#sonichu issue 3

[benis-chillin]

It's amazing how NOT entertaining Sonichu becomes once Chris Chan becomes the main character. Like, yeah, it's not GOOD, but there is some charm to its dumb fanfic nonsense whenever Chris Chan isn't on-screen.

(not to mention all of those personal issues peeking through)

But yeah, horrible formatting and artwork aside, it is legitimately entertaining in issues 0, 1, and 3. It's actually FUN to read, even if it isn't actually good. Chris Chan as a comic character is just not compelling in the slightest.

[keefwho]

March 13 - 2024 Wednesday

10:51pm

5/10

This morning before cleaning I found out that the damn insurance that doesn't even cover me charged me again so I might have to cancel my card. I tried joining Bramble's server while cleaning but she left instantly because she was feeling sick. I put away my clothes, vacuumed, and took out the garbage. Breakfast was corned beef hash, an egg, and toast with a bunch of onions and bell peppers.

For work I lacked direction with warmups as usual. I want to refine what it is I'm actually trying to do with my warmups aside from loosening up my hand and mind. It used to be for studying so I could try that again. Also commission sketching but I should probably save that for commission time. I also finished that commission today. We couldn't watch Ed because of poor internet.

After work I used the bathroom and did my workout. Like last time I put on my workout playlist and jogged for every other song. I think I got unlucky and all the jog songs were longer than the walking ones. It meant I got those 4 miles in pretty quickly though. I was winded. I took my shower without my phone to get some mental peace. It's something I was afraid of but I don't want to be so thats why I did it. For lunch I made tuna stew using the nasty oil tuna. It turned out edible, but not great. 5/10. It filled me up at least. I watched Turkey play Minecraft with this guy while I cooked and ate. Then I drew today's request. I left while working on my animation because the call got kinda loud and she switched to Valorant. I drew on my own for awhile. When I was done I meant to work on Aether's avatar in call for him but he wasn't online yet and I wasn't feeling great both mentally and physically. I put a tiny bit of time into his avatar before stopping for the day. I was so tired at this point from my workout and work.

I decided like yesterday that I'd try to get in VRchat and socialize to keep myself from spiraling. It didn't work very well this time. I had trouble maintaining perspective, partly because I was so focused on how NOT to talk about my problems/headspace. Also there were some VERY annoying people clogging up the conversations I was trying to have. This one person actually would not stop talking about their life, no one was able to get a word in. Boodle joined who I was excited to try and talk to but I couldn't with this person around. This person and their friend both stuck around the whole time until Boodle left and then I left because I couldn't put up with them anymore, as much as I wanted company. I figured with how I felt that maybe I needed some quiet time, at least until Daisy got on.

When she got on we watched the next Monster High which was good as usual. Then a Chris Chan reading but unfortunately this was the last issue of Sonichu. In bed we did puzzles and Kingdom Hearts. I tried joining Boodle after Daisy fell asleep just to say hi but she must be busy. Other than that I've sat here trying not to think so much and enjoy the silence.

~~~

Today I had a bad case of feeling like everything is stagnant. There was a time loop situation in the Monster High episode today and I realized thats kinda how I feel in my day to day life. I had that same sort of dread of being unable to move forward and everything losing meaning because of it. Tomorrow, I don't know how but I wanna try to start reconnecting with why I even draw. The other thing I've been thinking about is my values and what I live for. All I know right now is that I want to be a good friend which has helped me stay focused the past few days. Hopefully I can find another intrinsic motivation to pull from and guide my life forward.

3 things I liked about today:

Finishing my workout.

Minecraft with Turkey.

Kingdom Hearts with Daisy.

[hoxitdragon]

Well guess who else just got exposed

So if you haven’t heard the DMs of a certain JC the Hyena leaked and exposed the world to what an absolute creep he is.

People better at talking about stuff like this than me like Dillian Thomas have already covered it so I suggest checking them out for full details. I just wanted to make a statement since I do a lot of Sonic.exe stuff.

I just want to say I’m happy those DMs are finally out. I’ve known about this shit since I saw Bad Creepypasta’s reading of the Sonic.exe remake and have just been waiting for the proof to be out because JC being a malignant narcissist seems the type to sue anyone for anything and I wanted to make sure I had my ducks in a row.

But yeah dudes a fucking perv and I respect the shit out of his ex for leaving his ass over this. Will this effect future comics? Not really. Unlike Sonichu, Sonic.exe can pretty easily be separated from it’s creator and it has been. As of now Shannon Love the aforementioned ex is now the one to credit for Sonic.exe as such future comics featuring .exe will have her name in the description instead of JC’s I would go back and change the page descriptions for previous ones but it’s nearly 200 pages across 3 different platforms and that seems more trouble that it’s worth.

But yeah that’s all I got to say on this, Eat Shit JC. (I’d say Fuck You, but I honest to god hope no one ever fucks you again)

Also the next speed paint (if I’ve gotten the audio issues to this set up fixed) will also be a review of the Sonic.exe remake. I’ve been planning on talking about it for a while cause hardly anyone has and boy do I have opinions on it. So you’ve at least got that to look forward to.

[taffysannotatedsonichu]

Sonichu 11 Page 79

CHRIS {narration}: Meanwhile, while he recovers from Layla leaving, David has been feeling more at home. “Best roomies”, V.B.B.? Not so likely.

Caption: December 28, 3:30 AM

CHRIS?: Fortunately for Punchy; not so much f

PUNCHY: She is not joking!! Endless gaming, not cleaning after himself, and not only have I lost peace of mind and sleep, I haven’t been able to binge-watch my “Samurai Pizza Cats” DVD set. Ugh!!!

CHRIS {narration}: Fortunately for Punchy; not so much for David, Master Shin-nabe hired David for various jobs around the dojo, and teaches further strict training.

SHINABE: Doing constant labor builds stronger endurance.

MAGI-CHAN: I, too, feel need to interrupt as well. I have been locating our Sonichites and Rosechites since the past August of 2008. And I have been prolific in keeping with Graduon’s then spiritual activities since his release.

MAGI-CHAN: With Christine Chandler’s protection, a spot of havoc is nullified at the SLGBTQ pride festival of 2009. But the greater threats will be building up after that, regardless. So, loyal patrons and fans, please do stay tuned to the drawn/printed pages of the “Sonichu” books; slice-of-life history and all. Thank you.

Caption: End

Punchy is finally feeling the effects of BS draining him, so miserable is he that he rips through the page, complaining that BS has taken up so much of his time that he hasn’t been able to finish the Samurai Pizza Cats DVDs he was buying at the beginning of the episode (I question how he hasn’t seen that series a million times by now; he’s been talking about the series since Sonichu 6). Luckily, Punchy is able to pawn BS off to Shinabe, and he becomes Shinabe’s odd-job doer. Thus ends the brief, bizarre life of Bananasauros as a character in Sonichu.

Magi-Chan pops in for a hot sec to tease the last episode of this issue and the main episode of the next; we’ll see Sonichites and Rosechites in Episode 24.1 and the SLGBTQ Pride Festival in Episode 26. Vaguely visible behind him is Larry the Alakazam, an Alakazam (that I think was once part of Kel’s team) who has a small role in Episode 25.

Included on this page is another backhanded slight against Waterman and his character. “‘Best Roomies’, VBB?”

[toaarcan]

Scourge the Hedgehog: The Bad Fanfic Apotheosis

Y’all are gonna hate me for this one.

This is something of a followup to my previous post, Fiona Fox: Depth vs. Prominence, and inspired directly by the discussion I had with a friend in the comments section of the DA upload of it.

Part 1: Fanfic vs. Canon- Genesis of the Recolour Elements of the Archie Sonic the Hedgehog comic have long been compared to a bad fanfiction, particularly the parts of the story written by Ken Penders, though other writers like Bollers, Chacon, and Flynn have drawn that label too. I'm one of the people that's done it, and that's largely because I hold fanfic and official material to very different standards. There are certain things you can do in fanfic that you can't do in official material, especially with franchises like Sonic, and especially with more niche parts of said franchise, like a comic series. Of course, there are also certain things you can do in both, but you probably shouldn't. And Scourge is one of them. What exactly the process behind Scourge's creation was is something that's been debated. For a lot of people, he's considered to be a parody of the then-rampant "Sonic Recolour" fad, wherein fans would take screenshots of Sonic X, and other official artwork, and then edit it in Microsoft Paint, or another similar program, to create their own characters and stories. Now, this was long decried by other fans, myself included, as incredibly lacking in creativity and originality. It also had an "Ew, cringe" reaction, due to the often-shoddy editing, text-to-speech voices, and usually some top-tier mid-2000s Nu Metal for the music. These days, it's much easier to look back and say "These were mostly made by kids who were just having fun, and it's completely harmless", and it becomes apparent that a lot of the people that were making fun of them and criticising them were grown men, at which point you kinda realise that this "internet fad" was basically just bullying a bunch of children for not being up to the creative standards of some adults. Everybody was looking for the next Chris-Chan, but Chris-Chan is a near-unique entity, as only one other person alive has ever managed to combine that sheer void of talent with a monumentally repulsive personality, and that person is Ken Penders. But Sonichu is the least interesting thing about Chris, and Chris became the laughingstock that he is because of his inability to avoid posting his entire life on the Internet, which was something of a rarity in those halcyon days before the rise of modern social media. Sonichu was a gateway to the actually interesting content also on his channels, whereas these recolour-creators didn't have anything like that, just endless Windows Movie Maker slideshows. And, like, Chris was in his 20s when he became the Internet's punching bag for the first time, and while he's a horrible person, so were the people that dedicated their time and effort to trolling him- His story is fascinating, but it has no heroes. And into this collective cocktail of grown men shitting on preteens, so Ian Flynn introduced Scourge the Hedgehog. Is Scourge a parody of Sonic recolours? I sincerely hope not. The reason for that is twofold, and I'll discuss how his portrayal generally doesn't seem to be mocking those tropes further down the page, but the second issue with the idea that he is a parody is best explained by Sir Terry.

Parody can never punch down, and as a then-24 year old man writing official canon for a franchise, mocking a bunch of 10 year olds on the Internet for making bad stories would definitely be punching down. And, as I said, nothing about the way Scourge is written is in any way poking fun at the tropes of these fancharacters and stories. It's pretty much all played completely straight. So not only do I hope Ian wasn't trying to mock these fancharacters, but there's also little reason to believe that he actually was.   He's not a parody, he is a send-up. And on the one hand, it's kinda nice to throw a bone to those kids. But on the other hand... is Scourge really the character you want to represent your part of the fandom in official material? A cruel, violent, abusive, vicious monster that spends his time palling around with a girlfriend that the writer reforged to be the most unlikable character in the entire comic? Yeah, can't say that's what I'd want if I were one of those people, but he seems to be popular enough, so maybe I'm in the minority there. But now we get to the meat of the problem. You see, the way Scourge is written is one of those things that you can do in fanfic, but you shouldn't do in canon. Part 2: What is a Mary-Sue? The term "Mary-Sue" gets thrown around a lot these days. It's gradually lost all meaning, and has slowly become a term for "Female character that I don't like," mainly used by whiny, easily-offended Broflake Youtubers, who get all pissy that Star Wars films aren't specifically catering to them, to the point that you only have to make a girl be good at something in a movie and these pissbabies lose their shit. I liked Episode VII and VIII more than I, II, or VI, get fucked. But what, then, is a Mary-Sue? And why is it relevant to Scourge? The answer to that first question is a lot more complicated than it might seem. Not just because there are now several different varieties of the trope, but also because the trope itself evolved as it began to be applied to non-fanworks, and additionally because the name itself is somewhat non-indicative. A male Mary-Sue can exist, though these are normally referred to as "Marty-Stue" or "Gary-Stue", or more cynically "The Protagonist". Check out the average Batman comic these days and you'll see what I mean. Originally, the term applied only to a self-insert character in a fanfic, that was an overly-idealised version of the author, dramatically overpowered, hugely popular, normally dating whichever member of the cast the author wanted to bone, or sometimes multiple partners at the same time, along with a few other traits. It's actually pre-Internet term, originating in a Star Trek fanzine when "Mary-Sue" was created as a parody of other fans' similar characters. Over time, the trope evolved to the point that, while the "author avatar" feature is still a pretty big indicator, it's not really necessary. So while there are probably plenty of people out there who want to be Batman, not every character that is a Mary-Sue is someone for the author to project themselves onto, and not every author avatar is a Mary-Sue. Generally, the important features of a Mary-Sue are now: 1) Receives a great deal of favouritism from the author 2) More powerful than the rest of the cast, often to the point of absurdity 3) Faces zero consequences for their actions. 4) Liked by characters that have no reason to do so 5) In a relationship with a character that has no reason to date them, previous relationships be damned. 6) Most importantly, the story will bend over backwards to give them easy wins, even in situations where they logically should struggle. You're probably starting to get where I'm going with this, and if you're not... Part 3: Creator's Pet Scourge is a Creator's Pet. He gets shown a fair bit of favouritism from Ian Flynn, primarily the guise of how much focus he gets. Scourge is the most prolific villain in Ian's run, aside from Eggman himself. While other, better villains like Mogul and Naugus were being imprisoned repeatedly until one retired and the other became a dog, and a huge chunk of the comic's remaining antagonists were being subsumed into the Eggman Empire, Scourge was only moving up, not only being the villain of Ian's first two issues on the book, but continuing to make sporadic appearances for the next twenty issues, before appearing as the new leader of the Destructix under Finitevus in the Enerjak Reborn arc, followed swiftly by a stint as the Big Bad in Bold New Moebius. Does he actually deserve this level of importance? You be the judge, but personally, I don't think so. Even within those stories, Scourge gets special treatment, the biggest and most obvious being Metal Scourge. Now, personally, I think Metal Scourge was a better character than Scourge himself, but the fact that, of all people, Scourge got a Metal counterpart before anyone else, including Knuckles, who had such a counterpart in the games for over a decade by that point.  Especially since, well... Metal and Mettle is a fun story, but it doesn't really do anything for Bold New Moebius as a whole, does it? It's basically pure filler, only really serving to add another dead Metal Sonic to Ian's list and stall the plot out for a bit longer. And, of course, the most clear indicator of Scourge's favouritism is that he was he first Archie character to receive his own Sonic Universe arc, and the only one to do so without needing two or three SEGA characters also making up the rest of the lead cast. "Lockdown" isn't a particularly good story, but its existence speaks to not just the insane popularity that such an unworthy character received, but also Archie's willingness to indulge that. Sonic Universe was largely intended to tell stories revolving around the members of the SEGA cast that, for whatever reason, weren't able to regularly appear in the main book. This... frequently got broken, with Sonic, Tails, Sally, Bunnie, Antoine, and Amy all taking centre-stage in the book before obvious candidates like the Chaotix got a look in, some of them twice over, but Scourge was the only time they were willing to try a story based entirely around one of their characters, and they gave it to the already extremely prominent Scourge. It's pretty clear that Ian loved using this character, and did so as much as possible. YMMV on whether that's good or not. Part 4: Scourge OP plz nerf Let's be real, he's overpowered as fuck. Now, overpowered characters aren't necessarily bad, but it's significantly harder to write an OP character than an on-average one, and Scourge didn't work out so well. From the moment he turns green, he's basically unstoppable. The one time he actually seems to remotely struggle is actually in 161, where he looks ever-so-slightly winded after curbstomping Sonic and Shadow at the same time. From then on, while he does start to slowly even out with Sonic, he also continues to utterly demolish basically everyone else, especially his easy conquest of Moebius. It's been suggested that conquering Moebius should be easy, because the big threats are all good, kind people there, but that somewhat ignores that there are anti-versions of the heroes kicking about too. All the (Mostly) benevolent rulers of the Primeverse should be tyrannical despots there, and there are excessively powerful entities like the Anti-versions of Merlin and the Guardians, not to mention whatever horrors Anti-Gerald would've unleashed on the world, and that's without the Suppression Squad themselves. While the comic has generally treated Sonic as being able to stomp the entire rest of the FF, well, who says it has to be a fight? Why the fuck doesn't Patch just poison him? I mean, the obvious answer is "Because then Bold New Moebius won't have a main villain", and sometimes contractual villain immortality has to be a thing, but a good writer should be able to avoid putting the characters in that position. Following on from that, Scourge gets to fight basically the entire FF and Suppression Squad at the same time, (Sonic and Amy are absent and Fiona is on his side), and he's winning until Sonic shows up. Then directly after that is the hedgehog brawl, and despite Sonic managing to get everyone against Scourge, he easily manages to escape and break out his Super form. Even after spending his time in the No-Zone completely powerless, Scourge manages to break out the moment he gets his powers back, despite the prison being full of characters who should be equally or more powerful than him, and the police force that caught them all, basically unchallenged. Scourge never faces an actual challenge in the comic. He never struggles, and the one time he actually loses? Ian makes up some new lore on the spot, which is contradictory to SEGA lore from the same year, and then uses that to have Sonic trick Scourge into depowering himself. Not only does Scourge never struggle with anything, but he also never actually loses a fight. Part 5: When will you learn, that your actions have consequences?! Probably never, because Scourge's actions never have consequences. Throughout his entire run, Scourge gets to go wherever he wants, do what he wants, with or to whomever he wants, and he never has to deal with the fallout of the decisions he makes. Absorbs the energy of a matter world into his antimatter body? He's better than fine, it only made him stronger. Turns up in Knothole with his secret girlfriend's hated arch rival by his side? Never mentioned again. Blows Fiona's connection to him, costing Finitevus' operation a potential spy in Knothole, where Knuckles is? Not even considered a factor. Ditches Finitevus to go and make Moebius into an egopolis? Finitevus isn't bothered, and supports Fiona's efforts to rescue him later down the line after than plan backfired on him. Blinds Patch in one eye out of jealousy/spite? The guy that poisoned Armand and Max, took a torch to Antoine's personal life, took advantage of Sally's frayed mental state, emotionally damaged Bunnie, and tried to assassinate Elias to get what he wanted lets him get away with it. Openly announces that he's going to destroy both worlds? Conveniently does it when he's alone with Sonic so nobody can tell Fiona what she's letting herself in for. He eventually does get sent to jail, but he breaks out with ease the next time he turns up. Because, y'know, that's just what we want to see. Villains never having to deal with karma. Part 6: What does anyone see in him? Scourge doesn't quite get the "everyone loves him" treatment, but he still gets a whole lot more respect than he's ever earned. Both Sonic and Zobotnik are portrayed arbitrarily deciding that maybe there's a shred of good in this monster, and this is the part where I stress that he's abusive again. Maybe if I repeat that enough it'll sink in. Despite knowing full-well the sort of person Scourge is, Sonic's response to Scourge's crappy cribbing of the "One Bad Day" speech is to try and turn it around and claim that Scourge only needs a tiny bit of decency to be a good person, and this is outright untrue, and given what we see of Scourge later, I'm frankly disgusted that Ian tried to pull this with a character he'll pretty much unambiguously portray as an abuser. Zobotnik's case is even more baffling. We're introduced to the guy in the Lockdown arc, and it's implied that he's effectively a tyrannical warden, ruling over the No-Zone with an iron fist, taking an almost sadistic delight in punishing the inmates. But yet, for whatever reason, he decides that it's a good idea to try and rehabilitate Scourge, for no adequately established reason. Even on the other side of the morality line, we have Finitevus, who apparently respects Scourge enough to not just make him leader of the Destructix during the Enerjak Reborn arc, despite him very clearly not being a leader, and not being liked by any of his comrades except Fiona, but then when he promptly ditches the whole plan toward the end, Finitevus apparently decides that he not only wants to get him back, but is willing to go to great lengths and risk losing the only team of mercenaries dumb enough to work for a guy who is quite open about his intentions to "purify the world with Chaos fire" in order to do it. And speaking of, the most egregious case of this comes again in Lockdown, where the Destructix all end up siding with Scourge. Across the second half of the arc, Scourge learns his new team's backstories, and despite them clearly showing traits and beliefs that should make them respect him less, this somehow works in his favour, and he manages to wrest leadership of the team from Fiona. Especially galling is that it appears that Fiona loses their respect early on because of her faith in Scourge, who to them, looks pathetic, but then they end up supporting him anyway, despite doing nothing to earn it. But wait, one's missing... Looks like it's that time again. Part 7: Oh right, he's an abuser. It's time to talk about Fiona. Fiona's heel turn is really, really effective at selling you on the idea that Fiona is a vile, cruel, and selfish person. It's a dramatic, "big bang" moment that, in basically a single panel, got an entire fandom to hate a character. Now for some it was more of a "Love to hate" thing, but there are plenty of people out there who just really hate Fiona for this single moment. And when you're introducing a new major villain, maybe that's what you want to accomplish. What it doesn't do, however, is sell you on her motives for taking that course of action. Fiona, for the rest of her existence, mainly antagonises Sally, whom she has no worthwhile connection to on either side of her turn, other than being the evil  Sally to Scourge's Evil Sonic, and stands around or clings to Scourge's arm, looking smug about her abusive relationship. And yes, it is abusive, verbal abuse is still abuse, and the implications that he's physically abusive are present too. I know this is something that Scourge's fans don't really want to accept, but it's true, and we're going to get into that later. For now, what matters is that this character's run as a villain mainly consists of: Fiona: "Hey Sugar-Queen, look at how much my boyfriend yells at me and insults me, and probably beats me when he's angry. I make smart decisions and you suck." We never come to understand why this character, who is so motivated by her belief that everyone will eventually double-cross her that she has decided to start lashing out at people before they can turn on her, is willing to put her faith 100% in someone so repeatedly deceptive that he first approached her by pretending to be someone else. Like, in terms of bad first impressions, that's up there with arriving at a job interview in full clown regalia. The comic makes no effort to show why these characters like each other. Scourge allegedly likes her because she chooses to turn evil and join him, rather than being born evil, but this clashes with not only the fact that Fiona is a genuinely good person before this, who makes a solid effort to stay loyal to her friends first, and is lured into villainy by him, but also the fact that she blames everyone but herself for her current situation, but especially with the fact that all of the foreshadowing for Fiona turning evil consists of people not trusting her because she has a shady history. Scourge claims to appreciate that Fiona is a good person that chooses to be evil, but the narrative has a clear message of "If you started evil, it doesn't matter if you try to become good, you will always revert to type." Which isn't exactly a good message, Ian. In return, all we get from Fiona's side is that Scourge "has no expectations of her and just wants to have fun", which clashes entirely with how we see them interact in subsequent arcs, where Fiona frequently looks disturbed or apprehensive, or just bored, while Scourge yells at her and threatens her for not meeting his standards. Seriously, why do people ship this? But okay, okay. Scourge is a good liar, and Fiona's established paranoia and history do make her vulnerable to manipulators like him, so maybe she falls for his lies and gets taken for a ride. That could happen, sure. Doesn't really explain why she becomes a horrendous person all of a sudden, but whatever. Maybe he convinced her to do it as a sort of hazing, and a means of ensuring she couldn't go back. That fits with his abusive nature (You might also notice that this the explanation I used in Revival). But why does she stay? And why does she refuse every out she's given? Why, after everything that pulled her to his side has turned out to be bullshit, does she remain devoted to him? Now, you can argue that due to the abuse and the manipulation she's suffered, she believes she has to stay with him, and that's a fair shout, but her appearance in Journey to the East is kind of a stumbling block for that theory, because we're shown a Fiona who is fully capable of functioning without him, and even after making efforts to establish herself... the next time we see her she's gone back for him. And now... well, it's time to talk about that "A" word I've been bringing up a lot in this section. Scourge is abusive. I've frequently referenced that he verbally abuses Fiona every time she displeases him across the book, but the most telling scene is this one from Issue 190.

"You do not want to be sent back with me." Translation: "If I get sent back, and you're sent back too, I'm going to beat the shit out of you." Fiona (With her invisible left arm) isn't excluded from this threat. Fiona isn't surprised by this threat either. Nor does she not take the threat seriously. She looks like she's expecting to be struck. He beats her. And please, nobody say that "he's just angry", that's apologism. Now, I dunno if this was in the script, or if Fiona's face was something Yardley did on his own, but given that this arc ends with Super Scourge announcing his intention to destroy both Mobius and Moebius, simply because he can, regardless of the collateral, I'm willing to bet that this relationship wasn't a happy, stable one. But, unfortunately, this element was never made clear enough. Now, your mileage may vary on whether you think Sonic the Hedgehog comics are the appropriate place to discuss abusive relationships or not, but we've got one now, and Ian dropped the ball. This wasn't a Joker/Harley, where the pairing was clearly abusive but also sold DC/Warner millions of dollars worth of merch, this wasn't a RWBY, where Adam took three years to show up and had already won a huge number of fans from his admittedly cool design and powers, so people already liked him before they even knew what his personality was like. Ian had full control over this, no merch to worry about, and Scourge's prolific appearances gave him plenty of opportunity to make it clear that this was an ugly, repulsive thing that Fiona needed to get out of ASAP. And he didn't. Because panels like this, and all the yelling, clearly weren't enough for the fandom. No, you point this detail out to them and they'll make excuses, try to pretend it didn't happen, or just get offended, or worst of all, outright say they don't care and still ship it. We have fanartists who became real official artists creating stories where this garbage-fire pairing is used for sad feels, not because Fiona got stuck in a relationship with a controlling, violent monster, but because oh no they really loved each other and now Fiona's dead isn't it tragic don't you feel sorry for Scourge? No. No I don't. I feel sorry for the thousands of teenagers who support an abusive relationship because Ian was too cowardly to make it clear that the relationship in question was just that. Now, do I think that Ian is an intentional abuse apologist? No. Do I think he wimped out of taking the necessary steps to make it clear that this was bad because he didn't want people to dislike his shitty pet villain? Oh yeah, I do. Scourge's reputation was more important to Flynn than appropriately and sensitively portraying a destructive, damaging relationship between a woman and her monstrous partner. Well, I say "Woman", let's not forget that Fiona was meant to be sixteen, and realistically if you take her timeline into account she's more likely to be about fourteen. Real fucking classy. Part 8: Effort? What effort? So, now we get to our final criteria. And frankly, it's the easiest one to cover. From the moment, Scourge turns green, his life becomes a cakewalk. Everything he ever wants is handed to him with zero actual struggle on his part. Wants to be stronger than Sonic? He is. Zero side-effects to using a Chaos energy form from a mirror universe, or having a Super transformation interrupted, he just seemingly gets to be half-Super forever. Wants another leg-up on Sonic? Here's Fiona, sans personality. Sonic says he's just a lame ripoff of himself? He conquered a planet in a week, look at how cool he is. Also his team all roll over and make him their leader even though they hate him and they could easily kill him. He gets to walk through the entire FF/Squad teamup, and the Hedgehog teamup, and then when he gets to the No-Zone, Zobotnik, who has kept far smarter and more dangerous characters locked up for decades arbitrarily decides to reform him and gets completely suckered by him. The Destructix fully throw in with him, despite him never actually earning their respect. He never loses a fight where he wasn't depowered first. You know what the irony of this is? Ian has a character whom he is contractually obligated to never have lose for longer than an issue or two. And honestly, he wasn't awful at disguising that. Sonic gets a few wins that feel too easy, but for the most part, the issues with this rule mainly manifest in Sonic's limp responses to the tragedies happening around him, and a sprinkling of minor failures and pyrrhic victories ensure that the rule looks more like shoddy writing in a few places unless you're explicitly told about it. And even then, he still manages to make it look like Sonic struggles to attain those victories, that he has to actually put his back into it every time. He is challenged. Scourge isn't allowed to be challenged. That's the irony. Ian has a protagonist who he is not allowed to have lose, and Sonic still manages to be avoid looking like a boring invincible hero, while Scourge just never faces anything that can actually pose a threat to him. Powerful opponents crumple before him. Characters' personalities and development shift to suit his needs. The plot warps to benefit him. Because heaven forbid Scourge actually have to work for his wins. Who needs stakes when you can have the writer on your side! Part 9: In summation... I think you should've all twigged where this is going by now, so let's wrap up. 1) Does Scourge receive a great deal of favouritism from the author? Yes. 2) Is Scourge more powerful than the rest of the cast, often to the point of absurdity? Yes. 3) Does Scourge face zero consequences for his actions? Yes. 4) Is Scourge liked or respected by characters that have no reason to do so? Yes. 5) Is Scourge in a relationship with a character that has no reason to date him? Yes. 6) Most importantly, does the story will bend over backwards to give Scourge easy wins, even in situations where he logically should struggle? Yes. According to these criteria, Scourge the Hedgehog is almost a textbook example of a Mary-Sue. Which is probably why something as disgusting as him got away with so much. I guess, then, that his role in Revival, and a lot of the stuff before that, is the unfortunate reality of a Mary-Sue who suddenly has to deal with the fact that they're no longer getting that special treatment from the writer. That now their actions have consequences, that now the universe doesn't shape itself to their desires.

[sonichu-freshtake]

Sonichu Issue 0, Page 3

Here we go. Page 3. Page 3 is how long it takes to get into nonsense.

I’ll give the super nitpicky protip first: exact distances is a bad idea in writing unless someone’s focused on the exact distances. “Some miles away” works better than “15 miles away”. Good job on remembering how ‘miles’ is spelled though.

The flow is okay...but...ok I need to actively parse what’s happening. Perfect Chaos does somethng to Super Sonic, Super Sonic flies at the Pikachu and shares some aura. The Pikachu...gives off some sort of rainbow that shoots 15 miles away and hits a “GIRL RAICHU”, causing something to happen we’ll get to soon. The rainbow could have been more effective if it was a mystery where it shot off to and we got the answer later, but it’s not an inherent flaw to have this cutaway, just takes away from the action.

Judging by Super Sonic’s power it’s odd that pikachu didn’t get whacked around or obliterated though, but Super Smash Bros Brawl had a few years after this to come out and give the canon answer to what happens when Super Sonic and Pikachu collide, so, mulligan there.

An odd sidenote though: this raichu, thanks to Christine forgetting some details and miscoloring it, ended up looking uncannily like a ten-years-early version of Alolan Raichu. Just thought that was kinda odd.

[remakeofsonichu]

Evails as redrawn by... Me!

Let's get to know him a bit better as I have to add him in more credits to roll in every single future issue at the beginning.

Age: nine and a half at the start of the comics

Birthday: 12/17/1996 (as an Eevee)

Hometown: Green Hills, Montana

Nicknames: Evails-Kun (by Cassie sometimes), fox boy (by Skysoar sometimes if not occasionally), shorty (by Sylvana Rosechu barely), shrimp (by Count Graduon one time)

Gender: xy = ♂️ = male

Height: 2'7"

Weight: 44 lbs.

Fur Color: brown

Eye Color: dark brown

Affiliated w/: Microsoft?

Prefers: mint candy

Traits:

Genius

Tech-Savvy

Good

Friends: Sonichu, Punchy, Rosechu, Victoria (roommate)

Twin Peer: Tairisu

Other Facts: He's such a phobe to thunder and ghosts. His favorite holiday was Xmas. He likes being with Tairisu, but sometimes things get tough for the two. When he grows up, he had to take STEM as a college major after high school and invent new things one day like a cure for the common cold.

Creator(s) (real-world): Christopher Christian Ricardo "Christine" Weston Chandler (Sonichu?)

Real-World Designed Date: 3/24/2002; remade by me 2/6/2021 (thanks Kiwi Farms for the reminder to add an extra Tails-like char into my comics, even though it is not my OC)

[annotatedsonichu]

Sonichu #3, back cover

A Message from Christian W. Chandler:

I hope that you have enjoyed the sample episode in this FREE COMIC, of the Sonichu Comic Book. I take great pride behind my Electric-Hedgehog Pokemon, Sonichu, and all the other characters in the City of Cwcville.

I want Sonichu to be more than just on paper; I want him in his own video game, cartoon show, and other fine merchandise. Although, I have already made some fun Sonichu items of my own, but I feel the public should be able to share in the Zappin' Fun!

If you would like to see Sonichu as a real video game too, or catch him in a Pokemon title, please send your request to Nintendo of America, inc., or Nintendo Power magazine; please raise the hype on Sonichu so that I will be able to legally talk to the people of Nintendo of America, inc., and make a deal with them.

Thank you for reading the FREE SAMPLE of the Sonichu Comic Book. And as Sonichu says, Let's Zap to the Extreme!

Once again, the back cover of this issue is the special message page used in Sonichu #1 and 2.

[benis-chillin]

On the matter of "Zapped to the Extreme" and Chris Chan

Well, didn't expect to be making this PARTICULAR post when I wrote the recently announced Zapped to the Extreme, but since there's rumblings of a certain someone having gotten out of jail, and who may somehow be making their way back onto the internet, I'm gonna cover my ass early as to fully avoid any potential weenery.

From the word go, I knew that ZTTE was NOT going to be set in the mainline Sonichu universe of C-197(which I've heard is a Rick and Morty reference, but I only watch shows renowned for their quality, like Power Rangers, so I wouldn't know). To be quite frank, the Sonichu comic ceases to be entertaining after issue 3, and that's ONLY if you skip issue 2. The Sonichu universe I portray in ZTTE is a separate universe with only certain events from issues 0, 1, and 3 being canon to it, and those events are basically just anything that doesn't directly involve Chris Chan. Any characters from issues after that point, or who were introduced with Chris Chan being present, have different origins in this universe.

If I were to give it a multiversal designation, I'd name it as C-199. Slightly off from the main universe, certainly distant enough to keep Chris Chan out of it, but close enough for it to be useable for any time I, or anybody that is NOT Chris Chan or an enabler, want to use it in their stories. A safe space for Sonichu fanfics, one might say.

I didn't originally plan on giving this version of Sonichu a detailed explanation, as I did the story for the meme, not thinking Chris Chan would ever see it, or have any chance to interact with it. But with the possibility that they COULD see it now, though, I need to take steps to keep them as far away from my characters and stories as possible, while not compromising the work itself that much. Since I do LIKE the story I created, and want people to read it. I view the idea of cancelling it as a form of censorship, and damn if I'm going to be censored by CHRIS CHAN of all people.

This may be unfounded paranoia, given how barely anybody reads the Wolf 6 stories, but as Chris Chan has a bad history when it comes to other people's OCs, I'm not going to be stepping into this rat's nest unprotected. Hope you understand.

Sincerely, Benis Chillin.

[taffysannotatedsonichu]

Sonichu 10 Page 39

MAN: Excuse me, sir, do you know the time?

CHRIS: Firstly, sir, Megan is a woman, and I will have no one mislabel her otherwise. Second, it is 3:05 PM.

MAN: Oh well, excuse me. My apologies, madam Chrissy.

CHRIS: I am a man! And my name is Christian, you dumba**!!!

SFX: Wham!

CHRIS: Such gross mislabelings really grind my gears.

MEG GRIFFIN: Wow! Thank you for standing up for me like that. You are really strong. I was right to ignore the rumors; you are a good man.

Chris now uses this opportunity to flex his “noble protector of womankind” muscles. A man walks up to Meg and asks for the time, erroneously referring to her as a man. Chris corrects his mistake and informs him that it has been six minutes since he last destroyed a building with hundreds of people inside. When the man makes a snappy comeback calling Chris “madam”, Chris goes berserk and knocks some of the man’s teeth out. This is treated both by Meg and by the story at large as a good thing. This character also exists just to be punched. Interestingly, in Sonichu 12, Silvana is shown working alongside a Ditto, and in that issue she transforms into Sonic and it turns into Amy Rose. I like to think this guy is that Ditto. Also, I think he has a toilet on his shirt.

Now I should probably mention that in 2015, Chris majorly revised Sonichu 10, most notably changing the Asperpedia Four’s gruesome executions into their exile into Amish country, but a lot of the earlier pages got minor edits. For instance, the entire “curing the gays” subplot was replaced by a subplot where Chris and Magi cured “nombie-zazis”, a CWC-ification of the Call of Duty staple villains Nazi Zombies. I mention it here because despite the fact that by that time, Chris was identifying as a transwoman, making this scene feel some combination of bizarre and funny with hindsight, but it remained completely unchanged.

Chris complains that being called a woman “really grind[s] [his] gears”, a statement also originally from Family Guy. Gee, I wonder what show Chris was watching when he wrote this section?

Meg’s entire dialogue reeks of wish fulfillment on Chris’s part (I mean, more so than everything else in Sonichu). Her entire dialogue consists of singing Chris’s praises regarding Sonichu and defending his honor and his actions, specifically saying how glad she was for disbelieving all the troll-spread rumors. This is how Chris would like all people would act around him - never disagree with him, never say anything cruel about him, and any woman he wants china from will happily oblige immediately.

[taffysannotatedsonichu]

Sonichu 10 Page 6

Title: Christian Chandler in…

Title: Episode 21

Title: Director Amenities

Caption: July 31, 2015

We’re treated to a brief scenes of Allison and Billy Mays juicing up Son-Chu and Sonichu picking up the Sonichu Balls from Patti, then, in another panel we saw last issue, we see Chris-Chan Sonichu racing towards the reader flanked by the title card: “Christian Chandler in… / Episode 21: Director Amenities”. In a break from form, Sonichu 10 consists of only one episode, Director Amenities, and the terms “Sonichu 10” and “Director Amenities” are often used interchangeably. Director Amenities is the longest individual episode, clocking in at 94 pages, 97 in the version with the altered ending. I’ve divided Director Amenities into sections, mostly for my own benefit.

1. "The Opening Infodumps" (Pages 1-6) - Chris gets out of the Time Void, talks about his travels to 2015, rounds up everyone he needs to destroy 4CG

2. "The Devil Trolls" (7-12) - Chris symbolically takes his website back from the trolls

3. "Grand Theft Medal" (13-20) - The section Chris did right after Blanca stole the medals a year and a half before the rest of the issue

4. "The Naitsirhc Rematch" (21-24) - Chris defeats his lifelong rival in three pages

5. "Chris Plays a Parody of Cat Scratch Fever About the Declining State of the Power Rangers Franchise So Loudly and Badly that it Destroys a Skyscraper, Killing Hundreds" (25-35)

6. "That Weird Interlude" (36-42) - Sonichu and Rosechu complain about paparazzi, Chris makes out with Meg Griffin

7. "Saving Crystal" (43-47) - The Sonichu Balls solve all problems

8. "Saving Zelina" (48-50) - Chris is Jesus and he can bring people back from the dead

9. "Chris Destroys Alec's Personal Possessions" (51-54) - Chris nukes the Asperpedia and steals Alec's dating sim

10. "The Asperchu 'Hogs" (55-64) - Again Chris is Jesus and the Asperchu hedgehogs worship him, Extreme Electric Makeovers ensue, then there's this weird and stupid battle for no reason

11. "Railing Against Asperchu" (65-69) - As if the last fifteen pages weren't enough, there's even more ranting about how much Asperchu sucks, then there's those Basement Rosechu skanks

12. "Inos" (70-72) - Inos is the greatest character in all of Sonichu so he gets his own section

13. "The Final Battle with Mary Lee" (73-77) - Chris paralyzes an old lady

14. "Chris's Big Speech and the Death of Simonla" (78-84) - Evan killed mommy.

15. "Watching Sandy Grow and the Trial of the Asperpedia 4" (85-90) - The Asperpedia 4 do indeed rock, so if I was the judge I would have let them go.

16. "The Asperpedia 4 Zap to the Extreme and Independence Day" (91-94) - Alec rides the lightning, Evan loses his pickle, Sean is at a loss for 409-Cleaner, and Mao bends over backward for Chris, and then Chris steals one of the most famous speeches in cinema history to justify it all.

17. "Pandahalo's Section and the Ending Miscellanea" (95-98) Panda's third memorial, her comic, the repeat of the Adult Chronicles ad and Marvey Blaziken's final speech

18. "The Revised Ending" (I'll only be covering the pages that were completely replaced, that is 91-97) - Mary Lee and Kathleen end up sharing a jail cell, they hide weed up their asses, and then the Asperpedia 4 live out their lives stepping on rakes in the Amish country.

The bottom third of the page shows the other three members of C&THB making their ways to Tennessee (why does it look like Punchy is flying like Superman?), and Magi-Chan making it to 31 July 2015, where the scientists working on the gay vaccine invite him in with open arms. Now’s the point where I really start wondering about who exactly that is making these gay vaccines. I think we’re meant to assume, since they can just dump stuff in the water supply willy-nilly that they’re some sort of government officials that are legally allowed to tamper with public water supplies, but why would a government-sanctioned scientific project - or any legitimate scientific laboratory, for that matter - let some stranger who says he’s a time traveler from the past just waltz in and take all their specimens? I’m increasingly starting to wonder if these “scientists” are really from some sort of homophobic bioterrorist sect, since they don’t seem very official and the unlawful release of any pathogen designed to cause an illness, even if this “vaccine” amounted to some egg whites and trace amounts of Chris’s blood and caused no illnesses or deaths, disseminating it into public water supplies would be bioterrorism.

[taffysannotatedsonichu]

Sonichu 10 Page 42

CHRIS: I, personally, want to extend my apologies for offending a bunch of homosexual people and others with the past few pages. I have stated time after time, again and again, that I, Christian Weston Chandler, am and always have been a straight man, and unless stated otherwise of a few, the majority of my characters, including Sonichu and Rosechu, are all straight too. Finally, I have drilled those facts into y’all’s thick skulls successfully.

Caption: 1/10/2010

CHRIS: While, I do feel the success, I feel remorse, because of a decrease in fan support. Regardless of y’all’s own race, orientation, “love-us” or “hate-and-troll us”, I would probably ended this early book #3 without your support and all. You all are what you are, and I am heterosexual. And I deeply apologize for offending y’all. Please do not leave me; I will draw and write appropriately what I will. Christian W. Chandler.

This is a very weird apology. As an apology for the “curing the gays” bit (and possibly orchestrating a terrorist attack killing upwards of 100 of his foes), Chris stands in front of a red curtain, alongside Sonichu and Rosechu and Blake and Bubbles (the latter we haven’t seen all issue), to apologize, expressly in response to the lack in fan support. And when Chris handwrites something in the comic, you know it’s serious. It’s like when someone starts talking in the middle of a song.

This whole scene sort of makes me think of those “very special episodes”, particularly the ones from the ‘80’s and ‘90’s before they became such a laughing stock that they had to get toned down or risk not being taken seriously. You got the entire cast gathered ‘round for a big speech about a serious issue, talking about what we learned today. All it needs is a number for some hotline to show up.

He, of course, reiterates that he and the cast of Sonichu barring Naitsirhc and the still unseen Heather Iglesias are heterosexual, no matter what fan works, such as Asperchu and Jimmy Hill’s Sonichu, may say. What starts out as as level headed as Chris can get slowly descends into another rant that, had this been narrated by Chris, would have been full of yelling and stress sighs.

Interestingly, Chris’s speech in this apology seems oddly informal (y’all comes up three times, twice as the confusing possessive form “y’all’s”) compared to much of the other writing in Sonichu. This is a strange choice as most apologies are written incredibly formally, almost clinically formal, to avoid accusations of being insincere. I guess Chris thought that sounded more honest?

To me at least, the most interesting part of this apology is that Chris says that were it not for fan support, he would have ended the comic circa Sonichu 3. As I outlined before, Sonichu 3 was the end of an era for Sonichu, the end of the stuff he had planned before starting the comic. His initial plans were supplemented by comics based on real life occurrences, such as his arrest at Target in June 2005. I don’t know exactly what “fans” Chris had circa the summer of ‘05 when he ran out of stuff from his original plan for the comic, as the first time Sonichu really had much of an audience was once the trolls of ED and 4Chan got a hold of it. But this is the first inkling that the inspiration to draw Sonichu wasn’t quite as consistent as the nearly five straight years of Chris drawing Sonichu up to this point would indicate. Indeed, the inspiration well would dry up pretty hard after the end of Sonichu 10, not becoming so much as moist for more than five years until 2015, and not coming back in full spring until 2017.

Chris ends this apology with “please don’t leave me”, which doesn’t sound desperate at all.

[taffysannotatedsonichu]

Sonichu 10 Page 4

MAGI-CHAN (or maybe Chris? -telepathy): Allison and Bill, I need you two to equip Son-Chu with the Playstation 3 in the office with the Guitar Hero software in it, and the band instruments, and have him meet me and my crew at the 4-Cent Garbage building.

MAGI-CHAN/CHRIS? (telepathy): Patti, I will be sending Sonichu your way to pick up the five Crystals, and please move Crystal into the office by my desk.

CHRIS (telepathy): **Attention! Attention!** I have returned, and I need your help, friends.

MAGI-CHAN/CHRIS? (telepathy): Sonichu, stop by the mall, pick up the Chaotic Crystals, and meet me at the 4-Cent-Garbage Building with them at 2:30 PM.

MAGI-CHAN/CHRIS? (telepathy): Blake and Punchy, please meet me and Sonichu at the 4-Cent-Garbage Building; our band would not be complete without you two.

This page is a mess of pictures of the other characters that are to be important to Chris’s plan. First is vice mayor Allison Amber, and her assistant, TV pitchman Billy Mays. Previously, Billy Mays had been implied to have had no connection to CWCville and its government aside from a respect for Chris and Allison’s leadership. Now he’s Allison’s assistant, maybe? They’re in charge of outfitting Son-Chu for the occasion, loading him up with Guitar Hero equipment.

Patti has done nothing for the past four issues besides watch over the trapped Crystal, but she is about to be relieved of her duty (good, that was taking up valuable time she could have spent doing nothing). Chris also notes that he’s about to pick up the five Sonichu Balls Patti has on hand, since the set is finally complete.

The last people Chris contacts are the hedgehogs that make up Chris’s band, Christian and the Hedgehog Boys. I’ve gone into length about C&THB when I went over their two albums, but this is the first time that they appear in the comic outside of that one page in CWC’s Art Gallery and that one ad. Never is the “Mark I” lineup of the band mentioned in comic - Chris, Sonichu, Sonic the Hedgehog, Blake, and Shadow the Hedgehog, the lineup that apparently performed the first album. By this point, founding members Sonic and Shadow had been replaced by Wild and Punchy respectively. Chris has never elaborated on why these replacement were the case, I chalk it up to, once again, the diminishing ties to Sonichu’s nominal source materials. To date, Shadow has never appeared in a Sonichu comic proper.

[taffysannotatedsonichu]

Sonichu 10 Page 13

JASON: Ah! Mr. Chandler is dashin’ right into my trap. Beel! Prepare for Grand Theft Medal!

Sign: CWC favors Blu-Ray disks for Hid-Def quality

SACKBOY: Do not buy or download illegal copies of L.B.P. on Wii or XBox360; it is punishable by law!

SACKBOY: LittleBiGPlanet is coming exclusively for Playstation 3; reserve or buy your copy of the official game disk. And if you don’t have a PS3, buy one! The 1st official Sonichu level from Christian Weston Chandler is fully published on the L.B.P. Network now! Enjoy playing it! Thank you, Sony. :)

If these next couple of pages look a little different from the rest of this issue, they should. Pages 13-20 were written more than an entire year before the rest of the issue in October of 2008, as a “preview” before Sonichu 8 was even completed. As such, this section relies on references to events that were current in 2008 but had long since ended by January 2010, when the rest of the issue was written.

Jason Kendrick Howell, making his first appearance in two issues (but he was Chris’s worst enemy in 2008, hence his appearance as the primary villain of this section), is watching Chris run across two states to get to his tower, with murderous intent. Instead of ordering a preemptive evacuation of the building, possibly saving hundreds of lives, Jason instead sends out Beel to dispatch Chris. The setup of Jason’s room calls to mind Il Palazzo’s room from Excel Saga, where he was seated on a large throne at one end of a long and mostly empty room, aside from one large TV he occasionally uses to explain things to Excel and Hyatt with.

Jason also has a HEXBOX 360 attached to an HD-TV. This, along with the note that Chris prefers Blu-Ray DVDs and the Playstation 3, is Chris’s bizarre attempts to demonize Jason. One of Chris’s most famous rivalries is his love of Sony and Nintendo consoles and his hatred of Microsoft’s. This came up the last time Sonichu and crew visited Jason, in the elevator gag where a HEXBOX was destroyed. Now, we see that Jason is an avid fan of the console, while Christian hated it with every fiber of his being. The sheer fact that Jason owns and enjoys this console is supposed to be enough to drive us into a rage against him too, by Chris’s logic, but since the sort of fanboyism that Chris displays is quite rare, the average reader won’t get it. Even more bizarre is the allusion to the Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD war, a very short format war that ran from early 2006 to early 2008, when Toshiba admitted defeat and discontinued the HD-DVD format, and Blu-Ray disks became the de facto standard for high definition disks. By 2010, HD-DVDs had already become a relic, so Chris’s endorsement of the Blu-Ray brand seems pointless.

The bottom of the screen is something else Chris probably should have thought twice about adding into a section of comic that wouldn’t see the light of day for another year, a plug for the then upcoming game LittleBigPlanet. LBP is a puzzle-platformer series of games starring Sackboy, a small toy-like creature with many customization options. The first game was released in the fall of 2008, right around the time this was being drawn, but by the time it actually came out, the game had been out an entire year (and did pretty well, so clearly it didn’t need Chris’s endorsement). The game made a big deal about how it was an exclusive for the Playstation 3, and pirated ports for the XBox 360 and Nintendo Wii were something of a problem. So Chris, who played LBP in the beta window and loved it, went out of his way to shill his favorite console while he was at it, complete with a “thank you, Sony”. Chris also plugs his user-made levels (a staple of LBP), the first one being based on the first episode of Sonichu.

[taffysannotatedsonichu]

Sonichu 10 Page 10

CHRIS: Well, that was a real “fairytale fight”…

CHRIS: Rated “M” for “Moof”; don’t be a moof or aloof, keep it “E” or “T” for your children, or give viewer discretion or supervision during gameply. Even though I have enjoyed “Brutal Legend,” starring Jack Black.

Caption: A moment later…

CHRIS {thought}: Teleport back to my mayoral office.

Standing over the corpses(?) of the devil trolls, he describes it as a “fairytale fight”, whatever that means. Maybe he means the fight was idealized because he escaped with no injuries? It must be a reference to something, but I don’t know.

The next paragraph is one of the most confusing in the entire comic. Chris here alludes to the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), and their system of content ratings for video games. Apparently, despite the distinct lack of gore, sexual content, drug and alcohol usage, or strong language, the preceding scene was rated “M” (normally standing for “Mature”, the second highest rating, meaning that the content is suitable only for those over 17 years of age, though not quite graphic enough for “Ao”, adult only) for “Moof”, a nonsense word of Chris’s creation. He insists that parents only let their children play games rated “E” or “T”. “E” stands for everyone (equivalent to a “3” rating in the PEGI system or a “G” rating in Australia) and is the rating used to signify a game is aimed at a general audience (but not specifically young children, which is “Ec” early childhood), and is the usual rating for children’s games like Sonic the Hedgehog and Pokemon. But “T” (equivalent to a PEGI “16” and an Australian “M”), once third lowest and now fourth, is generally aimed at, ya know, teens. Now before 2005 a “T” rating was occasionally given to some games that weren’t particularly gruesome or offensive but too intense for an “E” rating, like Super Smash Bros Melee and Brawl. Then in 2005 the “E10+” rating was spun off from “T” as a more accurate counterpart to the “PG” rating of American films (and the rating of the same name for Australian games, and the PEGI “12”), this is where games like the two newest Super Smash Bros games fall. My point being I think Chris meant to say “Keep it “E” or “E10+” for your kids, since by 2010 “T” was only in use for games aimed at actual teens. Brutal Legend, a game I discussed last issue, was rated “M”, apparently Chris playing an “M” rated game is out of the ordinary.

The bottom of the page shows Chris gathering all his stuff from Tripod and teleporting it back to his office.

[taffysannotatedsonichu]

Sonichu 10 Page 3

CHRIS: Any way, as for the medical study, and this will require your aid, Magi-Chan. In June of 2015, the scientist have found the gene-like molecule which makes a person turn… ugh… homosexual; they needed a volunteer’s untainted straight blood to get a pure version of the molecule to generate a vaccine. Then I entered, and I gave them a bit of my blood. The first batch of ten syringes were created; I was the first one, after they did their successful tests of the vaccine, to receive the vaccine, so I would never have to worry about becoming one of them. I two of the syringes before I left, so I can turn Reldnahc back into Naitsirhc. I have the understanding of Kel worrying and missing Naitsirhc; she does love and care about him so.

CHRIS: Anyway, I was informed that the sufficient amount of the vaccine to put into the water supply around the world would take another month to make. Magi-Chan, I want you to travel forward to July 31, 2015, and transfer the crates of the vaccine back to our local medical facilities of today. I am entrusting this Chaotic Crystal to you for a boost in your ability to time-travel; I wish the Crystal returned to me at about 3:00 PM today at the 4-Cent Garbage building; I will be ready for its use in my plans then.

MAGI-CHAN: Yes, sir!

CHRIS: But before you go, I need your telekinesis to rally our allies for this mission towards correcting my comic mistakes of my real life based villains.

I feel like I need to mention that this page is currently the page image for TV Tropes’s page for “Featureless Plane of Disembodied Dialogue”. Because… yeah. Speaking of TV Tropes, Sonichu has its own Nightmare Fuel page that starts with “The mere fact that someone actually took time out of their day to read and re-read Sonichu looking for this stuff is a pretty big meta example”. Nice to know that the face of ultimate horror looks a lot like Stephanie Wilma Tobias.

So, if you’re wondering what this gene-like molecule is, it’s a reference to a Family Guy episode where Peter Griffin gets injected with a gay gene and becomes gay for an episode. No idea what a “gene-like molecule” is supposed to be though. Something can be a gene or a molecule but not both. Maybe Chris means something like a virus?

Some future scientists have found the gay gene and have developed a vaccine to cure it (even though you can’t cure genetic diseases with vaccines), so they need some of Chris’s straight blood to cure it. Aside from the fact that it’s been well documented that even at the time Chris’s blood was far from 100% straight, Chris also shows a fundemental misunderstanding on the nature and purpose of vaccines. Vaccines aren’t like antibiotics where a illness is fought by killing the agent responsible, vaccines are designed to inoculate using weakened or killed forms of a virus or bacteria to give the body a resistance to these viruses in the future. If you were looking to cure this hypothetical “gay gene” (again, you can’t use vaccines for genes, but whatever), you wouldn’t need a “straight gene” to combat it, you would need a weakened form of the gay gene. Although based around Chris’s lack of scientific knowledge and not a true Freudian slip, the idea of Chris’s blood being used in a vaccine to fight gayness is funny with a decade of hindsight.

The latter half of this page is dedicated to a gigantic time-travel-induced plot hole. So if they made the vaccines in 2015, but the Chris and Magi of 2008 go forward in time to get them, and then bring them back to 2008, and then disseminated it into the water supply, curing gayness in 2008, then the scientists of 2015 would have no reason to make a gay vaccine because gayness would have already been cured! This sort of plot has a lot of the same problems as what TV Tropes calls “Hitler’s Time Travel Exemption Act” - going back in time to kill Hitler before WWII sounds like a good idea, right? But if WWII never happens, then you would have no reason to go back in time to stop it, and thus WWII is doomed to happen anyway. In this case, if Chris uses 2015 vaccines to cure gayness in 2008, then there was no need for the curing vaccines to ever have been made, and thus gayness was never cured. Time travel can become a confusing mess of plot holes even in the hands of experienced and skilled authors, and in Chris’s hands it’s basically doomed.

It’s easy to miss in the gigantic blocks of text, but this is the first hint at the previous romance between Kellie Felix, Rosechu’s trainer who hasn’t appeared since Sonichu 0, and Naitsirhc. Since Kel has been such a non-character in Sonichu, this is the first time any connection between the two has been as much as implied. The only time the two are in the same story together is Episode 3, “Sonichu vs Naitsirhc”, and they never appear in the same panel. Meanwhile, Nait’s gayness wasn’t properly introduced until Sonichu 6, where it was at least sort of implied that the creation of the Black Sonichu medallion was the cause of his homosexuality, and possibly that he was straight before this turn to the dark side. Like my predecessor said, the plotline about Nait and Kel being ex-lovers was a weird attempt to tie up the loose ends of one character slipping into irrelevance and another who had long been irrelevant.

Magi’s going to be missing for a lot of this episode while he’s out getting the vaccines. Chris gives him the yellow Sonichu ball (lest we forget that the yellow ball has been lost in the Time Void for two issues - why risk it again?) to travel to the future. Chris also gets “telepathy” and “telekinesis” confused again.