seraphhy

[seraphhy]

woe, cosmic horror and sonadow be upon ye.

[seraphhy]

divine adjudicator

[seraphhy]

They are dorks 💗

[seraphhy]

“The Chaos Emeralds, when you…”

She trails off, and she’s usually not so imprecise (at least she likes to think she goes after what she wants), even though her eyes bounce anywhere and everywhere around Sonic, one moor to another. Sonic looks oddly subdued, remnants of gold scintillating on his lashes and his mouth curled into a shadow of that divine light.

“If I said something,” Sonic intones, scrubbing blood off his front teeth with a gloved finger, “I didn’t mean what I said.”

When they were children, there was wind and dings in her side and burning lungs, playing catch-up, and non-answers, too. Sonic examines his hand, the blood from his mouth smeared into the fraying material of his gloves. Amy’s examining her bedroom, thinking of all the ghosts of them, Sonic tilting around the room as he belted lyrics to Amy’s favorite song, voice cracking, head craned back, and then wheezing. Her Charioteer. The impressions of him like wheels digging into her dirt.

Sonic’s sporting an unsightly gash on his thigh, flinching away when Amy’s hands come close to it. The diffusion of red over the blue makes purple, matching the bruise in her chest.

“That’s not what I meant, you know.” A long silence has passed, Amy’s hands floundering in the gulfs of them both, seeking, stumbling, falling in the dark. The few times she’s held the pink emerald in her hands she remembers the intensity of it, hands ripping wounds open, splitting stitches. One half of the Lovers, falling from her floating palace. “... I know it has to burn.”

Something in Sonic mobilizes in that moment, and Amy knows that this is her problem: she’s too precise, too eager.

Sonic smiles a brilliant smile, the luminosity and width of it measured accordingly. He’s at the window in the breeze of an instant, wind disrupting his fur, too big for the frame he once draped himself over, roses in his mouth.

“I’ll see you later.”

[seraphhy]

to the pressure (ao3)

characters: sonic, shadow ships: sonic/shadow rating: M word count: 1.3k tags: character study, short, implied sexual content

To the unobservant eye, Shadow is invulnerable, impenetrable, unshakeable, a black solar wind. Sonic has watched him pull his fist back from inert robots, fingers drenched in diesel and coolant, counted the achingly-slow rhythm of his breathing as he played surgeon on the bullet hole in Sonic’s gory side at the edge of the bathtub. He's seen him golden and regal, voice pressing in Super Sonic’s skull inside the mechanizing Power Cannon, electricity and power incited: if we kill her, we kill her together. Shadow’s never trembled, he’s never faltered, he’s never drawn away from what was demanded of him, hoisting the world on his strong shoulders— (Not even at the edge of space, burning and dying.)

[seraphhy]

come on, hold me to death

[seraphhy]

Sonic & Tarot: #0 - Sonic

This is the first entry in a miniseries where I will attribute a few Tarot cards to specific characters and explain my reasoning behind them. Maybe this post stemmed from Mild Annoyance at seeing Sonic assigned the King of Pentacles in the official deck released by Sega. At first, I was contemplating drawing a random card for the deck while thinking of a character--and since Sonic is one of my well-beloved characters, I have done spreads for him in the past--but to distill a meaning from 78 cards, the Major and Minor Arcana, proves to be too daunting of a task, and the Major Arcana are more impactful to the layperson, anyways.

[1] Do note that I am using a variant of the Rider Waite deck due to its ubiquity, its simplicity, and relative accessibility. For transparency, the deck that I am using is called The Change Tarot, illustrated by Xaviera Lopez; the imagery, compared to the Rider Waite deck, is almost a complete one-to-one, with a few minor changes. I will supplement each post with images of the original Rider Waite deck for accessibility, as the meanings remain unchanged for the most part.

[2] I just want to make it clear: I am not an expert. This is purely for fun. Your mileage may vary.

#1: Big Picture - The Fool

[ID: A young man stands on the edge of a cliffside against a warm yellow background. His arms are wide open, with a white rose held in his left open palm and a bindle held in the other, propped on his shoulder. A white dog is reared back on its hind legs at his feet.]

I know. You probably saw this coming.

The Fool is denoted by #0 - the number of Endless Possibility infinite potential. For all intents and purposes, The Fool is the very first card of the deck, and that makes sense; his carefree pose and expression imply he has the world at his feet, ready to take a leap of faith. He is eccentric, forward-thinking, radical, and prepared to embark on a journey with an almost blind trust in the universe. The Fool is succeeded by the more austere Magician, #1 of the Major Arcana (which is one of Shadow's cards, in my experience). It sounds familiar, doesn't it?

[ID: A collection of song lyrics. Top left - "Never fear the fall / When you leap without a net, you'll find / It won't be there all the time / So watch your step now, watch your step / Don't fall!" Middle left: "I won't even hesitate / A second left to alter fate" Middle: "Hold on to 'what-if'! Hold on to 'what if'!" Bottom middle: "Long as the voice inside me says 'Go', I will always keep on running / There is no way to stop me from going to the very top" Bottom: "This is my escape / I'm running through this world and I'm not looking back / And I know I can go / Where no one's ever gone and I'm not looking back"]

To outsiders, The Fool is precisely that - ruled by his blind faith and his thirst for adventure, he may unknowingly stumble into trouble, danger, and hardship. He may find himself jumping from The Tower if he is not careful.

More significantly, The Fool is governed by Uranus. Uranus is associated with freedom, airiness, revolution, and independence (one wouldn't be shocked to find that The Fool's element is air). Although Sonic's personality may have been ... sterilized over the years, his childhood (teenhood?) revolved around defeating Ivo, who, for all intents and purposes, is perhaps a not-so-covert metaphor for capitalism and industrialization. He is the oppositional force to Sonic's wildness and free-standing nature. Interestingly, Uranus also represents forward-thinking, innovation, and the (positive) future that can come from said innovation - one could argue Eggman is like the other-side of Uranus, its dark hemisphere, innovation in blind excess.

One more thing I wanted to add (courtesy of Tarot & Astrology by Corrine Kenner) because it blew my mind when I was making this post:

Uranus rules Aquarius, the sign of futuristic thinking, and the eleventh house of the zodiac, where astrologers look for information about social groups and idealistic causes. Like Aquarius, Uranus is associated with the lower legs, the ankles, and the circulatory system.

#2: Impact - The Tower

[ID: The Tower shows a tall tower perched on the top of a rocky mountain. Lightning strikes set the building alight, and two people leap from the windows, head first and arms outstretched. It is a scene of chaos and destruction.]

When I say impact, I really mean the effects of Sonic on others.

The Tower gets a bad rep, and for good reason - the imagery on it is striking and unsettling. Death, breakups, or loss of a job are all what we would colloquially call Tower moments: moments that irrevocably alter the course of our lives. The Tower, therefore, represents stability, structure, even if that structure is built on shaky ground - yet this card reminds us that nothing is permanent. As scary as that may sound, The Tower isn't all negative: it signifies a purging of false beliefs, interventions, tearing down concepts and things in our lives we thought were here to stay.

More significantly, The Tower is succeeded by The Star: What goes up must come down, or what falls will always rise again. Such is the harmony of the universe. Regardless, when you rise from the ashes of the fallen Tower, you're stronger, brighter, clarified.

This is definitely a take on Sonic that is more personal and less grounded in canon, but it feels so pertinent to me that I want to include it anyways. Sonic himself is life-changing - that's the whole conceit of his character. Sonic's role as The Tower is felt most palpably in Shadow's character saga: the appearance of Sonic heralded immense change in his life, from remembering his true purpose to emerging from the other side of his fall as stronger, more dignified, and certain of himself. The same can be argued for Surge, and if I wanted to reach, even Tails. What they all have in common is the change that Sonic inspired in them.

For the best application of Sonic as The Tower, look no further than Sonic & the Black Knight, wherein Sonic literally destroys the false kingdom Merlina built out of a feverish desperation to preserve her status quo:

[Picture 1 ID: Sonic asking Merlina, "What good is a world that goes on forever?!"

Picture 2 ID: Sonic charging at Merlina to attack, shouting, "No! And I don't want to [understand]!"]

The Tower is most closely associated with Mars/Aries, whose domains encompass strength, prowess, and impulsivity (among others). I would be remiss to exclude the fact that one of Mars' associations is sports and competition (Sonic Riders mention). Additionally, I'd argue that almost all of the Titan songs in Frontiers are very warlike in their intensity and genre, exemplifying Super Sonic as Sonic's ultimate weapon. All four songs seem to scream jump out of the Tower now!

[Pictured: Sonic threatening Surge with a Tower Moment, or the infamous "a bigger shame is what'll happen to the idiot that tries that" moment.]

Honorable Mention - The Chariot

[ID: The Chariot tarot card depicts a brave warrior standing upright in his chariot. His lower half is obscured, and the chariot is being driven by two sphinxes. In his hand he clutches a wand.]

I was hesitant to include this card, but I decided to for two reasons: 1) Sonic is a Cancer (at least if you acknowledge June 23 as his birthday), and I wanted to pay homage to that; and 2) there are aspects of The Chariot that resemble Sonic to me.

To put it simply, The Chariot is an adventurer, much like The Fool (in this instance, perhaps The Charioteer could be The Fool?). Unlike The Fool, though--and more akin to its ruling sign, Cancer--The Chariot houses its home on its back. In other words, where Sonic goes, home goes with, even if he never stays in one place for long. Furthermore, the advent of Cancer season is marked by the summer solstice; thus, The Chariot also symbolizes new beginnings, much like our adventurous Fool. The charioteer is ambitious and focused, commanding his body and his vessel forward through the world (as evidenced by the wand in his hand, which represents our spirit and unconscious). The charioteer knows what he wants, and he goes after it boldly and decisively.

This wasn't in my top two spots solely because The Chariot has a kind of austerity and severity that I don't quite associate with Sonic. While Sonic does have serious and grounded moments, I prefer the more airy and lackadaisical approach of The Fool, or, if we're characterizing Sonic by his impact on the cast and the world, the more intense and lightning-quick change of The Tower.

That concludes the first post in this little miniseries! These are the three cards I wish Sega would have associated with Sonic, as opposed to the Taurean and wizened King of Pentacles (which, in my opinion, is very antithetical to Sonic's nature). Both The Fool and The Tower remind me of Sonic in different aspects, and I think they embody his characteristics more accurately than what they went with. Alas, one can dream.

In my next post, we'll touch on Shadow. I have a lot to say about him ...

[seraphhy]

every time i start to feel cringe for being too deep in the hyperfixation i remember the intense depression i have waded through and have to remind myself that enjoyment is fleeting (so grab it with both hands), and life is for loving (so hold that love close), and if anyone thinks i’m cringe they must not be having a very good time (and i hope they can find a good time soon).

[seraphhy]

I want more freaky and unnatural Shadow. no, I don't mean eldritch, I want more emphasis on the fact he was made, not born. he breathes as a performance to make other people feel better, but doesn't need air. he doesn't need sleep except once every few weeks. he has to remember to blink. when he's focused he forgets to do all the things that keep up this pretense as an organic creature. he's just unnerving in his stillness, like an inert machine

[seraphhy]

now you're tearing me down

[seraphhy]

For request will you draw happy shadow pleaseee??🙏🙏

Oh and one thing i just wana say i really love the way of your style and sonic comic . Your comics really emotional and meaningful

Youre the best i never get enough of your comics 💞💕❤🤧

(Expressing feelings)🌸❤💕💞🥰

Thank you so much for enjoying my comics 🖤!! here you go!

(requests are closed!)

[seraphhy]

to the pressure

[seraphhy]

black arms maria for a very long and complicated fic i'm writing :3 stay tuned hehe

[seraphhy]

my favorite thing about the excalibur transformation from S&TBK is the fact you can see sonic’s tail poking out 😭♥️

[seraphhy]

my favorite thing about the excalibur transformation from S&TBK is the fact you can see sonic’s tail poking out 😭♥️

[seraphhy]

second wind

(lineart here)

[seraphhy]

redrawing an old wip