right place and this can help the others, especially characters like Sonic and Knuckles to not loose sight of what they are fighting for.

In terms of interactions with each member, I think one that I like the most is how Amy provides Knuckles with the kind of understanding and comfort that neither Sonic or Tails can provide to him. Sonic is someone who prefers to rely on playful jokes and isn't exactly the most ideal character to really sit diwn with and talk about what troubles one. Tails probably can feel sympathy for Knuckles, but I really don't see him wanting to stay behind with the echidna and be separated from Sonic (not because Tails is obsessed with Sonic or anything like that. It's simply that he is a kid who acts upon what he really wants to do, which in this case is hanging with Sonic). In the last Sonic Universe issues, I saw how Amy offers a friendly ear, being willing to listen to Knuckles and help him out of his insecurities and doubts. In Sonic Boom, we see her being the one who defends Knuckles the fiercest from a scammer that was taking advantage of him. Where Sonic is someone who just doesn't have that much patience because of his itch for getting on the move to go looking for the next big adventure, Amy is a character that does not mind taking all the necessary time to help her friends. Perhaps this friendship is what would give Knuckles the motivation to become more involved in the group, since Amy would provide Knux with the appreciation that he has always needed and wanted, similar to how Sonic makes Tails feel valued.

With Tails, I think Amy's go-getter determination can give Tails the needed motivation to do things instead of stay behind like in the last games. We've already have seen these two working as a team in the past, combining their talents to become stronger and achieve those things that they would not be able to pull on their own, much like when Tails and Amy went to rescue Sonic from GUN's secret military prision in SA2. Likewise, Tails more common-sense way of thinking and caution would keep Amy from giving in to her bravado and get in more trouble than what she can actually handle.

In regards to Sonic, while there isn't really much Sonic could need in terms of fighting power, none the less having Amy's moral support is something that gives the blue boy further incentive to do his best and win the day, knowing that he has not just one, but two very loyal friends in Tails and Amy who believe in him like no one else can. Plus, I also see Amy as that younger sister-like figure who calls her surrogate family for their mischief, even if it means comming off as bossy, but done because she really cares for them. Although as the lead female, Amy does offer an interesting contrast with Sonic: Sonic believes in himself because he has the power to make a difference thanks to his special abilities. Amy on the other hand, makes a difference by believing in "YOU". Where Sonic takes charge of things, Amy supports the others so that everyone makes it to their goal, together. Amy always brings the best in those she interacts with.

Personally, I don't know what the hell was Sonic Team thinking by continuing to push the "classic trio" after 1998 when Sonic Adventure secured Amy's permanent stay in the franchise. I remember there was once a time in the 2000's when Amy was as much part of the franchise's face along Sonic, Tails and Knuckles, but then they kind of chickened out.

Whatever the reason may be, all I know is that they's wrong, and making a mistake by sidelining Amy as if she was non-important, when in fact it's her who can bring genuine unity to the team and evolve it into something more: family. Heck, in Sonic Boom when Knuckles was having a crisis from needing a place, a group of people to belong to, it's Amy who reminds him that his friends ARE his family.

Why does Sonic Team insist on settling for so little (the "trio") when they could go for so much more with the quartet? It doesn't make sense... Unless the same BS excuses ("Amy is a girl", "She's not classic enough", "She's pink", "she wasn't in the Genesis trilogy") come into play.

#Sonic theHedgehog #Amy Rose #Miles Tails Prower #Knuckles the Echidna #opinion

26 notes · View notes

geek-gem · 5 years

Text

Maria Robotnik is Uncle Ben

This is something I wanted to reveal for a long time to the Sonic fandom of how I see Maria Robotnik in the Sonic franchise.

I just put it as the title of this because it will get traction hopefully. But literally...

Maria Robotnik is the Uncle Ben of the Sonic franchise.

Why am I saying this? Because her death is what drives the or gets the story going in Sonic Adventure 2. Especially for Shadow and Gerald’s characters. Along with Shadow learning to move on from her.

Think I’ll say also she dies in every continuity she’s been in. But the real point is her death is what starts the shit that goes down in Sonic Adventure 2.

Yet okay it’s different or similar to Peter Parker/Spider-Man. Okay he wanted vengeance first but realized it was his fault, and inspires him to fight crime. With Shadow he wants vengeance on just the entire human race, yet he remembers his final moments with Maria and realizes who he’s become.

Really though you can be critical of Sonic Adventure 2 and how it’s story was handled. I agree with some criticisms. But the whole point is I wanted to reveal how I saw Maria and how her role is.

So please correct me if I’m saying anything wrong. You can kind of laugh at this because....yeah it’s like Uncle Ben....similar thing Uncle Ben and Maria stay dead...unless it’s comic books where we have different dimensions but that’s fucking Marvel. Besides I haven’t seen any dimension or something where Maria lives. Yet I do think her NIDS disease would of killed her later in life maybe.

Another point they both get shot...I wanna make a comparison to Batman’s parents but that’s kind of a different story....really yes these are different. Or whatever I’m rambling besides Shadow didn’t say, “Not my problem” XD....okay dark but you get the point hopefully. The idea is Maria like Uncle Ben, and Batman’s parents, their deaths cause a major impact on characters...okay this can be said about other characters but whatever.

Edit the point is her death had meaning. Something like that and it really affected the character of Shadow. Yet I do like the cute AU’s of her growing up to be a older person. I was in the Maria Robotnik tag.

I wanna say this, if Shadow ever gets introduced into a movie, I want them to do his story justice. While I understand Maria’s death was too dark for the franchise. You can change the story of Sonic Adventure 2 if you want. But just keep that whole idea of Maria was killed and it had consequences later in the future. Yet I’ve read some where her dying from the NIDS would of been affected too. I just want that development of Shadow to be respected and even I feel some changes should be made. With it not being, “Oh shit I just remembered Maria didn’t want this” with his story being something like he can’t let go and he’s purposely ignoring those final moments because he’s angry and traumatized by those moments. Where he would rather lash out on the world instead. Okay unless other people tell me better ideas and I’m not trying to be rude, I’m open. Now I’ve rambled on too long in this edit. I just hope that part of Shadow’s story is respected if his story was ever adapted. It’s like you can’t do Shadow’s story without Maria unless your basically Boom Shadow. Yet also it’s like you can’t do Chaos without Tikal in his story.

#sonic the hedgehog #maria robotnik #shadow the hedgehog

24 notes · View notes

skaruresonic · 5 months

Note

About Sonic 3, I feel the only reason the fandom (and what I assume is non-fandom becayse most of their exposure to Maria as a character amounts to "she dies lmao") wants to see her death on-screen so much is because it'll be a "funni maymay" like "this kid-friendly movie has a freaking child get shot on-screen, funniest shit I've ever seen".

Like, remember the very first trailer for the first movie? Did you know that a good number of recent comments under it are actually sad that the movie didn't turn out as bad as it could have been and wasn't a "giant memefest" that people could "enjoy" in an ironic sense? It's just the lowest hanging fruit for those who just want to meme on the movie.

Tangent, but I'm actually interested to see how much this crowd overlaps with the crowd which swears up and down that Mr. Principles is Quintessential Sonic, and if you don't agree, something must be wrong with you on a moral and psychological level. Folks who cry the moral high ground the hardest tend to make for the biggest hypocrites lol.

Dead Maria jokes are nothing new. Fandom's cracked them since time immemorial. The thing is, though, I would think that 23 years since SA2's release, people would be past that and maybe try to follow in ST's stead of giving her life more importance than her death. Because there is absolutely merit to the idea that she only died to give the men around her something to angst about... But the solution to that isn't to voyeuristically focus on her demise to the point of making it a meme?

---

(and what I assume is non-fandom because most of their exposure to Maria as a character amounts to "she dies lmao")

Well, considering nonfans seldom respect Sonic as a franchise because of muh inconsistency, I'm inclined to not give their opinion any merit. They can come back when they've played the games. Not holding my breath for that one lol.

I'm just baffled that fans are also clamoring to see Maria get shot onscreen because it's like, et tu, Brutus? You should be past this kind of childishness by now. Much like how Shadow's backstory cannot retroactively become any Deeper by cramming in more pointless angst, seeing her die for the hundredth time will make her death seem more overplayed than poignant. At this point, asking to see her die is just a voyeuristic desire to see suffering for suffering's sake.

Also, if you think about it, neither X nor ShTH showed her explicitly getting shot. They just heavily implied it, to varying degrees of tastefulness (including the sound of the gunshot was... not ShTH's best decision, to put it extremely lightly, but at the very least the game didn't show the bullet going into her body).

I really don't mean to be the "don't have fun" guy. However, seeing everything about Maria online get boiled down to her death, her memory being dangled like a carrot to get a Pavlovian reaction out of Shadow, or her being dismissed entirely as a "generic" character really bugs me as a fan of the character. I'll be the first to admit her handling has flaws and maybe isn't the most fleshed-out portrayal around, but I also feel fandom exacerbates these problems by further objectifying her in this manner. Again, nobody's out here cracking Tikal stampede jokes every time her name crops up.

The whole point of Maria's character is that she's a normal girl, and it is a tragedy that her life was senselessly cut short. She isn't some great scientist like her cousin and grandfather, nor does she need to be. She represents humanity's capacity for goodness in spite of the horrors it inflicts.

Can you imagine the strength of character it must take not to hate the people who hunted you down and shot you, and instead retain your hopes for mankind's happiness? Where do you think Shadow gets it from? Gerald didn't give him a soul identical to hers for no reason.

but nah let's pop a cap in her ass so Shadow can do a cri

#asks

6 notes · View notes

manygalaxiesinone · 5 years

Text

Top 10 Princesses!

((Well, today’s National Women’s Day. I guess I’ll help celebrate it with a Top 10. Yeah, that’s the main reason why I’m doing this. Although I won’t do another top 10 female characters list yet (and when I do, it’ll be separate lists for games, movies, ect), I will at least provide a list of Princesses that I personally enjoy. As usual, keep in mind that this is based on my personal fondness of the characters, so if there’s someone you wanted to see on the list but hasn’t made it, chances are I either don’t like them or aren’t familiar of them (most likely the latter).

Ground rules first. As long as a person has been a princess at least some point in their life, then it counts. I’m also going to disregard my rule of only picking one particular princess from each franchise (don’t get used to it).

I’m also going to judge each character based on how I personally see them as decent Princesses as well as being an overall likable character, so this is your spoiler warning.

Finally, no Disney Princesses (including Kairi from Kingdom Hearts). That’s too easy. Sorry Jasmine. With that out of the way, let’s get started.

10.

Morrigan Aesland (Darkstalkers). Some of you are probably thinking “Wait, Morrigan’s not a princess.” Oh, yes she is! Or, well...she WAS. She was adopted by Belial, the previous ruler of the Makai Realm and she became the ruler herself after his death, which is the reason why Demitri has a power feud with her. That’s right, unlike Prier from La Pucelle, Morrigan’s an ACTUAL Succubus Overlord. Still, I can only put her as high as #10 for this list. While I do like the fact that she’s flirty, fun, and outgoing coughandbisexualcough, it doesn’t change the fact the often spends her time avoiding her duties, usually by traveling to the human world and either cosplay or attract some people, or both. Don’t get me wrong, it makes sense considering that she’s...well...a succubus, and I can understand wanting to take a break from a ruling position, but it’s clear that she doesn’t take her role all that seriously. While it has been hinted that might put more effort into it later on, we won’t know for sure until Capcom spines up and bring us another Darkstalkers game. Come on, you brought back Megaman and Devil May Cry, you can do it for Darkstalkers!

Arcueid Brunestud (Tsukihime). Yeah that’s right. My favorite vampire of all time is only #9 on this list. Like Morrigan, she’s fun, adventurous, and doesn’t like being bored all the time. The reason why I’m placing her higher up than Morrigan instead of making it a tie is because she does at least take saving the world seriously. She feels responsible for the vampire outbreak that’s been going on in the world and has helped train Shiki to be able to fight because she was at a weakened state and couldn’t take some of them on her own. In fact, she used to be serious and gloomy until she interacted with Shiki and started to really get to know the world she protecting, so you could make the argument that despite her carefree nature, she’s more dedicated than before..maybe.

Lady Bow (Mario). You guys might wanna take this with a grain of salt because I didn’t see any confirmation about whether or not her status counts as “princess”, but considering her lady-like personality and the fact that she IS the leader of the Boos (despite there being a King Boo in the Mario franchise), I’m going to count it. Out of all the party members in Paper Mario, she’s my personal favorite. Not only is she useful for stealth and avoiding a charged attack that might do a crud ton of damage, the fact that she can defeat Bowser just by slapping the shit out of him is just hilarious to me. Also despite her having the typical royalty-personality, she has proven that she’s not the leader of the mansion for nothing as not only did she organize some of the boo’s scare routines, but she can also put on a good scare herself. And when her loyal boos were being eaten up by a monster, she didn’t just send Mario to take care of things for her, she actually helps him out and goes with him to save Peach! I wish Nintendo would include her in more games.

Nina (Breath of Fire 4). Even though her older sister, Elena, is actually the one next in line for the throne (well at least she was until her death), Nina is still a decent princess of Wyndia to me. She’s kind, caring, and willing to put her life on the line for the sake of others. She doesn’t take her position into consideration when it came to most if all the decisions she made in the game. She’s a person that wants to help out just because she wants to help, that includes going on her journey to find her sister. She’s extremely worried about her and simply wants to see her again. I can see how this could be a problem in the long run if she inherits the throne, but for now, it’s a good trait to have.

Princess Sally Acorn (Sonic). Am I the only one that thinks Sally not being in Sonic Forces is a wasted opportunity, even if they rebooted the character for the games and kept her kinda separate from the TV show and comics? Granted there might be some licensing issues with Archie, but still. Anywho, the fact that Sally’s not only fighting to regain her kingdom and save Mobius, but also that’s the main driving force in it (at least in terms of the TV show), is pretty sweet. And it’s not just sitting back and coming up with the plans, she gets into the action herself. Heck there are times when she gets upset when Sonic heads off and tries to handle something on his own.

A little detail that a certain someone should take note of, but I digress.

Rozalin (Disgaea). While she is one of those more stuck up princesses, Rozalin does at least have the wisdom to back herself up. Being isolated in a castle for so many years gives her plenty of time to read textbooks that helps at least teach what goes on in the world (including how video games work apparently) and has shown that she’s kind enough to do things for others just because she wants to like when she helped save Taro and Hanako. I also like the fact that while she is willing to put in work, if there’s a way to put in less effort and still get results, she’ll take it, like how she got her job in Disgaea 4.

Sonia Blanche (Shining Resonance). I just finished playing Shining Resonance and I gotta say, I really like all of the characters in it, both heroes and villains. One of my favorites has to be Sonia, Princess of Marga. Not only is she a tomboy with a luxurious taste in clothing (which is kind of rare to see), she’s also constantly preparing herself to take over the throne one day because she genuinely loves the people of Marga. She tends to the needs of everyone as much as she can, going as far as to memorize the names of every citizen in it, even the troops. Also she has a saiyan appetite. No seriously. That has nothing to do with her being a princess, I just find that fun to point out.

Princess Kitana (Mortal Kombat). I haven’t played the rebooted series (well, I did play 9, but not its story mode), so I’m just going by how things were pre-time warp. Kitana is one of those characters who’s the very definition of “beautiful and deadly”. Even after finding out that she’s the Princess of Edenia instead of Outworld, she still makes sure to take care of Outworld affairs like making a treaty with Goro. Not to mention once she did get Edenia back, she made sure to help rebuild it, because let’s face it, there’s a pretty good chance there was a lot of damage left after Shao Kahn took over. And now it’s gone...again, because Raiden reversed time after Armageddon...I really hate Deadly Alliance.

Sapphire Rhodonite (Disgaea). Now here’s someone who’s the textbook definition of “Tomboy”. While she is beautiful, unlike with Kitana, she’s mostly deadly. We’re talking about a girl who goes around on her own and kills villains and overlords just because she doesn’t want to wait around to get kidnapped. If you think about it, it helps the Kingdom in the long run as they don’t have to worry about going into war. The king would already be dead before the battle starts. Even if by some chance she does end up getting kidnapped, she has the strength to free herself from any trap, especially if she sees her husband Almaz in trouble, because she refuses to let him die. I think every princess should take some notes from her.

Before I reveal #1, time for the honorable mentions:

Princess Daisy (Mario)

Blaze (Sonic)

Princess Bubblegum (Adventure Time)

Starfire (Teen Titans)

Midna (Legend of Zelda)

And the #1 pick is....

Princess Peach!

Pfft! Yeah right. I do like her, but she needs to raise the bar. No, the actual #1 slot is...

Excela Noa Aura (Shining Resonance). Yeah, while Sonia is one of my favorite characters in the game, Excela is THE favorite. You know you’re up for greatness if you’ve been fighting in a war commanding dragons since you were a little kid. Excela is pretty much a tragic villain. Like Sonia, she cares about her people and is kind enough to hear their plights. It’s clear that neither of them really want the war. The only reason it started is because of a power struggle between the noble families looking to take over the empire, and Excela’s lineage hasn’t really been looking very favorably. Despite all the hardships she goes though, she’s willing to take action if it means for the good of the Empire. If there’s a chance that things can be resolved without bloodshed, she’ll take it. She’s by no means cruel. Quite the opposite in fact, She’s very sympathetic. And even after her father dies, her best friend dies, and being branded a traitor, she doesn’t let the hardships get to her and remains focus for the good of everyone. And when all is said and done, she spends time to atone for the mistakes that’s been made by the war like helping rebuild destroyed villages. If there’s any Princess whose side I’d fight by, it’s hers.))

#My Top 10 #happy women's day

3 notes · View notes

crusherthedoctor · 6 years

Text

Sonic Villains: Sweet or Shite? - Part 6: KING ARTHUR & MERLINA

There are some villains I like. And there are some villains I don’t like. But why do I feel about them the way I do? That’s where this comes in.

This is a new mini-series of mine, in which I’ll be going into slightly more detail about my thoughts on the villains in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, and why I think they either work well, or fall flat (or somewhere in-between). I’ll be giving my stance on their designs, their personalities, and what they had to show for themselves in the game(s) they featured in. Keep in mind that these are just my own personal thoughts. Whether you agree or disagree, feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions! I don’t bite. :>

Anyhow, for today’s installment, we’ll be fighting the knight while living life as we discuss the dark spirit of Sonic and the Black Knight, as well as the schemer behind the scenes: King Arthur & Merlina.

The Gist: Once upon a time, in a faraway land, a peaceful kingdom was threatened by the rule of a corrupted king. A young wizard named Merlina valiantly defied this monarch, the famous King Arthur, and attempted to escape the clutches of his evil army, but alas, she was cornered like a poor little lamb. In desperation, she called upon a brave and noble hero to help save her kingdom.

She got a blue hedgehog instead.

He did it guys, he did the thing, we can all go home now.

Eager to fight the villain of the week, Sonic was instead put aside by Merlina, who explained to him that as long as King Arthur had the scabbard of Excalibur in his possession, he was basically Jesus and couldn't be wounded in any meaningful way. She also explained that the king was once a noble soul, until the Lady of the Lake, Nimue, lended Excalibur to him, presumably under the belief that granting an ambitious ruler immortality and the power to pluck monsters from the underworld couldn't possibly be a terrible idea.

It was.

Luckily for Sonic, Merlina guided him to a forest where a poorly guarded sword was held, the one weapon capable of dealing some real damage to the evil king. Sonic even got a chance to make it count when Arthur himself showed up right after, but since this was still early on in the game, he fucked up so badly that Arthur and the sword itself - yes, the sword itself - were both laughing at him for his incompetence.

By the way, I hope you like desaturated cutscenes.

Nonetheless, the sword - who went by the name of Caliburn - decided to give the cocky teenager a chance in spite of his own reservations, and granted him the honorable title of Knave the Hedgehog. Sonic took issue with this title, because he didn't want to be mistaken for a fancharacter (probably). As they discussed their next course of action, Merlina waxed nihilistic poetry about flowers for some strange reason.

Because that's how nature works, silly girl.

So after a trip to the Blacksmith to get Caliburn in tip-top shape for regicide, Sonic went off to seek out Nimue in order to get an idea of what to actually do. Upon visiting her, he was asked to locate and gather the sacred swords, though he was forced to detract from his mission for the sake of saving some helpless townspeople from a cruel dragon, because that's just the kind of guy that Sonic the Hedgehog is... Just as well then that it was part of Nimue's test all along! (Just as well also that King Arthur was presumably patient enough to wait for Sonic to pass his tests instead of using that time to destroy the kingdom.)

All the while, he confronted the Knights of the Round Table, who - being the king's most trusted and most capable soldiers - did nothing other than get their asses handed to them.

Pictured: Useless twats.

Until at last, when everything that had to be done was done, Sonic and Caliburn went to the Faraway Avalon, where King Arthur himself dwelled. The battle was intense to say the least, but with a little help from the sacred swords, the Blue Blur prevailed, and the corrupted monarch who plagued the kingdom... dissipated? Like the Knights of the Underworld before him...? Well at least they got Excalibur back.

Seeking to get to the bottom of this mystery, Sonic brought it to Merlina's attention, who revealed that the King Arthur the hedgehog slayed was a fake, and that there never was a true King Arthur to begin with, as he was an illusion created by Merlina's grandfather, the great Merlin himself.

She also revealed the slightly more important fact that she's an evil bitch who used Sonic for her own gain, and proceeded to use Excalibur to give the hero a very bad time.

Holding a sword like that with her hair so close? Bitch is mad.

After some reassurance that all was not in vain, Sonic convinced the Knights of the Round Table to stop kissing the now-deceased Arthur's feet and help him save the kingdom for real. Using their sacred swords, the Knights formed a powerful barrier around the kingdom's castle, and then immediately proceeded to go right back to being useless.

Just kidding. The barrier wasn't even strong enough to amount to much. That puts the Knights' usefulness points right back to zero.

“Why do people call this our last hurrah again...?”

When Sonic finally confronted Merlina in her domain, with the understandable query of why she was such a manipulative witch, she revealed that her motives are less “cackling rapscallion” and more “morally grey”. You see, with the supposed rift between Sir Lancelot and Sir Gawain, and the eventual downfall of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table in general, the kingdom was doomed to suffer an undesirable fate no matter what. Seeking to fix her late grandfather's mistakes, she wanted nothing more than to create a world that would never end, for ultimate peace and prosperity... as far as she knew.

Sonic had none of it and promptly called her out on her selfish desire, but the wizard proved too much for him to handle, as evidenced by the surprisingly savage beatdown that he received immediately after. Caliburn got broke in half for his troubles, and the Knights commanded the hedgehog to get the hell out of there, but Sonic remained stubborn, as he never backs down no matter the opponent. This eventually paid off for him, as his heroic nature inexplicably summoned the power that granted him a new form: the knight in shiny gold armor, Excalibur Sonic. This was fortunately just the right amount of power necessary to defeat Merlina's final form of King Arthur 2: This Time It's Personal.

Beaten, but not outright killed, the depowered Merlina was left a broken woman. But Sonic wasn't afraid to show a bit of compassion to the wizard, as he gave her the advice that while the world may not last forever, we must live our lives to the fullest, and make the time that we do have count.

"Well yeah, that’s easy for an iconic mascot like you to say. As soon as this game is over, my career is finished. Eat shit, rodent.”

Also, Sonic turns out to be the real King Arthur. Because self-inserts are canon. Credits!

The Design: King Arthur's design is a bit on the generic side for Sonic standards, but it's decent enough for the type of villain that he is. Though you do have to wonder how he can stand upright with those gigantic shoulder pads of his.

This photo was taken moments before his kneecaps crumbled into dust.

Meanwhile, Merlina heavily resembles Shahra from Black Knight’s predecessor, as befitting of her initial role as Shahra's replacement for Black Knight, as well as making her true role all the more surprising.

“Shahra? No. I'm my own original character... Backstabbhra.”

When the latter becomes the Dark Queen, she initially settles for turning purple and gaining some fashionable feathers, before unleashing her final form which basically amounts to a collection of blue and black tentacles.

Typical angsty teenage phase.

Arthur and Merlina's designs overall are... okay. Just okay.

The Personality: As someone who is more a force of nature than an actual character, King Arthur's personality amounts to saying a bunch of evil things and not much else. That's alright though, since Merlina is the true villain of this particular story, so it’s her personality that counts here.

But here's the problem... Merlina doesn't have much personality either. She spends the first half of the story taking the role of the typical assistant, and the second half whinging about how her kingdom will be ruined unless she does something about it. That is all you get with her. Yes, there is clearly meant to be more to her, as evidenced with her misguided beliefs and her relationship with her grandfather, but very little is actually done with those aspects beyond giving Sonic more things to lecture her and shout at her for.

The Execution: On paper, Merlina is a character who should be among the greatest of Sonic villains.

On paper.

But you see, while she is unique in the sense of being the rarity of a female villain AND an anti-villain in a Sonic game... there really isn't anything else going for her. Once you get past those two initial brownie points, you don't have much of real interest left. You may get a cool moment like the aforementioned beatdown of Sonic come the endgame, but you're given no reason to actually care about the person doing the deed, despite the game wanting you to do so.

“I've not been given any particular reason to do so, so no.”

There's a lot of telling with Merlina, rather than showing. She's presented as a well-intentioned extremist, but we're given no reason whatsoever to actually bother trying to see things her way, even if we would still ultimately acknowledge that what she's doing is wrong. Even Sonic himself doesn't bother considering her side of the story for a second, and while that is certainly in-character for the Blue Blur, it makes Merlina's anti-villain status - one of the very aspects that makes her unique among Sonic villains - fall flat all the more. Likewise, the only information we get about why the kingdom is destined to be doomed comes straight from Merlina's mouth, and that's it. We're never shown an example of what exactly she wants to prevent aside from vaguely alluded ruination, therefore we're given less reason to express actual interest in her motivation and goals.

Also, it must be stated: There wasn't nearly enough foreshadowing with her true intentions. Of course you don’t want to beat the player over the head to the point where they can see the twist coming from a mile away, but you still need a decent amount of build up to make a twist work, otherwise it practically comes out of nowhere. And since you don’t even need to count the hints with one hand in Merlina’s case, it does feel out of nowhere.

Overall, Merlina - and King Arthur, for that matter - are just kind of forgettable at the end of the day. Not terrible. Not outright bad. Just forgettable. And it's a huge shame, because Merlina COULD have been amazing. She had all the ingredients to stand out and be in the same tier as the likes of Eggman and Erazor. But she simply can't live up to the likes of them because there wasn't enough sufficient effort to make her truly blossom as the type of antagonist she was intended to be. There was something good going on with her, I can acknowledge and appreciate that there was something good going on with her... it just wasn't enough.

Which is kind of how I feel about Sonic and the Black Knight in general. It doesn’t do an awful lot with the things that it gets praised for. And the story as a whole - while serving as a great character analysis for Sonic himself - is just kind of boring for an actual narrative in a Sonic the Hedgehog game.

My favourite Sonic game is the one where Sonic made fun of attempted suicide.

Crusher Gives King Arthur & Merlina a: Thumbs Sideways!

#Sonic Villains: Sweet or Shite?#Opinion #Sonic the Hedgehog #King Arthur #Merlina #Sonic and the Black Knight

66 notes · View notes

sonicfanj · 4 years

Text

Sonic Ring Bond Intro

A sonic the Hedgehog AU by Sonic Fan J

Welcome everyone to my Sonic AU, Sonic Ring Bond. I would like to take the time now to introduce you to my little corner of the fandom and the ideas behind my AU. I had contemplated originally trying to present this introduction as a full-on textbook style document, but frankly I’m a lot better at talking than I am planning so I’ll be treating this more as a text seminar. Hopefully I’ll avoid rambling too much and will manage to entertain and enthrall you with my ideas. At the very least, I hope you’ll come away from this with a firm grasp at least of the world I see for my Amy Rosy redesign, Rosy, to run around in. There’s a lot to cover as well, from the ideas that led to this AU to the setting, the characters, and my take on what games have occurred within it and how the events within unfolded.

To begin, I should note that Sonic Mania did not initially enthrall me as it did so many other Sonic fans who have been with Sonic since 1991. In fact, I was already weary of the nostalgia pandering that so many others had grown tired of as well. I was also at a point in my Sonic fandom where I yearned for Naka and Oshima’s Sonic with only memories of Sonic Adventure 2 and Unleashed keeping me interested in Iizuka’s Sonic. Most importantly however I was having a complete reevaluation of my love of the franchise due to having finally watched the OVA and being overwhelmed with a sense of nostalgia for why I had fallen in love with Sonic to begin with. Then there was also me learning of a point in Sonic’s massive history where Amy had addressed him as Sonic-sama which led me on a massive reexamination of her character and what she was introduced as and the role she was meant to fulfill. I learned an awfully lot during this period both about Amy and my feelings and desires for what I wanted out of the franchise. Suffice to say I found myself disliking Amy’s signature Piko Piko Hammer and coming to odds with the franchise direction though Mania gave me a little hope. That hope was born of false expectations of my own creation due to a desire to see how Amy would have been handled before her hammer was ever given to her as her primary creator for the games, Kazuyuki Hoshino had said he was getting back into the mindset of that time as a content director for Mania. As is typically the case with such false expectations, nothing came of them, almost.

In addition to gameplay arguments going around at the time and my dislike of Amy’s hammer taking root in me, in the Sonic community I was a part of at the time, and quickly growing ostracized in due to my dislike of Amy’s hammer, there was concern about Amy’s outfit and the problems distinct to it in a three-dimensional space. This combined with my desire to see Amy with traditional Sonic gameplay led to me creating my Amy redesign Rosy. Garbed in a white leotard to avoid certain problems distinct to a dress while also intending to capture the image of someone who tumbles, I also went with her classic design to fully imply Sonic’s rolling gameplay. At the time that was enough for me and I was pleased enough to just see her serving as my avatar on various sights. I also enjoyed drawing her as it cheered me up with a lot of negativity floating around the fandom at the time. Naturally as I drew her more, more and more people started asking me about her and I had to start considering the why of her. It was no longer enough to just be happy with her as a drawing, she needed something more. An AU was the logical path to fleshing her out, and being a big Sonic fan who loves way too much of the franchise in all of it’s parts I wanted to try and mash as many disparate parts together as I could into a single world while rewriting Amy’s place in it. This resulted in my weird little Hedgehog Circus AU which has does possess several things I still like. But it is busy, over encumbered, and lacking in the simplicity necessary to serve the beginnings of an AU that I can enjoy. So, after a great deal of thinking, studying the franchise, and looking for ways that I could justify to myself Rosy having Sonic’s abilities I started again mashing together ideas I liked, but kept it as simple as I could. The result is Sonic Ring Bond.

The Setting

Aesthetics.

There is nothing that sells a setting to me more than aesthetics. I am a very visual individual who appreciates what good aesthetics brings to a story and world and nothing captures the sense of whimsey, adventure, and discovery that I yearn for in Sonic better than Hayao Miyazaki. The movies that I am most enthralled by aesthetically and thus become the primary basis for the setting for Sonic Ring Bond are Laputa: Castle in the Sky, Porco Rosso, Kiki’s Delivery Service, and Howl’s Moving Castle. Using the imagery of these movies as well as the ever-changing shape and nature of Sonic’s world from the games the world of Sonic Ring Bond is a fading world where technology has fallen to appoint barely hanging on to airships and early industrialization. Human’s, humans with animal traits drawing inspiration from settings like the fighting game “BlazBlue”, the Sonic OVA, and the anime “Shuumatsu Nani Shitemasu ka? Isogashii Desu ka? Sukutte Moratte Ii Desu ka?”, as well as animal people like Sonic himself all live together or in isolation across the world. But the world is ever changing. One day an entire landmass maybe just across the bay, the next it is not. To keep the world linked together the world’s governments uses an ancient technology they do not understand to build and deploy giant Rings known as Ring Gates to link together communities no matter where they may be one day. These gates are one part of where the Ring Bond title comes from for my AU, but are not used without due consideration. Making a Ring Gate requires a great deal of Rings which are collected by adventurers who are supported by the organization Checkpoint.

Checkpoint is an organization that possesses access to special Ring Gates that bond to an individual and allow them to recall them back to a Checkpoint facility at any time. They are not the only adventurer supporting organization, but access to these unique Ring Gates and even Sonic the Hedgehog being an adventurer who relies on them in the Ring Bond AU has made them very popular. Despite being an organization though, they are more of a hub for adventurers to sell the information found on their adventures as well as receive requests from governments, corporations, communities, and even individuals to explore new and frequently ancient landmasses. The most common of requests fielded by Checkpoint are scouting out resources and determining if a location is worth deploying a Ring Gate to for long term access with resources including material, historical, agricultural, or even culturally if new communities are discovered and deemed worth maintain relations with. Most adventurers have a dedicated agent who monitor them while fielding communications and requests in addition to handling the information they bring back from their adventures. Not every adventurer accepts requests preferring just to see new lands and locales like Sonic himself, reporting in for various personal reasons. Sonic himself in my AU was not even an adventurer who reported into Checkpoint until he rescued Zooey from Sonic BOOM! during one of his adventures and her home island simply disappeared before he could her back. With little other option Sonic left her with Checkpoint due to their reputation and she became his agent. Also, due to being inspired by a pic that @drawloverlala once drew with Tails and Zooey dressed Edward Elric and Winry Rockbell from Full Metal Alchemist, in Sonic Ring Bond idecided Zooey also serves as the mechanic for the Tornado. So, where does that leave Tails? Well, Tails is in the Ring Bond AU, but his role is a little different as well as his relationship with Sonic. This has to do with me being fond of the idea that him and Amy would make great friends who support each other in their pursuit of Sonic and his lifestyle. This of course leads me to

The Characters

For my AU I did not really want to change the characters too much, but I did want to answer a few questions I’ve always had while also indulging in some of my biases and preferences. In the example of biases and preferences after seeing artwork from @rontufox on deviantart.com that I interpreted as showing Sonic and Mighty as good friends who occasionally adventure together but mostly swap adventuring stories in my AU it is Mighty who is Sonic’s best friend and not Tails due to sharing similar lifestyles that give them grounds to bond on. Tails in Sonic Ring Bond actually becomes close friends with Rosy to indulge in my belief that Tails’ and Amy’s personalities and shared love for and interest in Sonic and his adventures as a starting point. But Rosy and Tails also share one more thing in common that they actually share with Mighty which leaves him concerned about Sonic’s spontaneity combined with his aloofness; the titular Ring Bond.

The Ring Bond

A question I used to ask myself all the time but stopped having to once SEGA and Sonic Team decided to be pretty definitive with how only a few Characters possessed Sonic’s speed instead of nearly everyone in the pre-Adventure days was what is the source of everyone’s speed. I used to have all sorts of headcanons for everyone but Sonic who I just accepted it as being natural for. Outside of speed though there were other things I wondered about as well such as how Tails managed to use Sonic’s Super Spin Attack without Sonic’s spines. As I began really developing my AU, I figured I could address that as well and the solution that I eventually settled with drew inspiration both from the Paramount movie and the Sonic OVA. That solution is that Sonic’s abilities can be shared by others. This solution of course needed to have a solution of its own to the question of how Sonic share could his abilities. Me being me with the need to over explain things as well but wanting to stay reasonably within the limitations of the games it was (Knuckles) Chaotix that would afford me my answer in Ring Energy. Going by the Japanese manual for Chaotix, Ring Energy is a force that can bind two Rings together allowing for the rubber band mechanics of the game. Considering all the other properties and abilities of Rings I came up with the Ring Bond, the ability to share one’s abilities with someone else through Rings.

Within my AU Sonic with his experience with rings and the various things they do simply figured it out and shared his abilities with Mighty, Rosy, and Tails to get each of them out of a situation that he couldn’t just carry them through. In Mighty’s case that was escaping Eggman Island, Rosy it was getting through Metallic Madness on Little Planet (which addresses for me how she made it through and caught up with him by the end), and Tails as the fox needed to be able to protect himself being able to use his tails to keep up with Sonic through the Death Egg Saga. But while Sonic simply figured it out in his own way Eggman has been slowly figuring it out as he has been perfecting Metal Sonic, needing only the Ring Bond to fully add Sonic’s abilities to the robot doppelganger. Luring Mighty, Rosy, and Tails to island that (Knuckles) Chaotix takes place on as part of his attempts to further understand how rings work after realizing that they all have Sonic’s abilities. At this point though I should probably change course and detail what games have taken place in the Ring Bond AU and the order in which they do. I’ll also take this opportunity to further flesh out how the characters met each other so things might get even lengthier and meander even more as we move on into

The Games & History

So before getting too into, it should be noted that in my AU, like the Japanese manual for the original game states, Sonic and Eggman were already at it before any of the games take place. During this time period in Sonic Ring Bond is when Sonic met Zooey and joined Checkpoint. It was during his time with checkpoint before any of the games that he heard of Mighty as an adventurer who would seek out and find the most spectacular of natural locales. After checking out some of them himself Sonic would seek out Mighty to hear about his travels from the armadillo himself. The two being kindred adventurers with a love for discovery they hit it off and became fast friends exchanging stories and places for the other to check out. Their friendship would appear as an opportunity to Eggman who would attempt to capture Might to use as bait to lure Sonic to Eggman Island. By sheer luck however Egman managed to capture both Sonic and Mighty.

Unlike the original game, the Ring Bond version of SegaSonic the Hedgehog only had Sonic and Mighty go through game’s events. Now, as the Sonic Mania Adventure shorts showed that Mighty lacks Sonic’s speed and considering the traps of Eggman Island, Sonic knew there was no way to get Mighty out using his usual methods. Getting his hand on the first available Rings he could Sonic attempted to use Ring Energy to pull Mighty along behind him. With traps designed to overwhelm Sonic however littering the island in a continuous gauntlet doing so would have surely gotten the both of them killed. Wary to do so, but not accepting the alternative, Sonic created a Ring Bond between him and Mighty, granting his abilities to the armadillo. While it took Mighty a bit to get used to using them, his shell kept him safe and eventually he was able to not only follow Sonic to safety, but played his part in their escape from Eggman island.

Possessed of Sonic’s abilities, Mighty wanted to repay Sonic as he would now be able to see the world in ways he never had before. Sonic declined the offer as he believed the effects of the Ring Bond would be temporary but Mighty insisted and told Sonic how to reach Never Lake so he could see the appearance of the Miracle Planet. Figuring if he was in the area while it was around he’d check it and parted ways with Mighty until their next meeting. The Miracle Planet, Little Planet, was not just of interest to Sonic however as Eggman had ambitions of his own using it’s time traveling properties for his schemes and a certain pink hedgehog would receive an order from her cards to head to Never Lake for a fated encounter.

Now in Sonic Ring Bond, Amy’s background is a bit more detailed. The reason for this is like answering why she, Mighty and Tails have Sonic’s abilities, I felt a need to answer why I would use her original nickname over her actual name. To do so, I fell back on my Hedgehog Circus AU where before she met Sonic her fortune telling abilities allowing her to find treasure had resulted in her being sought out by Fang the Sniper. Being the treasure hunting ruffian that he is, Fang didn’t take to Amy’s personality and took to calling her Rosy as commentary on her outlook. Choosing to travel with Fang to indulge her desire for adventure and how playful she was would result in others calling her a rascal. But Rosy the Rascal would not spend all her time in the company of Fang as if the power of the cards gave her an order she followed without hesitation. Following the order to the letter was a different story as when she reached Never Lake she was enamored by the Miracle Planet and made her way up to check it out oblivious of the dangers posed by Eggman. As for how she got up there, for Sonic Ring Bond I’ve decided to play with a headcanon of mine that she owns the magic carpet that her stage in Sonic the Fighters takes place on. She probably found while adventuring with Fang and simply kept it for herself without ever letting him know she has it. I see her keeping it a secret from everyone as magical artifacts could very easily change the world in unexpected ways.

Rosy was not the only one thinking about the effects of mystical artifacts as Eggman was well on his was to tracking down the Time Stones so that he might unlock the flow of time and conquer the world. Ever the industrial genius, Eggman was expecting Sonic’s eventual appearance and to that end using the advanced technology he found in Little Planet’s future created his most advance machine, Metal Sonic. Despite how advanced Metal Sonic was and Eggman’s genius being able to easily comprehend and make deft use of technology long lost to the world, the robot was still pretty much just a mannequin built around a jet engine. Not wanting to waste his creation willy-nilly Eggman waited for an opportunity to use it where Sonic would have to take on it’s full capabilities without just trashing it. Rosy’s fangirling over meeting Sonic who as a hedgehog adventurer herself she idolizes would be the perfect opportunity and Metal Sonic would make his debut by abducting the hedgehog girl. Perhaps more bothered by not having the opportunity to talk Sonic into taking her on his adventure than being held hostage, Rosy would get her desire in a way she did not quite expect.

When Sonic finally caught up, spending more time leaving Rosy a hostage than she would have liked as he went about removing Eggman’s influence on Little Planet and making sure the Time Stones were safe, he found himself pitted in a race against his robotic doppelganger. Unfortunately for Metal Sonic, Sonic won the race and was able to rescue Rosy, to a point. The road to Eggman’s fortress was where the race had taken place and Eggman had completely annihilated it making doubly sure of Sonic’s end should he lose to Metal Sonic. With the road gone and the only way forward being through Eggman’s fortress, Sonic found himself having to figure out how to get Rosy to safety. It was unlikely that Eggman’s fortress on Little Planet would be any less dangerous than Eggman Island, and Rosy was obviously younger than him and lacking the ability to make it through such a place. Begrudgingly and hoping that the effects of the Ring Bond truly were temporary, Sonic shared his abilities with Rosy and led her into Eggman’s fortress. Unlike Mighty though, she was not as quick to pick up using Sonic’s abilities and would barely catch up to Sonic as he drove Eggman off of Little Planet.

Escaping the planet after Eggman just as it’s one-month appearance came to an end, Sonic headed off towards his next adventure leaving Rosy behind. The change in status quo for Rosy after her life changing adventure on Little Planet would come back to haunt Sonic in due time, but not before answering a call for help from the legendary South Island. Eggman had taken to the island after hearing of the major losses of the terrifying sky pirates, the Battle Kukku’s, who were searching for the legendary Chaos Emeralds. Conducting his own research into them Eggman discovered and tracked down South Island. Naturally he upended the island in his search and Sonic being so well known was reached out to by the inhabitants for help. Upon arriving at South Island, Sonic found Eggman waiting for him with a devious trap in play; to slow Sonic down he had captured all the animals on the island and shoved them into his robots.

Now, for the Ring Bond AU things are a little more complicated as Fang the Sniper and Metal Sonic also make their way to South Island. Eggman is surprised by Metal’s reappearance, both him and Sonic oblivious to Sonic using the Ring Bond having an effect on the robot allowing it to make its way back to Eggman. With Metal Sonic’s mysterious return and eavesdropping on Sonic and Fang discovering that the treasure hunter blames Sonic for his loss of his treasure tracker as Rosy suddenly had Sonic’s abilities leaves the doctor curious. Thus, while attempting to discover the Chaos Emeralds in a race against Sonic and Fang, Eggman repairs Metal Sonic and sends it out to cause interference. In the end Sonic beats them all, and through his Ring Bond ability harnesses the power of the Chaos Emeralds to undo the damage caused by Eggman. In his use of the Chaos Emeralds however Eggman was able to witness their power and desired more and more to harness them. To that end he would have to repair Metal again as the robot seemed affected by Sonic. He would need more data however as well as the chance to get his hands on the Chaos Emeralds again.

Whether by sheer coincidence or perhaps design, Sonic and Eggman both descended upon West Side Island, the Illusory Island providing the doctor the opportunity he had been waiting for. Sonic however was oblivious to his nemesis’ arrival and had simply set down on the island to take a break between adventures. While there he found himself starting to be followed by a two-tailed fox boy who could use his tails to keep up with him. Nicknaming him Tails and viewing him as little more than a minor distraction, Sonic ignored him for the most part during his time on the island and let him do as he pleased. This was enough for Tails, who despite having fended off the Battle Kukku Armada lacked the courage and confidence to approach a hero such as Sonic. He did however desire to become a hero like Sonic, especially after having defeated the Battle Kukkus. Having just a little more confidence in himself he had trained himself to use his tails to reach groundspeeds around the speed of sound in the hopes of one day impressing his hero as unlikely as it was that he would meet him. Impressing him was not quite what Tails would manage to do though.

Eggman’s plans eventually sprung into action and the destruction he caused in the process naturally drew Sonic’s attention. Racing off to save yet another legendary island from Eggman, Sonic found himself being followed by the young fox. Suddenly Tails’ ability to keep up with Sonic proved to be problematic as though Tails believed if he could keep up with Sonic everything would be fine and believed he could help, Eggman was far greater than the Battle Kukku Armada. Unable to chase Tails off and fearful that the stubborn fox would get himself hurt or worse, Sonic made the decision to grant him his abilities through the Ring Bond. Surpassing Sonic’s expectations, Tails took to his abilities like a natural and became a major asset in saving West Side Island. His ability to fly the Tornado elevated him even higher, but not nearly as much as his ability to slap a rocket on it and repair it in the time it Sonic to bring down Eggman’s airship. Impressive as Tails’ abilities were, however, he could not keep up with Sonic as Sonic chased Eggman into space and had a battle with a far clunkier robot double of himself. Clunky as it was, it was combat capable and the space fortress that Eggman built put him even further and further ahead of the technology of the world below. Unable to let Eggman keep his latest and greatest creation for the sake of the world below, Sonic again used the Ring Bond to harness the power of the Chaos Emeralds hoping to undo the space station’s creation. To Sonic’s surprise the Chaos Emeralds transformed him and granted him the power to do as he desired to protect the world.

With the Death Egg seeming destroyed, Sonic allowed himself a few days rest. Tails, amazed by Sonic’s extraordinary feats spent those days rummaging through the remains of Eggman’s bases on West Side Island to see what Eggman had dug up on the Chaos Emeralds. Tinkering around with Eggman’s tech Tails managed to put together a Chaos Emerald detector and to his surprise picked up reaction in the middle of the ocean. The direction was the same as the epicenter of a tidal wave that brought an ancient Ring to Sonic’s attention reminding him of the legends of an island that floated in the sky. Deciding his next adventure would be Angel Island, Sonic headed out allowing Tails to join him again as his Chaos Emerald detector would likely lead them to the legendary Angel Island.

Finding Angel island proved far easier for Eggman as he simply had to wait for the Death Egg to crash land to find it. Attracting the attention of the island’s guardian, Knuckles the Echidna, Eggman managed to trick him into believing Sonic was his enemy. Doubting that Knuckles would serve as much of an obstacle to Sonic, Eggman took his combat data from Mecha Sonic Mk. I to start work on a Mk. II unit in addition to digging himself in on the island. Eggman however vastly underestimated Knuckles, as the island’s guardian was more properly the Guardian of the Master Emerald, a legendary gem that controlled the Chaos Emeralds. Due to his duty and the stories engrained into the island and him he was blessed with abilities matching Sonic’s as well as knowledge of the Ring Bond. As a result, he introduced himself to Sonic by breaking his Ring Bond with the Chaos Emeralds. It was a shock to Sonic and Tails both and when they discovered that Eggman was already on Angel island things got desperate.

The battle for Angel Island was unlike any other as Sonic had to restore his Ring Bond with the Chaos Emeralds to prevent Eggman from gaining access to them, fend off the misinformed Knuckles, and stop the Death Egg from making it back into space. It was more than Tails could keep up with and as the Death Egg began to ascend Sonic’s journey would continue on alone. He would stop the first launch on his own and would soon after discover the truth about Knuckles. Deciding to help out the echidna he would use his Ring Bond to restore the bonds between the Chaos Emeralds and the Master Emerald. He would not succeed at stopping the Death Egg from finally making it into space however or keep Eggman from getting his hands on the Master Emerald. Realizing the error of his ways, Knuckles sent Sonic on ahead to try and catch up to Eggman exposing him to Mech Sonic Mk. II. Despite the improvements of his latest doppelganger Sonic managed to still catch up with the Death Egg. After an epic encounter in space, Sonic would truly destroy the space station this time and meet back up with Tails before reuniting Knuckles with the master Emerald. Despite saving Angel Island though, Sonic had a nagging feeling and after parting ways with Tails took the Tornado once again into the sky after the legendary floating island.

For Knuckles it was a good thing that Sonic did as Eggman’s robots had long overstayed their welcome, but most importantly, Mecha Sonic Mk. II had managed to get its hands on the Master Emerald. After a grueling battle with the emerald powered machine, Knuckles was saved by Sonic from plummeting to his doom. Relieved to hear that Knuckles had dealt with Eggman’s leftovers, Sonic left Knuckles and Angel Island for a second time. But neither he nor Knuckles realized that the Master Emerald’s Guardian had not fully dealt with Eggman’s leftovers. There was enough left of Mecha Sonic Mk. II for Eggman, who had survived his last clash with Sonic, to salvage and analyze the data it held. It was more than Eggman could have ever hoped for as it revealed through the bond with the Master Emerald the Ring Bond.

Desperate to study the secret of the Rings and learn about Sonic’s Ring Bond ability, Eggman was thrilled when a whole island began to rise up out of the ocean in response to the Master Emerald’s time on the surface. Hoping that the island would lead him to unravel the mysteries of the Rings Eggman was more amazed than he anticipated he could be. He discovered the Rings could be used to directly access the Master Emerald and more secrets due to the island having once been part of the same civilization that Angel Island had been part of. Gleefully building a new base on the island to support his research, Eggman invented the Dark Ring and began enhancing Metal Sonic. He still needed more data though to complete his original Sonic doppelganger and recalled three individuals who he knew about who possessed Sonic’s abilities. Hatching his next scheme Eggman proceeded to lure Mighty, Rosy, and Tails to the nameless island. Unfortunately for Eggman, someone he did not account for got involved.

Since having rid Angel Island of the last of Eggman’s influence, Knuckles had been watching the world below for signs of the Master Emerald having affected it. The rising of an island from the ocean in a world constantly shifting about seemed little to worry himself about, but Eggman’s interest in the island kept him keeping an eye on things. When the Master Emerald began reacting to the Chaos Rings, powerful Rings born from long lost Ring Bonds with the Chaos Emeralds and Master Emerald, Knuckles knew he would have to investigate what was going on. He didn’t know about the Chaos Rings themselves, but was not surprised when a trio of adventures with Ring Bonds with Sonic showed up and fell under attack from Eggman. What horrible fate awaited them had Knuckles not come down from Angel Island is one Mighty was glad he would not find out.

For Mighty, his time on the nameless island was a lot like his time on Eggman Island constantly avoiding traps and Eggman’s attempts to stop him. Matters were more complicated this time though as the presence of Rosy and Tails also sharing a Ring Bond with Sonic and believing they could help Knuckles with his reason for being there meant he couldn’t just flee. Someone had to take responsibility for Sonic so recklessly making Ring Bonds and Mighty felt with what he saw of Knuckles’ personality he was unlikely to keep Tails and Rosy out of trouble. When they had to face off against Metal Sonic and a giant monstrous version of the machine, he was glad though that Knuckles was present as his combat expertise proved integral in stopping Eggman’s plans and the creation of the Dark Ring. Knuckles took it a step further however and used the power of the Master Emerald held in the Chaos Rings to destroy the island and make sure that they could never be used by Eggman again or endanger the master Emerald. Saddened by the loss of history, Mighty would have liked to spend some time speaking with the echidna about his past and everything he knew about the world but had to deal with Rosy and Tails.

During the adventure Rosy had hit it of with Tails in their shared idolization of Sonic, even if Tails couldn’t grasp Rosy’s crush. Completely hyped up by the adventure Rosy wanted nothing more than to team up with Tails to go adventuring and try to find Sonic but Mighty wasn’t having it. That Sonic had shared his abilities with the two and did not bring them to Checkpoint to make sure they could develop their skills safely left Mighty far to concerned. Though rosy put up a fight, he managed to get the two of them to Checkpoint. It was not the best start either as Rosy wanted to meet everyone and hear their stories while Tails found himself meeting Zooey who had more than few words for him for making her maintenance work the Tornado harder by attacking a rocket engine to it. Eventually things smoothed over and Zooey became Rosy and Tails’ agent in Checkpoint, though policy kept her from telling them where Sonic was at any given time no matter how much Rosy pestered her. Staying with Checkpoint at Mighty’s insistence Rosy and Tails would become exemplary Ring Hunters, a respectable if not exciting role as though Rings were finicky and no one knew how they worked or why, Ring Gates needed them to be built and function so the two slowly built a reputation for themselves. Mighty already having quite the reputation was free to go as he pleased and once he was confident that Rosy and Tails had settled in headed out in search of Sonic, something he could use to get Sonic to come to him, and to make sure that if Eggman was up to anything someone might know.

The funny thing about Sonic and Eggman though was that they were always bound to bump into each other at one point or another, even when Eggman would prefer they did not. After his defeat on the nameless island to Knuckles, Eggman went about compiling all of the data he managed to gather, and though he lamented losing almost all of his Ring data had more than enough to finally complete Metal Sonic. The only thing left he needed was what a dubbed a Chaos Factor to forge a Ring Bond between Metal Sonic and Sonic. Of course, he also had to repair Metal Sonic again, upgrade it to receive the Chaos Factor, and then test it to make sure that it was indeed Sonic’s equal, or even better. To that end, he sought out Mirage Island, a place where Little Planet was said to appear, even if it was not a tangible appearance like over Never Lake. It seemed the perfect place to work and Eggman sure enough found ancient ruins with hints to the Chaos Factor he needed. Thus he set up base and began his search while preparing to test the eventually completed Metal Sonic by putting out old Badniks that Sonic had already proved were failures, though adding a few new twists to test Metal Sonic’s adaptability.

Sonic had no clue what Eggman was up to when he arrived on Mirage Island by chance, but seeing Eggman’s old machines littering the island, and with the local fauna stuffed inside, he was quick to act. His testing grounds suddenly under attack by the wrong Sonic, Eggman had to scramble to meet his long-time foe. Unfortunately his little twists to his old designs were not enough to deter Sonic, and only by launching his incomplete low-orbital base was he able to pull Sonic away from Mad Gear Zone so that Metal Sonic might be completed in peace. Unfortunately Sonic still inflicted tremendous losses and Eggman lost his new, though much smaller, space station as well as great deal of the tests he had set up for Metal Sonic. It was not all a loss however as Sonic was unaware of why Eggman had chosen Mirage Island for his latest scheme. That meant that the Chaos Factor he was after was still untouched, though he had lost the machines to excavate it. That was fine though as the completed Metal Sonic was more than up to the task, a task that made him truly complete for as he absorbed the Chaos Factor his Ring Bond with Sonic was completed and the machine was non longer just a constructed copy of Sonic, but for all extents and purposed a robot Sonic. Eggman was overjoyed by his success and needed now only the opportunity to spoil Sonic’s fun and let him meet his perfect machine counterpart.

And that wraps up how the games that have occurred in the Ring Bond AU and the order. My apologies for the format and meandering approach, but I hope it helps paint a picture of the AU’s history. For a quick recap though before I wrap this up, the game effectively took place in the following order

SegaSonic the Hedgehog>>Sonic CD>>Tails Adventure>>Sonic the Hedgehog (1991)>>Sonic 2>>Sonic 3>>Sonic and Knuckles>>(Knuckles) Chaotix>>Sonic 4 Ep. I>>Sonic 4 Ep. Metal.

From here the Sonic Ring Bond AU will be going in its own direction. How the characters develop and grow is for the future, though I hope I’ll make something of it. If not, for now this AU is the one that my Rosy occupies. She has Sonic’s abilities and the desire to master them so that she can go on adventures with him and maybe even win his heart. Her shared idolization of Sonic has resulted in her and Tails becoming best friends, while Sonic is best friends with Mighty. Eggman has completed a version of Metal Sonic that is for all extents and purposes Sonic and is just waiting for the perfect opportunity to ruin his fun and gloat in victory. Meanwhile, the Battle Kukku Armada is still out there and desiring revenge against Tails, and Rosy leaving Fang in pursuit of Sonic and his lifestyle has left her and Sonic yet another crafter enemy who himself wants “compensation” for losing his treasure tracker. And all of this takes place in a world where Eggman’s robotics and engineering skills puts him decades ahead of the rest of constantly shifting world full of ancient ruins and legends barely hanging on to airship technology fueled by early industry. But with the help of Checkpoint, it is a world that is a home to many adventurers who live out their dreams of a lifetime of discovery.

Thank you to everyone who read to the end, and I welcome any question or suggestions you may have. For the sake of organization though, please send questions or suggestions through my ask and I’ll be glad to answer. Thank you again everyone for your time.

#sonic the hedgehog #sonic ring bond #sonic au #I've finally introduced it #I don't know if it'll go anywhere #but i hope it does #thanks for reading

18 notes · View notes