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lttleghost · 2 years

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The Thematic Relevance of Jesse Pinkman as an Egg 🏳️‍⚧️

(I wrote this analysis awhile back and wanted to make a fresh post to update it!)

While not intentional, there is a lot in Breaking Bad that supports reading Jesse as an egg. This reading of Jesse has a lot of thematic and narrative relevance and also doesn't create any conflicts with the canon material. Jesse being someone who hasn’t realized he’s not actually a man yet could quite literally be canon.

This analysis is heavily based around parallels between Jesse’s character development and what Breaking Bad thematically associates with gender. It’s also heavily interconnected with the show's overarching theme of change, and also, at least for our two main characters of Walt and Jesse, the revealing of true self. There’s plenty of evidence that each of them already had the traits we see them with at the end of Breaking Bad. Jesse being this very kind and compassionate young adult and Walt being this egotistical monster.

But I would consider Walt's self-deception to be more shallow than Jesse’s self deception. While Walt did end up in a lifestyle that was opposed to who he truly was, he consciously knew what he wanted to some extent, whereas Jesse fully convinced himself that he was a different person than the one he truly is because he never really got the chance to actually figure out much about himself.

There are a lot of examples of Jesse’s disconnected sense of self throughout the show, but the first one that comes to mind has to do with his superhero OCs-

EDIT: YO! if you find video essays more engaging than reading a bunch of text, this analysis now also comes in video form [link]

I think that Jane’s observation that all of them looked like Jesse was, in fact, correct. I wouldn’t consider him doing this as a conscious decision but I feel that he almost admits it. After initially denying that his OCs looked like him and after Jane affectionately teases him he ends up saying to her “like you never wanted a superpower.” And while you could interpret this as just a response to her teasing, I’m convinced that there’s an additional layer to it. Especially because when Jane leaves to check the door, there's a moment where Jesse looks at the sketchbook with his drawings and it seems like he’s considering something, and I’d bet you anything that what he’s thinking about is whether or not he had actually drawn himself and this is REALLY interesting since-

Jesse is a criminal right? And while superheroes themselves are technically criminals as well, as vigilante justice isn’t actually legal, they’re still typically known to be ‘crime fighters’, and Jesse describes his characters as being such. So with his OCs subconsciously being depictions of himself and them being superheroes (crime fighters) and his current life as a criminal, you get the image of someone who doesn’t know who he is or what he wants deep down.

There’s no way that Jesse’s current delinquent lifestyle was his truly… preferred path. It’s much more likely it was the only thing he thought he could do successfully. It’s evidently been the one thing he’s made a decent living off of. He has no support from his parents, and doesn’t seem like he has had it since he was a highschooler. Jesse is shown to have no support outside of the drug trade. Most of his personal skills and interests are artistic or honestly domestic in a world that assigns more value to academics and he’s a highschool graduate who doesn’t have any job experience.

I also believe Jesse is very aggressively ADHD coded, and the combination of having virtually no support, struggling with addiction, and having undiagnosed and improperly self medicated ADHD would make slogging through any “respectable” job that he has access to, or any job that his parents might encourage him to do, unbearable.

So the drug trade was his best bet, Jesse even views cooking meth as a form of art, something that he’s passionate about.

I can’t in good faith ignore that doing something that is... generally frowned upon, didn’t factor into what Jesse chose to do on some level, as society and the structures that it’s built on failed him and there’s an inherent sense of rebellion that often forms in a person when they’re failed like that. Granted, superheroes also tend to often contain some commentary on societies failings as well. Jesse just couldn’t actually be a real-life superhero. So with the few benefits it had in practice compared to any other job, Jesse played into the rest of the role of a criminal, and convinced himself that the aspects of it that conflicted with his personality... didn’t, probably without even noticing.

Even more to this disconnect; When Jane asks “and that’s a superpower?” in response to Jesse explaining Backwardo’s powers Jesse responds with “come on, I was a kid when I drew these, it was like four years ago.” And Jesse is 24 years old in that scene, meaning that he would’ve been 20 when he drew these characters, and when I first wrote this analysis I was wondering whether or not Jesse had gotten involved with the drug trade other than buying drugs by that time, but there wasn’t really anything I could confirm any theories with.

But now I've got the Better Call Saul episode “Waterworks” where Jesse has his second cameo, where he is in fact, 20, and in that cameo Jesse accompanying Emilio, a person we know is his partner in cooking meth, to Saul’s office makes me certain he’s in it by that point. And I just have to wonder if Jesse’s superheroes were almost a… subconscious vent, a manifestation of how being a criminal in the specific way Jesse is, is not what he wants. Something that suggests that Jesse’s actual identity and his current view of his identity don’t line up.

Another thing to point out about the cameo that could be seen as additional evidence of Jesse’s discomfort with being more than just a customer of the drug trade is that he was hanging out outside of Saul’s office, and until Kim gave him one he didn't have a cigarette, so he wasn’t out there to smoke. And while there could be other explanations to why he was outside on his own, I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to say, other than just his general skepticism of Saul, he was just not particularly jazzed to be where he was at that moment and not comfortable going inside.

So relating all of this to gender; that narrative of convincing yourself that you are the person that you’re supposed to be for your best chance of survival instead of being able to truly be yourself already works pretty strongly as an allegory for being trans. But to add onto that even more, thematically Breaking Bad associates “manhood” with the drug trade in one way or another, and paralleling how Jesse realizes he doesn’t fit into the drug trade like he thought he did with how he might not be a cis man like he thought he was makes for a really solid queer reading.

The whole show is pretty explicitly about toxic masculinity. Obviously in real life masculinity and manhood do not have to be toxic, and in Breaking Bad’s original intended story Jesse is a cis man who ends up not fitting into those toxic ideas of manhood.

Things that the rest of the male cast don’t blink at or at least have more mild reactions to, just tear Jesse apart. He’s also targeted at least a couple of times for having emotional vulnerability that is considered to be “not manly”. It’s much easier to point out the differences between him and the male cast than it is to point out similarities between them and this just gets more pronounced the longer the show goes on. He doesn’t really have any positive ties to being a man and I don’t think we can say we ever see Jesse actually reclaim his own sense of manhood. And I think that lack of reclamation gives even more legitimacy to the reading that, along with leaving the drug trade and all of its toxic masculinity bullshit behind, maybe Jesse just leaves behind being a man altogether, and maybe it was something that wasn’t really ever a true part of him, just like his life as a criminal.

Even at the start of the series Jesse’s attempts at hyper-masculinity come off as really goofy and performative. In episode one Krazy-8 mentions that Emilio thinks that Jesse might’ve ratted on him Jesse first has a much more genuine response of “that’s bullshit” which makes sense with his strong character trait of being loyal, but then he goes to say “I should kick his punk ass for even thinking that.” and it just sounds like fake bravado to me. There’s no way Jesse actually thinks he stands a chance against Emilio since Jesse has a body type that resembles a small bird and there's no way he has that little self awareness. He's just playing out a script that wasnt even well thought through, and while some of his other performances of masculinity don’t come across as that fake, there aren’t many that feel like they actually come from Jesse himself, they just feel like something that he just thinks he should do.

And while not every experience with men Jesse has is negative, there always seems to be some distance between him and the men he does have good relationships with. Jesse forms a parent-child type relationship with Mike that is healthier than any other he’s had up to that point other than probably his aunt, but there’s a part of Jesse that Mike never seems to fully get. When Jesse doesn’t want Lydia to be killed Mike says that 'this woman deserves to die as much as any man' and I think he misses that Jesse just still isn’t that keen on killing people even with everything he’s gotten involved with. Even if there are some acts of violence and even some people’s deaths he is fine with and thinks are justified, Jesse never fully adapts to “the job” the way Mike does, and Mike is just not quite able to understand that, or at least not why.

Jesse and his friends have a distance between them as well. Though they’re arguably not as entrenched in toxic masculinity as any of the other prominent men in the show are, and aren’t nearly as involved in the violence of dealing drugs despite being in the trade. Yet still Jesse’s interactions with them most of the time feel different and more withdrawn than their interactions with each other. Like Jesse really wants their presence and company and wants to fit in but there ends up being something that he can’t connect with alongside them, and this also gets more prominent as the show progresses. There’s parts where Jesse seems to be withholding how badly his “high rank” in the drug trade is affecting him when Pete and Badger seem to sort of idolize him for it and want in on it. I think Jesse sort of considers saying something to them about it, but he hesitates and doesn’t. He repeatedly doesn’t confide in them even though, while his friends do perform some facets of hyper-masculinity, they don’t really seem to target or reject vulnerability in the way most of the other men in Breaking Bad do. And Jesse’s distance from even the more harmless side of the male cast makes it feel like it’s not just the toxic masculinity that he’s disconnected from.

Jesse’s relationships with women even further separate him from the men of the show. His romantic relationships with Jane and Andrea read much more as relationships between equals, compared to Walt and Skyler or Hank and Marie. While Jesse does throw the “nice job wearing the pants in the family” insult at Walt in episode two of the first season, after Skyler almost caught him moving Emilio’s body, in Jesse’s own relationships he never actually tries to take control and doesn’t have any problem with Jane honestly being the person making more active choices for the both of them in their relationship, which Walt comments on by throwing that same “nice job wearing the pants” insult back at Jesse.

Another interesting thing found within Jesse’s relationship with Jane that ties them to specific gender roles happens after Jane doesn’t really introduce him to her father. Jesse asks about it and after a bit this Jane ends up saying “What am I supposed to say? Hey dad, meet the stoner guy who lives next door and by the way I’m sleeping with him?” and Jesse replies “Is that all you think you’re doing?”

It’s been pretty common for “the guy” to be considered as the one who sees a relationship as just being sex and “the girl” to see it as being romantic, and this is a very very dumb aspect of traditional western gender roles that this scene even has to subvert, but I think in the context of Breaking Bad’s dealings with gender roles the fact that Jesse is put in the role much more typically associated with women could be viewed as significant. And this significance can be extended to the show’s most prominent dynamic, dealing with the relationship between abusive men and women, Jesse is a victim. I’m not implying men can’t be victims of other men's abuse, but it does make Jesse easier to associate with women in the story, and while the narrative association comes from a negative place, the negativity is directed towards men. But the connection it forms between Jesse and women is a sense of camaraderie and even comfort, at least on Jesse’s side.

and with those connections with women I’d say the most accurate egg interpretation of Jesse is that she’s specifically transfeminine in some way.

I think in this analysis its important to specifically examine Jesse's journey with gender questioning as I think it follows the rest of the ups and downs in her learning more about herself in the resr of her character arc. My personal interpretation of Jesse is that she is a non medically transitioning nonbinary transfem person. The not medically transitioning bit is largely because I enjoy bringing attention to the existence of no-med no-op trans people and to push the point that not seeking medical transition doesnt make a person any less trans, though I do feel that since Jesse's relationship with gender is focused on the societal side of gender roles that don't really relate to physical form that it's a reasonable interpretation that she may not medically transition. I think she uses he/him and she/her pronouns, and is maybe a futch lesbian. I’m saying all of this because it'll be the lens through which I’ll be talking about Jesse’s journey with questioning his gender and how that progresses during the timeline of Breaking Bad. However I don’t claim this to be the only version of transfem Jesse that works with my analysis, or that it's necessarily better than any others that do work. I’ll also be mentioning concepts of “offscreen” additional scenes. That being said, if you’re someone who likes to stick 100% to the text given to us, the “offscreen” scenes aren’t exactly necessary for this interpretation to work as a part of the existing story as the general emotions behind them still stand.

I don’t picture Jesse as having any definable Gender (™) experiences when he was younger other than just a general sense of not belonging, though gender wouldn’t be the only thing playing into that. But as Jesse got older and struggled more, he started to purposefully play the part of what he saw as “a man” to survive in the only role that he thought he could. I see the thought “I wish I didn’t have to be a man” crossing his mind every so often though. I think he just deals with his place in the world for awhile, but after Walt enters the scene and Jesse experiences shit he really didn’t bargain for because of his old teacher, someone who is settling into a personification of toxic masculinity, Jesse’s frustration with being a man becomes more prominent and harder to ignore internally.

In my opinion Jane is the person that helped him start to solidify what exactly those thoughts were indicating. Her approach to relationships would be considered not traditionally cishet, and so is the way she presents herself in general, so I think Jane has some sort of knowledge about the complexities of gender, if she isn't actually queer herself in some way.

And she’s one of the only people we see Jesse truly, truly open up to and so I think at some point later in their relationship Jesse might actually say something about wishing she wasn’t a man around Jane, and I can see Jane saying that Jesse doesn't have to be a man if she doesn't want to be.

But then Jane dies, and I think as a result of that and the lesson Jesse learned from rehab “I’m the bad guy” he goes into just total repression mode. Embodying this new belief Jesse very much dips into the hyper-masculine behavior of the drug trade, he is much more concerned with money beyond paying bills and having nice things, and he plans to do the one thing in the entire show that makes me truly angry at him because of this whole thing, attempting to sell drugs to the rehab group. I don’t think he would’ve ever thought of doing something like that before. He’s trying very hard to be something that’s even further from his actual nature than we’ve seen up until this point.

Part of Jesse’s grief over losing Jane, a person who he confided in probably more than anyone else at that point, was to just completely close up, even to himself. Forget all of those parts of himself that resisted the rougher aspects of the drug trade he was getting dragged into and definitely forget about wondering if he really is a man or not.

At least until meeting Andrea and Brock, which snaps him out of that “I’m the bad guy” mindset, but by that time I think just, too much starts to happen for Jesse to have much time to question her gender. I wouldn’t consider her to be as actively repressing any sort of “I wish I wasn’t a man” thoughts but the amount of turmoil and danger that she’s in, just really really doesn’t lend itself to that sort of gender introspection as much.

I’ve got some additional thoughts on Jesse’s journey with gender that are more headcanons than actual analysis of the show so I didn’t include them in the text above. But I still really wanted to share because I like them and think that they really add to the analysis, so here they are;

I mentioned that I don’t think that Jesse had any particularly notable moments that might’ve suggested that she was trans when she was younger other than feeling out of place, but maybe he did have some interest in playing with “girls stuff” and her parents discouraged it because as we know they’re the shitty type of people who value their child being “normal” at the price of that child’s happiness, but I can also see her being one of those kids who just didn’t even grasp the differences between boys and girls stuff for a longer time than others, or I can even see Jesse’s last connection to the "male" side of gender being from when she was a little boy, before he was aware of the concept of what being a man was, and that it would be expected of her.

But later, in his adulthood, after the idea and pressures of "manhood" became very present in his life, one of the more certain instances of gender questioning I picture Jesse having is at some point while hanging out with Badger, Pete and Combo, Jesse screws around and puts on a dress. And he's like “haha I look like such a queer don’t I?” but is internally thinking something more along the lines of “ I will die before I tell anyone how this makes me feel” (that being that it makes him feel happy).

And then, as we enter into the timeline of the show itself; when Jane first tells Jesse that he doesn’t have to be a man if he doesn’t want to, I don’t actually think that Jesse would be receptive of it at first. I think it’s more likely that he’d decide he suddenly doesn’t want to have this discussion anymore and change the subject. Jesse would still have the misconception that you need to medically transition or at least be required to fit some sort of ‘criteria’ to be trans, instead of just identifying as a different gender than your assigned sex, and I think that would play some role in his not wanting to talk about possibly being trans. And even more because, while he could opt out of telling anyone that he’s trans, Jesse’s in a world in general that isn’t trans-friendly, but the drug trade he’s in specifically is very lgbtq-phobic. Jesse himself is definitely gonna have some internalized transphobia, we’ve seen his homophobia, and I definitely read that as a result of his environment rather than actual hatred considering at Jesse’s true core he’s a pretty caring person. But there are definitely people in the drug trade who would be violently homophobic and transphobic, and Jesse would know that, and would probably perceive even realizing that he is trans to be a threat to his safety. But, later on, further into her relationship with Jane I think she’d open up, even if only to Jane.

And that’s what I like to focus on the most with this analysis, all of the happiness and freedom and healing that Jesse gets to feel detaching himself from manhood, something that honestly contributed so much to every part of his suffering. And god does this girl deserve some happiness.

Then when for the most part too much is going on for Jesse to consider whether or not he’s trans, I still sometimes think of a situation where Jesse might’ve suggested? Her gender questioning to Mike, and while I don’t think Mike’s personal reaction would be technically negative, I think he’d tell Jesse to ‘please not share that with anyone else kid’. Which would be discouraging to Jesse, and she’d quickly backtrack, some because of the reaction on its own but also because he really already knows that it’d be stupid to say anything to anyone else, but it’s not until Jesse’s really free from the drug trade that she can finally crack that egg. I really like to think about the comfort and relief Jesse would get to feel no longer having to try and be a man, cause she finally realizes that she isn’t one.

#breaking bad #jesse pinkman #jesse breaking bad #trans jesse pinkman #queer analysis #breaking bad analysis #brba #jesse brba #this is my girlfriend don't touch him #meat.txt #this is a shortened and edited bit of my video essay script #i just like.... HAD to update my inital text analysis while im working on figuring out how to successfully record my video #cause the old one is so jumbled and stufff #or it feels jumbled to me now at least

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solalunar-eclipse · 26 days

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Sonic Boom - S3E18

Chapter title: Co-op Mode

Summary: Nominatus returns, team-building ensues, and the author jams as many references into a single chapter as possible.

AO3 Link

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[Episode opens on our six heroes all gathered together in Tails’s house. Sonic and Amy are playing a fighting game, while the other four watch from various positions around the room.]

“You’re up against a champion of Ultimate Smackdown Siblings, Amy, so get ready to get smacked down!” Sonic cried, pressing buttons on his controller as quickly as he could.

“Psh. Please!” Amy scoffed, rolling her eyes. “You’re just button-mashing! It takes a master of strategy to win this game.” With that, she dealt Sonic’s character a particularly brutal combo, prompting a chorus of “Ooh”s from Tails and Sticks.

“Excellent move.” Shadow commented, currently leaning against the back of the couch. Sonic pouted in protest, somehow managing to direct his expression towards Shadow despite never allowing his eyes to leave the screen.

“Aw, come on, why’re you siding with Amy?” he protested, his voice pitching up into whining indignance. “I thought you said you were gonna be a neutral party!”

“I am,” Shadow maintained a tone somewhere between infuriatingly calm and effortlessly smug—somehow both an improvement from and yet also worse than the tone that had so easily aggravated Sonic back when they were rivals. “I’m just enjoying the entertainment, no matter whose side it comes from.”

Unfortunately for Sonic, he was just distracted enough by this opportunity for some of their usual banter that he didn’t see Amy’s Terminal Smack activating…and then was promptly forced to watch as his character got blown across the screen and disintegrated in a blast of light.

“No!” he wailed, sliding off the couch and onto his knees. “How could this be? Betrayed, by my very own friend!”

Shadow hid a far-too-fond smile at being called Sonic’s friend. Thankfully for his pride, the hedgehog was far too caught up in his own lamentations to notice…but both of them were soon interrupted when the TV screen began to crackle with static.

“Tails, what’s going on?” Amy leaned forward to eye the screen suspiciously, her hands opening and closing in preparation to summon her hammer.

Before the fox could speak up, the connection suddenly resolved, revealing a black-and-red demon with four horns and an arrow on his forehead.

“Nominatus?!” Tails cried. “I thought you were trapped in Eggman’s lab!”

The demon folded his arms, scowling out from the screen. “What, you assumed I’d just stay there once my episode feature ended? As if! That man was far too busy with his robots to pay attention to us, so it was almost insultingly easy to escape.”

Shadow had been watching the entire scene with increasing confusion, and took this opportunity to speak up. “Who is this, exactly?”

“Oh, he’s just some sort of evil computer guy!” Knuckles explained.

“Just—wh—” Nominatus sputtered. “I am not ‘some sort of evil computer guy’! I am Nominatus! Viral sensation! Trending on every platform where there are trends to be had!”

Sonic and Tails shared an extremely skeptical Look, and that was the final straw. “You think you can mock me, hm? Well then! I’ve faced you twice in your own realm, but no more fooling around!” the demon barked. “This time…you’re coming to me.”

And with that, he snapped his fingers, causing everyone to vanish into thin air.

The controller that Amy had been holding clattered to the floor as the television shut off abruptly, its screen cutting to black. The house was eerily silent, every hint of life within its walls having been rudely blinked out of existence.

…and then the energetic music of the introduction kicked in, utterly shattering the mood.

[The intro sequence goes off without a hitch…but this time, the characters are drawn in pixel art for their signature poses, with an 8-bit version of the theme tune to boot. Otherwise, the individual character introductions and team shot all stay the same.]

[Nominatus takes the villain position this time, tossing various ‘like button’ symbols back and forth between his hands in a manner reminiscent of a certain ‘bad ending’ from a specific game released back in 1991.]

[The intro then continues on, before ending with the title of this week’s episode.]

In a blinding flash of light, the six heroes appeared in a white shopping mall filled with neon store signs and decorations everywhere. Above, an unmistakably vaporwave—inspired purple sky, complete with pink-yellow sun, was visible through the glass ceiling.

Each of them also carried their own personalized weapon, styled in silver with neon accents in their specific color. Amy had her usual hammer, while Sticks held a high-tech bow and arrow. Knuckles wore reinforcements for his hands (and a pair of angular blue sunglasses atop his head, for some reason), and Tails carried—of all the things—dual handguns. Sonic, of course, had a one-handed sword, which was currently attached to a white belt around his waist. Shadow, on the other hand, had an odd sort of pole with an octagon and the word “STOP” at one end strapped to his back, which he immediately removed and stared at with a distinct amount of bewilderment.

Just as the six of them had finished recovering from the shock of being in a totally new world, a projection of Nominatus appeared in front of them. “Welcome to the Mall of Metalloid Madness!” he announced, proudly spreading his arms wide. “This is the lobby for a new game I’ve invented called…the Labyrinth Zone!”

(Curiously, while no one else reacted to this, Sonic shivered for reasons even he couldn’t quite explain.)

“Once you all declare you’re ready, you’ll be dropped in teams of two into my carefully constructed labyrinth! It’s your job to find your way out without using all three of your lives, or else…” The demon smiled wickedly. “You’ll lose a lot more than just the game.”

“And what if we don’t want to?” Tails gave him a look so flat it could’ve had a job as a cardboard cutout. “What if we just find you and blast you until you put us back?”

Nominatus frowned. “Well, you wouldn’t want to disappoint my millions of followers, would you?”

Nobody said even a single word of agreement. The crickets remained silent in solidarity.

The demon sighed. “Fine, then, if you don’t do it I’ll never let you go and your island will fall prey to my inevitable conquering forces, blah blah blah, you know the rest.”

Sonic sighed unhappily. “Okay, guys, I guess we gotta do this.”

Tails shrugged. “At least I’ll probably get to blow some stuff up.”

“Nice positive thinking…I suppose?” Amy said hesitantly, but with a faintly resigned smile.

Nominatus perked up considerably at this, regaining his previous energy. “Well then, when you’re ready to proceed, press the button with your color.” Behind him, six pedestals rose from the ground, each with a lit-up button on top in blue, yellow, red, pink, orange, and black.

Before he could switch off his hologram, the team rushed directly through him, making him glitch out and yell after them, “Hey! Show some respect for the villain who’s holding you hostage, maybe?!”

Of course, none of them did this, instead opting to all hit their buttons (Knuckles even doing so with such force that the pedestal nearly crumpled). Instantly, they all vanished in a burst of light, teleporting into the referentially named Labyrinth Zone.

[We cut to Sonic and Amy, who are together in the maze.]

“Huh.” Sonic muttered, taking in his surroundings. They largely consisted of tall, black-and-grey gradient walls, contrasting with a blinding white sky.

“It seems like we really do get to work in pairs—that’s nice, at least!” Amy said brightly.

Sonic shot her a grin paired with a thumbs-up. “Sure is! You mind whacking me up high so I can get a good look at the layout, Ames?”

She pulled out her hammer, but then hesitated, squinting upwards. “Hold on a minute, let me try something first.” Abruptly, she hurled her hammer straight up…only for it to smash into a force field right above the walls and crash right back down.

“Ah.” Sonic stared upwards. “Thanks for saving me…a lot of broken bones, apparently.”

“I wouldn’t want to mess up your handsome face, now would I?” Amy asked, in a manner that was only half joking.

The hero abruptly choked on his spit and began coughing vigorously, before stumbling after Amy as she walked forward to enter the maze. “Hey hey hey, you’re not supposed to be the one who’s leaving me behind!”

The two of them rounded the corner and came face-to-face with a series of platforms and badniks (obviously just Nominatus-themed recolors of Eggman robots), an obstacle that was more than manageable. Sonic tore through the high route immediately, bouncing between badniks like the showboater he was. Meanwhile, Amy trawled the lower route at an admittedly slower speed, with the trade-off being that not a single robot escaped her wrath.

As she progressed onward, she found herself having to dodge several spike traps, before leaping onto a moving platform. Unlike her speedy friend, she preferred to handle these platforms with care, making sure she knew exactly when they’d be closest before using her hammer to launch herself into the air for a bit of extra leeway.

Amy jumped to another platform, this one moving up and down instead of side to side. Carefully, she focused on the feeling of it climbing beneath her feet, until—“Hyah!”—she slammed her hammer down just as it stopped its ascent.

Astoundingly, her hammer launched her into the air, complete with a spray of hearts where she had previously stood. So we get bonuses for perfect moves. Noted. she thought to herself, quite pleased, even as she stuck the landing.

The pink hedgehog scanned the sky for her friend, watching as he revved up a spindash and launched himself across a particularly massive gap ahead of her. She hesitated to say this too often, lest it become ego-stroking instead of a compliment, but his speed really was quite impressive—

—at which point she watched in horror as his jump fell just ever so slightly short—

—and he slammed into the edge of the other side, uncurling in shock just in time to plummet into the pit below.

Amy raced forward, heedless of the careful tactics she’d previously used as she skidded to a stop, throwing herself to her hands and knees by the void below. The darkness seemed endless, with no speck of blue to be found in sight.

“SONIC!!”

xxx

Tails and Knuckles blinked into existence next to each other, looking around themselves in surprise. “Hey Tails!” the echidna cheered, waving happily at his friend. “I’m glad we got put together.”

Tails beamed up at him. “I’m glad too! Between the two of us, we should be able to get through this place no problem!”

They fist-bumped lightly, Knuckles taking care not to break his friend’s hand in the process. “So, where do we start?”

Tails frowned, staring up at the sky. “I think I see a distortion up there…maybe there’s some kind of invisible ceiling keeping me from flying? Let me check…”

The fox flew carefully upwards to the top of the wall, reaching out a single finger to touch the force field above—

—and promptly exploded.

“Tails?!” Knuckles yelped, stumbling forward and staring upwards wildly, as though his friend would reappear at any moment.

As a matter of fact, Tails did reappear right next to Knuckles, with a sound straight out of a 16-bit game and several flashing invulnerability frames. A ring of repeating, glowing text surrounded his middle briefly, reading: TWO LIVES REMAINING.

“O-kay.” the engineer remarked. “No touching the weird barrier. Honestly, I probably should've used a wrench, but oh well. We get it now.”

Of course, the next room they entered then proved to contain platforms that would slowly rise towards the ceiling, before abruptly dropping back down once they had successfully crushed any occupants into the deadly force field.

Tails instantly facepalmed, but then narrowed his eyes at the puzzle, thinking carefully. “So, we’re going to need to time this really carefully, Knuckles. It’ll be tough to get over these platforms, and we only have five lives between us. I know I’ve got my tails, but are you gonna be okay moving that quickly while also staying low so you don’t get zapped?”

“I could also stay even lower,” Knuckles remarked glibly, without any further elaboration.

“…what do you mean by that?” Tails tilted his head, his brow furrowed.

“What if we just went under the platforms?”

Tails turned to look back at the puzzle, and immediately facepalmed again.

xxx

Shadow and Sticks appeared together, in the third and final starting area of the labyrinth.

“Fancy seeing you here.” Shadow remarked, half to himself.

“Huh?” Sticks blinked at him, clearly confused.

“It’s just a joke—obviously you were brought here with the rest of us and are now visibly partnered with me, so a comment that implies surprise is meant to be sarcastic.”

Sticks stared for another moment…and then actually snickered. “You’ve got a good sense of humor,” they said casually, as though they were discussing the weather instead of dropping a massive compliment bomb directly on Shadow’s head.

The android’s eyes immediately dropped to the floor. “Ah. Thank you.”

“Just telling the truth,” Sticks said, taking a couple of steps forward before glancing over their shoulder to see Shadow properly. “I don’t get why people bother with saying anything but what they mean.”

“I know why they do it, but I don’t necessarily enjoy it.” Shadow explained sympathetically.

While he had been speaking, Sticks had already peered suspiciously around the nearest corner to see what Nominatus had in store for them. Abruptly, their eyes widened, and they shot back around the corner as quickly as possible. “Shadow?” they said, looking over at him warily. “Can ya use this—” they held out a leather hair tie—“and tie up your quills real quick?”

“Certainly.” Shadow began to put up his quills without complaint. “I don’t doubt your judgment, but might I ask why?”

Sticks frowned. “I think you probably need to see for yourself, but I just have one other question first, while we wait for their backs to turn around again.” One of their ears twitched, signaling that they were listening to something. Indeed, when Shadow focused on his own auditory receptors, he could hear the slow, methodical pace of feet drawing nearer. Metal feet, to be exact.

“What is it?”

“The parts and schematics used to make you, they’re the only ones that exist in the world, right?” They rubbed their upper arm uncomfortably.

Shadow frowned, baring his fangs ever so slightly.“Yes. I have the only set of blueprints, and spares for almost everything. It’s enough to do patch jobs, but not enough to build another android.

“Sticks…what exactly did you see?”

“Something that shouldn’t exist.” they muttered, their ears flicking back briefly against their head. They gestured to the corner, letting Shadow know that it was safe to take a look.

He walked up to the edge of the wall, looked around it, and saw…himself.

Copies of him.

Walking right there.

In the hallway.

xxx

Amy still knelt at the edge of the pit, staring down into the darkness. By now, she had begun to scan the interior of the abyss, searching for any type of foothold that could be used to scale its sheer sides. So far, she wasn’t having much luck, but if there was one thing that she made sure everyone knew about Amy Rose, it was that she did not quit.

Suddenly, she was startled out of her intense focus by a chiptuned sound behind her.

She whirled around, lunging forward and swinging her hammer as hard as she could at the threat—

—and blinked, wide-eyed, as it passed right through Sonic’s flashing body and the “TWO LIVES” message.

“Huh. Respawn invincibility, that’s helpful.” he remarked, before shaking his head (and rustling his quills in the process) as he came back to reality.

“Hey, wait, what was that for?! You were gonna hit me!” Sonic complained.

Amy huffed unhappily. “I thought you were down in that pit! I was just about to climb down there and look for you!”

Sonic grimaced. “Yeah, no, probably don’t do that one. I…don’t think it has a bottom.”

“…what.”

“I didn’t hit anything, I was just falling, and then all of a sudden I reappeared back here.” he explained, making Amy glance back over her shoulder and shudder.

“Alright, so how are we getting over it?” she asked.

Sonic shrugged. “I dunno, maybe you could just hit me over or something?”

“…how would I get over after doing that?” Amy gave him a decidedly unimpressed look.

“Ah. Yeah. Right.” He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. “I could run along the wall and take you with me?”

Amy smiled confidently at him. “Now that sounds like a plan.”

“Alright, lemme just—” Sonic stretched out both of his arms, did a couple of quick side-lunges, and then shot her one of his trademark grins. “You ready?”

“Of course I am.” she said proudly, tossing her quills.

Moments later, a blue blur had grabbed her and was already racing across the wall, moving so quickly that gravity didn’t even have time to consider dragging them both down into the pit. (Gravity might have been tempted to post an incensed rant on the internet about this lack of respect for established institutions, namely laws of physics, were it capable of doing so.) Somehow, they even managed to tear back down the wall on the other side, before skidding to a stop safely on the other side of the pit.

It was at this point when Amy noticed that Sonic had taken her hand to pull her across. Coincidentally, it was also exactly this moment when Sonic realized just what he had done. He immediately pulled his hand away with such speed it’d have given her friction burn had she not worn gloves, and refused to meet her eyes.

Amy, meanwhile, smiled quietly to herself. She understood.

“So, how about we finally get out of this maze?” she asked, granting him freedom from his own internal embarrassment.

Sonic perked up immediately, his energy fully restored. “I thought you’d never ask!”

xxx

“Alright, Knuckles, are you ready for this?” Tails asked, once again. “We’ll need to move quickly under these platforms if we want to make it before they drop back down.”

“I was born ready!” the echidna insisted, cracking his knuckles and beaming confidently. “Literally—echidnas are meant to dig in enclosed spaces anyway, that’s why I’ve got these bad boys!” He dropped into a boxing stance easily, showing off the newly-reinforced spikes on his hands.

Tails smiled, shaking his head and running a hand through his bangs. “Okay, just promise me you won’t try to dig through solid steel.”

“Pinkie promise!” Knuckles replied cheerfully, holding out his hand with little finger stuck out and all.

The fox snickered, but held out his own hand and linked their fingers, as requested. Then, he turned to the platforms, flicking his tails a few times in an effort to warm them up somewhat. “All set?” he asked his friend.

Knuckles shifted into a stance that was even closer to the ground, letting more of his innate instincts take over as he prepared to power through the obstacle ahead. He flexed his fingers, curling them into fists once more, before giving Tails a thumbs-up.

Tails gave him one back (along with a smile that looked astonishingly like Sonic’s) and then, sucking in the biggest breath he could, yelled “GO!”

Immediately, Tails tore off, blasting forward and around obstacles with a speed cultivated from following his older brother around for years on end. Knuckles was no slouch himself, however, able to squeeze into unexpected places while the platforms were low from his lifetime of practice digging tunnels. His sense of direction was second to none as well, helping him avoid obstacles even when they didn’t register consciously in his mind.

He did almost try to dig once or twice in an effort to stay down, especially as the ceiling began to rise, but he thankfully remembered his promise to Tails each time and didn’t do more than push off a little awkwardly from the ground as a result. Meanwhile, the engineer had pulled out his dual pistols and was firing off shots at the platform mechanics ahead, trying to at least get one or two of them to slow down without actually compromising his own speed.

However, as they pushed themselves further along the course, the tangle of uneven machinery posed more of a threat than they would have liked. Tails struggled to maintain his top speed while dodging pistons, and Knuckles nearly got his spikes snagged on wiring a number of times.

Vaguely, out of the corner of his eye, the echidna registered some of the pistons beginning to extend to their fullest heights, even as the end was in sight, and so—

—launching himself off the ground with all fours, he hurled himself towards Tails and curled around the fox with just enough momentum to get them clear of the platforms right before they crashed down.

After a moment of silence, Knuckles uncurled, to reveal a perfectly unharmed and extremely delighted Tails. “We made it!” he cheered, holding up a hand that Knuckles had no hesitation in high-fiving right back.

[Camera gives a close shot of the high-five, before cutting to the next and final group.]

xxx

Shadow felt a prickle of cold run down his back and lodge itself right in what passed, in him, for a stomach. “Those…what are they?”

Sticks jumped on his shoulders, making him nearly overbalance and grip the corner of the wall in an effort to prevent them both attracting the attention of the things. “Fakes,” she said simply, distracting him from any ire he might have felt towards her. “They’re walking weirdly, nothing like how you do. They don’t even seem to know how to use those skates they’re wearing.”

Shadow tensed further. “They shouldn’t know much of anything, since they’re not made by the Ancients or the doctor.”

“Do ya wanna smash ‘em?” Sticks asked eagerly, but seemed to hesitate when he couldn’t think of a reply. Sure, he didn’t want them to continue existing, but it felt a little strange to smash things with his face on them…especially so soon after this little group had convinced him that maybe his face didn’t deserve to be smashed.

She hopped off his shoulders, pulling him back behind the wall. “…do you want me to smash ‘em while you wait here?”

Shadow shook his head. “I don’t want you to get hurt. I just don’t really like the thought of hitting a bunch of weird robots that someone’s made to look like me…” he muttered.

“Well, how about this? You go out there and Chaos Blast them, then just hang back and cover me!” Sticks offered, grinning in a distinctly feral manner and slamming one fist into an open palm.

“You’re okay with beating up a bunch of other Shadows?” he asked, frowning.

Sticks shook her head hard. “No, I’m okay with beating up a bunch of robot imposters trying to impersonate my friend! This is my dream!!”

[Camera shows a close-up shot of the lower part of Shadow’s face, as well as the top of his chest. His mouth has a small, yet very genuine smile.]

“Well then, let’s not waste any time, shall we?” he said, activating his skates and blazing around the corner.

“CHAOS BLAST!”

xxx

Not long after their scrape with the bottomless pit, Amy and Sonic found their way into the center of the labyrinth. Before either of them even had a chance to consider any of the other pathways, Knuckles and Tails came running out of one of them, seemingly in high spirits. It only took the two teams a second to register the sight in front of them, before the four were practically crashing into each other with excitement at finally being reunited.

They didn’t have long to wait before Shadow and Sticks arrived, moving at a much slower pace. Shadow’s legs, skates, and gloves were smeared with a strange black substance, but he was otherwise clean—in stark contrast to Sticks, who looked like they’d just been through about fifteen oil changes. There was hardly a body part that wasn’t splattered with the stuff, not to mention their bow and quiver, which were practically dripping.

“Are you alright?!” Amy cried, rushing over immediately and pulling out a spare glove in an effort to help Sticks tidy up somewhat. “Oh my goodness, what happened to you?”

Sticks, meanwhile, folded their arms triumphantly. “We fought a bunch of fake Shadows! I got most of them, but Shadow hit a lot with his Chaos Blast powers.”

Shadow sighed, nearly going to rub his face but then looking at his glove and reconsidering. “It certainly was an experience.” he muttered.

Sonic made a move towards him, but just as he did, the ground began to shake. The six heroes wobbled briefly, stabilizing each other just in time to register that the labyrinth’s center circle they stood on was actually a platform—one that was slowly rising towards the final level. But after the strangeness of the labyrinth, there was no real way for any of them to guess what might be coming next.

The platform delivered them into a dark room, marked only by a dome of red cross-hatching that gave off a faint glow. Automatically, they all grouped into a tight circle, watching each others’ backs carefully.

With a flash of light, the dome lit up around them, showing hundreds of thousands of message bubbles winking in and out of existence each moment.

ohc nominatus streams never disappoint

stacicoot just subscribed!

GET THIS BREAD!!!

I mean, it’s not like we wanted to watch this, but nobody else could be bothered to spend any time with us…

Suddenly, Nominatus dropped from the ceiling, landing in a surprisingly striking pose as his cape billowed behind him. “Welcome…” he bellowed, “to the final boss!

“You’ve done very well so far, and I honestly do appreciate it.” he continued, striding towards the team. “It’s been a while since I had a big event, and I needed something like this to boost my ratings in the algorithm. You all definitely delivered! I haven’t had this many viewers in a while! But I’m afraid…these people certainly aren’t here to watch you win.”

He smirked. “They’re here for me. So while you may have survived this far—

“—I suspect you’re about to break that streak.”

“Oh, no way!”

Sticks pushed to the front of the group, her teeth bared. “I just hit my personal best in ‘number of enemies defeated in solo combat’, and I plan on living to beat that another day, gamer boy!”

All five of her teammates burst into various degrees of laughter behind her at the name she’d chosen for Nominatus. Bolstered by their support, she continued: “Nobody else might want us to win, but we want us to win! And guess what? That’s enough for me!”

Around her, the others burst into cheers, drawing their cool cyber-weapons. And then, they charged.

[For the rest of the fight scene, the animation kicks up a notch. It starts with a fast circle pan around Nominatus as all of the heroes attack him in their own unique ways, from a whack that only a quick forearm block kept from hitting him in the face (complete with comical CLANG sound effect) from Shadow to an earth-shattering ground slam delivered by Knuckles.

However, the camera then reveals that this has done absolutely nothing to significantly damage the digital demon…

Then, the team begins to work together in similar ways to what they did during their time in the labyrinth, and nearly every strike hits perfectly. Nominatus hits back with lasers and harsh swipes with his claws, now finding himself struggling to even the odds. It becomes clear quickly that teamwork, as it often proves to be, is what helps the heroes succeed in their battles.]

When he saw an opportunity left by a successful hit from Shadow and Sticks, Sonic raised his sword, dropping into a fighting stance. He shot a wink over at Amy, smirking. “Hey Ames, you ready to see my Terminal Smack?”

The hero revved up his legs, faster and faster, until they formed a figure eight—and then he shot forward, leaping into the air, and slashed his sword downwards.

Nominatus went flying backwards, skidding across the ground. As he came to a stop, the various messages began to flicker out, one by one, becoming more sparse as time ticked by.

The demon struggled to push himself upright, his arms shaking. “No…no! Wait, chat! Chat, I can still win this! No!!”

Sonic grinned, pointing his sword down at Nominatus. “You want us to keep kicking your butt on livestream? Or are ya gonna let us go?”

“Ugh…fine!” the demon snapped. “Just go! I’ll find other ways to diversify my content!”

And with that, the world broke down around them, becoming more and more pixelated…

…until then they were back in Tails’s living room.

“Aw yeah!” Sonic cheered. “Did you guys see me with that sword? I was all like hah—hyah—” he continued, mimicking his movements from the fight moments prior.

“Yes, Sonic, we were all there. We definitely saw it.” Shadow replied, voice drier than a Meh Burger bun.

All of a sudden, the TV blinked on behind them, their game of Ultimate Sibling Smackdown still loaded. “Ready for another round?” the announcer asked, cycling through one of its preset voice lines.

All six heroes either screamed, jumped, or did some combination of the two. Tails even ended up in Knuckles’s arms.

“Uh…maybe we should hang out on the beach for a while. Far away from any video games.” the fox suggested, after an awkwardly silent moment.

The rest of the team, still in varying states of sheepishness, wholeheartedly agreed with that particular statement.

[roll credits]

#sonic boom #sonic the hedgehog #miles tails prower #shadow the hedgehog #knuckles the echidna #amy rose #sticks the badger #sonic boom: ancient secrets #sol's fanfiction #sorry about how late this is! i had to scrap and rewrite SO MUCH of this #it is at least a thousand words longer than the average chapter though so that's fun #(also 'ohc' is supposed to be the in-universe version of 'omg')#(it's a shortened version of 'oh chaos')#if you found any of the references please do let me know!#thank you all for reading and don't forget to hydrate if you haven't in a while!

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