#or the archie adaptation of it either one

[sonknuxadow]

im not one of those people who thinks shadow has to be in everything like i love shadow but id rather have a story without shadow that works fine without him in it than have a story where hes clearly just there for the sake of being there and isnt really adding anything you know. BUT . i do think its kind of a wasted opportunity that we never got to see shadow interact with werehog sonic at all... not even in the archie adaptation of unleashed that changed some plot details and added more characters... because i think that could have been so interesting

[thankskenpenders]

And now for something new

So, here's something I was never planning on doing, but I just couldn't shake the idea... Thanks Ken Penders is gaining a sister blog featuring an entirely different comic franchise!

Introducing... Thanks Steve Ditko, a blog where I read the Earth-616 Spider-Man comics, starting all the way back in the '60s! It's gonna be much more casual and less thorough than how I run things here on TKP, though, which I'll explain in a sec.

If seeing me post weird bits from old Spider-Man comics sounds fun and you need no further info, then just head right on over to Thanks Steve Ditko. But for longtime TKP readers, I know you probably have questions...

Number one: Why?

Spider-Man's always been my favorite superhero, and with the Spider-Verse movies kicking ass and my excitement building for the new Insomniac game, I've been in a Spidey mood. Inevitably, a thought occurred to me: Maybe I should actually read the comics that everything else is built off of and see the wildly varying contributions of all the original creators, rather than filtering them through big budget adaptations. If I can power through One Piece and all these other manga with hundreds of chapters, it can't be that hard... right?

And, well, after a few issues I quickly realized that my options were to either clog up my other accounts with random Spider-Man panels for years, or to just make a side blog. And so the side blog was born.

Two: Will this blog replace Thanks Ken Penders?

NO!!!!!!!!!

Okay but prove it

To allow the two to exist side-by-side, Thanks Steve Ditko will have a different format than what Thanks Ken Penders developed. Rather than an in-depth guided tour that critically analyzes every story beat of every issue, TSD will just be a place for amusing panels and brief thoughts as I casually read the comics at my own pace.

If you've seen me make a few tweets about reading Spider-Man recently, I'm basically just moving that to a dedicated Tumblr. It's a place for me to dump these things so that it doesn't fill up my media tab on Twitter for the next decade. (You know, assuming Twitter is still around in a decade.) There will be many issues where I only post two panels that I thought were funny. There will be issues where I don't have anything to say at all. Maybe I'll reach a run that I just cannot get into, and I start skipping around more. Who knows!

This may sound similar to what I thought this blog would be before it blew up. Aside from the simple fact that there's already mountains of Spider-Man commentary out there and therefore less of a void for me to fill, one of the main steps I'll be taking to avoid repeating the past is not enabling an ask box on TSD. I do not need people to ask me to go into ten times more detail on everything. I do not need to write seven essay-length responses to questions about Spider-Man minutiae every day. I do not need a place for people to chide me for not covering certain scenes, issues, or ancillary series.

It also won't have any kind of update schedule. I'm trying to keep it very casual. I'm reading these comics at my own pace, and if I feel like sharing a moment or commenting on something while doing so? It goes there. That's it.

(On the subject of format changes, I'm also listing the issue, writer, and penciller in the body of every post. This is a thing I wish I'd done on TKP so that people didn't misattribute every weird Archie Sonic panel I post to Penders.)

Three: So when will TKP come back from hiatus? You said it'd come back after you finished SLARPG!

I don't know! Sorry. I have a couple things on the backburner right now for TKP, but I'm not sure when I'll get back to proper updates where I read more comics.

I wanted to bring TKP back this year, and that's still possible. The main hurdle is that I want to reread my own archive (again) as a refresher, which is, uh. A lot of posts. I've developed a high standard for myself on here, and I feel like I wouldn't be doing my job right if I forgot half the ongoing subplots and character arcs and didn't bring them up in my analysis. Especially when I'm discussing the work of an author as obsessed with continuity as Ian Flynn. Unfortunately, the nature of this blog means that every time I go on another long hiatus for Life Reasons I have even more comic continuity to catch up on than last time.

(This is a big part of why I'm making Thanks Steve Ditko an extremely casual blog instead of promising to become a Lore Expert on 60+ years of Marvel.)

Mostly I've just been very burnt out this year after having finally finished a video game that took almost eight years to make. I haven't really had the energy for any creative projects, including TKP. But I feel a little bit of a spark here with Spider-Man, so I'm chasing that feeling to try to get back into the swing of blogging about comics - no pun intended.

So, basically, bear with me on this as I start this low-energy side project. But hopefully folks will enjoy Thanks Steve Ditko as its own thing, too.

Look forward to goofy shit like this

[thirstnotes]

| Rivals To Lovers - Clark Kent - Part Ten - Competitive Clark, (Feat. Bruce Wayne)|

Pairings: Clark Kent x AFABBlackCurvyReader

Warnings: possessive Clark, jealous Clark, Clark Kent in love, Petty Clark, "Morals? What Morals?" Clark, language, smut, minors DNI, dirty talk, mild exhibitionism, general pettiness, oral, Dark Manipulative Bruce, pure nonsense and rambling thoughts tbh, thirst

If you don't like it, don't read it.

"Hooking up" with Bruce and "fake dating" Clark had you feeling a little bit like Archie

Yeah the redhead in the comics and that one CW adaptation

Except your Betty and Veronica were tall, hot, unusually fit men that felt the need to be quietly petty

Like you hadn’t notice

"Bruce!" you squealed with a laugh as his lips attacked your neck. Penthouses were a new source of entertainment ever since that man entered your life.

He was very insistent upon them

Maybe it was just that rich dude life

Maybe he was constantly trying to impress you

Maybe he just liked to fuck you against the window without any repercussions

At the moment, however, he was very insistent upon being cute on the balcony with you

You never pictured Bruce being warm and fuzzy, but he'd surprised you many times before

Besides. You liked seeing this side of him

"Y/N," he purred back, broad hands smoothing past the silky opening of your robe. You slid your hands over his and pulled them back out, during which he used the leverage to weave his fingers with yours.

"Will you stop tryna show the metropolitan area all my goodies?"

"If they were able to see you, I'd have you inside," he hummed back with a smirk. You rolled your eyes and pecked his lips.

"Maybe they can. I know people that fly news choppers."

Not to mention people that can fly without the use of a helicopter.

"Aren't you shy all of a sudden," he purred up at you, his eyes holding yours with an unspoken knowledge that made you feel more exposed that you wanted to admit. "It's kind of cute."

You stuck your tongue out at him and he touched the tip of his to it. You scrunched your nose at him and he laughed before attacking your neck with kisses again.

You had no way of knowing Clark was watching

You also had no idea he was beyond head over heels with obsessing over you

You were getting ya groove on, Stella

Bruce just be petty

Anyway. Clark was just as bad.

"Hey Bruce," you fumbled out, trying your best to ignore the sexy superhuman making a meal of you.

"Busy?" he asked, the intentional question missing you entirely as your focus was on Clark's warm, swirling tongue tickling your clit.

"I...not particularly," you said, your eyes meeting his. A smirk played at his lips, eyes rolling back to his work. He'd absolutely heard him and he was being pretty petty about it. Particularly when he'd deliberately sucked the sensitive bud of your clit into his mouth just as you were responding.

"Odd. I thought Kent would be hovering around you like he always is," was Bruce's snide reply, though it was Clark's light snort that made you laugh a bit.

"You sound a little jealous," you taunted lightly, aiming the comment at the both of them. Clark's eyes cut up to you again and he pulled back with an intentionally obnoxious smack that made you bite your lip and hope your phone didn't pick that up.

"I am a little bit. He seems a bit taken with you," Bruce laughed softly. It took all in you not to swallow your tongue when Clark had shifted to press his thick shaft through your folds.

"You think so?" you exhaled casually, glaring weakly at him as he loomed above your face, arm resting above your head.

He was so fuckin petty

His eyes held yours as he swept into you with smooth, deep thrusts, warm, dry lips dipping to peck yours every now and then. It was too fuckin good to feel bad about the pout in Bruce's voice.

"You're right. Maybe I am a little envious since he gets to be with you all the time."

"Valid. But you know, you're worrying an awful lot for somebody who's not my boyfriend either," you purred with a cute laugh, though it was more from Clark's lips brushing yours. His hand shifted your leg to angle over his as your hips rocked together. It felt like a reward.

Bruce let out another breathy laugh and you felt a little guilty for how much it turned you on. Especially when Clark started quietly competing for your attention by nibbling on your neck.

These fuckin men

"Is that an invitation?" he purred at you, leaving a pause for you to take for your own use.

"...Are you asking for it to be?" you swallowed, the delicious pressure of familiar pressure building steadily as Clark picked up his pace. You felt him throbbing inside you, probably just as excited as you were about your naughty antics. Of course he was getting off to the fantasy of fuckin Bruce over.

"Answering a question with a question. Touché."

"I'm ruthless, remember?" you laughed, testing the waters on both ends with yet another sassy question. In truth, you were trying to swallow the groan that was working its way into your throat. Because Clark's thrusts were greedy now. You quietly gasped when one of his thrusts hit a particularly sensitive spot. You were really getting the sense that he wanted you to hang up now.

"I noticed. Why else would you be gasping and groaning in my ear like that?” You paused, your blood running a bit cold.

"I'm not judging you for using your toys, but to do it when I can't touch you. That's low," he continued, light humor and longing in his voice.

You swallowed, eyes meeting Clark's. You knew he'd heard that. The wicked smirk was evident enough. The way your body reacted made you hate yourself. It felt entirely too fuckin good.

"I...Um. I'll talk to you later."

"...Do you have to?"

You paused, thumb so close to the red phone on your screen.

You could've pretended not to hear him.

Just could've hit the damn button and hang up

But nooooo

"Bruce Wayne. Are you telling me to touch myself to the sound of your voice?"

"That too far?" he asked, amused. Clark stroked you idly now, carefully studying your reaction. He made you sick sometimes.

"Can't lie. It's kinda hot," you said aloud, though you weren't certain who you were even talking to at that point, but both seemed to be very pleased by your reply. Clark kissed your neck with lingering pecks, destroying your train of thought. "What are you doing right now?"

"About to go into a meeting," he said casually, the background voices testament to his claim.

"You're incorrigible."

"You haven't hung up yet," he purred, the smirk evident in his voice.

Your eyes rolled shut. You were already starting to tighten around the Dick of Steel. You weren't gonna last much longer if they both kept this up.

"You're gonna be late."

"Then cum or hang up."

You wanted to smack him

Well

It was kinda adorable and hot

Clark's strokes slowed to a dangerous crawl, the tingling pressure of being on the edge rising in your loins. You tried to buck a bit to make him speed up, but his hips held you in place. You were gonna die. You let out a frustrated laugh.

"Well?" Bruce said, his tone matching the daring look Clark was giving you. The dangerous look in his eyes making you throb. You swallowed, giving him quiet permission to keep going.

"I...."

You let out an audible gasp when he pressed deeper into you, the wave of edging enhancing every roll of his hips into yours. A friction that was steadily increasing in speed. He was eager. Needy. Starving.

You couldn't lie. So were you.

It didn't take him any time at all to have you making desperate, wanton sounds. Gasping and groans that you barely recognized as your own slid past your lips as you clung to him, hanging on for dear life as he pounded you mercilessly into the mattress. There was absolutely no chill. Just pure 100% concentrated pettiness.

You knew it was to make a point. Without even saying it, he was laying claim to your pussy. It was his. He knew this. You knew this.

The lady in 2B in the apartment below probably knew it at this point...and she wore a hearing aid.

You were gonna have to apologize for that later

With wine

The mattress squeaked unforgivingly beneath you, making you briefly wonder about the integrity of your bedframe, but that soon left your head when it all hit you at once.

A pleased hum shook from your throat as he rode you through your orgasm, chasing his own. Your body twitched a bit from over stim, but you didn't want him to stop. He was making you see stars.

Bruce breathed a small, breathy laugh, reminding you he was still there. "I liked that more than I'm willing to admit."

He sounded a little frustrated

But your mind was still dizzy with ecstasy

You barely even registered what he said while Clark was filling you to the brim

These fuckin men

"I know you did," you gasped out with a satisfied laugh, laughing a bit louder when Clark rolled so that you were resting on top of him. He smiled up at you, pecking your lips gently. "Now go to work."

"I will when I see you this weekend," he smirked, hanging up before you could respond.

Fuckin Bruce

Clark rolled his eyes, but he was too damn smirky to take seriously

Afterwards, you saw him off before having a quiet day to yourself, having a nice hot bubble bath and catching up with on your favorite shows.

Your phone started ringing and vibrating, prompting you to get up with a smirky groan. You weren't sure which one was calling, but.

But.

The masked man in your room, holding your phone was neither of them.

"Let's go for a little ride."

(Part 9)

(Part 11)

[mysteriouslybluepirate]

Can't send asks from my sideblog, but this is @chewing-the-drywall

I feel like much of s2 fell into Frenchie's "we put it in the box and then lock it and don't open it again" in the sense that it set up A LOT that I was intrigued about how they would address it, but it either never was mentioned again or was handled poorly.

Examples range from light, like how I wish we saw more of the crew interacting with each other in ways that built on their characters from S1, where in S2 they didn't feel any more developed, or even regressed. (Example, Fang used the word Fingies 2-3 times through S2, and it felt like they were using it almost as a shorthand for his character, rather than making him feel more real and multidimensional as a character.)

100% @chewing-the-drywall. When I first heard that line I had I was so excited for the story to prove Frenchie wrong. Or show how important it can be to put aside problems to stay alive in the moment. But in the end, this one line summarized how the season handled everyone, besides Stede and Ed. Below, is an in depth discussion on where this season decided to spend it's limited amount of time. Instead of focusing on the characters and plotlines they'd already established.

This season had so MANY ideas it wanted to touch on.

Izzy trying to deal with his unrequited love and opening up to a new way of living. The traumatized 'Revenge' crew trying to adapt to a softer way of life again. The abandoned crew learning how to help their traumatized friends. Introducing new characters like Zheng, Auntie, and Archie into our main group. Setting up a conflict to resolve in season three. Along the way, referencing Pirates of history like Ned Low, Mary Reed, and Anne Bonny.

Notice, I've said all this and we're not even at our romantic leads.

Which is fine. Stories are fluid things. As long as the story knows how to flow from our leads to our side characters. Which leads us to how I feel this show took a lot of time away from establishing our central crew-

[Warning- this will be a controversial opinion- I want to know what y'all think about this] Zheng/Oluwande. This seasons habit of retreading old plotlines and referencing scenes from S1.

What S1 did so well was paralleling the side stories with what was going on with Ed/Stede. Usually, highlighting how well Stede/Ed worked by showing how much Ed/Izzy DIDN'T work. Or general hijinks that tied into the plot (Oluwande and Frenchie on the French ship).

Season 2 chose to parallel our main story with what was going on between Zheng/Oluwande as a budding romance and Izzy's slow recovery. The reason Zheng/Oluwande scenes felt like a waste for me in that the story was JUST a retelling the story we watched from S1.

A frustrated first mate(Auntie), and a legendary captain(Zheng) fighting over the captain falling in love with an idiot(Olu). In season 2, much like every callback for me, it felt like it slowed down the plot by pulling us out of the story. Like...yeah, you did the thing again, do you want me to applaud you for it?

I LIKE Zheng and Oluwande as a couple! I like that Oluwande was debating leaving Stede and taking Jim and Archie with him. But at the same time, I didn't care about Zheng until episode 7 when she beat up Stede, showing that yes. She's not just some all powerful woman taken down by a mix of love(the crew in ep3) and thinking that she was above it all (ep 7). She's fast on her feet, smart, and willing to stab someone who gets in her way. She's her own person. But.

Every other scene that established her was about her romance, felt like we could have put Rhys and Taika in there. It didn't feel...unique. It's as if the show only knows 1 way to write a romance between a badass and a bumbling idiot. Again. Oluwande in season 1 wasn't dumb in the same way everyone else was. He was protective of Jim, a bit nervous overall, but he was the person the crew chose to lead them. The season just dumbed everyone down a bit and called it a day.

This comes to the larger issue. When we only have eight episodes I don't want to rewatch the exact same plot beats with different characters. Time spent here ends up taking away from other stories we could have told about trauma and growing as a family and other forms of growing as a family. We didn't need another romance plot line. Imagine taking this time instead to show Lucius reaching out to Pete AND the crew for help. Or Frenchie finally feeling safe enough to play his lute. Or Roach helping Fang get over his thing with cakes-you get my point.

The fact we took all the found family stuff from season one, and pushed it onto only Izzy in S2 means when he dies, all the found family shit falls away. His death makes us realize we've been ignoring the central family we were supposed to care about. Because in so many words, their trauma was ignored.

[I even theorize if Izzy was alive and sailed away with them. Showing how he was taken in and loved by his crew, the ending wouldn't feel so hollow. This crew doesn't feel like a caring family. The person who protected them for months died, wasn't mourned, and then they threw a wedding the same day. Not even a full day to mourn. The 'New Revenge' feels like a heartless crew of characters we barely recognize because they aren't a family like they were at the end of S1. More like coworkers who sometimes fall in love with eachother.]

Trauma, Timelines, and Tonal issues when jumping from Episodes 1-3 to Episodes 4-5.

When the crews meet up, the story chooses to focus on the fun plot. Ed and Stede recovering their relationship, only dipping back into that serious tone when Izzy or Lucius come on screen to 'make things sad' again. I don't think the transition from 'serious' to 'comedy' was handled well.

I don't have an official timeline of the events of season two. But from what I remember, everything happens within 2 weeks.

In episode 4, Stede ignored the vote of his crew- to let the man who was torturing half his 'FAMILY' for at least 80 days- back aboard. This rubbed me the wrong way, as it showed Stede being a selfish prick in a way that could seriously harm his crew. That's when I started to see how not adding a *single* time-skip mid-season would hurt S2.

Imagine if we had a one-week off-screen time skip between episodes 4 and 5.

Maybe it's implied that they stay in that town for a bit. Izzy would a bit more time to learn to move on his new leg and start to open up to those he already trusts. Include a scene of Izzy WITH the crew, maybe laughing about something with the old traumatized crew, even if it's just a 30-second opener. Imply that the traumatized crew would have more time to settle in with the family they miss. Show that yeah, the traumatized crew needs more time to heal. Imply at the start of the 'Ed apology' that Ed and Stede have had more time to talk their issues out.

THEN have Ed apologize. You can even keep the bullshit corporate to show that Ed still has to work for this.

Healing takes time. Setting a series over the span of two weeks after half your cast was tortured by your lead love interest? After five of your main crew thought they would sail off into a storm and die after months of stress and life threatening battles? Why did that shit get shoved to the side so quickly?

Framing episode 5 as the START of Ed making amends with the crew, only to drop the plot by episode 7? Not a smart move. Because let's be honest, 'poison into positivity' in episode 6, referring to the fact that they sold all of Ed's loot to pay for the party, ignores the sacrifices the crew made to live that long. (The death of Ivan, and intense trauma they all need to work through). In a way, Ed throwing this party was him asking the crew to start putting everything away in that imaginary box.

It's Ed retroactively letting himself say 'hey, that time I spent torturing my captives was worth it because we got something good out of it' while still ignoring his own guilt. Ed needed to take accountability for his actions. No more 'I took 'a' mans leg' bullshit. The reason his arc feels so unsatisfying is that the plot easily forgives him. Fuck. I hate what they did for Ed's arc, but that's not the point.

Overall.

My issue with this season is not that it chose to do these topics, it's that it didn't think about the implications of what they were bringing up. It didn't dare to think 'maybe it's fucked if we quickly brush off a trauma like this'. Again. I know we have to blame MAX for cutting off two episodes. But I don't think 2 additional episodes would fix a tone problem seen going from episodes 3-4.

Fucking hell. Each member of the revenge had the potential for their own arc, so it's baffling to see them all reduced to 'well meaning idiot' when they all felt so fleshed out in S1.

When izzy gives his speech about belonging, there's a reason the only image in the show of the crew all together was from S1.

At the end of the day, Season 2 didn't let our surviving side characters grow. This is a mean spirited bit on how I feel the writers see the their own characters.

Stede and Ed are our leads. They won't die, not in this genera. Their shitty actions will be forgiven because it's a comedy, and as long as it's joked about, it holds no weight. They won't die. They won't get fatally hurt. Their trauma will be taken seriously, but it's a 50/50 on if they'll talk about it before breaking up again. They will eventually get a happy ending, their trauma looked at head on, because duh.

Jim, Olu, Lucius, Pete? Characters who used to have defined personalities in S1, but haven't been defined much beyond their relationships with their partners? Whose trauma might be mentioned, but will quickly be 'resolved' in one scene? Shame. Seems like they're only useful as set dressing, But we might make you useful as interchangeable side characters to riff against. Oh, and you're in love! Isn't that cool!

Izzy? I'll just quote Jenkins here. "To have him become a father figure to Blackbeard, and on some level to the rest of the crew, and to see him become the heart of why we’re giving pirates the chance to stand for being able to live how you choose. In reality, they’re thieves and criminals, but what our pirates stand for is a life of belonging to something larger than they are in the face of a crushing, slightly fascist normalcy." So...Is Izzy a pirate and accepted into the Revenge family? Or is he still an outsider? Jenkins gave us a romcom but still defines Izzy's character as that of one stuck in a drama/tragedy. Point and laugh, because tonally these two things clash HARD and will make an audience lose trust in it's writers unless well established. Leading us to the entire issue we've pointed out of not letting your characters actions hold in dramatic weight in your story.

Frenchie, Wee John, Roach, and Fang- Ah. No love interests again...shit. Well. Background actors it is... for now. We'll see. But we need 2 more scenes of the couple breaking up, so MAYBE you'll get some backstory hinted at in dialogue. You all have 1 thing your good at, so that's easy enough to put you where you belong.

Buttons and Swede? Well. They're still alive!! Don't be sad, fans :) The actors just couldn't show up anymore. We don't want our silly happy queer pirate rom com to not end on a happy ending! (Closes the lid of the trash can where they're keep Con O'Neill a bit tighter, thanking God Con was silenced by a strike this entire season from social media)

Do you agree, or disagree? Leave any lingering thoughts down below!

I'd love to chat down below.

[skaruresonic]

Do you have any opinion about this post? It proposes that a key element of Shadow's characterization is loyalty, and the reason portrayals like SA2, '06, TMOSTH and Prime are beloved is because Shadow is loyal to something (I would add Forces as well), while others like Boom and IDW fall flat because he's only in for himself.

(some of the tags, of course, are all "sega take notes, everyone gets it but you", which is funny for multiple reasons)

I want to agree with it more than I do. The way it's worded makes it difficult for me to be fully persuaded, because it seems to be missing something.

I feel like the post is a bit over reductive. It's already an exercise in futility to try to boil Shadow down to one or two traits because he contains multitudes, nuances, and subtleties; it'd be like distilling Eggman down to "evil scientist" and then ignoring all the ways in which his manchild behavior molds his character archetype.

The others have limits on their loyalty. Sonic will help you out, but he’s not gonna kill a man for you. Shadow will. He doesn’t have that limit. If you are Shadow’s friend and you need him to kill for you, he will do it. Period.

Idk maybe it's just me but something about this style of analysis rubs me the wrong way. When people make declarative, emotionally-loaded statements about the characters that Sound Good on paper but don't hold up to close scrutiny. If you're going to assert something this lofty, you need to provide concrete examples. When did Shadow kill for a friend in the games? When did he express the willingness? Can you give me an example?

also lmao "Sonic's not gonna kill a man for you," Sonic will absolutely kill a man if he fucks around and finds out While I agree with the overarching idea that loyalty can be an important part of his character, if we're talking post-ARK raid Shadow... You kind of have to be honest about the brand of loyalty he possesses, because his loyalty looks very different from Amy's or Tails'. It's a specific, hardwon type of loyalty. It's begrudging. It's that "Pssh, what? I don't care. Feelings are for wussies" kind of loyalty, if anything. Like, it took Rouge dragging his unconscious ass home, a three-day-long fever dream, and her twisting his arm just to get her to begrudgingly call her "ally." You know what I mean?

On the other hand, I disagree with the notion that an overt lack of loyalty inherently makes him unrecognizable, since self-determination is an arguably equally prominent part of his character. In ShTH, you're just as free to ignore the wishes of your partner characters and go your own way. Cue the Fleetwood Mac.

Framing it as though loyalty is the linchpin on which his character rests risks defining Shadow solely through his relationships with others. Note that I'm not necessarily saying his relationships aren't important, just that they're not the most important. Agency and the right to determine his own destiny are vital parts of his character as well. He didn't just tell Rouge "And I will fulfill my promise to Maria; that's the only thing that matters to me now" in SA2. He first told her "Even if my memories aren't real, it's still me, Shadow."

...I'm not sure why OP decided to include Archie and X in their analysis, considering Archie and X are dead and have no bearing on Game!Shadow's character. Not sure what's meant by Shadow being "loyal" to Amy in MoSTH, either; I don't really have context for that since I didn't play it. If I had to guess, however, methinks OP may be mistaking Shadow doing something kind for Amy for friendship or loyalty towards Amy. You can do kind things for others without necessarily being "ride or die" for them.

This is where the post really loses me. Shadow's backstory doesn't need to be expanded upon at this point in the series; they've already dedicated at least three games and a handful of adaptations to his tragic backstory. We don't need to keep returning to the same well again and again. Surely we can do better than to navel-gaze. And the reasons why "he's like this" ought to be clear to anyone who's played the games, since they're fairly self-evident.

"But what about pre-raid Shadow?" I hear someone inevitably ask. Well, yes, Shadow displays obvious loyalty toward Maria, Gerald, and the ARK as a whole, but certain ShTH endings notwithstanding, it's not a blind sacrificial devotion. Regardless of his loyalty, he exercises the agency not to act like a mindless weapon in the hands of his creator. He possesses reason and more importantly, uses it. He still has enough presence of mind to seek to undo "all the evil the Professor has created" in SA2.

Even before the trauma of the raid and Gerald's programming went and deeply mucked up his sense of self, he was preoccupied with notions of self and identity, for understandable reasons. He wasn't purely a lapdog for Maria or the researchers. I feel like swinging the pendulum in the polar opposite direction and saying "Shadow is defined chiefly via his dedication to others" because it swung too far into "Shadow is a hyper-macho jerk" territory isn't a balanced stance to take.

Like this post is arguing from a Watsonian perspective, as though IDW!Shadow's jerkassness indicates some sort of internal selfishness, when the Doylist "Shadow was just written like shit in the book" will suffice. Shadow has a character outside of his relationships to others, just as Sonic and Eggman do. He's quiet, introspective, and in all honesty, he comes out with some hard-hitting lines sometimes. "This is the final voice of the last war machine," anyone?

Sorry if this reply is all over the place, I'm just writing down thoughts as they occur to me lol. Feel free to add your two cents.

[mahoutoons]

the sonic franchise has a misogyny problem

hello everyone, are you ready for another long essay by me? because i sure am. this has been on my mind for a while now. i've already talked about how the sonic fandom tends to treat the female characters worse than the male characters. but what about the franchise? do they treat the female characters better? well, in this essay i'm gonna talk about the misogynistic aspects of the sonic franchise. i'm not just gonna focus on the games, but also on other adaptations. so sit back, and lets have a long talk.

(art by evan stanley)

the lack of recurring female characters

quick question, how many recurring female characters can you name off the top of your head? no, the non game characters don't count, and no, the ones who only appeared in one game and then disappeared don't count. i can only name four recurring female characters - amy, blaze, rouge, and cream. maybe vanilla too. compare that to the amount of recurring male characters - we have sonic, tails, knuckles, shadow, silver, the chaotix, eggman. yeah you can see the problem. and these four characters aren't even utilized that well as of late. blaze especially has so much potential. she lives in another dimension for christ's sake. but sega just doesn't do anything with her. she deserves her own game to explore her dimension. like, there's so much potential with these characters but they just don't do much with them.

the way they treat their lead female character

amy rose is the main female character of the sonic franchise. i've already written an entire essay on how she's treated so i'm gonna try and keep this short. the way sega used to treat their main female character is appalling. she already got enough hate from the fandom, and sega just didn't make it better. just look at how the social media team used to treat her

i have never seen any sonic characters get this much jabs from the social media team as her. heck, i've never seen a lead female videogame character get treated as badly as amy. and the way they purposely go to exclude her? just look at what happened with mania. it was supposed to be a celebration of all things classic sonic but they didn't have her there even though she was a classic character. instead they brought two characters from an obscure arcade game. which... yeah its nice to see obscure characters get the chance to shine but you don't have to exclude a main character for that. and even in origins, though she's in the marketing and cutscenes, she's not playable. why? and before you say "oh its because she wasn't playable before", tails and knuckles weren't playable in sonic 1 either yet they were able to be included there. so what's wrong with making amy playable? what else am i supposed to call the purposeful exclusion of the classic era's only female character other than misogyny? seriously, i've never seen any other franchise do this to their lead female character. even PRINCESS PEACH gets treated better. peach got her own damn game. what's sega's excuse? if they treat their lead female like this, what does it say about how they treat their other female characters?

and one last thing. i've already touched on this before but it makes me angry so i'm gonna rant on it again. the way sega seems to think amy's role in sa2 in reminding shadow of his true promise to maria is replaceable. and every time she's been replaced, its a male character who took her place (chris in x, implied to be sonic in archie). and honestly, i don't have high hopes that they'll let her keep that role in the movie either. i don't even have high hopes that she'll appear in the movie. forgive me for being a negative nancy but i've been disappointed too many times.

archie's treatment of its female characters

lets talk about archie now. pre reboot archie sonic, especially before flynn came around, was an embarrassment to the franchise for many reasons. but what i don't see many people talking about is how they treated their female characters.

lets start with sally, since she's the comic's lead female. those who know her from satam know her as the leader of the freedom fighters, a strategic genius, a no nonsense princess who is determined in her goals. but in archie, especially when penders came along, her agency was taken away. once king max was rescued, penders didn't know what to do with sally. so she had little personality besides being a princess. and need i mention how he tried to kill off sally in the most anticlimatic way? she spent most of the time after the endgame arc being stuck in the castle, not joining sonic and co on battles like she used to. and need i mention the utterly disgusting aspect that is her """"""relationship""""" with geoffrey? there is one issue i particularly remember when geoffrey kissed sally without her consent and sonic saw it from afar. what does he do? does he confront geoffrey about it? does he protect sally? nope, he just thinks that sally is trying to make him jealous. what the fuck?! she's legit being sexually harassed and you're just going to blame her for it? i know this was the 90s but STILL. and to make matters worse, sally is 16 while geoffrey is in his 20s.

and let me talk about how characters are introduced solely to be a love interest. like mina mongoose. i've got nothing against her but lets face it, she was introduced solely to create drama in sonic and sally's relationship. and they even gave her super speed just so she could have something sally didn't, so she could be a "competition" to sally. they didn't even do anything with it later. and flynn has it retconned so that mammoth mogul was the one that gave her that power.

and speaking of which..... ig every female character has taken interest in sonic at one point. we have sally, amy, mina, fiona, bunnie.... it seemed like they wanted sonic to have as many love interests as possible. i mean just look at this cover

and if they weren't into sonic, they were into any other boy. mostly knuckles. and speaking of which, lets talk about julie-su. she's supposed to be this strong woman type character but penders made her whole personality being knuckles' gf. she occassionally showed her "girl power" when she was sticking it to vector (who was turned into a misogynistic asshole to make julie look good. granted this was before heroes gave him a personality but after that you'd think they'd change up vector's character). flynn and occassionally bollers tried to make her interesting but she just didn't do it for me imo. and lara-su, knuckles' daughter who was supposed to be the main character of the "mobius: 25 years later" arc, got sidelined in her own arc. she doesn't have much of a personality there other than wanting to be the next guardian.

now when flynn came along the treatment of the female characters got better. and even more so after the reboot. but i feel like this is something we should talk about.

"only male hedgehogs can go super"

this is, without a doubt, the stupidest mandate ever. i get it, going super is something not everyone can do and if that was the case, the super form would lose its specialness. but why specify only male hedgehogs? the "hedgehogs" part is already stupid enough because tails and knuckles have gone super before, but why the "male" part? why specify that? seriously, give me one good reason why only make hedgehogs should be able to go super. i can't think of any reason this mandate exists besides sexism.

female characters being less utilized than male characters

this kind of ties in to the first point, but the female characters are generally less explored than the male characters. we have few recurring female characters and sega doesn't even utilize them that much. again, blaze has so much potential. there's so much about her to be explored, but sega just..... doesn't do that. we don't even see her much in the games anymore.

and lately, cream is also being excluded from the games. the last mainline game she appeared in was generations. and tell me, what was the reason for cream to be replaced by the chao in team sonic racing? this is amy's little sister figure, and you're just gonna replace her without giving an explanation as to where she is? at least with espio and charmy, they had a reason to not be with vector here. but with cream, there's no reason she's not here.

the female characters have so much potential. they have interesting aspects to them, dare i say it, some of them are even more interesting than the male characters. but sega just doesn't see that.

that's all for my rant. in short, sega has a history of mistreating or underutilizing their female characters as compared to their male characters. though its getting a bit better, they still have a long way to go.

[jhsharman]

ferocious fems, the chaperone

Dexter Taylor may have something here, the young ones prone to skipping any even unreasoned argument and just physically pounding at each other.

Okay. So. Football, of all things, in 1949. But. The reason? They need to raise money for they really care about, a beauty pageant! Okay, fingering that fine line between sexism and misogyny.

1975. A girls' baseball team. Is that particularly crazy from this vantage point? Yes, the first blushing of Title 9 did have some women with zero interest before scholarship opportunities pulled them in -- anecdotally I know a couple woman who never picked up a stick before and for that matter ever again but now were indeed in the early 1970s woman's hockey players -- and a women's athletic culture developed from here after being squelched for quite some time. But. We are a year off from Amanda Whurlitzer as the star pitcher of The Bad News Bears. Betty Cooper herself is a good baseball player over the past two decades when the story calls for it, and not good when the story calls for that. Actually, from whence comes everyone joining a baseball team for its own sake off of the comically exaggerated amount of ignorance we will see?

The mainline Archie version has some teen boys horny to see these "dolls in action". Not a plot point that is going to be adapted to Little Archie, though I do have to wonder about Little Mr. Weatherbee here -- probably just how I assign the line in the original. Semi-cutely, Little Archie sneaks us some zap action from Little Sabrina. The one thing with this era of Little Archie is where we see a good reason a reader would view much of the material as stuck in the 1950s, the Little Sabrina slot comes in new.

I have no clue what size crowd my high school's Powder Puff game drew. The only reason I know there was at least one was that I was in the same room while some of the planning took place, hearing them deciding on where to limit it to as short a time as they could get away with because -- really no one was there to see some great competition. Today you can probably scour old yearbooks to find pictures from these events to see if you can embarrass a politician making hay over a Drag Queen Story Hour.

The abstractions of money get lost in the Little Archie version, dollars traded in for sodas. Conflict of interest anyways -- what athletic association allows the umpire / referee from one of the same schools? Jughead is corruptible -- 1957's "Buck Chuck!" Is this same gag.

The line on "The deuce / to heck with the ball" gets a different meaning with the Little Archie variant, an extension of their ignorance on the game as opposed to the desire to just kick the living snot out of the other girls for perceived personal gain.

The "playing rough", I should note, was run of the mill baseball playing -- ball hit toward you, tagging you out. But. Either way, melee time. And after this they beat the living snot out of Reggie. The End.

[crusherthedoctor]

1, 2, 7 and 12 for Sonic!

1. Why do you like or dislike this character?

Used to not like him very much, in spite of his good qualities, because of how much he annoyed me with his usually not-that-funny snark, and how said snark would often cause fans to think that somehow translates to Eggman being a harmless joke. And how fans tend to let him get away with things that they'd crucify any other character for because main character bias. And because as long as his portrayal is considered top tier, then it's suddenly no big deal if the rest of the cast is treated like an afterthought at best that only exists to make him look good. I still stand by the opinion that Black Knight fell into that trap despite its otherwise solid portrayal of Sonic, and Frontiers has sadly followed suit... with a not quite as solid Sonic.

Nowadays... he's still not exactly one of my absolute favourites, because all of that still rings true to this day, and beside that, there are simply a ton of other characters in the series that I prefer. (Eggman, Tails, Rouge, Tikal, Blaze, Trip, Vector... Gamma... Omega... the Heavies... Luppy Luppy Man... Moneybags...). But after IDW turned him into Mr. Principles, and Prime turned him into Mr. Funny Penis Man, on top of how other adaptations like SatAM and Archie dropped the ball with him, AND combined with how often fans go one extreme or the other with him and choose to misinterpret him as either a stereotypical superhero or the Punisher... it's easier to appreciate the unique depth and perspective that Game Sonic has.

Note that I always knew the nuance was there. I was never blind to it, and I always gave credit where I felt it was due, like the ending to Secret Rings. It's just easier to do so when the amount of portrayals that catastrophically miss the point have gone into overdrive.

Getting used to writing for him in my fanfic material has also helped me gel with him a bit more (not in a Flynn/Stanley way: I've been very adament on keeping him in-character to the best of my ability, even with the addition of you-know-what involving you-know-which-horsie). I also softened up on him because of how much I now associate him with you. :>

One more thing: I realise that most of my aforementioned issues came down to the fandom rather than Sonic himself. These days, I try my best to separate annoying fan hijinks with the character unless I already hate them on their own merits (Surge and Kit), or said hijinks are unavoidably linked to the reason for my beef with them and thus it can't be put aside so easily. Like the Freedom Fighters being overrated as all hell when they weren't all that and spent a lot of time being dicks, or Sage receiving so much praise for """fleshing Eggman out""" and depth she arguably doesn't have, or my currently soured feelings on Amy due to bias and double standards surrounding her less flattering moments VS that of other characters.

2. Favourite canon thing about this character?

His compassion.

No, not that gaslighting and lecturing with 30 paragraphs bullshit. Game Sonic's compassion. Real compassion.

He might not always know what to say, or how to say it, but he always tries his best with someone as long as they're not an irredeemable villain (unless they've already been defeated and can be potentially reasoned with afterwards, like with Merlina). For all the praise given to him for this, I'd argue it's still one of his most underrated traits, since so many fans think that his somewhat selfish love for adventure and enjoying the thrills mean that he doesn't take saving lives or the wellbeing of others seriously, like it's all just a game to him and nothing more... Meanwhile, Eggman is the one portrayed as understanding and compassionate in fanworks. How the hell does that work.

7. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you like?

In Sonic's case, I can't think of much specific other than... keeping him in-character, due to how it doesn't happen often, although you could say that about any of the cast under the average fandom pen. I appreciate it when fans truly understand him, and know what they're talking about with him. Now if only there was someone I knew who fit that description... some kind of Sonic Encyclopedia, if you will... ;P

I guess if it counts, I do like it when him and Tails are portrayed as the unbreakable bond that they are in canon, but ONLY if Tails is treated with equal respect and agency. Lot of fans like to overly infantilize him so that Sonic can take care of him, which implies they only see Tails as a useful tool and not a character in his own right.

12. What's a headcanon you have for this character?

Here's a few. I'll number them (in no particular order) since bullet points always group everything together with no spacing when I use them, which annoys me every time lol.

1. Since he's somewhat of a nomad, Tails' home is the closest thing he has to one.

2. Unless he absolutely has to sleep it off, Sonic tries not to let his hayfever disrupt his morning run. In Green Hill, this usually results in him sneezing every ten seconds.

3. After both Storybook incidents, Sonic would eagerly tell Tails about what he experienced in the Arabian Nights and the Grand Kingdom. Tails, of course, didn't question any of it.

4. Despite their differences, he's proud of Shadow for being able to move on from his past, and become a hero in his own right. He doesn't say it out loud because he knows Shadow would brush it off in his typical Shadow way, and because he knows he doesn't really need to hear it anyway.

5. One time, Sonic mocked Zavok by calling him Bowser. Zavok did not get the joke.

6. Nowadays, Sonic and Rouge get on surprisingly well, as they have more in common than one would expect. Like getting on Knuckles' nerves on occasion, for example.

7. Much like how Amy is her big sister in spirit, Cream considers Sonic a big brother figure.

8. Sonic finds it rather insulting when someone assumes running fast is all he cares about. After all, he has various established hobbies like anyone else, such as reading.

9. He vividly remembers every single place he's been to, no matter how long or how brief he was there. Ironically for someone who doesn't look back, he reminisces on where he's explored with fondness.

10. This is a concept I'm exploring with Stellar, so I'll try not to spoil too much, but as much as Sonic enjoys fighting Eggman despite not treating him lightly (and usually making no effort to save him from situations that should have killed him), he wonders with the escalation of the doctor's plans and ambitions just how long things will last before he has to take him down permanently. Let's just say that certain events in Stellar give Sonic a harsh reminder that at the end of the day, Eggman is not any better than Black Doom, Mephiles, Erazor, etc.

11. The Emerald Coast comic where he reacts poorly to IDW Sonic is canon.

[beevean]

I figure your question why Prime has to be canon in a rhetorical one, but I see it as having two intertwined sides:

The people who clamour hardest that spin-offs like Prime and IDW are canon know very well that the games are the true, unshakeable canon that everything else is based off of, and that Sonic will first and foremost remain a game franchise;

We've seen with Archie that, once it was dead, it was dead-dead. The only people with power over the Sonic franchise who care still about it are those who worked on it, like Flynn and Evan. From SoJ, the "lmao we don't care at all" could not be greater. Same with Boom, except no-one in power cares about that anymore, and it is never ever brought up in anything ever again. Sticks got nuked from Tokyo 2020 after appearing in Rio 2016, and her mention in Frontiers is English-only (aka probably at the hands of Flynn).

Thus, once Prime and IDW die, they will most likely die-die as well. Forgotten, unmentioned, with zero interest from those (ultimately SoJ, I figure) who could bring them back, and maybe with some characters appearing in a mobile game and some more toys made of it until it fizzles out and they never show up anymore. I don't get the feeling SoJ is particularly interested by either. Thus, the people who like these spin-offs surely must know that there will be a day that the spin-offs in question are dead in the water.

But if it is canon, if it is a true part of the games, then they can never be forgotten. Then they will always exist, because Sonic as an active franchise will only cease to exist once there are no more games being made!!! (Of course, the franchise will remain, but no new content will be made for it anymore.) That is why I figure it's so important for the true hardcore "but it's CANON😤😤" fans that their spin-off is canon: because if they are not canon, they'll eventually disappear with zero new content for them, while the actual canon part of the franchise will continue. I can understand why that is saddening, but in the same vein, it's also a bit of a delusion considering the many canon-breaking differences between the actual games and the spin-offs that have been extensively doven into already. Not to mention the fact SoJ just might not care for either.

I understand what you said, and from that point of view, it makes sense.

But... that's simply not how it works? Again, Sonic X is arguably the most "canon" adaptation so far: SEGA was more directly involved, and it straight up adapted some of the games of the time. And yet, it's not relevant anymore. Flynn had to confirm, as if there was any need, that he can't bring back anything from that anime, because they don't own the rights.

Canon is not a badge of honor you can earn! It doesn't elevate a work above others. It simply is a collection of "official" material that a newcomer might need to catch up on to understand a franchise. Not even all games are canon - Knuckles' Chaotix, for example.

IDW was originally pitched as being an alternative timeline of sort, splitting from Forces, and it still is since Frontiers came out more than a year ago and IDW doesn't seem to have any intention of including its events. It's not canon. Whatever your opinion on the comic is, it's its own thing. Tangle being namedropped in Frontiers, in an easily missable optional line, is about as canon as the SatAM characters appearing in the bonus stages of Spinball.

Archie might be completely dead, but it's still kept alive in the hearts of many fans. That's the most a spinoff can get. That's just how it works.

[egg-emperor]

Favourite versions of Eggman?

I'm a simple guy, it's really just classic and modern Eggman- game canon Eggman as a whole. but also including all spinoff games canon or not (except Boom). basically, if they're the games that's my Eggman. I'm like exclusively focused on him in everything I do. I either range from not liking most of the other versions for missing assets of his design, personality or portrayal, to just being disinterested in them. there's others I kinda like but don't feel strongly enough about them or all that interested to rank them or think about them much.

I liked quite a lot of X Egg, some parts of Archie Eggman like much later pre reboot and post reboot, some parts of IDW Egg, and the tiny parts of Prime Egg when he was actually used. and while all of those had their flaws/things I don't like about how they portrayed them in one way or another at some point, all of my favorite parts of them are specifically parts that felt accurate to game canon Eggman, even though they had plenty that weren't elsewhere, that I wasn't in favor of. so it always comes back to game canon Eggman.

so the more something is like game canon Eggman, the more likely I am to enjoy it. the only way I could love something literally just as much as game canon Eggman is if there was an adaption that was literally 100% accurate to him. my absolute least favorite versions are the ones that are furthest removed from game canon Eggman from personality to design, which is also telling of my tastes. if he doesn't have all the reasons I came to love him in the first place to the point he basically isn't the same character, it's not for me.

anyway yeah classic/modern game Eggman as a whole is perfect and owns my heart 🥰

[bassdaily]

There is no Official Capcom Game Canon™ hair for Bass. No unused design sketches or character art that has been released. Nothing even from canon-adjacent licensed games.

But I wonder if it might exist? Because we’ve seen his hair across various comics, and while ‘Manga / Comic & Cartoons Canon’ is not ‘Official Game Canon™’ ...weirdly enough it’s been consistent, especially compared to, y’know, Blues. (Blues, who 100% had a game canon hairstyle from his debut in MM3.)

Classic Rock’s hairstyle is drawn really uniformly. Sometimes it’s black, sometimes it’s brown, sometimes it’s desaturated navy blue, but it’s always a dark color and even with radically different art styles his hair still has the same basic, well, shape.

The same goes for Bass! Ariga’s sketch isn’t even canon for Gigamix, and we only see some hair poking out of his broken helmet in Archie comics. But like Rock, the style is consistent, and both times it’s colored in, his hair is dark. (The sketch is just not colored in. It could be light, it could be dark. There’s also a sketch of Blues on the same page... his hair isn’t colored in either.)

The Rockman & Forte manga ran from April 1998 to January 1999. From what I can gather, the “Burning Shot” short is from 1998.

Rockman Gigamix was published in 2009. The sketch Hitoshi Ariga drew of helmetless Forte was at FanExpo Canada, August 2010.

Archie's Worlds Collide crossover ran from April to August 2013.

It’s entirely possible that Kouji Izuki came up with something for the game’s manga adaption, and when asked about it on the spot Ariga drew from that, and then Archie comics kept what was previously done by the manga artists. Especially given how Archie loved to pack in references to other Mega Man ‘verses.

Conversely, any one of them could’ve gone with whatever unique design they wanted, and they didn’t. I think it’s possible that the artists and writers producing licensed franchise spin-offs might have had access to unreleased “series bible” material that we the public will never get to see because Capcom has totally forgotten this character exists in the first place. So the real question is: after Novas Aventuras, did Capcom have the wherewithal to go “hey maybe we should lay down some guidelines on how these characters are depicted”?

(Quick comparison of how helmet failure is shown for both characters in Archie comics. Rock’s hair is disheveled from the fight, yet still the right style and color.)

[sage-nebula]

Tails ~

What I like about them

Tails fits the definition of a classical antihero. While nowadays we think of antiheroes as brooding types who are willing to do less-than-heroic things to get the job done, in classical literature an antihero was a character who, while heroic, displayed personality traits that weren't often associated with heroes. For instance, a classical antihero might be wrangle with self-doubt where a classical hero is confident. A classical antihero may be physically weak where a classical hero is physically strong, so on and so forth. Frodo Baggins is an example of a classical antihero, and so, too, is Tails. And I like this because it gives us interesting avenues to explore his character from. Sonic is great, but as a traditional hero he doesn't wrangle with things like self-doubt or anxiety. What you see is what you get with him: just a guy who loves adventure. But perhaps in part due to being a literal genius, Tails is a lot more cerebral and there's a lot more introspection with him, particularly given his shortcomings and weaknesses. Exploring the ways he grows and learns to work with his anxieties and traumas, rather than against them, makes his character really interesting.

Also, he is so fucking cute oh my god.

What I dislike about them

His character writing has been, to put it politely, inconsistent over the years. He went through all that growth in the Adventure games just to have it completely ripped the fuck away from him in later ones (particularly Forces). It's not great and most days I pretend I do not see it.

Favourite moment

In the games: Either the moment he threw hands with Eggman when he thought Eggman had killed Sonic in Adventure 2, or the acknowledgement of his issues and his whole arc in Frontiers rolled up into one.

In animation: Either saying that Sonic was his "mom, dad, and picket fence" in AoStH, or the episode in AoStH where Sonic was turned to stone and so Tails spent the whole episode trolling Scratch and Grounder Home Alone style. Again, he is so fucking cute oh my god.

In the IDW comics: Either catching Sonic with the Tornado in the middle of the Angel Island arc, or crashing the airship into Neo Metal at the end of that arc, or when he said goodbye to the Cyclone because he had to sacrifice her during the Metal Virus arc, or when he figured out how to take down Surge in their fight against her in the city, or defending Sonic from Kit, or immediately building guns to go save Sonic in the Scrapnik Island mini series, or . . .

Least favourite moment

Forces 🙃All of Forces. I hate it so fucking much.

Also not a fan of how they made him fight Sonic in the Archie comics. Really, any situation which pits those two against each other is an automatic Nope.gif in my books. I will smack that back button so fast, don't test me.

A situation with this character that I want to see explored more

How he's developing his technology to utilize clean energy! We see that he's using hydro power to fuel the Mystic Ruins workshop in the IDW comics; I want more exploration on how Tails' development of technology is not only not detrimental to the planet, but actually works to reverse the damage that Eggman does. Technology doesn't have to destroy the planet; it can be a clean force for good, too!

An interesting AU for this character

Can I promote my own fic Beyond Oblivion? Because that's an interesting AU to me!

A crossover

I'm still very much in love with my Night in the Woods crossover, where Tails spends an autumn in Possum Springs during his solo journeys. All anthro stories take place in the same universe and this one happens in my head and in my heart even if Sega thinks it could never work in canon. Sega doesn't pay me, they can't dictate what I do.

OTP (or OT3+ etc…. just… favourite ship)

None. In fact, adaptations that have tried to give Tails romances (Archie, Sonic X, Boom) are off-putting to me because they try to give Tails romances. He doesn't need a romance for his story to be interesting! In fact, I think a romance arc for him is far more boring than the alternatives like exploring how he overcomes his inner demons or focusing on the clean energy alternatives he creates to improve the world. And even if you want to explore him with other characters, platonic relationships and platonic love stories are a thing! Tails' brotherly relationship with Sonic, his friendships with Amy and Knuckles—these are interesting stories and romance isn't a part of them. Destroy the heterosexual notion that every character must be paired off for a story to be good.

Other ships?

Nope.

BROTP

His big bro Sonic, of course! Like I said above, platonic love stories are a thing, and the platonic love story in Sonic and Tails finding a family in each other when they were both orphaned has been one of my favorites since I was four years old. I don't think that's going to change any time soon.

NOTP

I wish people who ship Sonic with Tails romantically a very do not ever interact with me, ever, in any capacity. Thank you.

An assortment of headcanons!

I have a lot! You can read some here, and here, and here :)

[anhed-nia]

BLOGTOBER 10/13-14/2023: THIRTEEN WOMEN, SVENGALI

I really loved this. I wonder what the book is like, I might have to read it! Author Tiffany Thayer sounds like a pretty interesting guy as per this collection of provocative reviews on Wikipedia:

I don't know about you, but that makes me want to read everything he wrote. THIRTEEN WOMEN concerns a circle of grownup sorority sisters who are beset by an anomalous series of murders and suicides. It so happens that all of the women recently received damning horoscopes in the mail from a self-styled New York Swami--but the Swami himself is just a pawn in a greater conspiracy masterminded by Ursula Georgi (Myrna Loy). The master hypnotist has a bone to pick with these smug society ladies, which I am about to spoil so plug your ears if you'd rather watch the movie first (and you should! It's only an hour long): As a half-Javanese girl "saved" by a missionary who sent her to a western finishing school, Ursula believed the key to her future was to pass for white. Therefore, she's vowed revenge on the racist sorority that rejected her in college, and honestly the revenge she has plotted should have earned her an honorary PhD. It's hard to imagine that either a 1930 novel or a 1932 movie really mean to say "fuck racism" so frankly, but the sharp premise and Myrna Loy's incredible charisma make it hard not to side with the ostensible villain in this picture.

Some people have remarked that THIRTEEN WOMEN is an early iteration of the slasher movie, with its female ensemble (of sorority babes no less) being picked off one by one. To me it was more reminiscent of the cursed media motif familiar to J-horror. Maybe I'm just saying this because I rewatched RINGU this Blogtober and I was encouraged by the documentarians behind THE J-HORROR VIRUS to consider its influence on SMILE, which I also rewatched, and which I'm realizing I love. The victims in THIRTEEN WOMEN have signed a round robin chain letter, for which they each receive a star chart describing their imminent doom; the power of suggestion takes the place of power tools here, with Ursula's sheer force of will acting as a free-floating contagion that rots the guilty and weak from the inside out. I was reminded of movies like RINGU and JU-ON as much as of Jorg Buttgereit's DER TODESKING, an experimental horror film about a chain letter that causes its recipients to self-destruct. It's fun to think that THIRTEEN WOMEN is a progenitor of movies like BLACK CHRISTMAS, but I see reflections of it elsewhere, too.

I wound up pairing this with SVENGALI just because they're both hypnosis movies, but that movie turned out to have its own racial tensions. In George du Maurier's foundational 1894 novel Trilby, the evil hypnotist is explicitly Jewish; in Archie Mayo's 1931 adaptation, Svengali is referred to abstractly as "Polish or something", which seems to be a euphemism for a Semitic Eastern European identity. This might not invite such analysis if it weren't for the styling of John Barrymore as a swarthy, rodent-like embodiment of greed. When I say that, it sounds pretty negative, but I'd still insist that SVENGALI is a great movie well worth seeing for its perverse humor, surprising grimness, expressionistic design (courtesy Anton Grot), and unusual horror elements--in addition to Barrymore's unforgettable performance.

I guess there has been some debate over whether SVENGALI is properly a horror movie, and I refer you to author Tony Burgess who once said that if you have to argue about whether or not something is a horror movie, then it's probably a horror movie. The only causes to argue are if you insist on an extremely narrow definition of horror to guide your personal consumer habits, or if you're squeamish about admitting that you've ever enjoyed or respected anything that falls under the horror umbrella (and I tend to think the latter case is more prevalent). Admittedly, SVENGALI blends comedy, romance, and musical elements such that the viewer is never quite sure how dark things will get until the very end, but I think that anyone should be able to see the horror in the incredible sequence of the eponymous villain sending his disembodied consciousness through the CALIGARI-like city to possess the unwitting Trilby (played by Marian Marsh who must have been the most adorable person alive at the time). A few different visual effects are used to evoke Svengali's power, some of which are still modern-looking and scary, and the film's breezy humor and charm do not promise any particular safety.

On some level, the aura of antisemitism and xenophobia itself lets us know we're in horrific territory. This is the genre of fears, rational and irrational, where we face whatever society perceives as threatening. Today we're in the midst of a lot of arguments about whether or not "separating the art from the artist" is ever appropriate, with full cancellation of the art AND artist positioned as the only alternative, but both of these options suggest that we must never have to face immorality, ambiguity, or ambivalence in art at all; we're forced to either avoid it or ignore it. This denies us the opportunity to understand what these darker emotions consist of, and understanding is the only way to defang them. Personally, I don't think it's any more helpful to condemn e.g. Dracula or the Wicked Witch of the West for their bigoted elements, than it is to simply pretend those things aren't there at all. SVENGALI provides us with a similar opportunity to confront antisocial phobias, with its troublingly caricaturesque villain and the unavoidable fascination one feels when his hypnotic gaze projects itself at us from the screen. Recommended viewing.

[randomthefox]

Basically ian flynn in that one interview: My sonic stories will never match the games because the games universe can't support a real story.

Frankly, this statement is just stupid because there are TONS of video games with massive in-depth overarching stories. So either he thinks video games, in general, aren't capable of telling real stories or he thinks the Sonic series specifically can't tell real stories. Both angles are objectively wrong.

The truth is that flynn hates any version of Sonic that isn't archie or satam, and he'll always try to make a bubble separate from the games universe where he can alter things to his exact preference with no consequences.

ooking at the quote again. He says the games universe can't support a comic story. Again, this is false. Making a comic that matches the sonic games and can fit into the timeline is very possible. Flynn is just bad at it.

Exactly. Either he looks down on the medium as a whole, or just Sonic in particular. Given his work on the Megaman comic, I'm inclined to think the former to be perfectly honest. The man didn't even bother to PLAY a SINGLE Megaman game for research purposes. He exclusively spoke of watching let's plays and reading fan wikis for when he was writing Archie Megaman. The man clearly thinks very little of video games as a medium.

And like. That's FINE. He's a comic book guy. Comic books are his thing. He isn't not allowed to think video games are stupid and to have his primary interest be on a different art form. Ian Flynn is allowed to think video games and Sonic video games in particular are stupid and beneath him.

So given that fact: he should not be allowed to write the comic book adaptation of these video game properties. That job should be given to someone who actually respects and is a fan of the video games they're adapting. He can hate video games as much as he wants while he's writing a different non-Sonic related comic book.

[tenebraevesper]

Locke’s Mistreatment of Shadow & The Shadow Android Theory

So, welcome back to yet another analysis of the Sonic media, featuring Shadow the Hedgehog. I wasn’t really planning on this, but after reading Issue #145 of Sonic Archie, I realized there was something I wanted to address. Now, just as a note, if you guys like my Sonic Analyzers/Posts, you’re free to suggest which topic I should tackle next (I had been partial to addressing the fact that some people claim Lanolin is Sally 2.0. and why that’s disrespectful to both characters).

In any case, let’s go back to our actual story, Issue #145: Shadows of Hope. There are two particular topics I want to talk about here, first being that Locke the Echidna is an awful person and the second being that the writer of this Issue is either a believer of the “Shadow is an Android” Theory or he, as usual, didn’t care to do proper research.

Before I start, I’ll do a quick recap. This story features the return of Shadow the Hedgehog in the story after a lengthy absence, and from my understanding, the focus on him in this and future Issues was an editorial mandate due to his popularity and attempt to increase comic sales, as well as the fact that the year this Issue came out was also the year Shadow the Hedgehog (2005) came out. With that said, note that SEGA wasn’t heavily involved with the Sonic Archie comics, sharing only minimal information about the video games they were developing with the writers whenever they needed a promotion. There was also no way of getting a faithful adaptation of the video game since their attempts at adapting Sonic Adventure 2 proved that the comics cannot serve nor bend to the video games they are based on.

Also, trigger warning, this was written by Ken Penders, so be prepared for the mess he wrote. Things will get really disturbing.

So, not even a whole page in, and there is already a problem with this narration.

“Shadow was created onboard a lab located in geosynch orbit over the planet Mobius, and originally considered a product, a construction, a weapon, anything but what it truly was, a biomechanical lifeform!”

Biomechanical lifeform... are you serious?!

Now, now, I won’t be flying into another rant yet, because Sonic Heroes had come out by this point, and we know that Team Dark came across the Shadow Androids, robots that Eggman had created in Shadow’s image in that game.

Sonic Heroes implied that the real Shadow had died in Sonic Adventure 2 and that the Shadow in Sonic Heroes was just an amnesiac android. Shadow the Hedgehog (2005) later debunks this theory by having Eggman tell Super Shadow as he fights Devil Doom that he is the real deal and that Eggman had saved him when he fell after the battle with Finalhazard.

So, perhaps I should ignore this one as this may have been the lead theory at the time, right? Well, I would, except this is Penders we’re talking about. This guy prides himself in never having played the Sonic games nor knowing anything about the Sonic lore aside from the stuff SEGA tells him to write.

Oh, but it gets even worse, because Penders proceeds to basically dehumanize Shadow:

“By every known definition, it was sentient! It could think, reason... and feel!”

I don’t know what was even going through Penders’ head when he wrote this, but why is he writing Shadow as if he wasn’t even a living being?! Why is he acting as if Shadow is a mindless tool/weapon and not his own person?! Hell, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

The story starts in typical Penders’ fashion, with Shadow spying on Hope Kintobor. Note, her resemblance to Maria Robotnik is purely accidental, as she appeared in the comic before Sonic Adventure 2 came out, but the writers certainly milked this coincidence for all its worth. We also get a more wholesome interaction between the two once Ian Flynn takes over.

So, Shadow is spying on Hope, when suddenly, a hooded figure appears and... you know what, I’ll just transcribe the description from Sonic_Speed because their take on what happens in this story (you can find the timestamp in the comments of their video, just click on the link here) is hilarious:

Speed: “...until a hooded figure comes behind him and asks him for help. Shadow’s like ‘The fuc- No! Who are you?’

Aaron: *laughs* “Shadow’s being like ‘Aaah, I see, an Agent of Penders... Fuck off! I will not be tainted by your bad writing!’”

Speed: *laughs* And one of... You know what, that’s actually a pretty apt analogy, because the figure says ‘I respect your choice, Shadow, but I cannot accept it!’ and hog ties him!

Aaron: “You’re gonna get dragged into this plot whether you want it or not!”

So, yeah, our mysterious figure and narrator is Locke the Echidna, probably the most hated character in this comic besides Geoffrey St. John and King Max. Some of his crimes include microwaving Knuckles as an egg in Chaos Energy, then later on lie and manipulate him, faking suicide in front of his young son and making him believe for 10 years that he was the only echidna left alive. Even after their reunion, he keeps being emotionally abusive and lying father towards Knuckles and trying to control his life, all under the guise of “I’m your father, I know better”.

I’m not gonna lie, I legit cheered when Locke finally died.

Good riddance and no tears were shed, now Knuckles is finally allowed to be his own person.

Anyways, back to the current story, which is currently being hijacked by Penders’ OC. Note how Locke addresses Shadow in the narration, calling him a “creature”. This is their first (and only) interaction they have, and this is foreshadowing of how Locke sees Shadow.

Shadow has none of this nonsense, attempting to punch him, but Locke presses a button on his belt and envelops them in a blue light, with Hope running into it and being transported to somewhere else (speculated to be Haven, headquarters of the Brotherhood of Guardians, by Speed in his video).

There, Shadow proceeds to continue attacking Locke (YAY!!!), but Locke manages him to throw over his shoulder (BOOOO!!) and then proceeds to trap Shadow inside a glass tube, while still calling him an “It”. Unless we’re talking about Pennywise, this is just plain rude.

The situation Shadow finds himself in basically triggers his memories of what happened on the Space Colony ARK, of his awakening and Maria’s death (just ignore the thoughts in the second panel above, it’s just bad). I’m just gonna add ��kidnapping Shadow and triggering his traumatic memories” to Locke’s growing list of “Reasons why Locke’s an awful person”.

Snapping out of the flashback, Shadow confronts Locke, demanding to state his intentions.

Okay, I will have to dissect this particular dialogue between Shadow and Locke, because it’s just that awful and incredibly infuriating.

Locke dares to ask Shadow: “Have you any idea what it’s like to lose everything?”

And Ken Penders (yes, I’m putting the blame on him) has the audacity to have Shadow respond: “I wouldn’t know! I’ve never had anything!”

How?! HOW CAN YOU EVEN WRITE SOMETHING LIKE THIS?! HOW CAN YOU HAVE A CHARACTER WHO LOST HIS ENTIRE FAMILY, HIS SISTER, SAY SOMETHING LIKE THAT?! THE SOLE REASON HE WANTED TO DESTROY HUMANITY?!

This is disrespect to Shadow’s whole backstory on a whole another level! And no, you cannot pretend that Shadow forgot the events of Sonic Adventure 2 because he never suffered from amnesia in the comics. He remembers everything that happened!

Ken Penders should know this! He could’ve had Shadow tell Locke that “Yes, I too have lost everything”, but he didn’t. I don’t know why, but I believe that this was so Locke would come off less as an asshole. We are supposed to sympathize with Locke here, not Shadow.

I hate this so much!!

...

Oh, but it gets even better.

“That’s not surprising! From what I can tell, you’re neither biological, mineral, nor vegetable.”

Okay, let’s first address Locke’s (and Penders) IQ level here, because it’s that of a potato (I apologize to all the potatoes in the world). What the hell do you mean by “neither biological, mineral nor vegetable”?! So vegetables are now artificial constructs?! And you call yourself a scientist, Locke?!

*shakes head*

Oh, who am I kidding... We’re talking about a guy who thought microwaving his unborn son because of a dream was a good idea.

What I should be talking about is the fact that according to Locke, Shadow is not a biological lifeform... completely ignoring the fact that Penders wrote in the recap that Shadow is supposedly a “biomechanical lifeform”.

*calmly*

Penders, what exactly do you think the bio in biomechanical stands for? *scoffs* Yeah, I rest my case.

It also doesn’t help that this belief that Shadow is more synthetic than biological is reinforced in further Issues. Thank goodness it gets dropped soon, because I swear, I couldn’t read more of this nonsense.

Lastly, Locke tells Shadow that he believes Shadow is the key to helping him find the Brotherhood he’s been searching for.

Uh, Locke? SHADOW IS NOT OBLIGATED TO FIND YOUR GODDAMN FAMILY!! YOU KIDNAPPED HIM, TRAUMATIZED HIM, DEHUMANIZED HIM AND NOW YOU’RE DEMANDING HE DOES YOUR JOB!!! SCREW YOU!!

Anger aside, this interaction also implies something very disturbing, which had been addressed in another post (I just realized something kinda creepy) and you can click on the link presented, but to summarize, this person asked what exactly was Locke planning to do with Shadow and how was he going to use him to find the Brotherhood?

They noted how Locke (and Penders’) interpretation of Shadow was that of a violent creature with identity issues (or rather a self-aware android) and how Locke had been observing Shadow for a while. It isn’t explained whether Locke even knows that Shadow is the Ultimate Lifeform, and with Locke being able to use Chaos Energy, why would he need Shadow?

To quote the poster:

See, for all Locke should have feasibly known, Shadow would have been just another hedgehog. While it could be argued that Locke sensed immense Chaos potential in Shadow, that still wouldn’t have made much sense, because if Gerald had done his job and properly limited Shadow’s power, as well as have created a fully “sentient” squishy hedgehog being, as Penders specifically wrote in issue 145′s prologue:

“ … it could think, reason … and feel!”

… Locke shouldn’t have felt that power … and there shouldn’t really be any reason for Locke to think of him as anything but the real deal as a natural-born hedgehog.

Why would he have questioned what his make-up was? And yes, I do realize “Locke’s Gary-Stu status makes him l33t” is a possible explanation, but I’m speaking in terms of in-universe.

Plus, he must have seen Sonic in action at least once—which once more begs the question of why Shadow specifically. And why now.

Unless Locke knew something.

The poster suggests Locke did dig into the archives of the Space Colony ARK in search of other beings able to use Chaos Control and learned about Shadow, believing he could override Shadow’s original programming:

Here’s when I realized that not only did Penders probably intend to use Shadow as a tool, but if left to his own devices, Locke would have performed another Chaos energy experiment on Shadow.

Think about it. Nuking Knuckles didn’t go so well, what with him effin’ dying, so who better to subsequently do a follow-up experiment on than an “immortal” being who, per Locke’s twisted perceptions, may or may not even be sentient or real? If Shadow suffered ill effects, well, no harm, no foul—seeing how he couldn’t feel like other anthros, right?

“Do you know what it’s like to lose everything?” Locke asks, almost as if he doesn’t expect a response; and indeed, he even looks surprised when Shadow gives one: “I wouldn’t know; I’ve never had anything!”

Consider that Locke lures Shadow into an abandoned lab complex, and traps him inside a capsule “unlike any that have held me before” — paraphrasing Shadow here.

Consider that Locke calls Shadow “creature,” and even puts his biological status into question. That in subsequent issues, Shadow speaks robotically and bonds with a fellow droid, Isaac. That Isaac, Wiki Robot Extraordinaire, can’t ascertain whether or not Shadow is biological.

This is stretching the memory banks a little bit, but does anyone remember that one moment in issue 158 where, right before going into Rosie’s hut, Shadow repelled some oncoming Metal Sonic troopers with a shield he didn’t even know how he generated? IIRC, there was a display of Chaos energy in the following issue that Shadow was also at a loss to explain.

I’d wager that had this story played out, the temporary shield would have been a foreshadowing, maybe a byproduct of Locke’s tinkering, of the echidna’s effort to turn him into a supersoldier of some sort. Same as what Hunter turned into for Eggman.

tl;dr … I would have punched Locke into next Tuesday, Penders

Yeah, I did say that things would get disturbing. If this theory was correct (or if anyone else wrote this story but Penders), this would be horrifying. Not to mention the fact that Locke would’ve performed all those experiments on Shadow and be portrayed as being in the right. After all, Shadow couldn’t possibly be a real living being with feelings and wants and dreams and hopes, right? Even then, all this torture would’ve been waved off as being done for the greater good (aka for stupid echidna agendas).

Honestly, the way Locke/Penders dehumanizes Shadow is disgusting. It also shows just how much of a self-righteous monster Locke is.

Fortunately for everyone, Hope approaches the two, telling Locke to let Shadow go. He appearance triggers another flashback in Shadow’s mind... oh, and Locke continues calling Shadow “the creature” and an “it”.

Fortunately for us, Shadow breaks out of the glass tube and is about to beat Locke up (GET HIS ASS, SHADOW!).

Unfortunately for us, the next panel has Locke use his Chaos Powers, but Shadow still fights back (you’re doing great, sweetie!). Also, Locke, would you stop pretending like you don’t know why Shadow is trying to kill you?!

Sadly, before Shadow has the chance to kill Locke, Hope interrupts them, saying how she’s now afraid more of Shadow than of Locke... Yeah, of course Penders had to write that. He just had to put all the blame on Shadow, even though Locke literally kidnapped him!

Shadow snaps out of beating up Locke, yells at Hope how she isn’t Maria and how he doesn’t need any friends, and leaves.

While Penders will continue to write Shadow as if he was an self-aware android and dangerous weapon in the next few Issues, this interaction will never be brought up again. I believe there are several reasons for this, one being that Penders at the time was trying to return the story to status quo after Karl Bollers shook things up in his The Return to Angel Island Arc (the link presented leads to the Sonic_Speed video, with Speed and Aaron having covered the whole arc), hence why Locke is searching for the Brotherhood. Add in the editorial demands of promoting Shadow more because of his popularity and the fact that Penders is leaving after Issue #159 (they even called in Ian Flynn to edit the last Issue Penders wrote before him taking over in Issue #160 as lead writer), and his dislike for writing any story that doesn’t involve his OCs hogging the spotlight, it’s clear why this was never addressed in any form.

Frankly, it’s for the better, and while I do know the real reasons why Penders left, I love to think that Shadow was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

#Sonic the Hedgehog Analyzer (Masterlist)

[robotnik-mun]

Reblogging that picture of the Golden Eggman statue in Archie reminded me of something I've always wondered about- how the Eggrobos might've looked different if they had been modeled after the SatAM/Archie take on Robotnik.

What can I say? Eggrobos are my favorite Badniks, and naturally this means I like to speculate on how different they could have been if they weren't directly translated as they were into Archie. Due to the haphazard way Sonic 3 and Sonic and Knuckles was adapted in Archie, the Eggrobos didn't appear until later on- as minions of Snively of all things!

I kinda liked it, given that it showcased Sniv taking matters into his own hand, but even with the given context that they were designed that way to mock his uncle it's still a bit odd.

Even in Fleetway they looked more like Eggman than the Adventures design Robotnik had by that point!

Granted, Robotnik in that book originally looked more like Eggman before literally metamorphosizing. One could theorize that the Eggrobos were actually designed during that phase of his life, and by the time they were put into production he had changed, and rather than go back to redesign from scratch he simply finished them up as was.

Likewise, I tend to wonder how the Death Egg Robot might've looked if it was more 'Julianesque', given how different he looks from good ol' Eggy.

Sadly, pre-Flynn the Death Egg Robot never got its time in the sun, again due to the… somewhat odd way the old games were adapted, but it's still fun to imagine all the same, whether it would've looked like Robotnik directly, or if it might've been designed into something else while retaining the same basic shape.

On both counts, I almost wonder if 'Julianified' Eggrobos and Death Egg Robots might not have wound up resembling Eggman's robots from the OVA and be a bit more like stout, red-colored Swatbots.

Either way though! Just something that crosses my mind, from time to time.