#it has been a race thing since archie helped create the character

[overleftdown]

if i can be so real for a minute, the saltburn fandom is not very large and not very old... and yet i have had SO many odd convos. usually about farleigh but sometimes about other stuff. i've been called obnoxious so many times for mentioning everything that comes with farleigh's character but it's in the movie for a reason, man. i'm venting. "what does XYZ have to do with this?" bro idk maybe the fact that it was included in the movie, therefore i'm going to bring it up?

class, privilege, sexism, escapism, etc. are all important parts of this movie. so is race. i've gotten the most heat for talking about race and white privilege which is... not surprising tbh. sometimes i just want to be serious when everyone wants to be silly. if your silliness makes you apathetic to the rhetoric of the film and how some of it should be taken seriously... man. ouch. damaging to the psyche tbh.

a lot of the fandom is rly cool but ackkk i've been on my toes. i've been encountering some irl felix cattons...

[alicemichelle297]

Sonic Frontiers (2022) review

I really, really didn't want to get my hopes up for this one. Arguably, Sonic hasn't had a good game since 2011's Sonic Generations. On top of that, releases for this series used to be practically yearly but they slowly dried up and there hasn't been a proper Sonic game since 2017's Sonic Forces (and that was a nightmare). So you can imagine the anticipation for Sonic Frontiers was excruciating.

As a life-long Sonic fan, I had to get this game on day one, but I waited to share my thoughts until I could digest my experience and come back to it for a second look, confirming the thoughts that stuck with me. I wanted to be fair as well as thorough, so this is a longer post from me than usual.

Story

The story of Sonic Frontiers is simple and that's not a bad thing. Sonic, Tails and Amy investigate a location called the Starfall Islands because the Chaos Emeralds were mysteriously drawn there. When they arrive, they're pulled into an artificial reality called Cyberspace and only Sonic is able to escape (because of his speed, I think).

Sonic has to find a way to rescue his friends, presumably by running through more Cyberspace areas and taking the digital corruption into his own body to free them. Along the way, he discovers that Knuckles came here and got trapped on his own, and so did Dr. Eggman!

He's confronted by Sage, an A.I. created by Eggman, who tells Sonic his efforts are wasted. Not only does she try to stop Sonic, but so does the ancient technology left on the Starfall Islands by an alien race called... well, the Ancients.

The premise is pretty thin, but it's also all it needed to be for an open-world concept like this. Just an excuse to go from point A to B and play more levels and collect more tokens.

This game's saving grace in the story department is that it was penned by Ian Flynn, head writer of Sonic comics from Archie's Sonic #160 to the end of that series, and then the first 30 issues of the IDW Publishing run. The man knows these characters better than anyone else on Earth. In fact, when they announced Flynn was writing it, Sonic Frontiers became a guaranteed purchase for me.

The downside is it seems Flynn was only given leave to write the dialogue. The overall premise and structure, what characters would appear, etc. was already dictated by SEGA. Given that that's all he had control over, Flynn does an exceptional job to make it work. Sonic and co. have never been so well characterized.

Flynn manages to pull connections to Sonic Forces and earlier games to sneak in small character arcs for our main cast. He directly tackles the fan backlash to Tails' nervous breakdown in Forces and makes it into a moment of self-doubt for Tails, who now feels unreliable. Sonic reminds Tails, and us, that he's been a hero to rely on before– like when he saved Station Square from a missile strike in Sonic Adventure. By the end of the game, Tails resolves to go on an adventure on his own and re-establish himself as an independent hero.

Knuckles' time as Commander of the Resistance is referenced in his actions leading a battalion of Kuco and in the fact that his character tokens are shaped like military medals. This is more subtle, but it works for me.

On top of it, he reflects on being the last echidna and how his determination to work alone leads him to struggles he can't handle on his own. Just through dialogue, Frontiers reinforces Knuckles' hard-headedness as well as his strength of friendship with Sonic, who would do anything to help him even though they're still considered rivals.

Granted, most of this characterization is actually in a short animation released as a "prologue" to the game, explaining how Knuckles got to the Starfall Islands on his own, but I'm choosing to include it in the game's review.

Probably most impressive is that Flynn was able to connect this arc for Knuckles to how he appeared in the Free Comic Book Day issue of the IDW Sonic comic, in which Knuckles resolved to explore Angel Island and find more of its secrets. Are we finally in an era where Sonic trans media properties will connect and carry story arcs between them? (I mean, probably not but a girl can dream).

Amy on the other hand gets both the most and least rehabilitation. Flynn has been working for years now to re-establish Amy as something other than "girl who is obsessed with Sonic." In the IDW comics, she's taken on a role more similar to Sally Acorn in the Archie Sonic comics: leader of the Resistance who makes the plans and executes them. Frontiers doesn't reference Amy's time as commander of the Resistance or her establishment of the Restoration after the Resistance is disbanded, instead focusing on her romantic nature. Rather than being obsessed with Sonic, she's clearly obsessed with the idea of romance. This is a small upgrade but it's something. I still think it reduces Amy to "my personality is girl" as Game Grump, Dan Avidan pointed out years ago.

New character Sage is an interesting case. She endears herself to the player pretty easily but I'm not sold on her role as Eggman's "daughter" through the little story we got between them. I find it funny that Evan Stanley (current writer of the IDW comics) also developed a surrogate daughter character for Eggman at the same time, apparently by complete accident. However it's hard for me to ignore that Belle is a much more interesting take on this idea than Sage is. I will grant that Sage's character design is cooler, though.

Sonic makes off-handed mention of other games' stories, including Station Square as mentioned earlier, Lost Hex, and a handful of other situations. He also makes a passing reference to Tangle from the IDW comics. This only highlights more that other elements of that story– which are presumably the events directly before this game and between Sonic Frontiers and Forces– aren't mentioned. No mention of the Restoration, Jewel, Whisper, the Metal Virus or any other comic elements. I wonder why Flynn was allowed to reference Tangle at all if the comic storylines weren't being canonized. Or for that matter one other non-canon character I won't spoil here.

Sonic Frontiers actually makes attempts at world-building, which hasn't really been done since Sonic Unleashed, 14 years ago. I won't spoil any of the specifics but the origins of the Chaos Emeralds, Chao and Chaos are all addressed in the course of Frontiers' story.

Something I didn't notice until really late in the game is that the main objective will take you to most of the story scenes with Amy, Tails, Knuckles and Sage, but there are additional scenes that can be found in the zones which are presumably optional, but some of the events of these optional scenes are referenced in the required scenes, so if you do them out of order it doesn't connect properly.

Gameplay

OK, that's great Alice, how's the game actually play? Overall: not too shabby.

Sonic Frontiers is broken up into two different gameplay styles: the open zone hub world areas (akin to Sonic Adventure's "adventure fields only much larger) and the linear cyberspace stages (similar to the levels of Sonic Forces, Colors, etc.).

Open Zones

The open zones are broken up into five different islands, which consist of 3 different biome themes: three forested/grassland islands (Kronos, Rhea and Ouranos Islands), a desert island (Ares Island), and a volcanic island (Chaos Island). Each open zone contains platforming challenges, puzzles, and portal gates that lead to the cyberspace stages, as well as vaults that hold the Chaos Emeralds.

The player has to collect a variety of tokens and keys: character tokens, which unlock stories for each of the side characters; and portal keys, which unlock the cyberspace levels. Through combat and other challenges, the player collects vault keys, which unlock the Chaos Emeralds.

It can be a little intimidating to see so many different collectibles, but rest assured everything you do in the game gives you some kind of key or token and, as long as you're running around doing something, you will get enough of each to complete the storyline objectives. I never had to grind for any of these collectibles to progress the story.

Surprisingly enough, the open zones do not use any kind of tower to unlock map progress. The map in Sonic Frontiers unlocks by completing the combat challenges and puzzles so, as long as you're running around and doing something, the map will fill in on its own. Some of the earliest gameplay footage released showed Sonic climbing a large tower, which was assumed to be a tower just like Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, etc., which would need to be scaled in order to unlock portions of the map and other activities. Ironically, the one shown in that trailer is the only such tower on the island and it doesn't unlock anything. You can just climb it for fun.

Running around the open zones generally feels good.

Although, because the terrain is so varied, there are some handling issues. Sonic seems to be magnetically attached to the ground, so when terrain becomes uneven, he will "glitch" at odd angles to adhere to the ground. At speed, this can also cause the camera to twitch back and forth, or at worst cause Sonic to spontaneously launch into the air. This is kind of annoying, except boosting and launching yourself in this way can actually allow you to fly over large chunks of the environment and even cheat your way into areas that would take a lot of effort to run to as intended. I'd categorize this as "good for speed runners" but also "sloppy presentation" for the rest of us.

Also a weird addition to the game is the drop dash from Sonic Mania. Sonic doesn't have access to a regular spin dash in this game, however, so being able to initiate a spin dash in mid-air is a bit confusing.

The biggest issue I have with the open zones and honestly the game as a whole is that the Sonic level design elements are very poorly integrated into the environment, by which I mean they aren't integrated at all.

The zones themselves have a more photorealistic art style, but there's random grind rails, springs, and rings just floating in the environment looking the same way they have in Sonic games for the past 15 years. The rails aren't even attached to anything, they're just floating in the air. They could have at least put on some kind of "anti-gravity technology" on the bottom of the rails to explain why they're just hanging out there. But even better would be to attach them to the actual environments like they originally were (most of the time) in Sonic Adventure 2, the game that debuted rail grinding.

Overall, the open zones look a bit like someone dumped a bunch of Sonic game assets into Unreal Engine, which is not a good look for a game that retails at $60. Especially for as much as it reminds me of a fan game like "Sonic Omens."

Cyberspace

Cyberspace stages are more similar to Sonic Unleashed's "daytime stages" or what fans have taken to calling "the boost formula": a linear level in which you can boost (hold a button down to go fast) through most of the level.

Cyberspace in Sonic Frontiers alters the behavior of boosting in some key ways. For one thing, it's now on a stamina wheel a la The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (and that is the only comparison I will be making to that game) instead of limiting it to how many rings you pick up or random power-up capsules like in previous games.

The most noticeable change, however, is that Sonic is no longer shrouded in a blue aura while boosting; instead, a subtle "sonic boom" effect appears in the air when boosting starts. This removes some of the visual clutter from the gameplay but it unfortunately removes a visual cue that you're still doing it. Sometimes jumping or other actions cancel the boost out, even if you're still holding down the trigger. I lost count of how many times I thought I was boosting only to realize I was running at normal speed.

Boosting in mid-air causes Sonic to arc upward slightly, allowing you to bridge some gaps in mid-air. This used to be accomplished by using the Homing Attack in mid-air, which is more or less useless now. Even if you hold the trigger down to boost in mid-air, it won't allow you to continuously boost. Instead, the mid-air boost is more or less a short mid-air dash. And you can't continue to boost when you hit the ground from a mid-air boost, so you have to consciously release the trigger and then hold it down again to continue boosting.

A weird decision that caused me endless frustration was to actually alter the jump physics between open zone and cyberspace. There's just as much platforming in each environment– and the same type of platforming at that– but Sonic's handling during a jump is completely different between the two, which caused me to die hundreds of times just from misjudging my ability to move in the air.

A nice quality of life improvement I didn't know I needed is that Frontiers allows you to initiate a homing attack from the ground instead of jumping in the air and then homing in. This is accomplished by moving the homing attack to the X button (on Xbox) like it was in Sonic Unleashed, rather than pressing A twice as it was in every other Sonic game ever. On a practical level this was probably done to separate homing attack from the double jump, which returns from Sonic Forces.

Cyberspace suffers from not having enough level themes, just as the open zones suffer from reusing the theming of Kronos Island. There's dozens of levels, but there are only four level themes: Green Hill, Chemical Plant, Sky Sanctuary and a new Eternal Highway design.

Eternal Highway at first glance is too similar to Speed Highway, in my opinion. It really stands out when one of the levels actually rips the level layout of Speed Highway Act 2 straight from Sonic Generations.

On that note, some of the levels are original layouts, but most are inspired or directly ripped from past games, albeit with a different level theme. Rooftop Run from Sonic Unleashed is ripped whole cloth but re-skinned to look like Sky Sanctuary. Sky Rail, Metal Harbor and Green Forest from Sonic Adventure 2 are ripped and re-skinned in the Green Hill Zone style. Chemical Plant Act 2 from Sonic Generations appears in zone 1-5, using the Chemical Plant theming so it's perfectly obvious, just as Green Hill Zone Act 2 from Generations is recreated in 1-4 with the same theme.

At first it's kind of charming, but on another level it feels lazy. This really makes it obvious that Sonic Team were rushed to deadline and simply didn't have the time to make new levels, relying on the big hits from their past instead. I'm not mad at it, I love Metal Harbor and Sky Rail and it's actually nice to play them with all the modern advancements in graphics, but it also makes me want to close the game out and boot up Sonic Adventure 2, which is also installed on my Xbox so it's 3 clicks away. I assume that's not what they want me to do.

Combat

I never thought I'd be talking about combat in a Sonic game. For the uninitiated, "combat" in Sonic's history has consisted of "jumping on an enemy" like Mario or "homing in on an enemy in mid-air" like a missile. With some notable exceptions like Shadow the Hedgehog (2005) or Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric (2014), Sonic doesn't really do combat.

I think it was a wise decision to keep the combat very simple. There is a skill tree, which unlocks with skill points gained from just passively playing the game and fighting, but it remains a button-masher no matter how much you upgrade. There's even a skill unlock which allows you to auto-combo by mashing the same button so you don't even need to memorize the two-button combinations.

This game also adds in a parry mechanic but it's far from being skill-based. The game doesn't tell you this, but you can just hold the parry position indefinitely and whenever something hits you, it will trigger the parry. You don't need to be timing it out at all.

There are some other RPG elements like upgrading your stats: speed, ring capacity, defense and strength; but you absolutely don't need to. The difficulty curve never necessitates any stat upgrades, and thank God for that because upgrading is a chore. You have to seek out specific NPCs to upgrade each stat one level at a time. To go from level 1 to 99 will take you over an hour (and I'm not exaggerating, someone timed it). This is the very first thing that needs to get patched out.

Titans

Ok, here's the real star of the show: the titan boss fights.

Each island is defended by a titan: a giant robot a la Evangelion which can only be defeated by transforming into Super Sonic. This information is best communicated when Sonic first tries to face the titan Giganto, which promptly picks Sonic up in his giant hand and throws him through several ruins and into a mountain, leaving an impact crater like it's Dragon Ball Z.

When you collect six Chaos Emeralds on each island, the titan fight will become available. You scale the surface of the titan and claim the seventh Chaos Emerald, which is being held in a vault on the titan's head. Sonic transforms into Super Sonic and the music queues up.

Now the music of Sonic Frontiers, overall, is fine. Actually a lot of the cyberspace levels have great beats with this very funky electronic thing going on, but the titan fights crank that up to 11. The vocal sting of Giganto's theme, "Undefeatable," is a show-stopper.

This, combined with the visual scale of the titans, the fact that the entire island is your arena for this battle, and the visual spectacle of Super Sonic in this game, spells out the most hyped up boss fights of Sonic's 30 year career.

Super Sonic smolders with golden light and when you attack using the same moves you unlocked in the open zones, there are now golden light after-images of Super Sonic, his fists, and his feet/shoes. Think Bayonetta's combos with her partner demon's giant fists flying in for a hit.

You're immune to all damage while in the super state, however you can be knocked back which eats up your time. You gradually deplete your rings (about 1 per second) while in Sonic's super form, and when the rings run out you revert back to normal and automatically lose the fight, making titans more or less a timed fight.

Giganto makes the best impression, but Wyvern is also a visually stunning fight as it takes Sonic on a flight path around Ares Island, dodging mountains and ruins that reach into the sky, all while the titan shoots laser beams and missiles back at Sonic.

The third titan, Knight, is a bit too gimmicky for my tastes, as you have to parry a shield toss from the titan and then ride the shield in a ricocheting path to hit and stun Knight so you can continue fighting as normal.

The final titan, Supreme, is unfortunately just Giganto again except he has a Gundam-sized rifle to shoot at Sonic. On the bright side, it's the shortest of the titan fights so it doesn't overstay that cold welcome.

Presentation

Sonic Frontiers makes a great first impression because it's such a bold new direction for Sonic. Once the initial excitement wears off though, the seams start to show.

As mentioned before, the level design elements are not integrated into the environment and it makes the place look unpolished. On top of this issue, there's a lot of pop-in. You will constantly see grind rails pop in, in the distance. It's not exactly distracting but it is noticeable.

In my opinion, the rendering distance is too short for the scale of this game and what results is that navigating the islands by actually looking around for what to do next is impossible. You have to open your map and place a marker on where you want to go next to have any hope of getting there. You can't reliably look around to spot the next platforming challenge, for example, because the rails haven't loaded in yet and they won't until you're within a few meters of them.

There is occasional stuttering and frame rate drops, which for a game like this on modern hardware should not be happening, and that tells me this game was rushed to deadline before it could be fully optimized, which Sonic Team has not been shy about admitting. The visuals are far from cutting-edge, so there should be no issue running it at a good frame rate on an Xbox. I can't comment on the PC or PS5 versions but, from what I've seen elsewhere online, it runs about the same on other platforms. I assume this means the game targets the lowest common denominator: the Nintendo Switch.

The animations are better in this than they've been in previous titles, though still nowhere near the expressiveness of actual animations like Sonic Boom. Even so, this goes a long way towards making Sonic and co. look more like characters that live in a stylized world rather than people in mascot costumes which can't make expressions with their eyes and can't move their limbs around too much for fear of tripping and falling in the middle of Disney World.

Most of the combat animations have a good sense of power behind them, although if you look closely at them or in slow-motion you'll notice that Sonic isn't actually moving very much, it's mostly visual effects like wind and blue lights. It gets the job done.

One nitpick I have (or another one, I guess) is that Sonic acts like he's injured, hobbling over for most of the game as a result of being corrupted with cyberspace, but this doesn't get worse as the corruption progresses. It's the same pose no matter how much cyberspace we're talking about.

Art Style

The art style of this game is a mess. The islands look like they're attempting a photo-realistic, Unreal Engine vibe, but Sonic and friends still look like stylized video game characters.

As far as I can tell, these are the same character models used in Sonic Forces, which isn't actually a bad thing, but they've all been re-textured with a "fur texture" that looks more like felt. I gather this was inspired by the success of the Sonic movie by Paramount Studios and its use of a fur-textured C.G.I. Sonic in a live-action world.

Adding to the movie inspiration is a blue electric aura which surrounds Sonic when boosting at full-power. It's not a bad thing, but I personally prefer the games version of Sonic to use more of a wind elemental effect. I think it's better for movie Sonic to be "electric Sonic" and for games Sonic to be, I don't know, the "Knight of the Wind" (to drag in a reference to past games, kicking and screaming).

The islands' biomes are a mixed bag as well. I think the forest theme of Kronos Island is very appealing. That probably comes down to blue Sonic on green backgrounds doesn't clash and green is relaxing anyway because of color psychology.

Ares Island, on the other hand, I cannot stand. The sprawling sand dunes lose visual interest after about two minutes, and the obsidian terrain of the volcanic Chaos Island isn't much better.

The Verdict

Ok, you hung on this long. Is Sonic Frontiers good? Yes (for a Sonic game).

This game does a lot to address concerns fans have had for years, and it especially gets credit for trying to take the series in a new direction after over a decade of the same old, same old.

If we grade on the curve of comparing this only to past Sonic games, it's a knockout. If we look at it just as a video game that competes with every other game on the market, it's average.

I love Sonic probably more than any other media franchise, so I have major blinders on. They won me over just by paying lip service to the comics and sprinkling in a couple new ideas.

I will give credit for the responsiveness the game's director has shown online and I'm hopeful based on the promises already made of future updates and DLC. I think this will take the game from average to great, without having to grade on a curve.

This review was written based on the Xbox version played on a Xbox Series S. This was not a review copy.

Sonic Frontiers is available now on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series S|X, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

[popculturebuffet]

Sonic Month: The Tails Adventure aka Trouble in Paradise (Sonic Universe 17-20) (Comissioned by Emma Fici)

Hello all you happy hedgehogs! Sonic Month enters its final week and I have THREE sonic reviews hot and fresh coming for you! First up we have our second of two character spotlights. Last week we set our hearts free true with knuckles this week we fly high with Tails into my faviorite sonic continuity, Archie Comics.

And lucky me, since Emma isn’t the most familiar with this continuity, I get to go on about it a bit for her and for those of you less familiar with archie. 

So it was 1993 and Sonic The Hedgehog had , as scientests would say “blown the fuck up”, with Sonic 2 being a MASSIVE hit and everyone was lining up to get a piece. One of these pieces i’ve covered on this blog before was DiC animation who created two cartoons for it: The wacky and zany Adventures and the more serious SATAM. And since the games had a story as deep and complex as  “The flash but blue and a woodland creature and his sidekick whose a flying fox because it looks neat battle a fat man who stuffs animals inside robots because the environement.”,

The comic naturally took cues from the cartoons.. BOTH OF THEM. 

As a result Archie’s sonic started with the dark setting of satam.. but with the madcap humor and lack of seriousness of Adventures, complete with your boys scratch and grounder. If they are not..

The comics would evolve with time both under writer Micheal Gallager, who easily transitioned from the comedy stories to drama having worked at Marvel, and under two chaps by the names of Kent Taylor.. and Ken Penders

Yeah at first Ken was actually helpful, helping give Archie a mythlogy of it’s own alongside gallagher, giving knuckles his own rich history, and creating several fan faviorite characters. As the first 50 issues went on it evolved from a simple gag a day story to what it was born to be: a fun but still tense epic about our heroes fighting robotnik with tons of extra sized specials, one shots, and mini series to help expand the world and give the bigger characters (Tails, Knuckles and Sally) spotlight. It worked... then issue 50 hit. While Endgame itself is kind of a mess and I may talk about it here someday, issue 50 was a glorious climax to the series, with Robotnik outright DYING thanks to snively after an utterly awesome clash with sonic, easily the best they’ve had in any medium thus far and certainly the most tense as the two finally went hand to hand after 50 issues of robotnik mostly using evil schemes. 

Then it all got flip turned upside down: see with no games for a LONG time, Sega really didn’t care about the comic: they still let it exist but they had no promotional need for it. Meanwhile Archie, as long as it sold well enough, also did’nt care as long as it made them money. So we got things like the magic sword Sally’s family has, already kinda nuts, gaining sapience, sonic and friends being forced to go to school, ENDLESS drama with Sally’s asshole dad, Knuckles going green and joining with his enemies, it being revealed

Sonic finding his lost parents who it turned out weren’t dead, Sally finding out her mother and brother were not dead, Tails finding out his parents were not dead, Knuckles finding out his entire race was not dead, Sonic finding out his childhood FRIEND was not dead, Tails finding out the robot he made out with was based on a real person, Sonci making out with said real person and tails running away dramatically, sonic dying, sonic returning from space, robotnik returning but as his robot self from an alternate timeline we saw before, Sally hitting sonic for not giving up bein ga hero, Antoine and Bunnie breaking up, scourge trying to make out with everyone, shadow being outright evil despite having not even been that in canon, antoine having turned out to be his evil doppleganger, 80 years spent 20 years in the future wasting a godo conccept and titan tails

The comic was a mess going into the mid 2000′s and with Karl Bollers leaving because Ken Penders was a moron and Ken Penders being fired for causing most of this, Archie was desperate for someone willing to fix this mess.

Thankfully this is where Ian Flynn comes in. Lifelong sonic fan, former fan comic writer, and general encylopedia of all versions of the characters, Ian is one of THE most decorated sonic writers, writing the comic for the next decade till it was closed because Archie, Sega and Ken Penders all sucked in some way.  And i’ts easy to see why: Ian clearly took a page from most superhero comic writers, taking past bits of clunky continuity and using them to craft good stories, while taking characters writers misued or forgot about and polishing them up into straight up bangers. Anti-Sonic went from “sonic from earth 3 but in a jacket”, to the evil counterpart he was born to be, Scourge, Fiona went from a flat love intrest to an intresting traiotr, mammoth mogul became the badass he was always supposed to be, and MANY more. His run on sonic is one of my faviorite runs of all time and DEFINTELY somnething i’m going to cover some day, possibly soon given how much you guys have liked this retrospective. 

So i’m pleased as punch to cover a bit of it. Today’s tale comes from Sonic Universe. Ian had turned the comic around so well by this point he got a SECOND book, which he used to tell all kinds of stories: while two featured sonic (one dealing with the 25 years later future and the othe rbefore this handling some stuff for the main plot), most focused around his friends, enemies , and other denziens of his world, allowing ian to expland it and cover crucial plot points or just tell smaller stories he coudln’t tell in the main book. 

Case in point this one, the fourth story and one of the funnest. So join me under the cut as I give out even MORE exposition

And dive into some fun in the sun as Tails takes Bunnie and Antoine on their honeymon and they all fight some birds. Because you know this is thier lives. 

Tails, Antoine and Bunnie in Archie’s Sonic the Hedgehog:

This is a VERY accessible story: you could pick it up with only some sonic knowledge and likely enjoy it, much like a marvel comic if your doing the job: you may have questions but they’ll only make you want to read more. 

As i’m recapping this story though, it’s easier to just give you an idea who these three are from the top. Fun too. 

So first up is our headliners: Tails in archie started out much like SATAM and Adventures: he was sonic’s doting kid sidekick who rarely went on missions and was there more “because game”, only taking part in things when they were direct attacks. Micheal Gallagher found a clever way to use this though, with tails slowly gaining confidence and competence... but everyone else, sally most of all, babying him.

This incident lead to tails first full solo adventure as thanks to an oil soaked seagull, he was able to power the seafox, fought an octobot underboss with the help of the forty fathom freedom fighters, and headed off for an island adventure where he smooched a robut, based on a real lif efox named fiona (the basis thing was a later retcon as the robot was unsuprisingly popular), and nearly got robtocized, beating robotink’s scheme on his own and ending up in mobius australia. So a normal week in this comic basically. 

With this Tails soon got upgraded to full fledged freedom fighter, with his inventive aspects eventually being added from the games, and was also the chosen one in a convluted prophecy involving a mammoth and ..

Yeah so we’re glossing right over that.  His primary role from here was mostly serving as sonic’s best friend and most trusted partner, the one he’d call on more than anyone. Then tragedy struck when everyone thought sonic was dead after some aliens who mutated Mobius back when it was earth attacked and he got warped away stopp ing them while knuckles came back much like jesus...

So Tails was left Grieving his best friend as they struggled along without him and things got all angsty. Sonic came back of course, he was just zipped across the universe and also found out tails parents were alive. This will be important in a moment. So tails was happy.. but the unvierse couldn’t have that so this happened. 

Yup. The real fiona showed up but having aged a few years.. she wasn’t intrested in him the way he was with her... soooo

This has rightfullly gone down as one of the more infamous moments in the comics history, one I saw as a kid in scans, but as an adult thought “This might not be as bad as my memory made it out out to be. “ Nope, even worse. Whlie the IDEA isn’t terrible, sonic dates someone Tails has feelings for but is too old for him and it creates some issues in their freindship, the over the top half assed art, seriously tails angst makes sonic’s QUILLS blow back, and how utterly rushed the romance between Sonic and Fiona was made it fall flat. It comes out of nowhere and seems there JUST to give sonic someone to date other than bunnie after they decided to drop that storyline and get her and antoine back together. 

We’ll get back to that in a moment. So instead we got this which no fan really liked as Fiona had no real character since coming back. Bringing her back itself wasn’t a bad idea, the execution was just flawed.

Thankfully 5 issues later Ian took over and spent a YEAR

Yes a year cleaning up the remaning storylines while slowly setting up his own stuff. And Fiona was one of his first orders of buisness, the other being a character she’d become entertwined with in both senses of the word: Scourge. Scrouge was originally anti-sonic, an evil greaser sonci from another dimension that sadly failed to be an actual threat, and who recently ahd made out with everyone in town while pretending to be sonic and then teamed up with Rogue.  Ian saw an opportunity in this plot cul de sac and in his first issue anti turned green, got a wicked awesome scar from knuckles abusive dad and became scrouge, a TRUE evil counterpart to sonic who replaces sonics need for freedom with anarchy, his flrity nature with being a horndog jackass, and his caring nature with being a cruel destrecutive bastard. Naturally he was awesome.

He used said previous making out with everyone to explain Fiona and Sonic’s weird relationship.. from her side at least: Fiona was in love with SCOURGE, and really wasn’t happy being a straight edge freedom fighter. She tried dating sonic because they looke dthe same but it just didn’t work, with ian setting up not only her disastifaction but her defectoin, cleverly using all this past stuff to remake fiona from an entirely boring character to an intresting villainess and partner for scourge. Tails naturally didn’t get out of this unscathed now she didn’t have to play nice with the poor boy anymore

So as you can imagine he didn’t exactly take.. any of this well. He put on a face seeming to be okay... but he wasn’t, and an arc later we’d dig into that with the House of Cards two parter. 

Since Ian had came on board , he’d brought Tails parents Amedeaus and Rosemary back from outer space via some teleporters and stuff. But their return, while happy at first, soon caused strife int he kingdom as Amedeaus, having both seen democracy work out in the stars and seen the monarchy of acorn fail time and time again.

He wanted to abollish it. The current king, Sally’s aformentioned long lost brother elias who, while an excellent character, is WAY too much to unpack, refused partly out of wanting to keep the kingdom’s tradition in tact.. and partly because of his daddy issues and not wanting to let down his asshole dad, aka the very reason I sided with the prowers on this one. He even arrested Amedeaus.. which lead to his wife and child breaking him out.. and naturally Nicole made the BRILLIANT decision to call sonic for this despite pointing out tails resentment earlier. It went.. as well as you’d expect

God that was cathartic. Ian did maybe TOO good a job showing just how ignorant sonic was of how much pain he was causing his best friend.  So naturally next issue is full of punching as Tails lays out how he resents sonic: For not talking him along on missions earlier on, for not beliving Tails stories about his own adventures, and for locking his dad up.  But as you can probably guess... while all of that’s bothered him.. most of this comes from exactly what you expected it to be. 

Aside, Sonic’s apology is geninely heartfelt. 

I REALLY need to cover this run in full at some point. So that’s where Tails leaves by this point: stronger, his relationship with sonic repaired and having slowly gone from kid sidekick to a full fleged freedom fighter and genius, with this arc FULLY showing off what that means. 

Bunnie and Antoine

The Archie Versions of Bunnie and Antoine are easily some of my faviorite sonic characters and comic book characters period, living up to the potetial their satam counterparts had by way of character development.. even if like most characters it took till ian for them to really florish. 

At the start the two were exactly what they were in SATAM: Bunnie was given a proper origin, ending up in a roboticzier and barely being saved by Sonic and Rotor, hence her being the way she is, as well as a shortlived dream of being a hairdresser once the war was over, but otherwise she was largely the same: a kind, badass cyborg who hated being half roboticized but still used it to her best to help her friends. While, much like SATAM she ended up sidelined a good bit during the 50 issue war, she still got to do much more and got spotlight stories once in a while, in general being treated like the big deal she shoudl’ve been anyway, with one of the most heartbrekaing being having a nightmare of her roboticization slowly finishing.. showing just what the poor woman fears most. 

Antoine was largely the same: A comical coward who wasn’t really good for anything and you questioned why he was kept on the main team, especially once sally started training new recruits. He didn’t really change as a character to the point that while Bunnie got an utterly awesome showing in mecha madness, loosing to a roboticized sonic but at least putting up a decent fight first... Antoine.. put sonic on trial afterwords in one of the dumbest moments of the comic’s history. 

Though he did get an intresting spotlight where, to prove a point, he did a solo mission... and Bunnie worried about him is shown, subtley at that, to have tagged along and made sure he didn’t die or get roboticized. And when going back to tails, Antoine not only admonishes himself for how stupid his actions was.. but once the child is gone he geninely thanks his savior

Yup this little backup is also where the comics best romance, with all due respect to sonic and sally and knuckles and julie su of course, begins, with a simple innocuous peck on the cheek that, seemingly was just a fun thing.. but come issue 46, just before endgame the writers picked it up in a great way. 

Said issue is also where Antoine finally gets character development as well as an explination for why he sucks dirty ass in thunderstorms. For starters when local asshole and one of the worst characters in archie sonic, Geoffery St. John, wants to kill sonic both due to not liking him and being in his way to wooing sally (who by the way was a minor while Geoffery very much isn’t so...)

Antoine steps in and punches the asshole batman style

He also calls out Geoffery in a variety of ways, which is oh so statisfying after putting up with this prick. And look if your a fan of his: fine, your opinon is valid, i’m not knocking you. But I will knock this selfish, entitled, useless, egotistical, predatory, brownosing, faux-australian prick all I want. He spent all his screen time trying to woo a teenager, getting in the way of the guy who was doing most of the ACTUAL legwork for the war, and in general putting his dick measuring contest with a war hero over his actual duties, and that’s not even getting into the later retcon he was working for an evil wizard this whole time. 

Story for another day. ... we were talking about antoine right? Anyways this confrontation also leads to bunnie , who he saved early in his career giving out his backstory... he WAS a good hero and freedom fighter when he started, wearing his father’s uniform to honor him.. but then

It’s a great character pivot showing WHY he was so hooked on sally... and that he never had a shot, and deconstructing it: he hopelessly chased a dream that had no chacne of becoming true, with Sally never once giving him the indication she was interested.. and had to watch as he lost it. It dosen’t make it OKAY he fell apart like this but given he’s only a teenager, it’s at least understandable. Thankfully.. he finds something better

And thus the romance began. So with robotnik beat soon after, surely there were some juicy developments with these two right? A first date, some fighting together something Right?

Yeah for some damn reason post issue 50, outside of the ocasoinal moment, most of the main cast ceased to be all that important. Antoine was only used as part of Sally’s dad’s attempts to force them to marry, yes really, and aside from a story in one of the specials where Bunnie had to upgrade her cybernetics in a way where she could NEVER get them undone, something Antoine supported her with the two were just kinda there and didn’t get to do a whole lot of note.  The only exception I can think of is Antoine finding out his dad was still roboticized, and once his brainwashing was removed reuniting with the guy, who then made peace with his former arch enemy, amy’s robin hood themed cousin. Amy had a robin hood themed cousin btw. 

This changed after sonic got shot up into space and was thought dead and we got a time skip out of the deal. And not for the better: The two broke up , with Bollers intending for Antione to do a heel turn, before his leaving meant that thankfully didn’t happen. Antoine also wore an eyepatch now because time skip. Bunnie ended up dating sonic breifly, that thankfully didn’t last, that unthankfully lead to the mess described above and no one liked it whatsoever. Thankfully it was undone just before Ian’s run: turns out Antoine was his evil twin from another dimension, the same one as anti sonic, patch. Who wears an eyepatch. Which antoine suspciously started wearing after suddenly changing in demeanour. You know guys maybe there’s a reason you never beat robotnik. 

Patch poisoned the king, which sadly was not fatal, and sonic bringing elias back as well as finding antoine helped save it. The two happily reunited, and this farce finally ended.

With Ian’s run Ian not only treated the two like main characters again, but decided to deepen the relationship.. and it started with something Sad as Antoine’s dad passed, with Patch having also poisoned him because apparently poisoning old men is like pringles, you can’t just stop at one. But he told him he loved him and that he approved of his relationship. 

So with that on his mind, and the fiasco with fiona clinching it.. antoine decided to do something bold

Yup. Just before the milestone 175th issue, Antoine popped the question and the two soon married after that, in one of the most heartwarming moments in the comics’ history and one that felt earned: while the twos romance hadn’t been focused on outside of the doppleganger incident, the two had remained steady, faithful and in love thorughout this war as it ended, rekindled and got so much worse. Ian took the two from merley a couple.. to a well written one with the marriage feeling meant to be and truly heartwarming. They were wed, Robotnik attacked and killed a bunch of people afterwords, as is their life, they also had to fight off an invasion... so while they were happy they didnt’ have a chance to really honeymoon,a nd tails, having both fought his best friend and then had to go overseas to help with the efforts against the iron dominon, longer story for later, all three could really use a break. which FINALLY brings us to today’s comic. Sometimes being a wordy bastard who can’t help but gush about things he likes sucks folks. 

                       The Tails Adventure! or Trouble in Paradise

As you can probably guess by the title, this arc’s a long overdue adaptation of Tails Adventure, a metroidvania style spinoff for the game gear. I.. have not played a ton of it as whilie a great concept in execution it’s a bit

Though it’s mostly just it’s age, having to clumisly enter and exit levels and guess as what to do next without a guide. I might give it another whirl after this honestly. It’s still not a bad game and with an eshop card you CAN still get it on the 2ds as of this writing until august and for only 6 dollry doos, so if your curious, there you go. 

As for why it wasn’t adapted back in the comic’s heyday I WAS confused at first. Archie had a habit of adapting most sonic releases from the obvious ones, Sonic 3, Sonic and Knuckles, and Sonic CD, to others like Sonic Spinball, Sonic Triple Trouble and Knuckles Chaotix, the latter presumibly because they added more characters to play with. But weirdly depsite giving them a whole new villian faction in the battle Kuku’s and tails solo adventures and eventual mini showing fans wanted more of the little guy, it never happened. But after looking at the specials release dates, it became obvious: There just wasn’t room. In the year the game came out we also got the triple trouble and chaotix specails, with his mini coming out at the same time the chaotix special did. And while next year would still work... we then got Super Sonic vs Hyper Knuckles, which while tying into nothing and really not being necessary... was still pure sugar to any ten year old seeing it on the stands, and after that was the special finishing up mecha madness.. well kinda finishing it up. We had that moronic trial issue after but I can grouse about that some other day. So I get archies priorties being “finishign up the story of the year” and

Respectively. Why they didn’t during the years AFTER this.. is because Bollers and Penders prefered making their own characters. And archie DID have great characters like Mina, Julie Su, Lien-Da, Enerjak, the various branches of freedom fighters, Larry, Mammoth Mogul, Knick the weasel and more, a lot of whom needed ian to truly shine btu were still great in concept. The problem was a LOT of those characters got sidelined for whatever reason, and we got focus on characters like knuckles stupid abusive grandpas and dad, horse sean connery, a lost tribe of knuckles people who live in a utopia and do fuck all except their leader trying to kill knuckles that one time, spider ninja lady, tails wizard uncle, the dingoes, sluth doggy dog, that wolf jackass who kicked off endgame, robotnik’s non snively realtives with the exception of his niece, any other overlander and of course Kodos, aka the worst villian in archie’s history and again

I’ve probably even missed a few but the point is they can’t all be winners and the two were more obsessed with making things more convluted or in penders case making knuckles mythlogy EVEN MORE DENSE, than actually carring about the games. Even one the games did come back, the adventure adaptation ended up a huge mess thanks to said mythlogy, while the adventure 2 adaptation was a foot note with the versions of Rogue and Shadow we got not remotely resembling the ones on screen, which was fine for the genisis days given the stories were relegated entirely to manuals, but not so great when you had a FULL GAME telling you who these people were and had time to play it or at least read a synopsis by the time both became relevant. 

Ian however did actually care: while he loved archie dearly and it showed, he also loves the games just as much, and as a result made sure to put as much of them that had been neglected in as he could: Rogue was quickly put in line with her game counterpart, as was Shadow as soon as he could, Gamma and Big both made come backs and Ian introduced Omega and as soon as he could cream (He coudln’t use her at first because Sega woudln’t let him.. because shut up), he consolidated the GIANT pile of chaos emeralds into 7 resembling the games that now had to be won via the specail zone, adapted most games that came out while he was writing in fully canon backups up until that stopped being fesable with unleashed, and even brought game characters that had been utterly underutlizied like Big and Gamma. Granted gamma died like.. right after, but it was in service of a story at least? I dunno. Point is it was clear Ian loved the games and while some fans chaffed at him adding so much of the games.. I think ti’s great. He didn’t overwrite the series own mythlogy and worked them in as much as he could, with aformetieond robotnik niece, hope JOINING team dark who were itegrated into statoin square , making it actually relevant and doing actual work with Big’s people. 

Ian got that the primary demographcis were kids and hardcore sonic fans, most of whom probably DID enjoy getting to see these characters adapated at a time when the only other adaptatoin was sonic x. To see how they fit into archie and what ian would do with them, given how much great stuff he was doing with the Archie cast. It’s not a crime for an adaptatoin to actually resemble the source materail. 

And it wasn’t just modern stuff as this adaptation and his AWESOME versions of bean and bark (which have carried over to idw’s classic continuity), show. Ian loves all of sonic, to the point the reboot continuity, while heavily games based, still kept the freedom fighters and compensated for all the original stuf lost by cramming in as much stuff from the shows as he could. Ian is the greatest sonic fan and no one loves this franchise more than he does or cares about it the way he does and yes i’m VERY much included sega. 

Anyways 80 years later we’re onto the actual comic which opens with Tails taking Bunnie and Antoine to his private island via the sea fox so the two can have their long overdue honeymoon, since it’s been several arcs since their wedding and the day after wedding involved mass kidnapping and mass murder from robotnik. So buisness as usual

Also yes tails has a private island now

Ian does his best to explain WHY tails suddenly seems to know about an out of the way island that would’ve been relaly useful a long time ago not long into the issue: He found Cocoa Island, and the two island surrounding it on his way back from his mini series. As for why he never brought up you know, a whole freaking island they could use as a base or something, my guess is, while not so far Tails can’t get there from knothole and later new mobotropolis and back on one can of fuel, it’s still far enough that it’s not relaly conveint to use as a base, as robotnik would likely just create shark bots or pirahnatrons or sic a giant telepathic whale on them like he does later. It’s good as a worst case scenario backup, and they were VERY close to worst case recently. It’s still weird to suddenly patch this in and it would’ve made more sense to be discovered at the same time Tails is said to have really used the island: when sonic was thought dead for a year. I told you I had a reason for all of this. That way it’s more recent in the comics memory and makes more sense why it hadn’t come up in a strory till now. Still that little bit of continuity with the death is why I love ian’s writing on this: again like any great comic book writer, he takes history and uses it to give something as simple as “why tails has a workshop out here and mapped this whole place”, weight: it was his refuge during the worst time in his life and thus a place of comfort, and it also shows how he’s grown: he’s gone form using this as an escape to doing that.. but letting his friends do the same, no longer holding in his old resitments and truly growing. 

So the plan is for them to split up gang: Tails is going to work in his workshop and get some private time, while Bunnie and Antoine also get some.. if in a diffrent way

I just want to take a minute to acknowledge that Sally not only knew these three were taking this trip, but that her, sonic , rotor , amy and anyone else knew they were singing off on two young newlyweds getting into some werid shit on a child’s prviate island. I  get why alternate future tails dosen’t talk to sonci much anymore.

The trio are watched by Junior of the battle kuku empire and two stooges, with Junior not moved to do anything.. till he notices tails flying and has murder in his eyes. 

We do get a nice montage though of the D’Colette-Rabbots enjoying their honeymoon and Tails enjoying his solo time as he builds his sidekick t-pup. T-pup is okay.. it’s neat he has a little robot buddy btu the design has never wowed me and the fact he later outright joins the freedom fighter annoys me. I don’t think robots can’t, Shard is one of the best there ever was, i’m more saying that maybe tiny robot dog foxes with little sapience shoudln’t. I don’t hate him but I never really warmed to the little guy either. 

We then get a fantastic scene with the happy couple where Antoine asks Bunnie if she thinks they married too early. And after teasing him, she admits she gets it: that many will say they married way too young.. but offers a valid reason why: the two have been through war together, their still going through it technically. They’ve had to grow up fast and that’s how antoine felt too.. he just wanted to be sure she was happy.. which she is

I do love this couple: while as I said there wasn’t really a lot done with them as a couple till now, they come off as a real one with real chemistry: she helped him get out of his shell and self loathing and he helped her accept who she is. Their better together than they were alone and that’s all you can ask from a couple. 

So as tends to happen to our heroes, their peace is interupted by a bunch of assholes with robots, with Antoine and Bunnie fighting some basic troops quite easily as you’d expect. The Battle Kuku’s have mech walkers. Tails likewise springs into action even getting a truly badass moment as he muses on just how far he’s come

The issue wins with Bunnie and antoine getting suckered by a giant mech set up for the finale of the arc, and Tails , while doing well against grunts, finding himself up against Speedy, son of the grand battle kuku, hot head and speedster and master flier, making a character whose design has him looking like he wears a diaper (it’s supposed to be an egg but like.. look at him)

Geninely terrifying. Granted I have no idea WHY Ian left the diaper on his design but still props to making it work. 

As you can see by the next one tails simply stalls long enough for t pup to bite his backside and to super run away, as i’ts clear speedy has him beat in speed and power. Tails only barely hides away and ONLY gets to hide because Speedy’s dad recalls him. We also get a nice moment having him contrast sonic: Tails points out his best buddy would barge in, save Bunnie and Antoine (who speedy revealed had been captured), and go full speed.. but that’s not who tails is. He’s a thinker, he’s tired and he needs a second, and trusts that his friends will be okay long enough for him to do something. 

Speaking of the happy couple, Bunnie is soon grabbed by the kuku’s from her cell while Antoine swipes a key to escape. Bunnie also lucks out as it turns out the battle lord thinks she’s with the dark egg legion. This.. is going to take some explaning.. yes even more. See Knuckles arch enemies were the Dark Egg legion, a group of echidnas who split off from the rest due to favoring the high tech they used to have and thus were all cyborgs. This came to an end when Knuckles was tricked into becoming a mad god for a while, and stripped them of their cybernetics. Horrified and desperatley wanting that part of them back, the Legion’s leader Lien Da struck a bargin with Eggman: restore their cybernetics and they work fo rhim. So now robotniks been setting up chapters all over with new bosses, and naturally put bombs in the cybernetics so if someone turns on him he can just blow them the fuck up. Bunnie uses this and finds out some valuable intel about their new foes: the battle bird armada is a centuries old empire that simply wants to rule the skies and is only eggman empire adjacent: they aren’t fully part of it but the two live in mutual agreement not to kill each other, likely since eggman has no intrest in the skies of this world and the empire is more intrestied in finding the ancient weapons of their past. We also find out in this continuity the Bablyon Rogues, those birds on hoverboards what showed up in the riders games, are former members who broke off. This would get elaborated more on in a future arc of universe following up on this one, and is a clever bit of world building, tying two groups of brids together. Ian would do this AGAIN later with th eformerly unrelated character predator hawk, because three’s the magic number I guess

Anyways, while Bunnie schmoozes, Tails awakens and amos u p, getting his bombs from the game to help take back the t-sub as the battle kukus stupidly left his workshop unguarded. He heads for the third island nearbye, one that wasn’t on his maps and is naturally the kuku’s base. He soon end sup in an underwater dog fight though and adorably geeks out over the kuku’s stealth tech. While i’m not bringing it up a lot I do like how ian found a way to integrate bit sections of the game: the fire to start us off, the underwate rportion the bombs, all while makign it feel seamless. 

Meanwhile Antoine breaks out.. but Speedy finds him

And he improvises an escape once Bunnie comes back, seemingly mistaking her for a trailer and dramatically diving to his death, ending part 2. Oh there’s also a nice little nod to the margrine gag from satam when Antoine escapes. Ian REALLY loves his mythlogy gags and their always hilarous

Bunnie is naturally upset but notices something that makes her smile and bluffs speedy when he points out how upset she was about her supposedly fake deep cover husabnd dying by noting all that work is gone.. it dosen’t work, but props to her for recovering. 

Ant is of course fine, having landed on the sea fox, and reunited with tails. Not only that we see juts how much trust the two have in one another: I wasn’t kitting abotu the feint: Antoine picked up Bunnie was pulling a deep cover infiiltration and was simply playing along confident they’ll reunite later. Awww. 

Having found some tunnels last issue and with the sea fox not suited for underwater, Tails burrows them into said tunnels and they disembark on the island. Granted he’s not much help as while having grown a lot ant is still very capable of making someone want to strangle him with only a few words and the sound of his voice

So while they go into a tunnel, and Antoine asks the understandable question of “why are we going underground to fight birds”, Speedy visits doctor Fukruov... which people keep misprouncing in unfunny way. Let a pro show you how it’s done Ian. So doctor Fuck Right Off is mad Speedy’s invading his perosnal bubble but allows him to use his computer, with Speedy finding out Bunnie is a freedom fighter and deciding to handle this using the spooky mech we saw earlier, aka the final boss of tails adventure.

Tails and Antoine storm the gate, stealthily taking out some troops before using their own bombs to blast their way in and wrekcing up the place. And I do like how this shows just HOW skilled our heroes are. Against robotnik it usually dosen’t show as while their good, he’s used to them. He’s fought them for years and in his home reality outright beat them. But the Battle Kuku’s have ZERO idea , so their far less effective, as they have no way to counter them and our heroes have fought way better. IT nicely scales them as a threat: they aren’t NOT one, i’ve seen many media make that mistake such as warden wrath with owl house or wapol and hody jones with one piece, but they also just simply arent ready for our heroes, so they aren’t doing as good as someone whose not only killed them before but spent a decade fighting them before that and years after that doing it now. 

Bunnie naturally joins the fracas as the emproro, of course, sent her righ tto them, and the happy couple reunite, with bunnie having grabbed her husband a gift

As usual their adorable.. btu something I hadn’t conciously thought about that makes Ant even more badass: the fact he’s been fighting BARE HANDED. Keep in mind his specialty is swordplay and he dosen’t have any powers like most of the freedom fighters. This sabre is also notable as it’s the one ant would use till his tragic comaing towards the end of this continuity, and looks dope. So our heroes regroup, with tails finding out thanks to bunnie snagging him some data that this entire island is a battle ship, and just where to go to wreck up the place, heading there with an awesome team shot

Tails has truly arrived, going from kid sidekick, to leading his own former mentors and big sibling figures in the freedom fight. It’s another strength of ians: taking years of unrelated and sometimes downright bad storeis and makign them FEEL like they were all building to this. If this man wasn’t already happily married i’d propose to him right now. His wife is also kick ass at writing sonic comics by the way, just saying. 

Anyways, our heroes face their final boss: the mole mech which makes short work of them once they get into the inner workings of things, with doctor forget-me-not bragging about it as we enter the final issue. 

This one isn’t much to recap but it’s utterly awesome, most of it being a long actoin scene as tails SOLOS the mole mech in a truly awesome fight while the d’colette-rabbots hit the weak points in the airship. The fight is crisply drawn, and shows off tails smarts: he uses his brain to beat the thing simply having it either hit itself or having had t-pup fire on it just right, letting it beat itself so by the time it does get a hit in .. it shorts out right after, leaving doctor fuck this is hard to refrence princess bride. Also turns out speedy was inside and he refuses help like any good villian while our heroes are forced to flee as things go straight to hell. Our heroes cleverly escape out the bottom since the fortress is taking off

So it’s time for the wrap up. the grand battle kuku betrates speedy becuase he’s not good at his job, and has the doctor get to repairs.. while the babylon rogues prepare for their arc and to take advantage of the armada flagship being barely operational, while Tails and the honeyooners head back to his cabin, the three toasting their vacation and finally getting their well earned respitel

The Tails Adventure or Trouble in Paradise is a REALLY fun arc. It shows off not only ian’s love of the games, giving us a fun adaptation of tails adventure, but his masterful storytelling: he ties it into the main plot, not only giving us a new threat but one giving a past one context for being in this unvierse now, while also debuting tails getting his own sidekick and giving antoine a sword. Nothing EARTHSHATTERINGLY huge to the future of the comic, but still intresting little things to add to the overall continuity. And he ties it all in their history, from Bunnie and Antoine getting a honeymoon after it beign delayed for a ton of arcs, to Tails showing just how far he’s come. It’s a fun arc and evne if you haven’t read a ton of archie you can really enjoy it and I HIGHLY recommend seeking out ian’s run however you can. 

Next Time: MORE ARCHIE.. thankfully this time without an 80 year history lesson as we visit the first group of freedom fighters! Thanks for reading!

[terrific-togekiss]

Rewriting Sonic Characters into other Continuities: Cosmo The Seedrian

With the 18th anniversary of Sonic X not too long ago, many fond memories of the anime started to resurface, as a question begun to ponder...

What if Cosmo The Seedrian was in other Sonic related media?

She was one of the most memorable parts of the show in my opinion, mostly due Season 3 of Sonic X being an original story. With that out of the way, let's get started!

These are just rough ideas and I would love to see some feedback!

Classic!Cosmo: About a month after the events of Sonic CD, Little Planet appears above Never Lake for its monthly visit to Earth. Sonic and Tails decide to visit and are surprised to find a growing population of plant people known as Seedrians.

As it turns out, Dr. Robotnik used the power of the Time Stones to reverse the Seedrians into the Miracle Planet flowers and seeds, before they had a chance to fight back.

Now that Dr. Robotnik is gone, they live in peace and praise the blue hedgehog that saved their people.

As Sonic is enjoying the festivities, Tails bumps into a shy Seedrian known as Cosmo. They become quick friends, bonding over sciences (Cosmo is more a botany genius in this continuity) and Tails even takes her for flight on the Tornado.

Sonic and Tails promise to visit her every time Little Planet comes back to Earth, to see their new friend.

This Cosmo is more quiet and keeps to herself, but the moment you get to know her she talks all the time.

Modern!Cosmo: The Cosmo of this era is a lot older and more independent, as she now leaves Little Planet on her to explore the Earth more, fascinated by this planet.

I'm addition to other Seedrians being NPCs in any open world Sonic games.

This becomes a running theme for Sonic games where she's off exploring and being in awe of the planet's flora, or just hanging with either Tails, Cream or Amy.

During Sonic Heroes, she would form a team with Might, Ray and herself. Since the three of them love nature so much and would be known as Team Naturals. Mighty being Power, Ray being Flight and Cosmo being Speed. The Team Blast involving the three of them homing attacking a series of giant seed bombs.

In Sonic Riders, she has an extreme gear board called "Mother Nature's Embrace", when you unlock her.

During Sonic Unleashed, her and Tails were testing Gaia energy on the local flora and fauna, to see if stopping Dark Gaia was the only cure to possessed people.

With small lovey dovey moments between her and Tails in the games, since we all know about the mandates. Or just a friendship if they're that strict and carry over to other characters.

During Sonic Generations, she's the NPC for the stage "Tidal Tempest" from Sonic CD and remarks if Sonic found the Time Stones again, if Classic Sonic saved her.

During Sonic Forces, she's in charge of food production in the Resistance, due to her power over plants.

The Cosmo of the Modern Sonic games is more akin to her in Sonic X, except with higher self esteem and doesn't have motion sickness. She can be rather clumsy, very kind, gentle and quiet, with a preference for not fighting unless necessary and a bit of a temper. She has a huge passion for botany and medicinal sciences, with gardening being a hobby of hers.

Unfortunately, she doesn't always know her own strength, as Seedrians are born with tremendous strength for housework and helping environments.

SatAM!Cosmo: A ship full of an alien species is soaring through the galaxy, with one mission in mind: find a new home.

They are known as Seedrians.

Once they arrive on a planet that reminds them of the a Mobius Strip in its composition, only to be attacked by robots.

Dr. Robotnik intercepted the space ship transmission and plans to roboticize these innocent aliens.

The Freedom Fighters intervene later on and are only able to save the kids, as the adults are all roboticized into robots. That destroy nature, ironically enough.

Cosmo becomes quick friends with the Freedom Fighters, relating on being orphans and absent parents that are now robotic slaves.

She doesn't really get out on the field like the rest of them, but she does help liven things up for the other kids at Knothole.

Underground!Cosmo: A forest spirit that takes a liking to music along with her sisters, as Sonic Underground makes their trek through Mobius.

I can see a single episode where Robotnik wants to use their powers as ornaments for a fancy gala... only for Sonic, Manic and Sonia to show up and save the day.

Fleetway!Cosmo: There is a legend of a race of warriors that travel across time itself collecting the finest flora, knowing of their extinction in the present day.

They are known as Seedrians.

These legends are found on Miracle Planet... a home to them for a couple of centuries.

Dr. Eggman of course desires this time travel technology for himself and for better use than "flower collecting."

Unlike the time Eggman gained control over all time via the Omni Viewer, he uses the time traveling alien technology to make up a fake history of him as an ancient, prophesied warrior to all of Mobius.

(It's also revealed that the Seedrians disappeared mysteriously and Cosmo has been working like crazy to carry on their work and find her people)

Only for Cosmo and the Freedom Fighters to put a stop to Eggman.

The Cosmo of this continuity is a lot more business oriented and moves from one task to the other, with little time for not following a structure. Underneath it all, is a scared girl that just wants to see her family again, that would never wish anything like that on others.

She bonds with Knuckles over losing your people and spends most visits with him.

Archie!Cosmo: In the Pre-Super Genesis Wave Universe, The Seedrians are seen as a myth to all of Mobius. Mostly due to Little Planet only appearing above Never Lake once a year every month.

The people Albion know of their existence, due to the Time Stones and The Seedrians both being a closely guarded of theirs.

The Seedrians of this continuity are more of a race of peace keepers and warriors, training under Nicholas O'Tyme and the mysterious Knights of Kronos.

Cosmo's father, Lucas develops a curiosity for Mobius and leaves with many other Seedrians to discuss alliances. With Lucas and his wife Earthia meeting the Acorn Kingdom.

Which goes as well as you would think.

Only for Dr. Robotnik to show up he seizes his grip over the planet.

Cosmo and her sister Galaxina go into hiding, along with many other children of the Seedrian adults. Earthia calls upon the powers of nature to to create an entire island, that exists outside of time.

Dr. Robotnik picks up the strange energy waves and attacks the island. With The Freedom Fighters showing up and turning the tide of battle on Robotnik.

Cosmo and Galaxina join the Freedom Fighters, with Cosmo becoming quick friends with Sally due to looking up her confidence and being in a similar situation, but choosing to stand for what's right.

Galaxina is more a mathematics genius and becomes good friends with Rotor and doesn't always get along with Antoine since he always wants play hero and she prefers a more grounded approach to things.

The Cosmo of this universe loves to explore, is a botany and medicinal genius and has a habit of casually mentioning random historical events, due to expose to the Time Stones. She's very kind to others and comes off as very quiet, but doesn't stop talking when you get to know her.

Due to her plant like nature and physiology, she loves Rock and Roll music, leading to her bonding with Sonic.

Her and Tails have a bit of thing going on, but are both shy around it and Tails doesn't have the best experience with relationships. The two of them hookup during Sonic's voyage/"death" in space with Tails' parents being in full support.

A rift is formed between her and her father, as him and many other Seedrians want to keep and redesign Robotnik's technology, while she sees it as ghosts of a rather scary past.

She also discovers the Krudzu and her kind nature surprising leads to her quelling the Krudzu, turning it on the side of the Freedom Fighters.

After the Super Genesis Wave, Cosmo is a resident of Little Planet that leaves to help the Freedom Fighters fight Dr. Eggman. Her personality is more or less the same as the old universe. Her parents stay back and organize Seedrian-Earth relations.

Nicole causes her to remember various events from the old universe like helping prepare for Bunnie and Antoine's wedding, the disagreements with her father, when she first kissed Tails, "befriending" the Krudzu and almost dying by saving most of Knothole and turning into a Chaos energy filled Tree.

[kikithegeek]

An Amateur Review of Ridley Pearson’s Super Sons

Please be aware: This will contain some spoilers for the Super Sons graphic novels written by Ridley Pearson. If you do not wish to be spoiled on plot or character development, please stop reading this and come back once you’ve read through the books yourselves. Otherwise, enjoy this amateur review.

INTRODUCTION

As someone who grew up reading comics from Marvel, DC, IDW, and Archie, it was always fun when legacy characters were introduced or focused on. Characters that were students or the children of characters that my parents grew up with always felt nice to me, and even relatable when they were introduced or shown to be growing up in a similar or the same time period as my friends and I. Taking this into account, it’s no wonder that by the time I was in high school, some of my favorite comics involved Damian Wayne/Robin and Jonathan Kent/Superboy. Yes, I was definitely older than them by the time their series came in, but some of the problems they faced, even the small ones, seemed familiar to my own. Problems such as Jon’s reluctance of moving away from Hamilton County to Metropolis where he’d be leaving behind people he’s known for years into what is essentially a foreign environment for him, or both characters having to live up to the examples their parents have set; something I’m sure many of us can relate to as children are always compared to their parents or successful family members. The growing friendship between them was always a highlight no matter what type of adventure they were on.

In 2019, Ridley Pearson and Ile Gonzalez released the first book in their 3-part series starring Jon and Damian in a sort of rebooted universe. Fan feedback at the time was mixed, with some fans unhappy and others just happy they were getting more content featuring their favorite duo. Personally, I wasn’t paying attention all that much; I was in the middle of college and my focus had drifted away from comic books that year to focus on my studies, but with the recent pandemic and more time to read I’ve fallen back into the rabbit hole of super heroes and villains. I remember there being an outcry against the books when the previews began to be released, but after they did release and finished their run, I didn’t hear anything. No one really actively talked about what the books were about and most of what I heard seemed to come from people who read a handful of pages, if at all, and then never finished it. So, I decided to put my two cents in and read them. I’ll be looking at them as someone who has been a fan of their main-like counterparts for years, and as someone who also acknowledges that this isn’t canon to it and is an alternate universe (or alternate Earth in the cases of the DC comics multiverse), if anything to look at it from a neutral perspective.  

It should be noted that this isn’t the first time I’ve read through Ridley Pearson’s work. In middle school and even through high school, I couldn’t get enough of Kingdom Keepers and Peter and the Starcatcher, even getting tickets to see the touring cast of the latter’s theater adaptation when they came to my state. I’ve read a few interviews on his work with the Super Sons before going into the books themselves, and he doesn’t neglect to say that this series isn’t connected to the normal DC canon (whatever that is these days; any comic book reader knows that reboots, especially for DC in the last decade, usually happen quite a bit). Okay, that’s probably a given, and it makes things easier considering the main target demographic are kids aged 10-14. There’s a lot of content to go over when it comes to everything connected to Damian and Jon, even more so for Batman and Superman, so this makes it less difficult for kids who don’t have much experience with DC outside of the occasional tv show and movie to get into it.

But what about the story itself?

THE STORY

(The majority of the story spoilers are beyond this point since I summarize the books. This is your last spoiler warning.)

The story itself takes place in an alternate future. America is called Coleumbria and the global climate crisis has gotten to the point where it’s a race to find a way to stop the rising temperatures and constant flooding. While Batman and Superman spearhead the projects set to stabilize and then reverse the Earth’s temperature, their sons are moved from Metropolis to a city called Wyndemer with other refugees looking to find somewhere safe from the floods. This causes tensions in the city to heighten as refugees, called “flood runners”, are harassed by locals. Without going too in-depth into the books (otherwise, we’d be here all day), I’m going to summarize them. Certain characters and events might be omitted, but hey, at least it gives you a reason to read them even if I tell you what they’re about.

The first book introduces us to this crisis and shows us how this world’s Jon (who still goes by Superboy in this) and Damian (who is going by Batkid) meet. While there’s some animosity between them at first, with Jon having a not-too-hidden bias against Bruce Wayne, the two eventually start to work together when they realize their individual investigations are connected. Jon and his classmate, Tilly, have been looking into a mysterious illness that’s hospitalized Jon’s mother among many others, and Damian has been investigating sabotages against Wayne Tech dams. They also meet a girl named Candace who is trying to uncover a mystery that’s plagued her since her mom’s passing. After finding clues at a food company called Sage Foods, the group is attacked and manages to escape after Jon is told their attackers were sent by a woman named Arvyc. After finding out that Candace and Damian had set Jon up earlier in the book to be attacked by a few gang members, the group have a short fight before they go to the train station to stop Arvyc’s gang.

The second book opens with the boys helping Candace make it to a boat while escaping a group of girls called The Four Fingers. While they didn’t have as much of a presence in the previous book, had been shown as adversaries of Candace’s. Continuing into their investigations into the virus, Jon and Tilly learn that it was man-made as Candace’s visions lead her toward Coleumbria’s capital. The Four Fingers, meanwhile, are adamant about finding Candace, so they’ve taken to stalking her friends, until they realize they’re “dead ends”, so they choose to follow their own leads. It is revealed that The Four Fingers and Candace all have powers that connects them to certain species of animals; with Candace, she has a connection to birds and she states her grandmother was the same. Tilly comes up with her own vigilante persona, Puppet Girl, and stays behind in Wyndemer as Damian and Jon leave to go to Cinapolis to find the virus’s source. However, the boys get captured and Tilly decides she needs to help them. Candace in the meantime has found an anointing oil her mother had left clues for her to find, which is the key to the throne of Landis, the country she and The Four Fingers come from. It ends with the Super Sons and Tilly saving Candace and helping her get on a boat back to Landis while Arvyc escapes from prison.

The third and final book opens with Jon, Damian, and Tilly trying to track Arvyc down and it’s obvious that they’ve been at this for some time now, but they soon become the hunted. Candace makes it back to Landis and finds one of the rebels her mom had led before she was arrested. As Candace continues on her journey, Jon, Damian, and Tilly are sent by Batman to a LexCorp lab to retrieve a virus sample, only to find it isn’t there. They decide to go to Landis since The Four Fingers were heading there with the virus (and Candace had gone with intentions to stop them), but Tilly needs to stay behind again. The boys and Candace continue their respective journeys through Landis, however a man who’s been pulling the strings from the shadows for the last two books, Sir Reale, has decided to send Arvyc after them along with Talia. Talia and Arvyc attack the boys who manage to outsmart them for the moment, and are reunited with Candace who has been tracking the virus with two warriors named Kizuka and Archer. Tilly, back in Coleumbia, is sent out to retrieve Damian and Jon by Bruce’s assistant, Patience. After meeting up with Tilly, the group find a lab where The Four Fingers have been preparing vials of the virus in order to release it via bombs, and a battle ensues where they learn that sunlight can kill the virus and that Talia is Damian’s mother. Learning that they couldn’t stop all of the shipments, the group gathers the people of the local town to help them in storming the factory. They succeed in killing the remaining virus, save for a vial to be used to create a cure. With Superman’s mission a success and Batman working on a cure, the book ends with Candace being crowned the new Empress of Landis, Jon’s mother waking up, and Batman making Damian Robin.

MY THOUGHTS ON THE STORY

All in all, the story was okay. Personally, I felt like it was rushed in some places, such as how we’re brought from one character or scene to the next with little to no transition or breathing space. The endings were also kind of abrupt, which I feel really brought down the ending for the final book. We don’t really linger on whether or not Superman’s efforts to reverse global worming worked or have a moment where Jon and his dad are able to reunite with Lois. I was also disappointed to see they didn’t go anywhere with the whole “Talia is revealed to be Damian’s mother he had never met before and barely knew anything about” sub plot they had going in book three. People who know me know that the League of Assassins and any character associated with them are among my favorite villains in the Batman mythos, and to see it be brought in only for it to not have anything done with it was disappointing. Heck, you could have taken Talia out of it and the story would have been the same minus Damian being momentarily shaken before getting back to business. At the very least, an ending scene where Bruce confirms she’s his mother would have been nice enough closure for it. This might have been due to there being a page limit (each book was roughly 151 pages long) which lead to things being cut out, but it’s still disappointing nonetheless, especially since I did find myself enjoying parts that had pacing problems.

Pacing and unresolved plotlines aside, some of the things I did enjoy though involved Candace’s story arc. She’s one of the characters made for this series, and watching her figure out her past and come into her own with her powers was really enjoyable. I also felt like small snippets of character interactions between the boys, Candace, and Tilly were really well written. They actually felt like kids.

THE CHARACTERS

Since there are a lot of characters in this series, I’m only going to focus on the four main characters since we’re with them the entire time.

Jonathan Kent is probably the one out of him and Damian who’s the closest to his original counterpart, and I don’t just mean in looks. While he doesn’t have as many powers as he’s come to have in the main DC canon, he does have some of the powers he has early on in his appearances, such as super speed, super hearing, x-ray vision, super strength, and being able to jump high/far. He’s a bit older here though, 12 instead of 10 making him closer to Damian’s age and allowing him to go to the same school as him and Tilly. He holds his dad’s lessons close and seems to be apprehensive about seriously hurting people, mainly in the beginning. Being older though, he’s a bit more mature than his counterpart was before he was aged up, and I feel that this version of Jon is a good blend between the two.

Damian Wayne on the other hand was given the most changes in terms of backstory and how he acts, which goes hand-in-hand. In the original continuity, he was raised by Talia and the League of Assassins, making him spoiled and a literal killer in the body of a child. Here, he was raised by Bruce (how or why, I don’t know. Talia wasn’t brought up until book 3 so I can only assume she gave him to Bruce as a baby and they agreed to never tell him for whatever reason) and Bruce refuses to let him be Robin, leaving Damian to become Batkid (which is a good reference to past incarnations of Batman’s son in older Elseworlds stories). He’s still arrogant and looks for a fight more than he should, but it doesn’t seem like he wants to kill. Beat up a guy who is already out of the fight, yes, but not kill. One thing people who’ve read the books will notice is I’ve been calling him Damian. Well, that’s out of habit; in this series he is pretty adamant about everyone calling him Ian. Why? Again, I don’t know, and part of me is bothered by it because we never find out why he hates his name. I can only assume Pearson had things planned that would explain this a bit more but had to cut them out due to page constraints.

Tilly is one of the characters made for this series, taking the name Puppet Girl as her secret idenity. She’s Jon’s friend and classmate, and is a computer expert, allowing for her to help the team from home until they need her to fly one of Bruce’s machines to them. She hangs around Jon a lot due to going to the same school and because both of them are interning for the Daily Planet. In all honesty, she reminds me of Kathy from before it’s revealed she has powers and is actually an alien since she acts as Jon’s best friend who isn’t Damian, as well as a girl who Jon might have a crush on or vice versa. The blond hair and the purple-pink outfit scheme doesn’t help.

Candace is our final main character and the second character made for this series. We meet her in the books before we meet Jon and Damian, and her story plays a huge role in the overall plot. Candace has been following a string of clues her mother left her shortly before her death, and we learn as the comic goes on that she’s meant to be the next Empress of her home country, Landis, but was forced to flee to Coleumbria when her family was usurped by a general. Over time, she unlocks her power to communicate and control birds, and later to control the weather. I found myself enjoying her story just as much, if not more than the plots that surrounded the title characters, which helps since her story is intertwined with theirs. If I had to compare her to an existing character in the DC canon, I’d say Wonder Woman due to her super human abilities and her being royalty.

THE ART

The art is also good, definitely better than what I can do. However, a complaint I do have is that the characters feel stiff and rigid. It might be the art style, but something felt off at times, mainly with the posing. Again, it’s still better than what I can do, but I feel like it could have been better. I did like how the backgrounds were vibrant and you could tell where the characters were just from a look, and the art is more detailed in general compared to other young reader graphic novels DC has been putting out. Art is pretty subjective, so I’m not going to go into this too much and a lot of these are my own opinions.

The art has come into debate as well, though not for the reasons I mentioned above. When previews for the first book started to be released, a lot of people were critical toward Candace and Damian, particularly toward their skin color. In the preview images, Candace was shown to have a blue-ish-gray tint (you can probably see why this didn’t go over well) and Damian was shown to be paler than Jon (Damian is shown in the original DC canon to be half Arabic and even though he was sometimes shown to have pale skin like Bruce’s, he was also shown to have a tanner complexion due to his mother’s side. Most fan interpretations as a result more often than not have him with tanned skin). After fan outcry, this was fixed with Candace getting a more natural skin tone and Damian’s being brought down to a darker shade than Jon’s. With Damian’s it’s more apparent in the second and third books since in the first one I did notices there were a few panels where his skin tone would be lighter than in others which makes me wonder if it was a last-minute recolor for the first book’s release.

FINAL THOUGHTS

All in all, I’d say it’s okay. It’s not great, it’s not bad; just okay. I honestly think that if Pearson and Gonzalez hadn’t been given a page limit then it could have been better since the pacing wouldn’t be as big of an issue and they would have been able to get through all of the mini arcs they had set up. They obviously wanted to tell a bigger story but were only given so much room to work with.

It’s obviously not for everyone, and it’s definitely not the Super Sons people like me have grown up with, but that’s okay. Some of the kids I used to babysit who fall into the range of “I’ve never really read DC comics and only ever saw a cartoon episode on TV” read these books too and they liked it. Same thing for the few kids who did have prior experience with the Super Sons. What dragged them in was the climate crisis and (for the ones who read them after the world went into a lockdown) the fact the characters were trying to find a cure for a virus that was similar to the flu. Yeah, and these were written way before 2020, so that’s actually an achievement on Pearson’s part.

You don’t have to like them; heck, I didn’t really have any interest in them because of the backlash from people like me until my friends started asking me to make this review. But maybe give them a chance. Find a kid in your family or friend group and see if they’d be interested, maybe you can read it together once the craziness of the last year’s calmed down.

[myriadnarratives]

Netflix’s Shadow and Bone: My Fangirling Thought-dump

Fair Warning: I’m a darklina, so leave now if you’re not going to be decent (I don’t bash on Mal, though, so you’re safe there)

So I binged Shadow and Bone without reading the books (judgmental people, leave now), and let me tell you, I love the show. True, there were some things I wish were different based on what I’ve been spoiled on about the books, but as a show in and of itself, it’s strong.

So here’s just a dump of my thoughts and fangirling (I use *chef’s kiss* a lot). And obviously, spoilers ahead.

***SPOILERS AHEAD***

WHAT I LOVED

- The storytelling, both narrative and visual, is exquisite. How the dialogue contributes to the storytelling, answering the audience’s questions and doubts clearly even before they’re brought up; how the visual arrangement contributes to informing the audience of what they need to know and how that timeline of knowing helps the audience in piecing together the story, the characterization, and the timeline; the tying in of characters’ storylines so audiences are not confused as to why we’re spending so much time watching the goings-on with a character. *super chef’s kiss*

The show is so organically unified in terms of characterization, visual media, dialogue contribution, and so much more that I just, uh, I cannot even! I LOVE THE ART OF IT!

- How the show dealt with race, identity, prejudice, politics, social acceptance, individual needs, personal wants, the desire for security and safety that mean differently for each character *raises both hands to the heavens in thanks* The show’s concepts hit close to home for me in terms of race, prejudice, mixed biological identity that informs social perceptions, the desire for belonging and safety and acceptance, and I think this show would hold a special place in my heart for its portrayal of these issues.

- How different sexualities and genders are portrayed so casually, as if it’s an everyday normal thing (as it should be).

- The Crows (of course) and how their story intersected with Alina’s, and how the storytelling (I’ll keep going on about the visual storytelling until I run out of breath) shows the intersections and develops the diverging stories to meld into each other

- How they showed how brilliant Kaz’s mind is. The visual storytelling of showing one scene without explanation, leading the audience to create their own assumptions on what Kaz was seeing, then having the scene turn out different once it has been explained later when things have unfolded *chef’s kiss*: the meeting between the Conductor and the First Army General, the hidden changing room, the lynx flush assignments 

- How Inej’s faith is portrayed neither negatively or positively; it’s just a thing that is not contrived but contributes to the plot, not some sort of moral policing inside or outside of the story.

- Mal! I heard he’s a jerk in the books, that’s why I didn’t want to read the books before watching the show. But god, his first scenes with the sparring, and the way Archie moved in that fight. Also how Mal’s overall storyline progressed, how his ties to Alina was shown, how his feelings got revealed to the audience even before it got revealed to Alina so the sincerity is not questioned. That True North thing! *heart eyes*

- How the issue of consent in the sexual sense is highlighted as important. The darkling literally asks “Are you sure?” before he proceeds. (Of course, this is very different from his take on non-sexual consent later in the show - like really, you literally put a control button on your hand to control her powers! Dude...)

- The exploration of Alina’s overall consent and agency. They even literally have her say her lack of it when she was in the final episodes. Even Kaz shoves it in the Darkling’s face that she doesn’t want to be a captive anymore. And throughout the show, the thought processes behind her decisions are clearly communicated, giving her agency a lot more weight as the audience can understand and sympathize with her decisions. And she’s not just a “victim” of the story; she pushes the story along with her actions, from her decision to burn the maps so that she could come with Mal, to her childhood decision to cheat the Grisha test, to something as visually simple (yet strongly narrative-affecting) as choosing the left or right path in Baghra’s escape route.

- The exploration of want. What each character wants, how one want like “security” could mean an entirely different thing for each character (i.e. the Darkling’s want of security for the Grisha, Alina’s want of security for herself, Inej’s want of security in the form of freedom, etc.). The show, being well-written, is a smorgasbord of academic analysis. Again, if I haven’t said it yet, I LOVE THE ART OF IT!

- NINA!!! God, I really like how the actress looks! There’s just something about her face that I really, really like. And then there’s Nina’s lines, the delivery, the attitude *chef’s kiss* One caveat though: I wish she wasn’t made to say “Please” when she was hanging off the ice ledge. Even though she had already warmed up to Matthias (and him to her), I would have wanted the scene to be a clash of his pride and her dignity: just like in the ship earlier, her not submitting even to his kindness (sincere or otherwise), and him having a moral crisis on helping a “witch.”

- Genya’s hand-to-hand fight *absolutely beautiful*

- The overall fight choreographies. It’s not just people punching each other and brawling; the jiu-jitsu locks and judo throws hold a special place in my practitioner’s heart, and the fights look really good, either it be for the women (Hello, Genya and Inej) or the men (Mal and Aleksander’s fight looked so different from usual brawls because of the throws).

- How the different Grishas, even the usually non-combat ones, can weaponize their abilities: Healers can, obviously, break bones; Heartrenders can stop your heart; and even the Sun Summoner can blind you.

- Jesper and Milo the goat. “Grab the goat. Hug the goat. Shut the fuck up.” And how Jesper tearfully parted with Milo LOL

- How Alina just climbed right into the get away carriage’s literal trunk. LOL!

- Kaz and the Darkling meeting. I know it’s not in the books (they’re not even in the same trilogy/duology), so having these two characters with so much gravitas meet and actually verbally spar is *chef’s kiss* 

- Inej’s first kill is to save Kaz *heart eyes*

- The Darkling’s humor! “Yes, David?” and “I’ll have to give that speech again” were hilarious!

Of course, there’s many more, generally because of how they contribute to, again, the visual and narrative storytelling and the characterizations and the plot progression and, ugh, I'll stop now or else I'll just keep going on about how much I love how this show was crafted.

NEUTRAL

- I heard that Alina was supposed to be funny in the books, but apart from the “No pressure” and “My tailbone is killing me” lines, there wasn’t really much of that humor in there--most of the humor came from Jesper’s scenes or Mal’s friends. Honestly, I think the show Alina fits the story, so I don’t really care if her humor is not as evident.

WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE

- Gosh, Netflix and the showrunners really know how to market the show. They were right when they said the first step is to cast Ben Barnes. Then the focus on the General/Darkling and Alina’s story and relationship, that sort of dark and brooding archetype getting with the green and pure protagonist, is so delicious. But of course, endgame is not meant to be. The Darkling is a manipulative, controlling, toxic person, and should be nowhere near Alina if not on equal ground. I just wish they didn't put that much focus on it in the marketing (i.e. the extra clips distributed to media sources) to make it seem like darklina could happen, especially with the story changes the show was reportedly doing. Oh well, that’s what fanfiction is for. And I guess there’s a chance for redemption in the following season? *puts on clown nose*

MY QUESTIONS AND...WISHES?

So since the show has changed the story quite a bit from the books, I'm so stoked to see where the characters’ stories lead to. I’m sure there would be similarities to the books (Nikolai and Weylan would show up, for sure), but there would be a lot of changes, I'm sure (Alina’s a Saint now, so how would that affect her life on the run and her relationship with Mal? There’s no great reveal for Aleksander’s name, so perhaps he doesn’t die? At least not that way?).

- I wish we’d see more of that internal/thought connection the Darkling and Alina seemed to have. And I wish they’d highlight further the idea of balancing, of being the only two in the world, and of how each needs/complements the other in terms of power. I just really wish they’d explore more darklina, and perhaps have it open to have a darklina ending (I’m not holding my breath for that one at all, but hey, membership to clownverse is free). At the very least, would there be a change in the Darkling’s ending (does he get stuck in the tree)? Does he get a redemption arc? Would he utter the “I do not repent” line? Would Alina and him have the shared connection, I-can-see-you-even-if-you’re-far-away bond? Would Alina somehow forgive him (hopefully only if he has changed and is not controlling and toxic anymore)? Would Alina and him have a showdown as he tries to expand the fold and she tries to close it? He has command of even the volcra now, so what would that mean for Alina’s side? Does she get an army, too? Maybe there’d be creatures of light, too? Perhaps other animal amplifiers?

- Now that Mal and Alina have more or less confessed to each other and ended up together, what would be the next hurdle in their relationship? They can’t just stay static, after all, otherwise the story of their relationship won’t be a good narrative. Season 1 touched on Mal’s fear of the Grisha (with Alina literally asking him out loud), so perhaps as Alina’s powers grow, Mal’s discomfort with her powers would show more (I hope the show doesn’t make Alina do a Slip-into-the-Darkside trope, or at least not too much to the detriment of her agency and core characterization)? Or perhaps going from that conversation with the Darkling and Mal, when Aleksander seemed to have gotten under Mal’s skin when he pointed out that due to their immortality, Aleks and Alina are endgame: maybe Mal would have that rivalry with the Darkling again and, considering Alina’s kind of psychic bond to Aleks (if they add that in), would feel that Alina might choose the Darkling in the end? I just hope the characters aren’t reduced to stereotypes of 1-girl-2-guys-and-girl-can’t-choose love triangle. Even season 1 explicitly had Alina cut off ties with Mal first (because she mistakenly thought he didn’t want anything to do with her anymore since he’s not replying to her letters) before she went to the Darkling romantically.

- What’s next for the Crows? Would Inej eventually go to Sankta Alina? Perhaps the Ice Court heist is next for the Crows. Nikolai has to show up some time, right? How would that tie in with Alina’s storyline?

I have a lot of other questions on what happens to the characters and the overall story, and I'm really glad that the show has diverged from the books to an extent that a lot of things could be possible. I hope Season 2 does happen, and I hope it’s as good as Season 1, especially since COVID is still happening and filming and filming options are limited. If Season 2 does happen, I hope it gets release soon :P

[aion-rsa]

Riverdale Season 5 Episode 2 Review – Chapter 78: The Preppy Murders

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This RIVERDALE review contains spoilers.

Riverdale Season 5 Episode 2

“So now we have a preppy murderer on the loose…”

The most valid criticism about Riverdale over the course of its now five seasons is how the series constantly drags out its ongoing mysteries, only to frantically race to wrap them up. Due to the pandemic, what was initially intended as last season’s big resolution episode just played out before our eyes and it was….kind of meh?

Let’s examine the wrapping up of these various plots from most to least successful, shall we?

As I speculated in last week’s wrap-up, Jellybean was revealed to be the Auteur (with an assist from her friends). This is actually oddly sweet, as the Jughead/Jellybean relationship hasn’t been heavily explored in this show. There is much dramatic mileage to be mined from the fact that these siblings have been separated for most of their lives and when they are finally reunited it is against the backdrop of everything from murderous games of Dungeons and Dragons knock offs to my personal favorite, the town’s Maple Syrup Blood Feud. Sure, the argument can be made here that Jellybean’s lack of realization of how hurtful these demented videos are is straight up psychotic — she definitely seems to be more on the road to becoming a serial killer here than Betty. Yet there is a pure motive behind them, that of a sister who wants to keep her cool brother around that is actually touching.

That said, there are contrivances aplenty to be had with this denouement. Primarily, why would she recreate Archie’s confrontation with the Black Hood? Correct me if I’m wrong, but there wasn’t actually security footage of this incident, therefore Jellybean and her friends couldn’t have staged such a dramatic recreation. Plus, Veronica works at the Chok’lit Shoppe non-stop, so surely she and/or Pop Tate would have mentioned to Archie that a bunch of kids were recreating his worst trauma. With Riverdale, a deluxe cheesburger-sized suspension of disbelief is the order of the day. But this is pushing it.

The second most interesting storyline that played out here unsurprisingly involves Cheryl. From her horror that the graduation uniforms aren’t crimson to her touching scenes with Toni, the character continues to explode energy whenever she appears. There is something hilarious about her utter indifference to her mother poisoning most of her family that makes her all the more endearing. It’s going to be fascinating to watch her attempt to redeem the Blossom family name. But if anyone can do it, Cheryl can.

Next up comes the not-shocking-at-all reveal that Charles is not the stand-up guy we are supposed to think he was. Remember, this was teased early in the fourth season when we saw him lovey dovey with Chic during a prison visit. Since then it’s been a lot of wheel-spinning and I have to admit that I was surprised that he was actually an FBI agent at all given how much subterfuge is always going on within the Riverdale town limits.

This episode introduced the subplot that Jughead’s former Stonewall Prep classmates were being murdered, raising the gigantic question of who cares? Charles believes his motives behind the killings are born of nobility. Narratively speaking, he’s not much of a serial killer though. In fact, Hermosa cold-bloodedly executes more people than he did in this very episode.

It’s another example of Riverdale trying to stick the landing but instead coming down on its knees. If the preppy murders were happening for weeks, somehow piggybacking off of the mayhem the Auteur was creating this all would have been much more effective.

Circling back to Hermosa for a second. Mishel Prada continues to deliver a delightfully cold performance as Veronica’s sister, here tonight helping to mastermind yet another takedown of Hiram Lodge. Maybe this one will stick, as the final episode of Katy Keene showed a future version of Hiram who has taken up residence in New York City, seemingly focused on smaller scale intimidation that his usual Riverdale antics. At this point the pendulum has swung so far back and forth on the character that it’s hard to feel any concern about him either way. With any luck we will see a new iteration of the character following the series’ impending time jump. Otherwise it’s just business as usual for Hiram, and that is beyond stale.

All of this brings us to Archie. Typically this poor kid’s storyline is the least interesting of the lot. It’s a nice touch to show how Fred’s death is at the core of his ongoing ennui, and K.J. Apa is at his best when he shows Archie spiraling. Yet there was never a doubt that Archie wouldn’t write the letter asking the judge for leniency towards the kid who caused Fred’s death. At his heart, Archie is a good kid, and he would have down the right thing without having to involve the problematic Uncle Frank.

Next week: Graduation time, and a glimpse at Riverdale’s future.

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Riverdale Rundown

• Mary offers Archie some “camo-mile” tea. Whether or not this pronunciation is an actor’s choice or yet another of Riverdale‘s goofy fake productions remains a mystery that even Betty and Jughead couldn’t solve.

• Kevin and Reggie do not appear in this episode. And that is not okay.

• Farewell weirdo Blossoms, we hardly knew — and definitely didn’t care about — ye.

• Hermione announces her plans to divorce Hiram and, hilariously, become a cast member on The Real Housewives of New York City in this episode. This development was originally written when Marisol Nichols was planning on leaving Riverdale, however she will in fact be back after the upcoming (and heavily publicized so its not exactly a spoiler) time jump.

• I straight up Haw Haw-ed at Charles’ economy brand adoption of Dexter‘s serial killing ethos.

• I know there just wasn’t time to show Alice’s reaction to finding out about Charles due to everything else that was happening in this episode, but I would have much rather seen that subplot play out on screen instead of more Archie angst.

• Dramatically it would have been really involving to have Archie confront Jellybean about how utterly fucked up her actions towards him were. Furthermore, her accomplices were kids Archie helped at his community center. There is some real narrative meat to be chewed on there, and hopefully we will see this mentioned in next week’s episode.

• Real talk though, Jellybean and her friends should definitely pursue Hollywood careers. Their skills are legitimate.

• “Are you kidding me Betty, what isn’t wrong?” It’s always so jarring when Archie shows some self-awareness, isn’t it?

• Next week’s episode apparently will focus on the gang’s final days at Riverdale High. Even though school is a massive part of Archie comics, it always feels super weird when the series focuses on it given how heightened the Riverdale reality is.

The post Riverdale Season 5 Episode 2 Review – Chapter 78: The Preppy Murders appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[cutegirlmayra]

I'm actually interested in the difference between Japanese Sonic/Amy and American Sonic/Amy. I know that Japanese is more pro in the games themselves and in marketing, but do you have specific examples? Also slightly off-topic, but do you think there is a reason why Sonic universes outside the games (Sonic Boom, Sonic X, the comics from time to time) are more liberal when it comes to Sonic/Amy moments? I have one or two ideas but I've never quite put my finger on it.

(Official SEGA Sonamy artwork: Sonic Advance 3 -that is meant to be funny lol-)

I’d be more than happy to oblige!

Much like the Anime Trope, these two fall into a rather old but still used one. Girl chases the main hero, main hero either is oblivious or doesn’t show any response to the affections.

SEGA has stated Sonic is ‘Shy’, since he can’t just ‘be oblivious’ to Amy’s open affections… nor can they state he’s ‘neutral’ when that could mean he’s ‘ignoring her’ which would go against Sonic’s natural good heart.

So it’s ‘ambiguous’. Verses- Neutral.

However…

This does in fact differ when it comes to translations.

Examples:

Sonic Adventure 2 Battle:

American: Amy, take care of yourself.

Japanese: Amy…. -long, dramatic pause- Take care of yourself..!

This scene suggests that Japanese Sonic actually paused to think about what to say to her, and also suggests that he felt it was ‘him who should take care of her’ which in Japanese, is very touching and borderlines romantic intent.

American Sonic sped this long pause up to where it was quick and more of a - Winky charm. Whereas, with Japanese, it was more tender and addressed specifically so that more emotion was conveyed. (Some would say at a deeper, more personal level that Sonic wouldn’t natural show anyway.)

—-

Sonic Riders Zero Gravity:

American: Girls hate it when you rush them, Jet!

Japanese: Girls hate stubborn men!

This scene discreetly shows Sonic stepping up to defend Amy, but what’s interesting is that American Sonic is simply telling Jet to back off, whereas… Japanese Sonic is suggesting that Jet stop ‘flirting’ with her. ‘Stubborn men’ suggests that he won’t ease up his targeting her, and is mostly stated for when men are trying to win a girl over -negative connotation at times-. Japanese Sonic is being sarcastic for humor’s sake, but also warning and calling out Jet. Whereas, American Sonic is simply teasing and poking at Jet to turn his anger to himself instead of Amy. (Some, again, would argue the response technically means the same thing, but when you look at the two cultures, you’ll notice that ‘stubborn men’ is more addressed to men who won’t leave a woman alone. -cat callers end up getting beaten up by the main heroes?- In other-words, Japanese Sonic was acting more personally defensive with interceding Jet and Amy; whereas American Sonic was offensive in protecting her and directing Jet to himself for the fun of another race/rivalry.)

—-

Sonic Generations: SEGA of Japan actually stated that Sonic putting his hand up to Amy’s face and pushing her away was out of character. (Something about Sonic not treating his friends like that? I’m sure in Japan, that kind of behavior is considered extremely rude…)

—-

Sonic Adventure:

American: She’s so weird!

Japanese: Amy! Wa-wa-wait just a minute! Sheesh, guess I have no choice…

American Sonic is a bit ‘too cruel’ to most viewers in this scene, though it’s meant to come off as comical. However, in Japanese Sonic is more naturally surrendering to going after Amy’s lead, startled by her suddenly taking off into the park. (Far less harsh, if you ask me.)

—

Sonic Lost World:

American: Hey, Amy! Looks like springtime’s come early!

Japanese: Yo, Amy! Glad to see you’re okay.

Clearly, the difference is substantial. Japanese Sonic has a tender-care to his words as he addresses Amy, showing he remembers her last ‘farewell’ message and is relieved she’s alright. Whereas, American Sonic is going for the joke, being more peppy instead of relieved and commenting on the environment instead of her directly to her. (Some could say she reminded of him of spring… lol okay, I say that. But spring hints at things, okay!? lol)

—-

There are plenty others, lol. But I don’t want to make this too long.

Overall, American Sonic in the Modern Games is much more ‘for the pun’ and ‘about images’ than Japanese Sonic, who still keeps up ‘face’ but also warmly encourages his friends and treats them respectfully. Most of the American Written games have been stated to be ‘out of character’ by SEGA officials.

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!)

My honest opinion?

American Sonic get awkward and werided out by Amy, but still cares about her well being.

Japanese Sonic is shy and uneasy with Amy’s antics, but he appreciates her.

And that’s all folks! ;Db If you’d like more discussions on Sonic or pairings, I’ll try and let you know what the facts verses opinions are!

—WOAH! there was way more to answer in this than what I thought! Let me try and.. here we go!

American Amy comes off as a bit much and mood-swingish. Japanese Amy is more caring and understanding of Sonic.

In Sonic X, Japan has a scene where Amy admits that Sonic may never really want her idea of love, he may never even want a family! But she’s not going to give up trying, cause she does love him.

In America, Amy just complains about Sonic not coming on the date and possibly stating he doesn’t care about her.

Japanese Amy is also shown as ‘playful’ in her culture, and her actions are more reflections of ‘positive attributes’ for the culture. America tries to twist and make this ‘funny’ instead of ‘loveable’ and that throws audiences off.

—-

Most Japanese Companies are very ‘tight’ with their characters, protecting them from being ‘out of character’. Nintendo for one is famous for this ‘tight-grasping-hold’ over their characters being portrayed well.

Sega of Japan knows they have too many people using their characters, and so they created ‘Mandates’ to make sure they stay in line. The reason other medias of Sonic are so ‘liberal’ is because Sega of Japan doesn’t ‘closely watch/inspect/is right in their faces’ to be able to regulate it. And honestly? The officials were more concerned about if it’s making money and getting exposure than anything else. They’ve tried to change that policy, visiting America more to secure some credibility in the characters. They first tried this with Sonic Boom but ended up seeming to abandon it. (I don’t blame them) but they have been here more recently with Sonic Mania; Giving me hope that Sonic Forces will be regulated to more ‘in-character’ themes. (Also, the original writer is Japanese, meaning America JUST has to translate correctly)

Most companies generally want to make sure they still have some control over their franchises, mandates and other rules are not uncommon. SEGA is rather ‘looser’ in their holds then Nintendo, for example though. Nintendo will shut down a fan-project that doesn’t treat their character in good light, or even caution Hollywood like with Wreck-It Ralph and Bowser. They gave some particular suggestions for animation and the like on him. SEGA just had fun with it, cause I didn’t hear much of anything from the interview with the director about them other than they ‘were fully on-board!’.

Sonic Boom got away with Sonamy through loopholes and ‘less supervision’ at times. But they have their limitations too. (Other characters comment on Sonic and Amy, but never Sonic reacting/stating blunt comments. Amy could, but they’re going with a more ‘discreet/quiet’ love when it comes to Amy’s crush.)

Sonic X was by SEGA of Japan, they’re allowed to / can do whatever the heck they want. -z formation, hip rotation, snap, snap, hair flip.- It’s 4Kids (illegal?) editing of original content that sometimes messed up translation. But there are things that were only exclusive to Japan’s release. (such as Natsu no hi which was confirmed to be from Sonic’s POV, along with the anime bubbles at seeing Amy in her ‘dress’)

Archie had their hands tied with some strict contracts, such as ‘Sonic can’t have a permanent girlfriend’ and ‘Sonic can’t show any interest in Amy’, but even Ian admits some hints and others in Archie have stated their ‘case’ on the matter too. (One even admitted he thought Silver was Shadow and Amy’s kid xP

Now, I’m not trying to dis America. They’ve survived a lot. But I know where most confusion comes from is that the company can’t decide ‘what Sonic is’. This can be problematic, along with bad marketing ploys. So it’s not entirely their fault. Other forces are to blame here too. Such as the fandom sometimes placing their opinions on things as facts, without checking sources sometimes.. (It happens -shrug-)

I hope this helps! ^^ (If there was something I missed or misunderstood regarding your question, feel free to ask me again! I wrote this at 6 in the morning so if somethign doesn’t amke sense, you call me lol)

[ijustcantwaittobeme]

My ZR Secret Santa

I wanted to wait to be sure that @runningalchemist wouldn’t mind me sharing their beautiful work since they are on hiatus. So with their permission, I am honored to share what @runningalchemist‘s ZR Secret Santa gift was to me this year. It is so endearing and lovely - if anyone reads this - even though they are on hiatus, please share some love with them too! Not sure when they will see this but thank you again @runningalchemist for creating this and taking the time to give me such a wonderful gift. I hope your hiatus is treating you well and just know that you and this gift are very much appreciated! Thank you so much!

Title: Love and Memories Warning/Spoilers(?): Mentions of S2 and S3 characters but otherwise spoiler free.  Characters: Sam Yao, Jody Marsh, Janine De Luca, Amelia Spens, and Runner Five.  (Mentioning of other characters as well!) Description: “    “Sam, what are you doing? You never do reports in here.” Uh-oh, she was crossing her arms now! Yep, he wasn’t getting out of this one. Best just tell her, he was never the best at lying anyway.   “Alright, but you cannot tell anyone, Jody. This is something special.”

“Sam! Sam!”

    Sam jerked his head up hearing his name shouted, which resulted in him hitting his head on the underside of the comm-shack desk. For a split second he was worried that it was Janine calling for him. After the initial shock wore off, and the throbbing on the back of his head, Sam concluded that it most certainly was not Janine. In fact, it sounded a lot more like Jody.

    Still, even though it was Jody, she could not know what he was doing. With the grace of a highly trained spy, Sam resumed a sitting position in his chair and leaned back innocently, which is to say he did it with the grace of a duck on land with oversized flippers (he banged his knee at least three times getting into his chair).

    His saving grace was the little fact that the door to the comm-shack tended to stick the colder the weather got. It took Jody a few seconds longer than usual to open the door. That didn’t stop her from being suspicious though.

    “What’cha doing, Sam” Jody asked with her usual smile.

    “Who? Me? Nothing. Just finishing up some reports for Janine.” Yeah, that was the wrong thing to say. Since when does he willingly stay in the comm-shack to finish reports for Janine. Usually he was finishing them up in the mess hall or in the rec center, where in both places he gets overly distracted.

    “Sam, what are you doing? You never do reports in here.” Uh-oh, she was crossing her arms now! Yep, he wasn’t getting out of this one. Best just tell her, he was never the best at lying anyway.

    “Alright, but you cannot tell anyone, Jody. This is something special.” She took him at his word. She had her serious face on, her this is an archery challenge and I am going to win face.

    Sam went back under the desk. It was dangerous, but hiding the box behind all the wires was the best way he could think to keep the box secret.

    “I’ve been working on this for a little while. A few others have been helping me with this. Even Janine has been working on this with me.” As if he was holding a baby, Sam handed the box to Jody.

    Her breath was taken away when she removed the lid. One by one she removed the contents as Sam explained what each one was. The first couple of items were lists of five things each. Multiple lists were made, and based on the different handwriting styles they were all by different people.

    “I went around to some of the people that Runner Five interacts with and asked everyone to write down their five favorite things about them. Even Janine contributed a list!” Sam explained.

    As Jody stopped as she came across a certain name. “This…this one is from Sara! How long have you been doing this?”

    Sam rubbed the back of his neck as he glanced to the floor, his eyes held a great deal of sorrow for a moment before he answered Jody’s question.

    “I…I started it shortly after Abel was destroyed by the rocket-launcher wielding zombies, soon after we started working with New Canton. There’s a list from Archie in there. Even Major De Santa wrote a list for Five.” Sam chuckled, granted it was a nervous one, but a chuckle all the same. “I had thought about asking Nadia to contribute to the list, but I haven’t gotten around to it. Even though they have worked together pretty well since the…uh, the deadlock incident, I have been wondering if I even should ask her.”

    “Have you asked our new Major, that Amelia Spens?” Jody asked. Jody didn’t care for Amelia, if her constant attempts at avoiding her was proof of anything.

    “No, I don’t want to ask her. She wouldn’t have anything good to say about Five.”

    Sam watched as Jody pulled the next several items out of the box. They were some of his favorite photos. Candid shots of Five were always the best. Yes, taking pictures of Runner Five while they were sleeping could definitely be considered creepy. But, come on, Five was just sleeping with three cats curled around them. How could anyone not take a picture of that!

    “Sam, where did you get all these pictures?” Jody was astonished. There were pictures of Five playing Demons and Darkness. There were pictures of Five serving food in the mess hall. There were pictures of Five and Simon having bike races around the quad. There were pictures of Five helping out with the little kids. There were pictures of Five dancing. It seemed like Sam had gathered every single picture ever taken of Runner Five since the apocalypse started.

    “I asked around to see if anyone had any pictures of Five. I had taken most of those myself, but Maxine and Jack and Eugene contributed most of the rest.”

    “Wait a minute! I know this picture!” Sam moved so that he could see what picture Jody was holding in her hand, quite close to her face.

    Sam smiled once he saw what picture it was. That was not a day that anyone would soon forget. In the picture, Runner Five was almost jumping up and down in excitement with a large grin plastered on their face. Jody had just made the winning archery shot for Abel Township in a competition against New Canton. Five had been Jody’s assistant for that contest. Several people, Jack and Eugene included, had wanted Jody and Five to race to see who was the fastest. Both runners declined the race in favor of more celebrating.

    Seeing a picture of a moment when everything was just going right brought a smile to Sam’s face. He was so caught up in his memories that he missed Jody grabbing the last items in the box. It was only her gasp that brought him back to reality.

    “Sam, are these-“ Jody began.

    “Yeah, they are. The kids like bringing Five little items they find and collect and they like bringing Five a bunch of their drawings,” Sam said.

    “I knew the kids did something like this. I even have a few, but no where near as many as Five’s got.”

    “Most of those are from Molly,” Sam explained. “She likes bringing Five a new picture every week. She’s always been proud that she was the first person that Five directly saved since they arrived in Abel.”

    “But, how come I never see Five with these drawings?”

    “Oh, that’s because Five had asked me to keep them safe. I keep the pictures here until Five asks to see them. A lot of the time that the are in here they are looking at the drawings. I think it’s somewhat therapeutic for them.”

    Jody was quiet for quite a while. The entire time she just stood there, staring at a child’s drawing of their hero. In this case, that hero was Runner Five.

    “We have to do something for Runner Five, something nice.” Jody’s abrupt announcement startled Sam.

    “Yes! We should, but what should we do?”

    “Hmm, let me think.”

    Sam could have sworn he heard the lightbulb turn on above Jody. Her impish smile that accompanied said lightbulb confirmed Sam’s suspicions. This was gonna be fun!

    “I know exactly what we need to do!”

    Five was nervous. Janine had summoned them to her farmhouse. While that in itself is not strange or scary, this time was different. This time there was a look in Janine’s eye. It was common knowledge that Janine was always hiding something, more than one something actually. That was just her way, and it very rarely worried Five. Today, though, it felt like Janine was desperately trying to hide something from Five. If Runner Five didn’t know better, it almost seemed like Janine was planning a surprise party or something.

    As they made their way to the farmhouse, they kept rubbing their knuckles together. It was a simple nervous habit. Maxine had jokingly told Five before that they were going to rub off the skin on their knuckles if they kept doing that.

    Before Runner Five opened the kitchen door to Janine’s farmhouse, they could hear voices inside. One was Amelia’s and the other was Jody’s. The door was too thick to let actual words through, but the tones could be determined. Amelia was being her snarky self and Jody was having none of it.

    Sure enough, when Five opened the door there Amelia was looking down with a smirk on her face at Jody, who was nearly on her tippy-toes trying to get in Amelia’s face. That’s the downfall of being a head shorter than someone. It makes it very difficult to intimidate someone when you’re looking up at them.

    “Ms. Spens.” Ah, Janine was talking now. “I approved Ms. March’s idea.”

    “Oh, you approved it. Did you think of checking with me to see if I approved it?” It was hard to tell if Amelia was actually upset or not.

    “No, I didn’t.” Janine, blunt as always.

    “Come on, Amelia. We need this, we all need this. Going around and getting this put together has made a lot of people happy,” Sam said.

    “And it’s not like it’s hurting you. You didn’t have to do anything for it, so that should make you happy.” Jody hadn’t moved from her position in front of Amelia. Five had to admit it was kinda adorable.

    “Fine, fine, do whatever you want with this. But don’t expect me to approve of any parties or anything else. This is it.”

    Amelia turned from the rest to leave the farmhouse when she spotted Five standing just inside the doorway eavesdropping, or whatever it is you call it when someone walks into a conversation and just listens without anyone else knowing.

    “Runner Five, as soon as you are done here come find me. I have a run I need you to do for me. Don’t take longer than ten minutes, it is time sensitive.” And without another word, Amelia walked past Five and out the farmhouse.

    “Five!” Jody shouted as she raced to Five and began dragging them further into the house. Her grin must have been infectious, because Sam had an equally large one on his face and even Janine had a small smile on hers. Whatever was going on it had to be big and it had to be good!

    On Janine’s kitchen table was an object about ten inches wide, fifteen inches long, and at least three or four inches deep covered with a cloth. Sam, Jody, and Janine were staring at Five with expectation and giddiness, at least on Sam’s and Jody’s parts (they both looked like they were about to jump out of their skin with excitement). Gingerly, Five grasped the cloth and pulled it away. Underneath was a large leather-bound book. Sliding it towards themselves, Five opened the book to the first page.

    Runner Five,

    This is a scrapbook of sorts for you. Pretty much everyone in Abel, and a few New Canton residents, contributed to this scrapbook. We love you Five, we all do. We just wanted to make sure that you know that. So that’s what this scrapbook is for. To show you how much we care and love you.

                            Jody, Sam, and everyone else.

          Just that small letter at the beginning of the scrapbook nearly brought tears to Five’s eyes. Flipping page after page, Five saw pictures and drawings and letters and little notes that a couple of people wanted to put in the margins.

    Runner Five wasn’t even halfway through the book before the tears started falling. Some of them were happy tears, other were bittersweet tears (memories of those no longer here), and some of the tears were just from being so overwhelmed.

    Jody had wrapped her arms around Five in a hug when she noticed the tears. Sam joined in the hug a few seconds later. While Janine didn’t hug Five, she did place her hand on Five’s arm in a comforting gesture (from her it was as good as a hug).

    “Runner Five, as reluctant as I am to break this up, which I am, Ms. Spens has requested your assistance on a run. I do not approve of this run, she has not run it by me. Never the less, she is the one sent to us and we must follow the chain of command.” It really did sound like Janine was reluctant to send Five out on a run after showing them the scrapbook.

    “Go on, Five. Sam and I will make sure that this gets someplace safe,” Jody said.

    “Good luck out there, Five,” Sam said. “I’ll be monitoring the comm channels in case Amelia tries to pull anything. Don’t worry, Five, I’ve got your back. We all do.”

[petlover18-blog1]

20 Crazy Details About The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' Bodies

New Post has been published on https://www.petlovers.shovelnews.com/20-crazy-details-about-the-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-bodies/

20 Crazy Details About The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' Bodies

by David I Sandhu

– on Aug 17, 2018

in Lists

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have been a staple of pop culture for over three decades. With 6 movies, 6 TV shows, 6 comic series, over 50 video games, and 2 concert tours to date, the Turtles have been extremely successful and still remain popular to this day.

The history of the Turtles started back in 1984, when Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird where brainstorming while eating pizza and watching television. They came up with a crazy idea of bipedal turtles that were masters of the martial arts.

Taking inspiration from Frank Miller, Eastman and Laird self-published a one-off issue parodying, Daredevil, The New Mutants, Cerberus, and Ronin. Little did they realize that they’re off the cuff creation would go on to become the most significant cultural phenomenon to ever involve turtles.

They began to publish a monthly comic with Mirage Comics, but would eventually move to Image Comics, Archie Comics, and IDW Publishing.

The Archie version of the Turtles would go on to inspire the Turtle‘s first cartoon, which became a major hit in the ’80s and ’90s. This led to 3 movies, as well as a concert and a horrifying Christmas special that has been forgotten by most fans.

With so many different creators taking the time to work on the Turtles, there have been many interpretations. Their history, personalities, and abilities have changed countless times.

However, somethings never changed: Leonardo leads, Donatello does machines (that’s a fact, Jack), Raphael is cool but crude (gimme a break), Michelangelo is a party dude (Party).

With that said, here are the 20 Crazy Details About The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ Bodies.

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20 The Ooze That Created Them May Have Blinded Daredevil

The history of the Turtles has changed over time, and thus the infamous ooze that transformed them into warriors and gave them their powers has also been updated a number of times.

In its original incarnation, the mutagen ooze was created by a benevolent race of aliens known as the Utroms.

In other versions, it was a man-made creation that was developed by various organizations. While occasionally it was purposefully made, other times it was created by accident and was never intended to be used on living creatures.

In any case, the green ooze, in some form or another, came in contact with four baby turtles and transformed them into the mean, green fighting machines.

Taking inspiration from Frank Miller’s Daredevil run, Eastman has alluded to the idea that the ooze that created the Turtles is the same substance that blinded Matt Murdock, the Daredevil.

19 Their Shells are bulletproof

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Some versions of the Turtles have small slim shells that minimize their cumbersome nature, while other versions see the Turtles with shells that are huge and bulky.

In the 2014 Michael Bay produced movie, their shells are perhaps the largest we have seen.

While size of their shells is integral to their new design, they also serve a particular purpose: they are bulletproof.

In the movie, Turtles’ shells are nuch denser and harder than normal shells.

Since they weren’t aware of how tough their shells were, at first the Turtles believed that a shot fired at their backs would end their lives. However, they soon learned, along with their assailants, that their shells were strong enough to withstand even bullets.

18 Leonardo Can Heal Himself And Others

Leonardo was always the most mature Turtle. He took Splinter’s lessons and knowledge more seriously and internalized them in away that the others could not or would not.

Splinter recognized this and saw him as a leader of the group. Because of this, he decided to teach Leo how to heal himself and others through the spiritual powers of Ninjutsu.

This is perhaps the closest thing to a superpower that any of the Turtles possess.

Leo is able to heal himself and others from physical injuries, diseases, and even poison.

While battling the estranged daughter of Splinter, Karai, Leo was poisoned with incurable venom. However, through the power of Ninjutsu, Leo was able to instantly cure himself of her poison and defeat her.

17 Raphael And Donatello Were Once Vampires

In the 2012 series, the gang came across many different challenges. One of the most interesting villains that they faced was Dracula.

In fact, they face off against most of the Universal Monsters. Werewolves, mummies and Frankenstein’s monster all take on the Turtles as Dracula attempts to conquer New York City.

In the course of bringing order to the Big Apple, Donnie and Raph are biten and become vampires.

This brings on a new transformation, as the two Turtles grow fangs and have a thirst for blood.

This is perhaps another example of how the Turtles are perhaps more human than they are turtle, since normal turtles do not have teeth. The Ninja Turtles already had teeth and then grew vampire fangs.

16 They Can Duck Into Their Shells

Turtles have the unique ability of hiding in their shell. Because they walk on all four legsand have a large shell, their skeletal structure is different from most animals.

Their spine runs along the top of the shell, which allows them to have a very long neck that can retract into the body. Their body is set up to support its weight differently than bipedal beings.

The Ninja Turtles have displayed this same ability, demonstrating that they must have a similar skeletal structure.

However, this would make it difficult for them to move, as the weight of their body, at least while standing upright, would not be supported by a curved spine.

This would suggest that they have a far more complex skeletal structure than a human or turtle.

15 Donatello Became Cyborg When His Body Was Destroyed

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In the Image Comic series, Donatello went through some significant changes. After a battle against cyborgs, Donnie was shot and dropped out of a helicopter.

With his body significantly damaged, Donnie’s body merged with one of the cyborgs.

Because of this, there was a risk that Donnie could losing his mind and its control to the CPU in his brain.

After this, there were some changes to his personality, as he became more aggressive. There are several instances in which he has dispatched his enemies without feeling any remorse.

This has also made Donnie one of the more powerful of the Turtles, as he now had permanent armor and blasters that he could use.

14 They are Connected To The Spiritual Plane

On several occasions, the Turtles have had to mediate and connect to the spiritual plane. Whether this was to communicate with Splinter or to face their inner demons, the Turtles have always been able to tap into the other realm.

With the help of Splinter, these rambunctious teens have been able to create a strong connection to the other side.

This i has come in handy when they need guidance but were unable to reach their mentor.

When Splinter was missing, the Turtles stayed at a cabin with April O’Neil and Casey Jones. While there, Leonardo suggested that they mediate for several days in the forest to connect with Splinter and find him.

Thankfully, they were able to successfully connect with him. He then sent them on separate journeys to conquer their own personal challenges and face spiritual enemies.

The Turtles succeed and became stronger both in body and in mind because of this.

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13 They May Be Warm Blooded

While this is more a fan theory, there is a lot of evidence to back it up. If the Turtles were still cold blooded, they would behave differently than what we have seen.

For instance, in numerous settings, we have seen condensed warm air exhaled from the Turtles. This only occurs with warm blooded animals because their internal heat source a lot warmer than the outside temperature.

If they were cold blooded, then their body temperature wouldn’t be much higher than their surroundings.

They use blankets instead of heating beds, they shiver, and they sweat. Sweat can only be formed by warm blooded mammals, which would mean that the turtles physiology is far more complex than we thought.

12 Leonardo Lost A Hand

During the 3rd volume of the comics, TMNT was bought by Image Comics. This 3rd volume is no longer considered canon, however, as it deviated from the previous stories and made significant changes to the main characters.

One of these changes involved Leonardo losing his left hand during a fight with King Komodo, a mutated Komodo dragon.

Although the Turtles have incredible healing abilities, they are incapable of growing new limbs.

However, even with the loss of his hand,and the immense pain he was in, Leonardo was not significantly deterred in battle, demonstrating his high pain tolerance.

For a time, Leo had a prosthetic hand that was given to him by Donatello, but ultimately he decided to stop using it.

Instead, he prefers to use a steal cap with a retractable blade.

11 They Are Red-eared Sliders

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Before the ooze created the most famous green, pizza-eating ninjas, they were just pet turtles.

To be more specific, they were Red-eared Sliders. While the origin of the Turtles has changed a lot over the last few decades, this is one of the only elements that has remained the same in all incarnations of the Ninja Turtles.

Red-eared Sliders are the most popular pet turtles in the U.S., so it would make sense that the Turtles are the same breed, since they were originally pets.

After the’ 90s cartoon, the demand for pet turtles grew.

However, as the popularity of the show diminished, many of the pet turtles where abandoned by their former owners.

In London, many of these pets were left at London Park and, over the years, have grown to be the size of a dinner plate. This caused a major issue since these turtles began to harm the local ducks.

10 They Are Extremely Fast

Turtles are always depicted as being slow creatures. Though most owners of Red-eared Sliders know that theses clunky little reptiles can actually move pretty quickly.

However, the Turtles did not just grow large and maintain their natural abilities when the ooze transformed them – their abilities were enhanced.

This means that the Turtles now became much faster than normal turtles.

For bipedal creatures, they are incredibly fast and agile. This proves helpful in battle and when they must race to get the last slice of pizza.

It is even more impressive when you consider how heavy their shells must be.

They are fast enough to dodge lasers and catch up with moving cars, and thus they certainly dismantle the stereotype of being slow-moving creatures.

Plus, they can dance like no other.

9 They’ve Used Mutastones to transform and become more powerful

In perhaps the strangest iteration of the Turtles, Mutant Turtles: Superman Legend was a short-lived Japanese cartoon that featured the Turtles with new powers.

After being summoned by the spirit of light, Kris Mu, they were given special crystals called Mutastones.

 These stones allowed each Turtle to transform into a super Power Ranger-like fighter for three minutes.

They were taller, sleeker, and supposedly more powerful.

However, if they needed more power, they could activate Saint Mutation. This, like a Megazord, combines all four Turtles in to one super turtle called Saint Mutant, a silver and blue like turtle with metallic wings.

The show only lasted for two episodes but they certainly offer Turtle fans a lot of new content. It is the most unique interpretation in the entire Turtle canon.

8 They’ve Turned Into Mutant Beasts

The idea of further mutation has been teased here and there. We have seen little iterations, but it was the classic ’80s/’90s show that tried to explore the second and final stage of the Turtles’ mutation.

While fighting Lord Dregg, an alien overlord created for the cartoon, the Turtles begin to experience a change in their mutation.

At random, they begin turn into giant, beast-like turtles with lighter skin and pointy claws. In fact, they actually resemble the behemoth in Michael Bay’s Ninja Turtles movie.

Their mind remains the same but they become far stronger and clumsier than their normal form.

With Splinter’s help, they are able to tame their inner mutation and bury it away after a few episodes.

7 They Are Masters Of Stealth

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To be a ninja, one needs to be able to blend into their surroundings and become as stealthy as possible.

This has to be difficult for giant green turtles adorned with bright colored bandanas. However, somehow the Turtles can become virtually invisible in ways that would seem impossible.

In The Secret of the Ooze, Raph helps Kato join the Foot Clan at an open try-out in broad daylight. One of the challenges is to remove as many bells as he can in 10 seconds from a mannequin without making any sounds, shrouded in smoke.

While this seems like a difficult task, as soon as the smoke is covering them, Raph is able to sneak into the room, remove every singe bell, deliver it to Kato, and sneak back out.

6 They Can Play The Guitar

In the ’90s, the Ninja Turtles were doing a lot of crazy things. Vanilla Ice showed us that they could dance and the 1994 Christmas Special showed us that they could sing reggae inspired Christmas songs.

However, the craziest thing to come out of the ’90s was the Coming Out of Their Shells Tour, where jean vest-wearing Ninja Turtles sang songs and shredded their guitars for audiences around the country.

Complete with a power ballad sung by a wise and contemplative Splinter, the Turtles rocked the stage.

However, perhaps the strangest part was that the Turtles where able to play guitar at all.

Guitar chords are played with three to four fingers, but the Turtles only have three fingers on each hand.

5 They’re Resistant To Cold

When turtles get cold, their metabolism slows down. Reptiles do not have the ability to regulate their body heat, so their body’s temperature matches the environment that they’re in.

When in freezing temperatures, turtles will slow down and hibernate until it warms up. Turtles can even freeze if they’re in frozen water and thaw out later.

However, the Ninja Turtles have been shown to wear clothing to keep them warm.

When it’s cold, they’re able to run around and fight. None of that is indicative of how a turtle should behave in cooler temperatures.

The mutation has allowed the Turtles to regulate body heat and withstand the cold to prevent them from hibernating.

4 They’re Extremely Agile 

The Turtles have a lot of layers, and what stands out to most are their different and distinctive personalities.

However, every single one of them has been practicing and mastering a skill set in the martial arts since they could walk.

The Turtles are highly skilled individuals and are thus masters in their field.

Consequently, their bodies are toned and conditioned well beyond the abilities of an average man or turtle.

Despite their awkward-looking appearance, the Turtles are quite agile and acrobatic, which allows them to be as effective and as mobile as possible in their battles.

3 Half Of Raphael’s Face Was Blown Off

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When Archie Comics took over TMNT in the ’80s, readers got a glimpse into Raph’s future, as they soon noticed that his left eye was missing.

During a time traveling adventure, the Turtles discover that future Raph lost his eye during a fight with Shredder, Verminator X, and Armaggon.

However, it is later revealed that in every possible future, Raph ends up losing his eye.

In the Image Comics run, Raph unfortunately had an even worse fate. While messing with a defeated cyborg, half of Raph’s face was blown off.

For a time, he wore Casey Jones’ mask to cover his disfigurement. However, he later settled on wearing an eye patch.    

2 They Can Reproduce

After all the mutations that the Turtles have gone through, it seems most logical that they should not be able to reproduce, as the ooze probably made them infertile.

We’ve also never seen a direct offspring of any of the Turtles.

However, towards the end of TMNT’s Mirage Comics run, Michelangelo becomes romantically involved with Seri, a Styracondon princess.

The Styracodons are Dinosaur-like alien species from the plant Nurgostu.

After their relationship became more intimate, Seri presented Michelangelo with some eggs, claiming that they are their children.

The fate of the eggs and Seri and Michelangelo’s relationship has not been resolved yet, as volume 4 of the series has not been written.

However, if it is revealed that the eggs do hatch and that the children survive, then this will be the first example of the Turtles having any offspring.

1 They Eat A Lot Of Food

It always seems like the Turtles are eating. They are constantly awaiting their next pizza order and munching on various snacks.

On average, a Red-eared Slider can go up to 3 days without food. They do not need a lot of food to survive, but their lives are predominately slow and not very active.

A clear difference between other Red-eared Sliders and the Turtles is that the Turtles are extremely active.

If they are not fighting Shredder or Krang, they are practicing their Ninjutsu.

Considering their size, lifestyle, and the fact that they are teenagers, they require a lot of food to provide them with enough energy to fight.

—

Can you think of any other interesting facts about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles‘ bodies? Sound off in the comments!

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[bryanklawiter]

Multicultural America Final Project

All in the Family - Television Show

All in the family was a TV show that aired in the late 70’s.  While many of the episodes were about racial awareness and visibility, it was viewed as entertainment in my household.  In a way, the blue-collar families that resided in my home were very similar to the Archie Bunker household.  There were many characters in the show, but the most animated and opinionated were Archie and his son in law Michael.  Their beliefs were very different on many things including race, sex, sexual orientation, and religion.  I was a young child when this show aired, and it was my first experience with racial tension in American, but I was too young to understand what the point of it was.  All I knew is that it made my father laugh, so it must be a great show.  In many ways our house could have been the Bunker resident.  It was a blue-collar household with parents that worked really hard to provide for their family.  There were other similarities as well, we immediately jumped out of our dad’s chair when he got home from work.  Racial jokes were a common event and probably the biggest thing was that when our Dad came home from work that was his time.  Life as we had known for the last 8 hours had changed.  It was a different time period.  

The reputation that Archie Bunker often had was that he was ignorant.  His character was definitely racist, but many characters on the show poked fun at him because of his lack of knowledge on any given subject.  His Son in Law Michael knew how to push his buttons.

As I grew older and researched this show more, it was apparent that director Normal Leer was not a racist at all.  He was a pioneer in bringing racial relations to American televisions in the 70’s and 80’s.  He was able to get people talking about race and was able to break some of the racial barriers that existed at that time.  

White Mans Burden - Movie

I remember watching White Man’s Burden when I was dating my wife in the mid 90′s.  The movie starring John Travolta did not do well at the box office, but I remember the theme of the movie having a big impact on me.  In our class we are asked to reflect on our white privilege.  One of the best ways to be challenged on this is what if the roles were reversed.  This movie is based on that premise.  African Americans have the elite social status and whites are the minority.  

I remember as a child when Jesse Jackson was running for president.  An adult made a comment that if Jesse Jackson wins, we will be in the fields picking corn.  That statement stuck with me for my entire life.  It confused me why a person who seemed like a good candidate for president was disqualified because of his race.  As I got older I understood better, but definitely didn’t agree.  The thought of being the minority race as very frightening.  I think it is frightening because of the hatred I see every day.  I am being selfish when I say I would not want to switch sides.   It is to bad that this movie didn’t do better at the box office because it did a good job of changing the perspective of how minorities are viewed.  It also forced people to see what life would look like if things were reversed.  It is a punch in the gut for white privilege and people should self-reflect when they watch a movie like this to ensure they are treating everybody with kindness because you never know when the tides might change.  

One final point about this movie without giving the plot away is that many of the actions that the white person did (Travolta) were due to desperation and fear.  I discovered this in my time as a Correctional Officer.  So many crimes are committed out of desperation and if given the choice, they probably would not commit the crime.  Many times, people are trying to provide and protect their families which was the case in this movie.  

Embrace Race - Blog

Embrace Race is a blog that focuses around race and is meant for parents, teachers and experts.  The Embrace Race blog is only one part of the website, but I thought some of the blog entries were interesting and very beneficial with all the topics that are presented to children today.  When I grew up, racial topics were never taught in school or brought up.  Today race is on the minds of everybody.  It is in the news, on the playground, on the internet.  I think it is good that parents and officials are taking the time to engage with their children about these topics.  The days of ignoring the issues like they did when I grew up are hopefully over.  The “Black Lives Matter” picture about was drawn by a white child with white parents.  This child is lucky because her parents embrace that viewpoint, but all you have to do is spend some time on Facebook and many others don’t take that stance.  The racial divide in this country is all around us.  

The title of the blog with the girl above is called “An end to DACA:  Helping children manage stress and Anxiety.  I think many Americans get their heads shoved so far up their politics that they don’t realize the consequences of their actions.  I am glad that blogs like this exist, but at the same time it is a shame that our youth today would have to stress about this.  Nothing has changed since the turn of the century when Takaki told the story of “El Norte”  After reading through some of these blogs it helps me understand the challenges that are still occurring when it comes to children.  I am glad I don’t have children because I could not imagine having to try to explain to them DACA and other events that are going on today.  

1. Post(Television): 

All in the Family (1971-1979 ), CBS

Created by Norman Lear. Executive Producer: Don Nicholl.

Starring: Jean Stapleton, Caroll O Conner, and Rob Reiner

2. Film

White Man’s Burden (1995)

Directed by Desmond Nakano

Production Companies: Rysher Entertainment

Distribution Company: unknown at this time.  

Starring: John Travolta, Harry Bellefonte

3. Social Media/Internet

Embrace Race - Blog

https://medium.com/embrace-race

Photo Credits

https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/48158/all-in-the-family-the-complete-ninth-season/

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114928/mediaviewer/rm1897963264

https://www.embracerace.org/

[thedeadshotnetwork]

Why Won���t TV Show People Who Aren���t Rich?

Why Won’t TV Show People Who Aren’t Rich?

It’s hard to find poor and working-class families on the small screen. Here’s why it matters.

By JOANNA WEISS

November 12, 2017

The Friday Cover

Read more 

This year marks the final season of what might be the most underappreciated sitcom on TV, ABC’s “The Middle.” It’s a single-camera show about an Indiana family—the title refers to its character’s Middle-American, middle-class existence—and unlike the edgy comedies and tear-jerker dramas that dominate awards time, its humor is unapologetically middlebrow. But “The Middle” is charming, appealing and funny, in no small part because it has another distinction: It’s one of a precious few shows on TV today that focuses, consistently and honestly, on economic anxiety.

If there were ever a time to double down on stories of the American middle-class struggle, this is it. We’re in the midst of a new Gilded Age, with soaring inequality and stagnant wages—the phenomena that helped make Donald Trump president. We’re also enjoying a golden age of TV, with more networks and platforms creating more scripted shows than ever. Plenty of smart, acclaimed series have tackled complex social themes with sophistication and sensitivity—think “The Wire” for the urban drug war, “Mad Men” for gender, “Atlanta,” “Black-ish” and “Insecure” for race, “Master of None” for the Muslim-American experience. Even “Game of Thrones” teaches real-world lessons about politics and power. At its best, television holds up a mirror to society and helps us better understand who we are. So the dearth of shows that focus on financial insecurity feels especially glaring.

That’s especially true given the power of the medium, with its intimacy and it’s leisurely, unfolding storylines, to re-shape perceptions of our culture. Socially conscious television producers have long used their scripts to powerful effect. Norman Lear explored America’s racial and social turmoil in “All in the Family,” which set up Archie Bunker, in his armchair throne, as a ‘70s-era avatar of the MAGA spirit. A few years later, Lear produced “Good Times,” the first sitcom that featured an African-American family. It was set in a Chicago housing project, and its theme song was a tart, ironic ode to economic struggle: “Temporary layoffs (Good Times!) Easy credit rip-offs (Good Times!)” In 1998, well before gay marriage became the norm, “Will and Grace” used comedy to pave the way for acceptance.

But Will and Grace were a corporate lawyer and an interior decorator, highlighting this dissonance: Often, on TV, social issues get a full exploration while economic issues are brushed aside. For every Al Bundy selling shoes or Roseanne Conner on a factory line, there have been dozens of shows that peddle material aspiration and the pleasures of real estate porn. This is the cultural soup we grow up in: As a kid in the ‘80s, I spent too many evenings glued to “Diff’rent Strokes,” the cross-racial adoption fantasy that plunked two boys from Harlem on Park Avenue, and “Silver Spoons,” about a father and son who traversed their family mansion on a life-sized toy train. Little had changed by the aughts, when my daughter was binge-watching Disney Channel sitcoms set in penthouses and on yachts—along with a show called “Good Luck, Charlie,” about an exterminator, a nurse and their family, who lived in Denver in a house that seemed only a wee bit smaller than Buckingham Palace.

Compare that to the Heck family home in “The Middle:” a small, cluttered ranch with an overflowing junk drawer and a kitchen stocked with expired food from a store called the Frugal Hoosier. The husband, Mike, is a supervisor at a quarry. The wife, Frankie, works as a dental assistant; in earlier seasons, she sold cars, with limited success. Their kids exemplify the pressures and triumphs of middle class childhood: the academically-underachieving football star; the striving, gawky daughter who will never make the cheerleading squad; the bookworm who occupies a definitive place on the spectrum. Even when the show flirted with upward mobility—Mike and his brother launched a line of sports-themed diapers, giving babies the chance to poop on a rival team’s logo—the dream didn’t last. Before long, Mike sold his stake in the company to pay for his daughter’s state college tuition. The show is never overtly political, but its star, Patricia Heaton—one of the few outspoken conservatives in Hollywood—has said she’s disappointed that the show won’t be able to explore the economic dynamics of Trump’s America.

She’s right that it’s a missed opportunity: A year after Trump’s election, elites are still struggling to understand the class tensions and coastal-vs.-heartland dynamics that shook up the political landscape. By the numbers, the American imbalance is stark: According to the Economic Policy Institute, the hourly wages of high-wage workers rose 41 percent in the 34-year period between 1979 and 2013; the hourly wages of middle-wage workers grew 6 percent in that time frame, and the wages of low-wage workers fell 5 percent. J.D. Vance’s’s career-making 2016 book, “Hillbilly Elegy,” explores the cultural and social consequences of that stagnation and decline, and spends a good amount of time exploring sociological research. Perhaps the coastal, Ivy League set wouldn’t need these kinds of families explained to them through an academic lens if our culture were more interested in their stories.

Of course, there are exceptions, and calculated reasons why some shows bless their characters with material wealth. The absence of economic worry—particularly when it upends stereotypes—can send a powerful message, too. A few years after “Good Times” aired, in the midst of Reagan-era messages about welfare queens, “The Cosby Show” gave us the palatial living room in the Huxtables’ Brooklyn Heights brownstone. Now, ABC’s “Black-ish” explores both poles of economic life with the story of Dre, an ad executive from the ‘hood who now struggles to impart his boyhood identity to his economically privileged kids. One 2015 episode, powered by a product-placement deal, focused on Dre’s desire to give his daughter a Buick Enclave. On the other hand, the show is as woke as they come—the current season launched with a dreamlike, “Hamilton”-esque telling of the history slavery and emancipation. (Plus, as proof of concept, Trump once tweeted that the title was racist.)

But for many series, material comfort isn’t essential to the characters’ lives; it’s incidental. Yes, Showtime’s “Shameless” romanticizes the Gallaghers’on-the-edge existence, and CBS’s “Mom” gets the set design exactly right. But like the twentysomething characters in “Friends,” who rented suspiciously spacious New York real estate on entry-level salaries, many television denizens enjoy interiors straight out of Houzz, regardless of their presumed income levels. In “Kevin Can Wait,” Kevin James’ retired Long Island cop has a beautiful kitchen. OK. But how many shows could, presumably, tell the same stories regardless of their characters’ economic status? Would ABC’s “Modern Family” play any differently without the conspicuous consumption? Could Amazon Prime’s “Transparent” be told without the glorious real estate? Could it even be told better?

And why doesn’t television better reflect our reality? It could be that TV producers and executives live in an affluent Hollywood bubble of their own, with the same narrow pool of kitchen contractors and narrow expectations for how the world actually looks. Or it could be that they imagine that economic stress would add an undue layer of complexity to high-concept stories about Other Things. Maybe they think no viewers want to wallow in a subject so prosaic and depressing. “The Middle,” beloved by some critics, never broke through to be an unqualified hit.

But as a viewer, there’s something deeply fulfilling about watching someone who’s going through struggles that are common and lifelike—maybe a little bit worse than lifelike, because this is TV, after all. “The Office” resonated because of the characters and relationships, but also because its Scranton office setting perfectly captured the claustrophobia of four workplace walls, and the cameraderie that necessarily forms among the cubicles. Greg Daniels,’ who created the American version of the series, also helmed the white-working-class cartoon “King of the Hill,” and has said he sent writers out to Texas with reporters’ notebooks to capture real stories and observations. The work paid off: The show was praised for fostering the kind of cross-cultural, cross-political understanding that’s increasingly hard to come by today.

That’s what “The Middle” offered since 2009, before its cancellation was announced last summer. The stories are sometimes extreme, but they’re still a glimpse of a reality that’s all too understood. Entire episodes are built around the ripple effects of not paying the cable bill, or the shock of realization when a daughter accidentally glimpses her father’s paycheck. The fact that the struggle is depicted on TV is, in some way, a sign of respect — particularly because each new economic crisis depicted, not as some cataclysmic event, but as a constant fact of life. Nothing is resolved so much as managed, with the knowledge that, whatever happens, family is paramount, the Hecks will stick together, and life will go on. That might be the kind of pat construct you find in a half-hour TV script, but it’s also the way the world works. It’s nice to see it on TV.

Joanna Weiss is a writer based in Boston and a former television critic for the Boston Globe.

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Tags: November 12, 2017 at 12:27PM Open in Evernote