#But to me at least I just like seeing Sonic and Knuckles interact as brothers. It's heartwarming and sweet

[my-name-is-jefferooni]

The brothers ever.

Also: Knuckles be like - "YOU'RE A DOUBLE FURRY NOW?????"

I'm trying to practice drawing comics :) (and I wanted to draw Knuckles, he's cool)

bonus:

[piko-power]

It wasn't until the Knuckles Series trailer when I realized how much I love Sonic and Knuckles' dynamic.

Honestly, I'm just excited to see these two interact. I know the show's probably not gonna focus more on these two and more on Knuckles and Wade, but them interacting is something I NEED.

Especially since this is after Sonic 2 and they've become (brothers) friends after their confrontation and after Sonic finds out that what Knuckles been through as a child is the same as what Sonic himself went through.

I just wanted to talk about Sonic and Knuckles' growth in their friendship and in themselves and how it makes me feel at the moment because their relationship and brotherhood is gonna drive me crazy and I need to tell EVERYTHING.

Everything will be under the cut since it's gonna be one hell of a ramble post. (btw if you tag this as ship I'll sell your kneecaps to the dark web)

At the beginning of the movie, Sonic suddenly got a visit from his worst enemy that he thought was banished to the dreaded Mushroom hellscape. He didn't expect him to bring any company, however.

An Echidna. The same species who nearly took Sonic's life and took Longclaw's.

Sonic only knew these Echidna best from the day where he lost everything. He couldn't save Longclaw in time from the Echidna tribe. He did blame himself, but deep down he was also mad at the Echidna.

So it was understandable that Sonic wouldn't be so pleased to see an Echidna in his house.

It's one thing if Robotnik came back, but a random Echidna who swore to destroy Sonic at any cost? Sonic ain't having none of that.

The Echidna took away something dear to him once, he won't let it happen again.

There's just one problem: Knuckles is WAY too strong for Sonic. He may have the speed, but he didn't have the punches like Knuckles.

Clearly it was quite a terrifying moment for Sonic. He couldn't fight back against the Echidna and he even knew about Longclaw.

From his POV, it was all shocking. Of course later on in the movie, he finds out that the Owls and Echidna were at war for the longest time over the Master Emerald.

So it's no wonder that Knuckles is after Sonic, who was raised by Longclaw.

So the fact that Sonic and Knuckles thought they were both bad guys is actually pretty messed up, since the Owls were the bad guys to the Echidna as well, so Knuckles thought that Sonic was the bad guy too.

MAN-

And after learning more about the Master Emerald, it was Sonic (and Tails') mission to make sure the Emerald is safe and make sure Robotnik BUT ESPECIALLY KNUCKLES don't get their hands on it.

Everything about Knuckles is a mystery to Sonic. He doesn't know a lot about him. All he knows is that he's after a giant gemstone full of ultimate power.

The power to turn thoughts into reality.

And since Sonic knows that Echidna only want power to themselves and other selfish needs, at least according to him, he knew Knuckles has to be stopped. Robotnik included, but now there is a new threat.

A threat Sonic wished would never come back to his life.

Meanwhile with Knuckles himself...

Knuckles never really thought about sticking around with Robotnik. He only needed his help to find the hedgehog. But after overhearing about ultimate power, Robotnik insists to join Knuckles on his journey.

Knuckles doesn't know a lot about Robotnik and was a first skeptical, but he seemed to be trustworthy. If he wanted to help Knuckles restore power to his people, then he would have to believe that maybe forming an alliance with this man won't be so bad.

After all,

When was the last time Knuckles had a friend? When was the last time Knuckles trusted someone? When was the last time someone liked him, or looked after him?

After what happened to his people?

The closest family member he had was his father, who he and his tribe never came back after their battle. Knuckles was left there, waiting for them to come back.

It eventually dawned on him that they'll never come back.

For the longest time, he went off on his own to find this hedgehog, for vengeance. And to find the Master Emerald in time before he does. (I think he believed he was searching for the Emerald as well.)

Throughout his journey in the galaxy, he came across some trouble along the way. Some scavengers straight up take him away and put him in a Rise of the TMNT ass arena. (You know the one I'm talking about. 😉)

Apparently word goes around about how Echidna are, and Knuckles didn't like this at all. (He won against the beast in case you're curious.)

He did gain some assistance on helping him find the hedgehog, but he wouldn't call them his friends. They are only there to help him without a choice after all.

What caught his and the scavengers' attention was the energy surge that spread through the galaxy from this planet invested with mushrooms.

The first thing he finds is this bald man with weird clothes and a blue quill that looked awfully familiar. This man knows where the hedgehog is and where to find him.

For a while, Knuckles been on his adventure alone after loosing his family. He thought he was better off alone on his journey, but after meeting Robotnik, he never knew that he would befriend this man.

He seems to be smart and makes all kinds of machines, and even has a goat milker. (The king of Bi Men, Agent Stone) If Robotnik can help him find the hedgehog, and the Master Emerald, then Knuckles is fine with being friends with this man.

He never had a friend before, he only had a father. A friend sounds nice. Who wouldn't be friends with Robotnik?

Sonic and Knuckles' view of each other shifted slightly during this scene, in Siberia.

Knuckles is tired of Sonic messing around, saying that he knows nothing about him. All Sonic knows is that his tribe is most famous for ruining his life. (Ouch)

Knuckles didn't take that kindly, stating that he lost everything because of you. His people, his father.

The reason why Knuckles' journey is important to him right now, was his father's last words to him:

"Your moment to honor our tribe will come, but it was not this moment."

Hmmm... That's sound really familiar...

Wait a minute...

WAIT A MINUTE...

"There will come a time where your powers will be needed... But you don't choose that moment. That moment chooses you."

Tom Wachowski said that. Sonic's father.

Those words were similar to what Knuckles' father told him... before he died.

Sonic really didn't know Knuckles. At all.

Yes, what Knuckles is doing is pretty bad. He still assume that Knuckles is gonna use the Emerald for something awful.

But after hearing Knuckles' story on what happened to his people and his father... After what happened to all those Echidna and Longclaw... After figuring out that him and Knuckles' trauma share similarities... After figuring out that they both lost something so important to them...

Sonic just felt... devastated. (The second image even looked like he's on the verge of tears finding out this information. 🥺)

He had zero clue Knuckles went through all that, and just trash talked his tribe right there. Hearing his story just... broke his heart.

He, too, lost everything that day. They both lost everything that day.

Knuckles didn't have to hunt down Sonic because of all that but he did, because since he was technically on the Owl's side, Sonic was also "responsible" for the demise of his tribe.

Knowing that Knuckles believes this just hurts Sonic more. To make things worse, Tails attacked at the wrong time, giving Knuckles the belief that Sonic was tricking him.

At this point of the fight, I believe Sonic doesn't want to fight this guy. Yes, he's on Robotnik's side, but he wished he wasn't.

He knows Robotnik and Knuckles doesn't. Robotnik might mess with the Echidna and just make things worse for him. If he is his ally, the first one he had maybe, then it won't be pretty if Robotnik does something stupid.

Unfortunately, that's exactly what happens next.

The next time they meet was in the Labyrinth, right where the Master Emerald is. Knuckles is done with Sonic's crap, and Sonic is going to stop him.

Sonic really didn't wanted to fight him anymore, and just wanted him and Robotnik to leave the Master Emerald...

But he's not given much choice.

A big fight broke off between two powerful critters over the Emerald, meanwhile Robotnik sneaks off to get the Master Emerald into his grasp.

Thankfully, before things got messy, Sonic pointed out that Robotnik was stealing the Emerald, and this infuriates Knuckles.

This man. This deceiving man, wished to join his side to take out the hedgehog just to take the Emerald for himself.

Robotnik himself even mocked at the fact that Knuckles believed that he and Robotnik were friends. The first friend he ever had, and he straight up betrayed him.

And just like that, he takes the Emerald and leaves. (or Chaos Controlled I think...?)

The place begins to flood and Knuckles gets trapped underwater. Sonic, not okay with the fact he has to go in the water, AGAIN, jumps in anyways to save him.

He cannot let this guy drown. He went through too much crap and he can't let this happen to him. He doesn't care that they fought, he wanted to save him.

Eventually he did, but...

Sonic couldn't swim. He tried to reach out for Knuckles who was getting further and further away from him. He nearly drowned but at the right moment, Knuckles came back down to save him.

They both have a moment together on the beach, throwing sand at each other. XD

Knuckles was confused on why Sonic saved him, despite the fact he tried to destroy him. He says that being a hero isn't about taking care of yourself, instead it's about taking responsibility for other people. Words from his own father.

While Tails was on his way to save Sonic, Knuckles mentions how he and Sonic lost everything and wonders how despite that and failing, how did he kept going?

Simple. He found a new family. New friends. And he can too.

Learning about Knuckles' childhood, and knowing what he been through, and witnessing Robotnik's betrayal to him, it's clear that he need to do something for Knuckles.

He knows that Knuckles isn't the bad guy, he was just used for Robotnik's deeds. Knuckles only wanted what was best for him and his people.

But Sonic knows now what Knuckles really needs.

A family.

Knuckles lost his and so did Sonic. He doesn't want Knuckles to be alone again. He's been alone for too long just like Sonic. He offers Knuckles to join him on his adventure.

But he also wanted him to join his family.

Knuckles is quite surprised about the offer. It's understandable.

All they've been doing whenever they meet is fight, but after learning about themselves, after a small quiet talk with each other, Sonic just...

Smiles and offers his hand. He doesn't want him to be alone anymore.

Knuckles just looks at him. It look liked he was unsure about the offer for a split second. But he's thinking about it, as Sonic smiled at him.

After everything they've done to each other, Sonic is willing to help him out and give him everything he truly needed without even knowing what he truly needed.

Sonic, according to Knuckles, is a strange hedgehog, but has a heart of gold. He seems to be strong too after all this time. He lost everything, but he never gave up. Not even once, even when things get tough.

He gained a new family because of that.

Knuckles respects that. Mentally anyway.

It will take some time to process and adjust everything, but if what Sonic's saying is true, about not being alone anymore...

Then Knuckles believes him.

After taking the offer, a lot happened afterwards.

Him and Sonic and Tails fight against a giant Eggman Mech.

He gave Robotnik a taste of his medicine and retrieve the Master Emerald before him and Tails fall to the ground.

He and Tails witnessed Tom, Maddie and Sonic getting crushed by Robotnik, before seeing that Sonic absorbed the power of the Emeralds.

Tries to protect Tom and Maddie from a possible corrupted Sonic, but then gets slapped by a chili dog.

He and his newfound friends made a vow to protect the Master Emerald.

And plays baseball for the first time with his friends and goes out for victory ice cream.

It's safe to say that Sonic and Knuckles' friendship means a lot to me than I thought. With the Knuckles series coming out, I am excited to see what will happen between them.

It's clear that it will be just older and younger brother shenanigans and I am all here for it.

I love their dynamic a lot, but now I'm a little obsessed with them at the moment. Their origins and their differences and how they grew together is really special to me.

I love Sonic and Tails' dynamic but Sonic and Knuckles' is something I never really thought of a lot until now.

Every time I watch Sonic 2, I just feel so happy for Knuckles now that he's got friends and family who love him and look out for him.

In fact, after watching Sonic 2 for the first time, almost two years ago, I loved Knuckles a lot. I used to think he was a fine character. I enjoy his character, but after watching the movie, he became one of my top 10 favorite characters.

I love him so much and I cannot wait to see more of my favorite version of Knuckles, and more of Sonic and Knuckles' interactions.

[generic-sonic-fan]

Why the heck E-123 Omega fascinates me so much

Look I'm not going to lie to you the reason I love Omega so much is that his canon writing is actually pretty lazy. They needed a "Heavy" character to pair with Shadow and Rouge so the writers had them stumble into a robot in the basement who's Gamma's half cousin-brother-something.

Hey player, remember that robot who had an arc and turned good in Sonic Adventure? let's just do that but again. don't worry about it don't think about it too hard.

Except the writers got even lazier this time around and his ENTIRE POTENTIAL CHARACTER ARC is summarized in one line by Rouge's dialogue, "You're mad at Eggman for sealing you in this room" (Sonic Heroes, 2003). Gamma's entire character arc, summarized neatly for the player, so they can start the platforming sections as soon as possible. It's videogame writing. It's not supposed to be a literary masterpiece, so it makes sense that they're borrowing on a concept that a fan of the Sonic games would have seen before if they'd payed Sonic Adventure.

Except, in the attempt to be as lazy as possible, they accidentally created a new type of character that hasn't been explored before??

Because Omega is NOT Gamma. Omega couldn't possibly be more different from Gamma! One destroys Eggman robots to bring about peace, the other as an act of war. One is quiet and contemplative, the other loud and brash. One chooses to cease existing, while the other so desperately wants to live. One is gentle and kind, and the other is just so angry.

In a franchise full of themes about the responsibility of creators to not cause harm with or to their creations, it's baffling to me that Omega is just dropped into the narrative and then promptly forgotten about. There's so many implications with Omega that would be fascinating to dig into from a fan perspective!

What made him the way that he is? Why is he so different from Gamma, so furious?

Now that he's out of the basement, how will he learn about the world outside?

How does his perspective of his origin from Eggman color his experiences and beliefs about things?

This guy has never had a friend before. How does he react to that?

How does he, an ex-Eggman robot designed to kill supersonic hedgehogs, interact with Sonic, the person he was likely designed to kill? Moreover, how does Sonic react to him in return?

Does Omega ever get lonely, as the only robot amongst organics?

How does he relate to Shadow, who was also made as a living weapon?

Meanwhile, trying to get him to show vulnerability is like pulling teeth. It takes a herculean effort to get him to show anything other than the front he puts up. Why's he putting up this front? What could get him to let down this front, even if just for a moment?

(for fuck's sake he's a tsundere. This should be at least a popular topic to explore, shouldn't it?)

And look, I understand. The reason that Omega hasn't been explored nearly as much Shadow is because he's been in less games and, when he has been in games, he's written as a one-note comic relief. But. . . so has Knuckles. So has Amy. So has Sonic. So has Rouge. . . the list goes on, yet the fandom lovingly embraces complex fan characterizations for them. But some fans continue to see Omega as a non-character. Which, as I've just explained, is baffling to me, because this guy has so much potential and transformative fan works are a place to explore that potential.

TL;DR: funny gun robot spin in my brain like he's in microwave despite the intentions of the Sonic Heroes writers. hehe. Go vote for Omega in the Team Dark poll.

MLA Citation for Fern:

Sonic Team, "Sonic Heroes". Sega, 3 December 2003, as cited from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6-SWVIr274

@fernsnailz

[wolfqueen66793]

‼️Sonic Prime Spoilers‼️

Warning: LONG!

Putting my thoughts together on this new season, overall I found it very enjoyable! Definitely my favorite season.

Loved the Sonadow! Lots of great moments from the two hedgehogs, it’s so very important to me that we got to see a softer more concerned side of Shadow, even if you don’t ship Sonadow you have to admit him not being a asshole was great!

However I do wish we got to see more of him, I’m definitely fine with the amount we got, not only for the season but the show overall! But I hate the trend Sega has made where they put Shadow in a show and he quickly gets put to the side lines.

I think a great thing they could have done with Shadow is when he’s separated from Sonic still have episodes with him! We could have seen him recover from the fall into the ravine and fight his way out as a episode, or it could have been a prisoner situation! (Or both) Nine could have some how contained Shadow after being weakened by the Grim Bots, that would let the writers keep a power house like Shadow out of the fight but not out of the plot. Anytime we cut back to Nine we would also be cutting back to Shadow.

There was also the 3-4 Episode fighting, now honestly I didn’t care but I did notice it. Did the fights get a repetitive? Yeah, It was a lot of repeating the same stuff but I forgive it because during this long fight was all the lovely character interactions and growth, which is what I think we should focus on. Dread choosing his crew over Treasure, The Roses, The great moment between New Yoke Knuckles and Sonic vs Nine (though that probably should have been given to Shadow honestly, he was in the fight but we saw him the least it feels) and I loved the relationship between Mangey and Sails.

But I do have a small problem with how they handled Mangey and Sails in the fight, the writers gave them a “Death” scene. Now that I was really down for, but looking back on it It just makes me think “why?” Now logistically it was probably the writers wanting to take some characters out to write less, which honestly fair enough! They had a lot of characters to juggle.

But I wish there “Death” meant something more than just to get them out of the fight until the end where they come back with the Grim Big Bot, now I’m a BIG sucker for Sonic and Tails moments! And I love everything for them, I love there happy moments and I love there sad moments. Sonic and Tails’s relationship is my absolute favorite thing about the Sonic series! And because of that I wished there “death” was something more important, we got to see Sonic be actually hurt about there deaths and I love that! But I wish it just had a little bit more time, have it be the moment where he really starts to see Nine as someone dangerous, someone who can do some real damage, I know sonic is a guy who believes in second chances, and I’m not at all asking sonic to go into a blind rage and attack Nine, that just wouldn’t make sense. But I’d like a moment where Sonic would just yell up to Nine with anger but also sadness, he just had to watch other variants of his little brother die from another one of his brother, because he was too slow. (Or maybe I’m just a big sucker for angst and just like watching Sonic suffer)

And lastly there is the ending, now honestly all the other things I’ve mentioned before this point are things that I actually don’t mind but I’d probably just change a bit. And this also applies to the ending, just a tad less. I found the ending to be very unsatisfying and confusing, we were told we were supposed to understand why prime was so strange for the Sonic canon but we got 0 answers, and the ending is very open (which is a thing I don’t like for show finales, almost entirely) but, we we’re supposed to get 8eps this season but the season only had 7, that’s what Netflix ordered, so where is the last episode? What I’d like and what seems to be what others would like or at least have speculated is that Sonic Prime will get a extra long episode or Movie later down the line, to properly wrap everything up.

I’d definitely be down for something like that, it reminds me what Rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles did with their show, after there show was put on a indefinite pause they were given the opportunity to make a Netflix movie to wrap up the story. And it’s one of my all time favorite movies! There is most definitely more that they can do with this show, and I really wish this turns out to be the case, because if this is where Netflix actually leaves the show off it will kinda suck ngl, a bad ending kinda can put a whole show off for me (not that this show will end up like that for me but still) and it would also mean Sega pretty much lied to us about understanding the timeline.

So I hope the strange cliffhanger we got with shadow taking the prism shards, the shatter spaces still being a thing and that random (most likely) prism energy blast with what looked to be a shadow of a large ship (probably the eggmen) appearing in the sky we will get that last episode Netflix ordered as a longer special that will help us understand things and give us a more satisfying ending!

But there we go! My thoughts and critiques on prime season 3. I definitely loved the season and I’ll be thinking about the Sonadow scenes we got pretty much every day just like the metal virus arc!

Here are some Sonadow pics for making it this far!

[help-i-need-a-cool-username]

So I saw your whole ‘id kill for a boom/prime crossover fic’ and while I am not currently able to write anything I CAN just come up with scenarios so that’s what I’ll do.

Chaos sonic ends up in sonic boom SOMEHOW (maybe boom is a shatterspace? I dunno) and sonic Very Quickly Realizes that this guy is literally him (derogatory)

Shadow finds a shatterspace that he IS allowed in but the problem is that this shatterspace is boom and now he has to deal with all of these people who have no business being this goddamn tall.

Post s3 with nine left in the grim and he’s tinkering or smth and makes a portal by accident and welp. Now boom! Tails has a twin brother.

I think that the boom comics were Archie? Therefore they got affected by super genesis wave. Basically sonic and shadow were th e only ones who ‘survived’ the sgw and now they’re in sonic prime void.

Shadow falls down the hole at the end of s3 ep one and he undertales into boom. It’s never explained why that island is down there. It just is. He gets mistaken for himself multiple times and it’s a whole thing. I guess by this logic a bunch of the nine robots also end up down there. And sonic later.

Uhhh the sonic boom dimension hopping tech from those few episodes malfunctions and now sonic and shadow are having petty slap fights while hurtling through the void.

Shadow gets sonic through the portal at the end of the last episode in time except that instead of coming back to green hill it’s boom now. They’re in boom. This is now their life. Probably not but still. Sonic tries to get his and shadow’s other selves into couples counseling. It doesn’t work.

(Prime shadow voice) I cannot BELIEVE that you would SULLY Maria’s WISH LIKE THIS-

(Boom shadow voice) fucking WHO???

The boom island exists in No Place actually. There’s two knuckles variants. And also the others.

"while I am not currently able to write anything I CAN just come up with scenarios so that’s what I’ll do" THANK YOU 🩷

CHAOS SONIC IS HIM (derogatory) HAS ME IN TEARS

I want to see a prime!Shadow and boom!team and/or boom!shadow interaction SO BAD and now im just imaging Shadow and a couple robots falling out of the sky from the gorge and landing on top of meh burger 🤣🤣 OMG sonic falls down and the first thing he meets is another him which would be extra weird bc so far he's the only non-robotic Sonic

Boom! Shadow: fucking WHO???

Prime! Shadow: you dont have a Maria?

Prime! Sonic: oh no. Please tell me you at least have a Rouge?

Boom! Shadow: who the fuck is Rouge?

Prime! Sonic: Bat. About yay-tall. One of the only people that can actually put up with your shit

Boom! Shadow: *still actively fighting*

Prime! Sonic: not ringing any bells? Uh, your roommate? Your BEST FRIEND

Boom! Shadow: i dont have any friends-

Prime! Sonic: *gasp* this is a universe where Shadow is a only child?! That explains a lot actually

Prime! Shadow: how many times do i have to tell you Rouge is not my sister?

Boom! Sonic: omg there exists a Shadow who has SISTERS

Prime! Shadow: she's not my sister!

Prime! Sonic: wait does this mean you and Eggman are cousins?

Prime! Shadow: he's my nephew actually

Boom! Eggman: WHAT

Boom! Sonic: WHAT

Boom! Amy: WHAT

Boom! Tails: say what now

Boom! Knuckles: huh? What?

Sticks: i told you so!

[speedofsoundsketches]

Seeing you talk about Movie!Sonic is so funny, because I could blab on for literal hours about how the characterization of Movie!Sonic is so good because he's just a kid and he's still learning and because he was alone for so long he clings to his new family and how his and Tom's relationship is just aadbhalsdjijhde and how he makes so many references because pop culture was all he had for 10 years and how the death of Longclaw still affects him to this day and how he was able to connect with Knuckles on a deeper level because of their shared loss and how he grows and changes through the influence of his parents and brothers and how he lived alone for 10 years surviving by himself and still managed to remain positive and how he purposely didn't run to San Fransisco by himself because he didn't want to leave earth just yet to be even more alone for the rest of his life and how he was able to encourage Tails and immediately adopted him and how he gave up the power of the emeralds to be with his family and how he was ready to KILL Eggman on sight the second the showed back up again and how he grew in between the first and second movie because he's a growing boy and finally has good nutrition and how he's so CUTE and FLUFFY and asdakdsjh

And you're like, "He's so annoying though."

And you know what? Valid. 🤣🤣🤣🤣

It's all good, on a surface level, I get that the whole "found family" scenario is a cute one.

But as a long time appreciator of this series, it's difficult for me to swallow that while knowing what makes Sonic Sonic is that he's not bogged down by negative emotions or insecurities. At least, not like THIS.

Sonic's someone who isn't bothered by being alone. In fact, he almost enjoys it maybe more than being in crowds. He likes meeting new people and interacting with them but he values his time with himself and just experiencing what life has to offer at his own speed. He was never afraid to explore, to go out into the world and see new horizons no matter what joys or dangers it'll bring.

And let me get even more controversial; I did not care for the owl mom. She had barely any screen time to warm up to her and give her a character beyond "Parental figure who dies in the first five minutes of the movie to garner cheap sympathy points from the audience".

Also why wasn't she.....structured like the usual Sonic character? I...

ogrinfalkn.kfejrnflka;snmkjlsnlsnlsdkadlad

I get there's an "arc" but it's a forced one. They HAD to force it to make him bonding with Tom and Maddie like they're his parents make sense. Again, using contrived plot points to lazily get from point A to point B with the basic structure they copy and pasted from other road trip movies like this. And a "character arc" that also lazily gets thrown on top of it.

I don't know. Cute moments just isn't enough to justify this for me as a viewer. I know this may come off as me being just cynical but it's more that I've been wise to the ways Hollywood uses dirty, cheap tricks to manipulate the audience's emotions to make things seem deeper than it really is. And it's just been getting worse. (especially in MCU movies pheewwwwwwwww)

[tenebraevesper]

Shattered Worlds & Sonic Unleashed (The End of Universe)

All I have to say, the Reboot was a wild ride. It had its highs and lows, I genuinely enjoyed it. Although, it is possible that my opinion of the Shattered Worlds Arc is better since I had access to all of the Issues instead of having to wait patiently for the next one to come out.

*shrugs*

So, Shattered Worlds was an adaptation of Sonic Unleashed, aka the game where Sonic turns into a Werehog... and for those asking, I actually think that the Werehog gimmick is interesting.

Also, FLUFFY SONIC!  ☆*:.｡.o(≧▽≦)o.｡.:*☆

Something I also loved about this adaptation is how involved Sonic’s friends were, like having the Freedom Fighters fight against Eggman, Knuckles and the Chaotix being the one to find Chip and Sonic learning how to control his Werehog form from a Sloth.

I also loved the battle between Dark Gaia and Sonic and Chip. It was quite epic! 

(≧◡≦)

As for Chip’s farewell speech, I have to admit, it’s kind of touching, especially when you realize that, aside from Genesis of a Hero, which were short stories adapting the Classic Sonic games, this was the only Reboot story arc in the same sense as Iron Dominion or The Master Plan Pre-Reboot.

The Reboot was pretty much over with Shattered Worlds, and speaking of Shattered Worlds - Worlds Unite. Honestly, a crossover in the middle of the storyline felt quite jarring and it also felt rushed. I guess Archie wanted to make at least one MegaMan comic featuring the cast from MegaMan X and having Sigma as the main villain while they still could, but it could’ve been done better. One thing I did like about the comic is seeing Rock and Roll’s interactions with their “younger brother” X.

Oh, and speaking of alternate universes - I was actually happy to come across Sonic Boom.

I am aware that the Sonic Boom video games were bad, but I absolutely loved the show and the comics. They were really fun to watch/read, and Sticks is absolutely amazing, especially in the crossover. The only thing that I was disappointed by is that the Sonic Boom cast (aside from Sticks) and Boom!Eggman didn’t get to interact with their counterparts.

While I liked Sonic Unleashed and Sonic Boom, my favorite part of the Reboot were the Sonic Universe comics. Honestly, it was genuinely hard to pick which story is my favorite, but if I had to choose, I’d pick the Team Dark and Knuckles stories, specifically Shadow Fall, Total Eclipse and Shattered, with a special shout-out to The Silver Age.

I really wish they could’ve done more with Silver, I genuinely liked his little storyline.

Also, speaking of wasted potential, the Reboot gave me another character I felt had potential.

Yeah, Eclipse the Darkling. While I understand that some people are sick and tired of the Black Arms, I think that the plot of Eclipse fighting Shadow, not only to get revenge on him, but also for his own survival, could’ve been expanded on.

After all, this is an alien whose entire race had been destroyed, the only other surviving member being his “brother” Shadow, who is his enemy. He is left trying to fend off for himself while taking care of the Dark Arms (basically, genetically corrupted Wisps). It’s... kind of depressing to see him struggle, even if he is an alien who wants to enslave humanity to feed off them. I would’ve really loved to see more of him.

Another highlight of Team Dark and Knuckles teaming up for me was the interactions between Shadow and Knuckles... mainly them being too stubborn to care and just ending up fighting against each other, which resulted in a lot of fun moments, like them saving each other from drowning, taking a moment to recover, then resuming their fight.

Not to mention, Rouge basically acting as if she’s a mother scolding her two bickering children (when she doesn’t turn into Bean and gets distracted by shiny jewels).

I swear, those expressions are hilarious. They know that they messed up, but are too hard-headed to admit anything. Also, special mention to anything Omega says; he was absolutely hilarious. 

The last story I have read was The Case of the Pirate Princess, where the Chaotix are hired by Echo the Dolphin to track down the missing Princess Undina, only to run into pirates. It’s a fun story, with the kicker being that they had hoped for a royal pay... only to get peanuts.

Well, and that’s it. I had managed to read through the Sonic Archie Comics and give my opinion of them. It had its good moments, it had its bad moments... and it had some really awful moments and wasted potential.

Now that I’m done, I will finally move on to IDW and one thing I’m not looking forward to is how the Sega mandates have affected the comics (especially Shadow’s character).

The Return To Sonic The Hedgehog

My opinion of Sonic (Archie) up until the Reboot.

[bitter-sweet-coffee]

Hello it is I, answering your call for basic human interaction. Rank the chaotix by your favorite members 🔫

hehehe i've been WAITING for this one!! i can't wait to get roasted but I stand by my choice:

1. Espio. my boy. my baby. my kin AND comfort from when i first got into sonic in the early 2000's where i saw a purple detective ninja chameleon and then proceeded to fall in love. espio is so op and underrated i don't understand why more people don't love him. yeah he's just as serious and skilled as someone like shadow, but he also lives with two goofballs so we know he's not always stoic. that and his humour in the anime is fucking HILARIOUS anyways this is an espio stan account

2. Charmy, my BEELOVED. holy shit i love charmy and have defended his right to exist since the dark age of sonic. "he's annoying" HE IS A CHILD and look i hate kids, if i had to deal with an irl charmy i'd commit die, but him! he's a cute little bee who is so goddamn funny and i love his idolization of shadow, it leads for some adorable headcanons of him having another big brother 🥺

3. Ray: now look i KNOW that at least one person here is going to be confused but he was a chaotix member during the pre-super genesis wave SO HE COUNTS, OKAY? i have always had a soft spot for ray because of his loyalty and total adoration of mighty (his brother aaaa) but also his stuttering made me less worried about my stutter that i've since worked through (most of the time), but it was really comforting for younger me

4. Vector, but he would have been much lower if i didn't recently have a moment of spiritual peace when rewatching the metarex arc as an adult. growing up, vector was probably my most hated sonic character besides maybe julie-su (getting to that later) because of his treatment of espio. like, the only sane member. it was played as a joke and thanks to idw espio actually gets some acknowledgment, but i have a feeling i projected my own trauma of not being allowed to speak or have opinions onto espio and thus hated vector as the one doing it. yeah charmy did it too but he's a child not the fucking LEADER, but yeah now seeing a croc my age take care of an edgy teen and a 6 year old on his own while still following his dream is really impressive and something i could never do. i'm sorry for hating you all these years vector i love you 🥺💚

5. Heavy. I DONT KNOW WHY LOOK if it weren't for my vector development this friend would be higher, have y'all SEEN HEAVY? They're a friend, who is perfectly huggable and kind and INVULNERABLE so you can hug him forever. i want to see more heavy content okay???

6. Bomb, just a bit lower than their partner. he just, fucking, blows up as a defense mechanism? aka, destroys their whole body and then reforms once again??? BOMB IS SO COOL STOP SLEEPING ON THEM I STG—

7. Mighty. back in the day, him and espio sorta butted heads. the chameleon was more hotheaded back in the day and mighty, a well known pacifist, didn't take too kindly to that! and all i can remember is little me getting hyper-defensive of my boy again, even if mighty is hardly a chaotix member these days. sorry mighty, i think you are lovely, i just don't f/w pacifists or people who try to mess with espio, but i still like you!

-8. JULIE FUCKING SU. god i fucking hate her so much she makes my skin crawl. she doesn't deserve an explanation just fuck her and her stupid fucking existence in the comics

characters not included: saffron because that plot was atrocious and i pretend they didn't do that to charmy, and knuckles because he technically IS a chaotix but he's more team sonic and it would be unfair to include him here, ranked against my fave team (one of em anyways)

sorry if you didn't want archie! i had to include mighty anyways and that means ray belongs too, which leaves perfect room to roast julie su hehe

[cutegirlmayra]

Prompt - You wouldn't mind if we get a continuation about Amy ( but born as a boy) would you? Cause I want more of Amil's interactions with the other characters ( if it's different from Amy's relationship with them )

(x)  <-- prompt referencing this.

I don't mind being asked about continuations at all! :D They're fun!

All are fun, but not all are welcome so if you, dear reader, wish to submit a prompt please look over general rules for the blog and limit how many prompts you send in to 3 per person and let others have a go! If this is one of your 3, please wait till your other 2 are done! Thank you! :Db

 Commissions are closed! If you're not on the list, you'll have to wait for next time :)b

Prompt: (AU)

It wasn't long until Amil started acting strange again. He rushed around, doing chores, cleaning, and cooking for the gang. He found nothing wrong with a man doing some work for his homies, especially when his friends all had different styles when it came to house upkeep.

"Amil... I told you! I'll get to the dishes tomorrow..." Tails, with his hands up in hopes to convince Amil to take it easy by his sink, slowly lowered them in thanks as Amil shook his head vigorously.

"No can do, buddy!" Amil sparked with life, doing nothing half-heartedly. "You've been working hard on that new X-Tornado upgrade, right? Still thinking of the classic blue, steel grey, and yellow?"

"A-actually, I was thinking about using some red a bit too." Tails stepped back and leaned on his toes a bit, "Geez, Amil, you really know how to do these things awful well." Putting his hands behind his back, he sweetly watched Amil clean and then curiously looked up at him. "Why do you care so much about it?"

Amil shrugged, "I don't know... I... I like to keep things nice. Not that you do a bad job or anything!" he immediately quieted any fears of judgement Tails may make on that comment, gesturing his hand back to stop the misunderstanding in case it took place. "I just mean that a happy looking home makes for a happy pair of shoes!" he mused, "Isn't that the saying?"

Tails laughed, "Not any that I’ve heard! But if it means that much to you, then I'll gladly let you help me out!" he swayed his tails. "Oh, that reminds me. You used to talk about girls and stuff a lot, have you finally found one?" he put his finger a bit close to his mouth.

Amil fumbled slightly with a dish, but gently caught it's slippery surface and sighed in relief. "W-what makes you say that, Tails..?" He looked away, a bit flustered.

"Well..." Tails turned away a moment, "You've just been really quiet lately about it... we all know you get lonely for companionship kinda fast... so I thought maybe you had found someone. Does this mean you'll get married and leave us behind to deal with Eggman and we'll have to save the world without you?" He turned back and tilted his head towards Amil, but Amil squirted the sink's expandable hose at his face, so he wouldn't see his jumbled expression.

It extended at just the right length, and Tails bubbled through the water before pulling back, moving his hands out to try and blindly look for a towel to dry his face off.

"That's none of anyone's concern, Tails." He handed him the towel he was searching for, as Tails gave an open-smile at feeling it and rubbed off his face. "Besides... I may not get married..." Amil's heart slightly twinged at admitting it. "I just don't think I'll find anyone... and besides, what would you, Knuckles, and Sonic do without me!" He smiled warmly at the thought of spending his life with a team who all cared about each other, but Tails just peeked his head out from the small hand-towel he was using.

"Ohh..? That's kinda good, cause that means you can do my dishes forever now, right?" He grinned but Amil reached behind him and grabbed his head into a noogie, using the sponge to grind into his head.

"Now, let's get those naughty thoughts cleaned out of your head, eh?" He joked, as Tails struggled and tapped his tails against his back. "Uncle, uncle!!" Tails cried out and so Amil let him go.

Tails rose up into the air, smirking at an idea as Amil went to scold him, his guard completely down...

"Now Tails, it's rude to try and peer into someone else's love life-AHHH!!!" Amil's head was shoved into the soapy water as Tails laughed, sitting on his shoulders and kicking his legs out before jumping off and dashing away.

"Says the guy who's still dreaming about a harem and kids!" Tails stretched the sides of his cheeks out, wiggling his tongue mockingly towards Amil for him to chase him.

"Grr..! IT'S NOT A HAREM! They're too hard to handle and you can't please everyone and I hate being a bad guy!" he quickly spoke this out as his fists shook and he quickly wiped his face off with the same hand-towel Tails had tossed. He summoned his hammer and charged after Tails, grinning at the friendly spar with his figurative brother figure.

After roughhousing and laughing so much, Tails and Amil rolled into a batch of flowers, laughing and laughing until Tails finally looked up into the sky.

His eyes twinkled a moment, and then he placed his hands on his stomach, "You know... I don't mind talking about girls so much anymore..."

Amil slowly stopped laughing, turning in confusion to look at Tails, before his heart softened at what the fox boy was saying.

Tails's expression turned gentle and sincere, looking from the sky back down to his home. "...I know Sonic isn't the best to talk about it with but... I don't mind." He leaned his head up to look at Amil, inviting him to share his feelings.

Amil was more than thankful for the offer, and turned to swoop his arm up over his eyes and bask a moment in the sunny day. He sighed, "I still want a family..."

"...But?" Tails raised his eyebrows, smiling sweetly to encourage Amil on.

"...But." He flopped the arm down.

"Oh... You took that 'don't leave us', kinda seriously... huh?" Tails felt a bit bad, but Amil looked down and rose his torso up, scruffing up Tails's head and ruffling his hair there, making the 10-year old laugh.

"It's okay, buddy! Besides,... there probably isn't a perfect girl out there for me anyway..." Amil felt a sorrow pass through him, but it slowly trinkled off and he was fine again.

But Tails saw it... he got up too, hitting his chest, "You will. If any of us have love in our future, it's gotta be you, for sure." He nodded and turned back to the sky, "Have you wished on stars yet?" He joked, and Amil knew he didn't actually believe in that.

"Don't tease me." Amil hit his shoulder and Tails laughed. But he had tried Tarot Reading... At least, by what he deemed an expert, but all they said was that the future is littered with possibilities.

But the wait seemed never-ending...

"Hey, if I meet a girl... will you let me talk to you about it?"

It was something that meant more to Amil than Tails knew.

"Of course." His eyes shone and glistened with sea hitting the cliff-side of where Tails's home was stationed, and off in the distance--was Angel Island.

The wind beat fast as Tails flew Amil over to the Master Emerald, letting him fall from his arms as he landed in a very agile and loose-manner. Amil was pretty good acrobatically, he could have been a real contender for the olympic gymnastic games, but would only join if Sonic was going.

"Thanks, Tails!" Amil waved his friend off, and then headed towards Knuckles, "Guard duty! Shift's up!" Amil clapped to wake up Knuckles, who had a few butterflies resting on him as his stomach moved slightly up and down, but so gentle that the local wildlife had curled up next to him or landed to rest on him.

They all looked up from their nap and took off with Amil's clapping, and Knuckles blinked his eyes a few times before looking down at Amil. "Eh, you're early." Knuckles yawned. "I thought training wasn't until the weekend?"

"Week days, but I can see your confusion." Amil placed his hands on his hips, but a little chao reached up and pulled on his boot's socks. "Huh? Aww..." He took a knee and petted the sweet chao as it wanted, its little pudgy arms pushing together and turning to the side as a heart morphed from the yellow ball on its head. "And besides, we don't have to train today. We can just talk too. Haha." he was instantly charmed as the chao flew up and clasped his face, rubbing its head against his.

Little animated hearts flew around Amil as he had a soft spot for cute and adorable things, and put his hands up to cradle the chao in his arms and rubbed his head lightly back against his own.

While Amil was enamored by the cuddly creature, Knuckles groaned, "Oh no. None of that 'romance' stuff!" He strained a bit to get up but finally did so, stretching out some of the kinks that had formed from sleeping with his neck and half his back up against the Master Emerald.

"That's all you ever talk about!"

Amil looked up from the cuddles with the cute chao, wiggling his fingers to tickle his belly as he held it giggling in his hand, before turning back to Knuckles, "Huh?"

"You're not even paying attention..." Knuckles sweatdropped, seeing him playing with the many chao that began to form around him, desperate for the attention that none of the other members so freely gave in such large quantities. "But they sure do love ya." Knuckles breathed out from his nose, as though glad to see that his tough, strong friend was as gentle and sweet in his heart towards all things as he should be.

Amil gave love to each and everyone of the chao, "I just love... loving! Is all." He also seemed a bit ashamed to say that, but Knuckles shook his head.

"Nah, a man should love. That's how he knows who to protect, and what's worth fighting for." Knuckles put his gloved fists to his hips, before leaning forward and then back to wink a sign of approval to Amil.

"...Thank you." Amil stared gratefully at Knuckles.

"Eh, don't sweat it. Let's toughen up those muscles so your heart can beat just as fierce as those emotions of yours!" Knuckles slammed a fist into his open hand, which shook Amil.

"R-really? I thought I could play with the chao a little more while you woke up a bit? Y-y-you know, get ready and stuff?" Amil didn't feel like getting sucker punched in the gut or thrown half-way across the island by a fist to the face anymore...

Knuckles's face turned into a wicked sense of pleasure, "Nope, I'm all fired up..." he looked like a beating was coming to Amil...

Amil gulped, getting up and fanning the chao back and away so they wouldn't get hurt. "B-b-but don't you want some food first?! Can't fight on an empty stomach?" he flinched when Knuckles moved forward, smirking widely and making a sound like he was gonna come at him. "I-I'll even cook!" Amil summoned his hammer and prepared to flinch and dodge.

"...You will, huh?" Knuckles pulled back, "Alright! Who wants to punch a sap like you so early in the morning, anyway!?" Knuckles turned away, "Besides," he rubbed his white boxer-glove under his nose. "You're more of a lover than a fighter... Who's the next lucky lady on the list then?" he walked back over to the Master Emerald, rubbing it to get some dust off that the wind had blown on it.

"H-huh?" Amil blinked a bit, "Lucky... Lady..?"

"You haven't so much as piped up about a dame in a long time." Knuckles hoisted the Master Emerald up, showing some supreme strength as he shook the rest of the dust off, then gently lowered it back down, and admired it with his hand up by his chin. After a few nods of approval, he looked back to Amil with his arms folded, "Sonic and Tails mentioned it. You haven't been yourself lately, and I haven't heard so much as a utter about the future from you in quite some time. So? Who is she? Any bit cute, this one? Heh heh..." Knuckles sneered, "I bet she has six toes to be interested in a lovesick loser like you, hahaha!" he joked, but Amil just frowned in annoyance.

"That's it!" he charged at him, and the two tuffed it out for a while.

Knuckles threw him down the hill, jumping to slide down it himself as Amil tumbled harshly down it's surface. Flying down the rocky terrain, Knuckles raised an eyebrow to Amil, "Huh, she's that cute that you won't even tell your friends about HHEERRR!!" he shoved a fist into the ground to disrupt the falling, but as Amil rose into the air, he quickly smiled back to Knuckles.

"No girl! No love interest!" he curled up and shot into Knuckles.

Ricocheting off, Knuckles seemed a bit confused and worried, surprised he would even say that. "Really? Ha, ho, ha. No one?" he kept hitting back up against the cliff as he slid down before he reached back and braced himself against a tree. "Hrrr... Then why the sudden shift?" Knuckles seemed to be asking the same questions Tails had.

Amil uncurled and went in for a swing of his hammer, "And how about Rouge, huuuhh!??!!"

Knuckles flinched in a blush, grabbing his hammer with both hands and having a ripple effect through the air between them at the amount of power they both possessed.

"Grr... I hate that stinkin' Bat Girl!" he was losing the straining battle... and Amil pushed down even harder, gaining his center back.

"If that was the case, then why do you let her try and steal the Master Emerald from under your nose?" he cooed, tauntingly.

"RAAHHH, THAT'S NEVER ON PURPOSE!" Knuckles found his hidden strength reserve and shoved Amil off and to the ground.

Amil back-flipped and got up for more, "Now who's talkin'?" Amil looked finally back into the right attitude.

Knuckles jumped high into the air to come down on him too, and now, Amil was the one struggling with his full force slamming against his hammer.

"Get your stance up to date!" Knuckles instructed.

"I'm trying to work up the nerve to ask girls first!" Amil teased, and threw him off.

Knuckles skidded against the ground, squinting one eye shut with a proud smile. "Not bad... looks like you haven't given up on love quite yet." He got back up, dusting himself off. "Well, if you've got what it takes, be a man and show me how'd you fight and protect a girl!" he got ready for more, urging Amil on.

Amil got into a fighting stance, "I'm just warming up... but as long as I have all of you with me... I'll never be lonely... and I won't feel the need for one." He ducked his head into the pose and swung his hammer as far back as possible.

Knuckles continued his proud smile, but looked up more in respect to his friend.

'That's right... Sonic can be my hero.' He closed his eyes a moment, 'Tails can be my brother... and Knuckles, my dear friend and teacher. We're all loved. I just need to see it more in the people around me.' he opened his eyes again, "I'll never give up..!" He took one amazingly fast and powerful step forward to Knuckles, then another as he scaled the distance between them in seconds. "I've found my family!!!" He pulled his hammer from being so tightly and fully swung back around him that when it was released, jammed into Knuckles's defending arm, making him wince in the pain before flinging him back.

"Gah!" he was continually hammered into trees that snapped in half, as Amil finally stopped and pulled out some bandages, suddenly turning sweet and cute again.

"Would you like the mint-flavored or the lollipop-flavored?" He teased, blinking innocently like a male nurse before attending Knuckles as swirls filled his eyes, and then ripped out the bandages and began working without mercy on him.

"Ye-ow! Ahh! Heeeyyy!!! Oph!" Knuckles snapped out of it and protested, but Amil shoved the minty gummy into his mouth and he piped down and chewed... subdued.

(I hope you like how I pictured a male Amy! and how I gave Amil a sequel! ;)b I hope to do a fanfiction about the Sonic team finding a genderbent world! So we'll see~ Amil is precious though XD I love him!)

[naivesilver]

If you’re still doing the Sonic ask meme, can you do 32,33,34,37,42,51,62,74,75,96. You don’t have to answer all of them if it’s a lot.

YO ANON YOU ARE THE BEST I love talking about Sonic I’ll do them ALL

100 Sonic Questions

32.) Most underrated character, GO 

HOPE KINTOBOR!!!!!! So many Archie characters did a full 360 once Kenders left and I remember them fondly but Hope is the fucking best! I want to see her again! She’s such a good girl with a great story and I may or may not be planning a fic involving her

33.) Most overrated character, GO

I should say that they are all good and deserve endless love but it’s not true. I can’t lie. The Babylon Rogues are just too boring to me.

It’s fine if you love them! Even if they are your faves! I apply to this the same principle I have with other Pokemon fans loving Pelipper when I could easily go a whole life without seeing its soulless bird eyes again.

(Okay maybe I have something against birds.

Except the Hatoful Boyfriend ones. Those are good.)

The thing is I just don’t find them all that interesting??? I don’t hate them, I’m just kinda meh about them. But I follow some people who adore them with a passion and it’s very endearing to watch someone pour all their love on their fave characters so I tolerate it and even reblog some good art when the mood strikes. But they still don’t rank in my top ten and probably never will.

34.) Guilty pleasure game? 

When I was in middle school I watched 06 cutscenes all the time and I’ve never been able to replicate the surge of intense excitement I had in those days.

It’s a bad game. It’s true. But it holds a special place in my heart and it introduced the best boy ever so I can’t let it go.

37.) List your favorite platonic ships.

I have LOTS for a start Sonic and Knuckles have a great dynamic and I want to see it more. And while I ship Vector and Espio romantically the way they both interact with Charmy is ADORBS they’re the trash parent/older brother figures he deserves. And Shadow and Rouge!!! God I could go on all night maybe friendship IS a superpower.

42.) If you could say one thing to Sonic Team right now, what would it be? 

HAVE SILVER AND BLAZE INTERACT MORE IN-GAME YOU COWARDS

51.) If you were your least favorite character for a day, what would you do and why?

Given that my least favorite is Zavok I would sit down and have a fucking nap instead of causing problems on purpose

62.) Opinions on Japanese and English voice acting, GO 

I know next to nothing about the Japanese VAs but the English ones are quite good??? I feel like they often embody their characters quite well. Certainly better than the Italian ones looking at you, Luca Ward and your C-level Metarex roles

74.) What’s the best thing about being in the Sonic fandom?

The creativity! Canon is so flexible that everyone can pick and choose what they please and there are thousands of headcanons, redesignes and plausible backstories that one can find everywhere, it just makes me dizzy with joy.

And the OCs! I could spend days gushing over other people’s OCs (and mine, though I never gather the courage to do it here). I say it before and I’ll say it again, if you ever need to show someone the character you made, send it over! I’ll praise them from head to toe because they’re all great. Full stop. No exception. Cringe is fucking dead.

75.) What’s the worst thing about being in the Sonic fandom? 

Antis. Worse still, antis recycling old arguments that I thought we’d buried deep down underground.

You can’t - you can’t come at me in the year of the lord 2020 and tell me sonamy and sonadow are problematic ships and everyone who endorses them is a disgusting person. Dude. That’s the literal backbone of the fandom. What the fuck.

(Also, as someone who got called some really nasty words bc I ship vecpio: I don’t give a damn. Ship what you want. Indulge in your kinks. We actively cheer for brightly colored antropomorphic animals to win in made up races against time or fights against mechanic overlords, stop taking everything so seriously.)

96.) Which character annoys you? 

Shade. Not because I have anything against her. I just never understood where she came from and why I never see any screenshots of her game and at this point I’m too afraid to ask anyone about it.

[mobius-prime]

162. Sonic the Hedgehog #94

Okay, okay. I know. I know how many of you just put your heads down on the table in complete exasperation. I get it. But just stick with it. Bear with me here. I had the same reaction when I first read through the comics - the reaction of why the hell does a Sonic the Hedgehog comic have a back to school episode?! - but in the end, it does tie further into previous points I've made about Sonic's character as well as the state of the war. That said, Spaz, what the hell happened to Mina up there? Why does she look… like that? Sonic and Tails look totally normal but Mina looks like she was dragged straight out of some badly drawn early 90s anime that only aired once in Japan and was never even officially subbed because it was so low quality. I know you're a better artist than that, Spaz, we've seen your work before! Come on!

New Order

Writer: Karl Bollers Pencils: FRY Colors: Frank Gagliardo

So right away, we've jumped forward a month and a half from last issue. That's one hell of a time skip, especially for a comic that doesn't usually do big time skips.

Of course, Sonic is not at all happy about being confined to Knothole. We’re talking about a character whose entire personality has always revolved around being able to run free and fight back against anything threatening his friends, who's now stuck hanging out in his room all day. Worse still, the entire time he's been in Knothole, he hasn't seen Sally once, having been prevented from seeing her by a combination of his house arrest and her royal duties. He still finds himself thinking about her, however, and she in turn has been thinking about him.

I honestly really like the use of Art Mawhinney's art to indicate that she's looking at a photo from when they were younger, given that his cartoony style contrasts with the more anime-like style that the comic has been going for lately. Also, while it's great that Sally has her family back at last, it's still concerning that they've been monopolizing 100% of her time lately so she hasn't had any time to see her old friends, even though they live in the same village. Sonic has also found his mind preoccupied with thoughts of the Overlanders he failed to save, who are still stuck inside Robotropolis for the time being, with shadow-bots enforcing nighttime curfews on them and keeping a close eye on their activities. Colin, exploring the palace, finds his brother working on something in the lab, and in the interest of keeping his dealings secret Eggman overenthusiastically invites him, along with Agnes and Hope, to spend some time together as a family. Hope, to her credit, seems very suspicious of Eggman, officially making her the smartest Overlander here despite being only fourteen or so (at least, the wiki has extrapolated that age from the dates of other significant events like the Great War and the length of the first war against Robotnik, though I'd personally put her at more like twelve). Eggman, to deflect from questions concerning how much he's changed over the years, asks Colin to describe why he and the other Overlanders were apparently just hangin' out in space for the past ten years.

Really, this entire interaction seems like something that should have happened right after the Overlanders' first entrance into the city, not six whole weeks afterwards, but eh, whatever. Anyway, Sonic finds himself unable to sleep properly the night before starting school, and gets irritated when Tails teases him about Sally being in looooove with him and wanting to get married in the future. The next morning, they find themselves roughly awakened by an earthquake, and immediately spring into action, falling right back into their routine as heroes.

At least Sonic is still able to keep his heroic actions up even when confined to the village, eh? In Robotropolis, Eggman visits Snively in his prison cell, and Snively begs not to be roboticized for being caught out after dark. Eggman agrees, in return for his loyalty of course, as well as zipping his lips about Eggman's true intentions for the Overlanders. He even decides to give Snively a little more incentive, in the form of a promise of revenge against his father Colin for not recognizing his brilliance all those years ago…

After breakfast, Sonic and Tails meet up with Bunnie and Rotor. Amy, if you'll recall, is still back in Mercia with her cousin Rob, and interestingly, Antoine isn't part of the crowd heading to school at all, suggesting that by now he's past high school age, making him the oldest Freedom Fighter. Sonic is concerned and disappointed that Sally is nowhere in sight, and reluctantly parts from Tails to go to his own class, since Tails is with the younger kids. However, back in Robotropolis, Hope has found herself becoming too suspicious of Eggman to ignore her concerns any longer…

Uh oh, Hope, you may have seen something you weren't supposed to see… better get back to safety before Eggman finds out about that and silences you. Tails is heading toward his class with the other kids when he realizes he's lost his bookbag somewhere, and in retracing his steps to find it, he suddenly finds himself confronted by the ghostly image of Athair, who tells him that he's needed as the Chosen One immediately and teleports him away, to the bafflement of a watching turtle in the hallway. Sonic gets to his class, and Mina is happy to see him there, thrilled that they're sitting near each other. Bunnie arrives as well, but when Sonic tries to introduce her to Mina she only gives her a cold "howdy," her mood suddenly turning quite chilly. And then, their teacher arrived, and class begins…

So this is what I was talking about before. We've already been over in previous issues how when it comes down to it, Sonic and the other Freedom Fighters are child soldiers who have never known a day of peace in their life. At least back when Robotnik was thought to be defeated permanently and the king was trying to get the kingdom back to a state of relative normality, Sonic was able to partially come to terms with the idea and find happiness in being able to settle down with his family. But now, the kingdom is back in a state of active war, and here he is, the spearhead of the resistance, forced to stay out of the conflict and learn physics and algebra in a standard high school setting. It's obvious that it's getting to him in a big way. We sort of end up stuck in this strange position where on the one hand, yeah, children and teenagers shouldn't have to be the ones on the front lines of a war, and should get a chance to just act their age and have a childhood, but on the other hand, Sonic the legitimate war hero is now stuck in Knothole with his hands tied, twiddling his thumbs while everyone else, even the others his age and younger (remember, he's the only Freedom Fighter on house arrest), are free to go and do whatever they like. It doesn't even seem like anyone has had the idea to try and get the Sword of Acorns back from Eggman, even though that's what started this whole mess. Honestly, I just feel bad for him. Once class has finally ended - after one hour of agonizing boredom for Sonic - he and Bunnie approach Nate, asking why they haven't seen Sally at the school yet. They're shocked to hear that she is instead receiving private lessons at the castle, only further isolating her from everyone else…

The Best Laid Plans…

Writer: Ken Penders Pencils: Rom Lim Colors: Frank Gagliardo

Unlike the previous story, there's no time skip at all between last issue and this one - I'm just going to presume, honestly, that the disappearance of the Floating Island is an event that happened during that time skip, and the main story has only just caught up to it, because otherwise the timeline makes no sense. Nic is surprised to find Nack returning to her without Knuckles in tow, but is quite pleased when he tells her they got their money and a bonus to boot, and can wash their hands of the whole affair. As they leave, they remember that they left Charmy and Saffron further into the woods, but decide not to worry about it, as in the end, what can a couple of little bees do? Charmy and Saffron, meanwhile, begin to realize that they've been left alone, and immediately spring into action, hoping they can reach Knuckles before anything bad happens. Unfortunately, that's not really in the cards, as Knuckles has already been hooked up to the Chaos Syphon, with another echidna linked in on the opposite side, presumably to act as a conduit for the energy being sucked from Knuckles so it doesn't just explode into the air. At least, that's what I'm assuming, because it doesn't really specify, but this echidna does become important later on, so I figured I should mention him. Gala-Na again offers a weak non-apology for what she's about to do, before ordering the syphon switched on.

So, this is torture. This is just straight up an actual torture scene. Gala-Na is knowingly, willingly, torturing a sixteen year old because she's afraid of the power he wields despite him not even asking to be born with it in the first place. If anything, Locke should be the one facing punishment for what he's put Knuckles through, but of course, we know Penders would never let that happen. Knuckles starts screaming uncontrollably, and to the shock of the echidna onlookers, begins trying to resist the power of the syphon, making Gala-Na worry he might actually break free. The other echidna on the receiving end of the energy also begins to feel the pain, yelling that he thinks he can't handle any more, and while the others try to encourage him to hang in there, Charmy and Saffron happen upon the awful scene. As Knuckles finds himself actually reduced to begging for it to stop through gritted teeth and Gala-Na gives another "apology" to her "young friend" (can you guys tell how much I hate her? Is it too obvious?), Charmy and Saffron dive in towards the operators, hoping they can stop the syphon before Knuckles gets hurt too much more. Of course, this is Penders writing, so he can't resist throwing in another weird, stilted 90s feminist comment somewhere.

Earth to Penders: women don't actually talk like that. Also, oh yeah, remember that whole "flight mode" thing where apparently bees can turn small or big as they please? I almost forgot about that, but I guess that's what's supposed to be happening here. With the device shut off, Knuckles breaks free of the syphon, but only seems more powerful than ever, with his irises replaced by pure white eyes, and as everyone watches he disappears in a flash of energy. Gala-Na, aghast that her plans seem to have only made things worse (GEE, YOU THINK, GALA-NA?), tries to contact the weasels once again before they get out of range, but they witnessed the entire thing from the air and refuse to get involved any more than they already have, leaving a horrified Gala-Na to stand over the now-unconscious echidna on the receiving end of the energy, wondering what to do next…

[sonicfanj]

One of the things that endears Tails and Amy to me is the strength of self contrast the two of them used to have that sold a positive message of freedom to be yourself. 

In Tails’ case it was the fact that he was both athletic and highly nerdy in a time era when you were either one or the other (jocks vs. nerds anyone?) and promptly insulted for either. Jocks were frequently called dumb behind their backs for fear of physical retaliation while nerds were insulted for liking anything that wasn’t scholastically approved in addition to enjoying science and were frequently physically abused because of their physical frailty. Yet, along comes Tails who is both a nerd and has the physical ability to put most jocks to shame. He married these two opposing extremes/contrasting archetypes in a character who strangely lacked any self confidence yet was always encouraged to do his best and embrace being him. He embodied the good of both athletic and intellectual ability while sympathizing with how no matter how good you are there is always insecurity. He’s such a superb character in that regard to me.

Then you have Amy, who still faces the same stigmas over and over again that have been persistently present since she was introduced. If a girl is girly she must be frail and simultaneously is demeaning to women because she paints a stereotype that prevents woman from being equal with men. If a girl is a tomboy she is throwing away her femininity and trying to be a man to earn “false respect” without recognizing her place. I’m sorry, what? This type of rhetoric has always found its way to Amy conversations and as a result people ignore her spectacular contrast of being a girly-tomboy. She enjoys traditionally girly things like fashion, frilly things, thinking about the boy she likes, and simultaneously loves doing the things that the boys do such as going on adventures, taking part of the action regardless of the form, and so on. Like Tails, Amy takes two supposedly opposing extremes/contrasting archetypes and marries them into a character that has both harmoniously. And then on top of that she is absolutely over the moon happy when she is doing either traditionally girly or boyish activities and strongly emphasizes that these activities are enjoyable and can exist together harmoniously. The emphasis she brings to just doing what she likes and enjoying that has always been so inspirational in my opinion.

Unfortunately I have seen too many people demand for both of them that they pursue a unique identity by shaving off large chunks of who they are. I constantly see people wanting Tails to be the gadget guy because it matches his smarts and makes him distinct from his hero that he wants to be like, or bashing Amy for either being too girly or too boyish as it makes her a bad role model for girls by not being some elusive idea strong female character. Somehow these individuals fail to realize that Tails is awesome because he has brains and athletic ability, pretty much able to be the Spider-Man of the Sonic universe if just given the chance, and fail to understand that Amy is a great role model and powerful female character because she embraces who she is, what she wants to do, and lets absolutely no one tell her she can’t be her even though they don’t like it. It just eats me up when I see Tails not using his physical abilities or Amy stripped of her everything to be some model female clone who supports indescribable agenda’s that she better supports by just being her.

Tails and Amy are built from contrasting archetypes and are so much stronger for it with so much potential that is freely brought out just by traveling with Sonic. Tails can demonstrate his athletic ability just by keeping up, but interacting with Eggman’s creations also brings out his nerdy side as he marvels at the doc’s work. Amy has her girly side brought out as she tries to win over the boy of her dreams but also has her love of traditionally boyish things come out by her love of the adventures and excitement that she experiences by chasing after Sonic and partaking in his adventures.

Their is also the potential for a great relationship that exists between Tails and Amy as Sonic’s two biggest fans. Amy’s optimism and belief in the ability of others serves as a counter and foil to Tails’ self-doubt while Tails’ more reserved nature and abilities supports and foils Amy’s more reckless and spontaneous tendencies without necessarily the ability to keep herself out of trouble. The two support each other so well and are so heavily invested in Sonic and what he brings to their lives, as well as him as just a person and the most important person in the world to them. It’s part of the reason I believe in a trio of Sonic, Tails, and Amy instead of Knuckles* as the relationship between the three and ability to partake in a never ending road trip is so harmonious and multi-directional. Sonic encourages Tails to be his best at everything he does and constantly provides encouragement by being a great big brother figure, while with Amy he may tease her, but with her personality his teasing encourages her to keep going and strive to get better and better creating a cycle of constant self improvement. Tails meanwhile supports Sonic both with his physical and intellectual abilities while Amy’s overflowing emotions, teasing, and persistence in chasing Sonic gives him reason to keep doing what he loves (running) and also face those emotions of his that traditional masculinity and boyhood naivete frowns upon. And as stated above there is the relationship of support that can exist between Tails and Amy that is also two way.

So to me at least, Tails and Amy are such great characters conceptually who are more often than not squandered due to any number of reasons. It’s a shame to since I feel the Shōnen Jump tenants of friendship, effort, victory easily work with them and the franchise and target demographic. Then of course just their shared desire to follow Sonic on his adventures, not just with each other but with the audience, combined with the caring nature they draw out of Sonic on a much more personally level than his strong sense of justice ever demonstrates. I think SEGA/Sonic Team isn’t necessarily wrong that a trio setup best benefits the franchise, but where SEGA/Sonic Team looks at the profit margin imagery I look at the character narrative ability and think they focus on the wrong trio. Sure that trio brings instant familiarity which guarantees a quick sale, but I think that a solid narrative that fully embraces the relationships that can happen naturally and takes full advantage of that would bring the business so much more money just becasue something well crafted and believable that reaches well beyond just the gameplay/classic imagery crowd could bring back so much more. Sonic games have narrative after all, and when people come for a narrative good and natural character dynamics can it make memorable even if the narrative isn’t so much. I feel personally that Tails and Amy add that to the Sonic/Eggman dynamic and find it a shame that who should have been a one off character prevents that from being because it seems to me at least that the short term dollar signs orbiting him blind SEGA/Sonic Team/everyone else from seeing how teh franchise can grow beyond its currently shriveled state.

*[I don’t have anything against Knuckles but prefer him as the Guardian of the Master Emerald whose excursions away from Angel Island are duty related (like in the Japanese Chaotix manual) making his every appearance a question of whether or not he is an ally this time.]

[nicomoviewatchinpsychopath]

Sonic the Hedgehog Movie Review

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG: VIDEO GAME BASED MOVIE IS FORMULAIC BUT OFFERS PLENTY OF FAST-PACED FUN FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY AS WELL AS LONGTIME FANS! 

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: *** out of 4

The world’s fastest hedgehog hits the big screen in Sonic the Hedgehog

PARAMOUNT PICTURES AND SEGA

The blue blur (or Blue Devil as the movie calls him) makes his big screen debut in Sonic the Hedgehog, based on the beloved Sega video game franchise of the same name. Believe it or not out of all the video game franchises, my favorite is and always will be Sonic the Hedgehog and have been a proud supporter of the hedgehog since childhood.             

Granted, it wasn’t until after Sega became a third-party developer for consoles like PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo when I became a fan of the blue hedgehog, but ever since I got my hands on the Nintendo GameCube port of Sonic Adventure 2 as a kid, my Sonic fandom was pretty much instant. I’ve played many of the video games both old and new, watched all the cartoons, read the comic books published by Archie Comics at the time, and I owned several action figures, plushies, and other Sonic merchandise throughout my childhood…in fact I still have most of those even to this day.             

I’ve been clamoring for a Sonic the Hedgehog theatrical movie for years despite video game film adaptations usually being critical and/or box-office poison. But given the popularity of Sonic especially during the 90s when he was rivaling Nintendo’s Mario franchise who already had a theatrical film released in 1993, I’d assume one would have been made back then or at the very least in the early-late 2000s when Sonic Adventure DX: Director’s Cut, Sonic Adventure 2 Battle, and Sonic Heroes as well as the hit Saturday morning anime series, Sonic X were released, I was so eager for a Sonic movie that a couple of friends and I got together and made movies of our own when we were kids (They sucked BTW!).             

After years of waiting and Sonic making a few big screen appearances prior in Disney’s Wreck-It Ralph movies and Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One, the beloved hedgehog finally gets a movie of his own which leads us to today. The film is directed by newcomer Jeff Fowler in his directorial debut, produced by Neal H. Moritz (Fast & Furious franchise, XXX, 21/22 Jump Street), and executive produced by Tim Miller (Deadpool, Terminator: Dark Fate) and is a live-action/animated hybrid (Yep, just like Alvin and the Chipmunks and The Smurfs), which had me very worried when it was announced back in 2014 and was even more worried and disgusted when the first trailer came out last year which had an absolutely atrocious design for Sonic, fortunately they fixed it.

So, how does Sonic’s first movie hold up? Honestly, while I can’t call it the Sonic movie I wanted as a child, I had a fun time with it. It isn’t a perfect representation of its source material and the plot is pretty generic, but the charm of the film’s leads, humor, and subtle references to the games that inspired it are enough for me to overlook that flaw.             

The film follows Sonic (voiced by Ben Schwartz-Parks and Recreation, The Other Guys, The Walk), blue anthropomorphic talking hedgehog from another dimension with extraordinary speed who travels to Earth to escape from those who want to capture him and harness his power. However, when he accidentally causes a power outage while hiding out in the town of Green Hills (Get it?), Sonic is targeted by the government and the tyrannical mad scientist, Dr. Robotnik (Jim Carrey-Ace Ventura 1 and 2, The Mask, The Truman Show) who plots to use Sonic’s power for world domination.             

This forces Sonic to team up with Green Hills sheriff, Tom Wachowski (James Marsden-X-Men franchise, Enchanted, Westworld) who agrees to help Sonic on his adventure to find his missing bag of magical rings that have the power to get him home. Of course, while getting into all sorts of trouble along the way.             The film also stars Tika Sumpter (Ride Along 1 and 2, Get On Up, Southside with You) as Tom’s wife Maddie, Adam Pally (Happy Endings, The Mindy Project, Iron Man 3) as Wade Whipple, and Neal McDonough (Star Trek: First Contact, Band of Brothers, Justified) as Major Bennington.             

Overall, Sonic the Hedgehog probably isn’t the movie longtime fans wanted, but it still manages to be an entertaining and fun adaptation in its own right. It’s easily one of the best films based on a video game alongside Pokémon: Detective Pikachu and The Angry Birds Movie 2 and shows that we’ve come a long way since the dark days of Uwe Boll’s directing career.

As mentioned before, the plot is nothing special and rehashed from other kids’ movies however what sets this apart from things like The Smurfs or Masters of the Universe is that Sonic and Tom do have a strong chemistry together. It’s amusing to see them interact with each other on their road trip, cracking jokes, getting into trouble, and over the course of the film they learn more about one another thus making you care more for them over ANY Smurf or Chipmunk. 

While there are a few jokes that don’t quite stick the landing, the humor for the most part not only made me laugh but there were moments in this movie where I laughed hard. Whether the film was poking fun at the entire Sonicfranchise, a particular running sequence that’s obviously a reference to the Quicksilver scenes from the X-Men movies, or Sonic breaking the fourth wall similar to Deadpool, I was laughing while also admiring how clever some of these jokes are, and let’s not forget Jim Carrey as Dr. Robotnik, but we’ll get to him momentarily.

The redesigned Sonic is a lot better than what we could have gotten, he doesn’t have those ugly small eyes, questionable muscular arms and legs, or the terrifying human teeth anymore. Now, his appearance is more faithful to the source material recreating the hedgehog’s cartoony nature but is different enough to stand out from the rest of the character’s previous designs and be its own unique creation, this is a really good design for Sonic and had the filmmakers went with their original version, this movie would have crashed and burned even harder than Sonic ’06.

Besides Sonic being more appealing to look at now, he’s also just as entertaining to listen to, Ben Schwartz while he’s far from being a replacement for Roger Craig Smith, Ryan Drummond, Jason Griffith, or even Jaleel White, does a solid job providing Sonic’s voice and captures the cocky, arrogant, but good-natured attitude Sonic is known for having. He actually almost sounds like Ryan Drummond’s Sonic voice without sounding like a cheap impersonation.             Moving on to Sonic’s new friend that doesn’t have two tails, James Marsden as Tom, his performance is decent even though he doesn’t quite make as big an impression as Ben Schwartz’ Sonic and especially Jim Carrey’s Dr. Robotnik. With that said, he gets some funny lines once in a while and as mentioned before has good chemistry with Sonic, so yeah, believe it or not James Marsden was partnered up with another CG animated character and this time came out with his dignity unlike his performance in Hop.             

Jim Carrey as Dr. Robotnik owns every scene that he’s in, he’s no Mike Pollock and is a radically different Robotnik than from the games, but Carrey’s energetic and wildly animated personality shines through and gives a million percent whenever the crazy evil genius is on-screen. He’s certainly a lot better than Dennis Hopper as Koopa from the Super Mario Bros. movie.

Hopefully, this movie will be a hit during its theatrical run because I’d love to see a sequel especially if it introduced other Sonic characters like Tails, Knuckles, or even Shadow. Don’t make this like the recent Power Rangers movie, I need my big screen version of those characters!

Whether a fan, newcomer, or just looking for something fun to take the kids to, Sonic the Hedgehog should make everyone happy. It’s not perfect but it has enough action, wit, and charm to make it worth checking out. You’ll be “Up, Over, and Gone” before you know it.

For more movie reviews please visit: https://moviewatchinpsychopath.blogspot.com

[curetapwater]

Let's just talk about guardians rn, speaking just about playable characters in the main line games (I'm not as familiar with the handheld stories so correct me if I missed something) :

Sonic is an orphan when we're introduced to him and we never see any backstory clarification on any previous caregivers biological or otherwise.

Eggman’s only revealed predecessor is his grandfather Gerald Robotnik, who is dead. Eggman looked up to him as a child but it's unclear how much they interacted because for the time when they were contemporaries, Gerald was living on the ARK out in space.

Amy's upbringing is never elaborated on, but considering she's been running around completely unsupervised since at least age 8, she probably doesn't have parents.

Metal Sonic was created by Eggman, who seems to treat him to varying degrees as both a weapon and a son.

Tails is either an orphan or implied to have been abandoned by his birth parents. His guardian is his adoptive brother, Sonic.

Knuckles must've had birth parents but they've been dead for so long that Knuckles doesn't seem to remember them, leaving him as the last echidna who lives by himself. Every loved one he has, he gained over the course of the game series.

Vector is a young adult and his upbringing is never elaborated on.

Espio is a minor who lives with Vector. Their age difference is only 4 years but legally speaking, Vector would probably be considered his guardian in some capacity.

Charmy is a 6-year-old who lives with Vector. They're on a first-name-basis and seem to not want to label their relationship, but Vector is definitely Charmy's guardian.

Big's upbringing is never elaborated on. Because he's a legal adult, he can live with only himself and Froggy, but like he's just barely legal and he's on his own.

Gamma was created by Eggman and is treated as just a weapon. I suppose the Flicky inside of them is part of a nuclear family, but that feels like stretching things.

Shadow has two dads who are both dead that he doesn't like to talk about. Gerald Robotnik created him and considered him his son, but also objectified him as a weapon. He was executed by firing squad. His DNA donor, Black Doom, dipped right after he was born and only showed up 50 years later to again treat him as a weapon rather than a son. Shadow killed him.

Rouge has a "Mama" she occasionally brings up in the past tense with a casual tone. It's never stated whether she's still alive, but Rouge is a barely legal adult who is extremely self-sufficient and holds a prestigious government job before we even meet her.

Maria's (she's playable in ShtH and I want an excuse to talk about one of my favorite characters) parents are never discussed, but she's implied to be raised by her grandfather, Gerald Robotnik, due to health concerns.

Cream has a single mom, Vanilla.

Omega was created by Eggman, whose neglect caused Omega to violently despise him. If you called Eggman Omega's dad, he would threaten to blow your head off.

The Shadow Androids are created by Eggman and seem to he treated as disposable, seeing as they're mass-produced.

Blaze has no parents or guardians mentioned (as far as I know). She's a princess, so I figure someone must've looked after her in her early years, but this is never brought up and she seems to call the shots in her kingdom despite being 14. If you hold the interpretation that Blaze was originally born in Silver's time before the events of 06 kicked her into the Sol dimension and reset the timeline so that she was born there, then 06 Blaze's parents are most likely dead.

Jet had a father, but he must be dead since he's spoken about in past tense and Jet has inherited from him the role of leader of the Babylon Rogues. He lives with two young adults, Wave and Storm, but despite being several years their junior they treat him as their leader, although Wave seems to at least try to hold him accountable when he acts irresponsibly.

Silver is from a post-apocalyptic future and has never brought up having family in his time. They're probably dead.

Idk if the backstories of the satbk characters are the same as their legendary counterparts because they're never brought up.

The Avatar's town is destroyed by Infinite, and their family prior to joining the Resistance is never brought up, but considering they suffer from a lot of anxiety, they're probably traumatized from the loss of life they witnessed, potentially including their family.

Annnd that's all I can think of off the top of my head.

Is there any playable Sonic character who comes from a nuclear family structure? The fact that I'm struggling to think of a single one, I think speaks to how cool this franchise's focus on found or otherwise nontraditional family is.

[attract-mode-collective]

Yes, It’s Basically Persona But With The Golden Girls (I think)

With Persona 5 finally here, it’s perhaps worth also knowing about The Golden Girls Take Manhattan DX, which is yet another early contender for Attract Mode’s 2017 Game Of The Year.

Yup, 摩尼遊戯TOKOYO, the previously mentioned GOTY candidate (which recently started making the rounds, thanks to obscurevideogames) has competition! Though it remains to be seen if The Golden Girls Take Manhattan DX, which is the handiwork of grawly, will be finished later this year. Here’s another taste…

Though I’d also love to see his take on Puyo Puyo but with The Golden Girls and Rosanne (outside of a Little Caesars)…

So what else has been going on? Well, by far the most exciting bits of intel over the past few is The Flying Luna Clipper related! First there’s this awesome write-up, courtesy of Victor Navarro Remesal. Which Victor shared among his various circles, and the following was revealed to him: images from a calendar circa 2004, the same year that the supposed sequel was produced!

… Basically The Flying Luna Clipper 2 might actually exist! One that features the snow man with sashimi on his head and the Flying Luna Clipper surfing while playing the guitar.

In other news, April 1st has come and gone, perhaps the most annoying time of the year. Though there was at least one April Fools gag I genuinely dug, because I knew right off the back that it was a joke. Which was Takeshi’s Challenge VR, with the best part being the comparison images, between the Famicom original and the remake. Which mendelpalace was kind enough to compile already…

Then there’s Crazy Galaxy, which is the worst kind of April Fools gag, cuz I wished it was real. japanesenintendo has all the details, though if you’re like me, it’ll piss you off if you too have long wanted to see a spin off title starring Ashley from WarioWare...

And here we have something that I thought was an April 1 joke at first, but turns out, it’s not! That being this special, commemorative PaRappa menu that I first spotted over at miki800. Though I’ll never get a chance to actually eat a PJ Berri donut, so I’m still bummed out…

JC’s the one from I discovered that there’s a new Mega Drive/Genesis game coming out later this year. Not that anyone needs a reminder, but once again, we’re talking about the year 2017…

Oliver recently highlighted a discovery over at his end, one that he made sure to know that I was aware of, given my interest in the VHS format; it’s a surprisingly literal translation of the events detailed in Super Mario World, but reconfigured for an interactive VHS tape that it “controlled” via a fake telephone for little kids…

Oliver also passed along word, via Twitter, that we finally have the behind the scenes look at Dong Dong Never Die that all of us (okay, maybe just me and like four other people) have been patiently waiting for…

Back to obscurevideogames real quick, as well Takeshi’s Challenge; some snazzy looking ads from back in the day, which I’m going to just look at instead of watching Hollywood’s take on Ghost In The Shell (I may also re-watch my fave Beat Takashi flick, Sonatine, and the best anime to live action adaptation ever, Speed Racer)…

Speaking of movies, my soul brother when it comes B movies, Matt Rzepecky, recently turned me onto the Walk of Life Project, which states that Walk of Life by Dire Straights is the perfect song to end any movie. Including WarGames…

And back to the subject of old video game print ads; which do you prefer, this one featuring the backside of a person, for Real Sound….

... or this one featuring the backside of people, for Mother?

lunaticobscurity recently shared this photo, from urbex-exploration...

… which reminded him of Smash TV...

How about yourself? For me, Shadow of the Colossus instantly came to mind.

Please enjoy this reminder of why Fighters Megamix is such an amazing game (via lvrllnd)…

Speaking of AM2’s love letter to itself in the form of a fighting game that’s nothing like Smash Bros, for those unfamiliar with it, here we have the first legit mind-blowing revelation from Sonic The Hedgeblog…

“In Sonic The Fighters each characters’ 2P colors are just black and white versions of their normal selves. In Fighters Megamix on the Saturn however, Bean gets his own special extra colors. These colors, and the switch from a neckerchief to bow-tie, make him look like his original inspiration - Bin from Dynamite Dux, a 1988 Sega arcade game.”

On that note, now’s as good a time as any to present other recent fave entries. Including this reminder of his “appearance” in Illbleed, as Zodick the Hellhog…

Eggman going for the gold in Mario & Sonic at the Rio Olympic Games…

An image of former president and CEO of Sega of America, Tom Kalinske, from the pages of Next Generation Magazine. Am pretty sure I still have the issue, which is about Sega’s attempt at pitting the Saturn against the PlayStation…

This gif from a Japanese commercial for Sonic Heroes that I dig, due to the tears of sadness from the young boy, as he watches Sonic, Tails, & Knuckles depart after a full day of fun…

Plus the recent discovery of an unreleased arcade game, which would have featured two color swapped clones posing as his brothers…

Now, I had originally planned on presenting a generous helping of Supper Mario Broth as a follow up to so many choice cuts from the Hedgeblog, but Tumblr feels otherwise. Turns out, in addition to YouTube embeds, there’s apparently a limit to just regular ol’ jpegs as well!

So instead, here’s just one last bit of Mario for today, a mash-up with Fury Road from somewhere else (vice-s-assistant to be exact)…

This week’s piece of fan art that deserves some extra attention is this ode to Chrono Trigger by @touxi (via sixteen-bit)…

I love it whenever National Console Support discovers a box of old junk that they then try to unload, which in this instance is a box full of Darius Burst Another Chronicle iPhone cases. These are for the iPhone 3G/3GS btw…

And finally, remember the Averaging Gradius clip from last week? Well, here’s a video that showed up alongside, a recommendation from YouTube that’s actually appropriate: it’s the Vic Viper with a f*ckton of Options…

[sonicfanj]

Why I dislike Amy’s Piko Piko Hammer

I’m a relatively strange individual in that over the last couple of years I’ve come to dislike Amy’s Piko Piko Hammer. I know that it’s an iconic part of her character but I just can’t bring myself to like it any more. As it has become a topic in most discussions that I seem to have anymore I wrote up a 6300 word explanation to try and detail why i dislike so it would be easier for others to see where I’m coming and thought I’d share it here too. So here it is

Amy Rose, one of the most well known and controversial characters in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise since her adaption into the games back in 1993. Debuting as a fangirl damsel in distress who Sonic rescues and subsequently flees from, she would continue to persist in the franchise in spinoff appearances interacting with the rest of the cast and continuing her crush driven pursuit of Sonic. Come 1998 she was granted her first chance at being in a mainline platformer entry in Sonic Adventure. In this game Sonic Team experimented with giving every character their own unique way of playing through the game with each playstyle being further and further from Sonic’s own, and the one that put the franchise on the map to begin with. Some were reasonably accepted and others weren’t. Amy’s was one that was criticized primarily for a lack of speed and made the toy hammer she used in Sonic the Fighters a staple of her character. In time the hammer would become an element of Amy’s design that I would come to dislike and not even believe that she needed at all. To understand the many problems I have with the hammer, the role it has in gameplay, in its use, thematically, and Amy’s reliance and affiliation on/with it, I must first provide a retrospective of my own history with the franchise and how my viewpoint of the series changed when I looked back on it with the announcement of Mania.

At the age of five in 1991 I was living with my parents in the house they had just bought. My dad was a diehard SEGA fan who hated Nintendo with a passion and owned both the Genesis and Master System and he was finally allowing me to start playing video games. I immediately became attached to Alex Kid and though I was no good at the games I absolutely loved them. Then one day my dad brought home Sonic the Hedgehog. It was unlike any game I had played or seen my dad play and though I was not good at it, it completely enthralled me. Then came 1993 and Sonic CD, and my mind was blown away again. From the diverse levels and time traveling experience to the amazing opening and ending animations it was the game that solidified my interest in Japan and that I finally got good at playing Sonic games with. I was the first of my family to beat it and everything about the game won me over and Sonic, Amy, Metal Sonic, and Eggman won themselves permanent places in my heart. To me anything American made was dead and to this day I still do not know how I knew about Eggman and Amy’s Japanese names at that time as they were not used in the USA. Then though the dream was over as my dad sold his Genesis and Sega CD. I would not be able to see Amy again until my dad bought Sonic Jam for the Saturn and she appeared in the updated version of the CD ending as well as the CGs that were included in the game. For years I played the original trilogy with my younger brother but those games never captured me like CD did. Then Adventure came and I was enthralled all over again. But things were different, there was voice acting that was nowhere near as good as the Japanese voices in the OVA trailer included in Sonic Jam and Amy and Eggman had been redesigned almost beyond recognition and Amy suddenly had a hammer which origins I learned about through game magazines at the time. But back then that didn’t matter to me. I could play as one of my favorite characters and it was awesome with me loving her Hammer Vault more than anything else she could. I would spend hours just running around Station Square Hammer Vaulting over and over again because it was just so much fun. Then my sister one day brought home Sonic R and Sonic CD for Windows and the magic of that game was rekindled. I would play for hours and it was the greatest thing in the world. It was Sonic at his purest and nothing compared, not even the uniquely enjoyable Sonic R. I enjoyed Sonic Adventure 2 when it came out, but it was not CD and Amy had been removed from play except in competitive mode where she was just a slower Sonic, who himself disappointed me beyond instant Light Speed Dash compared to Adventure 1. Then the end seemed to come as SEGA withdrew from the console market and I was faced with the fear of Sonic having come to his end. Fortunately that was not the case as Sonic Heroes debuted across all platforms and I played it on my older brother’s Xbox. The game had everything in it that should have made it my favorite, but the cheesiness and way Metal Sonic was handled just disappointed me. There was also Amy who though playable again, was lacking her Hammer Vault from Adventure still and stripped most of the fun out of playing her for me, and when combined with her teammates and easy mode difficulty left me almost never revisiting the game as even Sonic was missing that purity that I so loved. Not surprisingly I returned to Sonic CD and mostly just watched my sister and younger brother play Shadow. Then 06 was revealed and something about it captured my imagination like nothing else had in a long time. Even with the game’s problems I was one of the few who was fortunate enough to not have that many glitches appear as I played the game and generally enjoyed it. But there were more disappointments and my family pretty much stopped caring for the franchise at that point beyond my younger brother who mostly stuck to CD like I had for year before as well. When Unleashed was first teased I remember being apprehensive about the Werehog idea but then that first trailer with Endless Possibilities won me over and everything about the game seemed right. Sure I was disappointed by the Werehog and how Tails and Amy weren’t playable, but they seemed so much better represented than anything I saw in what little I watched of Sonic X. It was a grand adventure again and Sonic was Sonic again, at least during the day. At that point though, while my younger brother played Unleashed even he had pretty much given up on the franchise having forward progression and pretty much stopped talking to me about the franchise. Fortunately for me I had discovered the SEGA forums around this time and between the community and the wikis my eyes were opened up to so much more. I learned a great deal about the Archie Comics which I had previously ignored due to my preference for the Japanese side of things and discovered so much more. I just soaked up as much of the franchise as I could. When Sonic Colors came out for Nintendo only it was disappointing but the forums kept me informed and in the game to an extent. Then there was the day of Sonic Generations reveal and my dad showed it to me when I got home from work and it was a game I had to have. But the more I studied it, the more it was wrong. Classic Sonic was round and chubby instead of sharp and dynamic. I was exposed to the belief that he was always cute in greater form than I ever was when I first heard such comparisons drawn by Morgan Webb on X-Play back when Heroes released. Everything seemed wrong but I bought the game anyway and was blown away by what was being done level-wise for Modern Sonic but was disappointed by so much of the game that I couldn’t revisit it. It wasn’t just Generations though, everything was going completely sideways from what I knew and loved about the franchise and I could no longer even retreat to Sonic CD because the PC it ran on had pretty much died and all of the working PCs could not run a Windows game that old. Christian Whitehead’s remake was a godsend in a way, but it too was wrong. I was able to finally experience the Japanese soundtrack for the first time, which immediately won me over in game context, but Sonic felt so heavy and slow compared to the Windows version that I just stopped playing because it didn’t feel right. Somewhere around this time I managed to finally be able to watch the subtitled version of the OVA with my younger brother and it was one of the most nostalgic experiences we had ever had. Sonic was Sonic, Metal Sonic was Sonic. Tails was fast and competent, and Knuckles was probably the most enjoyable I had ever seen him even though he was removed from his role in the games. It was everything I wanted though, bar Amy missing, and it made me wonder how much I was missing from the old days of the Japanese side of the franchise that never made it over. It was at that time I found Sonic Retro’s archives and my world was opened up again in ways that the Mania previews couldn’t touch.

Of all the arguments that never made sense to me in my time in the fandom it was that Sonic was a children’s franchise so it should be full of weak comedy and Teletubby levels of childish harmlessness. It was an argument I had never seen pre-Shadow the Hedgehog and made no sense in the context of Sonic being a teenage rebel with an attitude as I had been introduced to him back in 1991. I found myself frequently siding with Adventure diehards in the belief that the games were so much more but I had no real context for what I was talking about. But I finally realized that Sonic really was a children’s franchise when my younger brother translated the story in the first Sonic Drift and I saw that Amy addressed Sonic as Sonic-sama. It’s so hard to describe what it was that clicked due to the use of that Japanese honorific, which implies utmost respect and on occasion even admiration, but in that moment I realized that characters around Sonic’s age actually undermined the franchise being a children’s franchise. Sonic was a character of the nineties, a character who parents feared being a bad influence on their children because of his rebellious ways and cheeky attitude yet here was this eight year old girl who looked upon Sonic with such admiration and respect. And why wouldn’t she? She was a hedgehog and adventurer herself in a world where Sonic was the most famous hedgehog in the world, so much so that even a fox (a hedgehog’s natural predator) wanted to be like him. He was a role model. He was the cool teenager that your best friend’s older brother was. The problem solver. The one you wanted to be like because he was that awesome. That was who Sonic was and I had forgotten that at some point in the years since I was first introduced to him. I wanted my brother to translate more of the untranslated material from the Japanese side but he refused for reasons unknown to me so I instead started reevaluating the series and what it was. Everywhere I looked where another character around Sonic’s age was introduced it smothered the influencing effect he had on young children in favor of the Shonen Jump tenet of friendship, and Sonic changed over time from being the cool teenager who young kids looked up to into this shining beacon of righteousness who corrected the path of everyone he met. But who he was was no longer there and Tails trying less and less to be like his hero as the years went by nigh completely erased that aspect of Sonic’s character. But back then even Amy had that idolization of Sonic, instead of a hammer that she swung at him with if he refused to go on a date with her. Her idolization was gone in favor of violent jokes played off her infatuation. She was not the genki girl I loved but some green eyed monster who was routinely accused of being a stalker and yandere. While plenty of arguments were made in her defense it was not enough for me. I had to see what was missing from Amy’s character and so I studied the games and discovered some amazing things. Amy was introduced as a damsel in distress, but how much of a damsel was she? If I went by Sonic Adventure she should have been perceived as a helpless damsel before then but this clashed with her tomboy description and Rascal nickname from CD so I would have to look at her from before then. My starting point was again the Japanese manual of Sonic Drift where, according to what my younger brother translated, the car that Sonic drove was praised by the hedgehog for being nearly as fast as he was. That meant that since Amy was competing that she was driving a car that could nearly keep up with Sonic. Taken in context that means she had the strength and reflexes to control such a car and actually race against Sonic. This was taken to its extreme in Sonic R where Tails supposedly upgraded her car and she was now competitive with a cast of characters who could keep up with Sonic on foot in one way or another. She was significantly more impressive than some average person or damsel in distress. But how much further back could I trace this astounding competence of Amy’s. As it turned out, all the way to Sonic CD where she debuted and Sonic Team Japan presented her as a damsel in distress. What they did not do though was make her helpless. She traveled to Never Lake under her own power led on by nothing but a message from her cards and a love for mysterious things. Upon arriving she didn’t just hang around the lake but got herself up on Little Planet which the only demonstrated way up within the game and manual was Eggman’s chain, which can be inferred to mean that Amy made her way up there by that method. Then on Little Planet she demonstrates enough strength to hold Sonic in place if he is moving slowly enough and makes it through Palmtree Panic to Collision Chaos before Sonic. Later in the game once she is rescued from Metal Sonic she appears at the end of Metallic Madness after Eggman’s defeat, but is shown catching up with Sonic. This can be inferred to mean that she made it through Metallic Madness on her own, navigating all of the death traps designed to stop Sonic himself. But what about her being a damsel in distress? Considering she was captured by Metal Sonic who even Sonic cannot straight up defeat in head on confrontation instead having to simply outrun him, then Amy’s capture makes sense. She’s not as fast as Sonic and even Sonic can’t beat Metal so of course she is captured. Not because she is helpless, but rather because she was simply outclassed by something beyond her abilities. In light of this, when discussions about Mania and Amy being included were ongoing I proposed that Amy did not need her hammer and could be included without it. This resulted in me being ostracized due to a general love of Amy’s hammer and her Sonic Advance 1 gameplay amongst the community. Faced with such a reaction I decided to look at the place of Amy’s hammer in the games and the more I studied the more I disliked the hammer and the more I believed that Mania was a chance to re-explore Amy without it as it had no place in Naka’s original rolling gameplay that gave birth to the franchise itself, no less Sonic the Hedgehog, the object of Amy’s affection and the hedgehog who she has enough respect and admiration for to use the -sama honorific in pre-Adventure content.

I don’t recall where I first heard the story but I have seen it revisited several times over the years; how Naka when tasked with creating a paltformer franchise created rolling momentum based gameplay based on the movement of a ball so as to allow continuous movement without stopping to attack, instead bumping into enemies to defeat them. While that formula was tweaked heavily over the years, and even abandoned for a time, it is still something that is genius in its execution and simplicity. Using a hedgehog, a creature that naturally curls into a ball to defend itself, was even a further stroke of genius as it created the necessary imagery to connect the concepts of attacking and rolling together due to a hedgehog’s quills and the motion of a ball. When Sonic curls into a ball you know instinctively that a ball of spikes will do damage, so it is naturally affiliated with attacking, especially since when Sonic jumps he curls into a ball and damages any enemy he bumps into. Then the fact that Sonic curls into a ball when he ducks tells the player that if Sonic curls into a ball while running he will roll and carry any momentum that he had while running. It is absolute genius simplicity that provides both depth and ease of play. There is no memorizing numerous button inputs and combinations, just running and curling into a ball. Deceptively simple, but when combined with solid, engaging, and imaginative level design the possibilities are near endless, and above all, fluid. The intention of achieving continuous movement is met with this simple design that is both easy to pick up and play and provides as much depth as the levels have variety. It is this formula which the franchise built itself upon and that always pulls me back on the gameplay side of things. As much as I enjoyed Amy’s Hammer Vault in Sonic Adventure it was never as engaging beyond just enjoying doing it. It required sometimes excessive effort to pull off and in turn was frustrating in level where it was meant to be used. The compromise for this was to create a complex command system for Amy that has been described by many as a hard mode in Sonic Advance and excludes all traces of the original rolling gameplay to defeat enemies by bumping into them. Simplicity was gone and what should have been intuitive instead required major experimentation to even begin. Yet in the same game the traditional gameplay still existed and could be used to complete the game without the use of any other ability tacked on. So why make Amy so complicated? I’ve heard plenty of arguments, some ranging from thematically to others that argued for uniqueness. None though could ever address the fact that Amy is a hedgehog who lacks her natural ability to curl into ball and take advantage of the original gameplay design. But gameplay complications further arise from there

Jump /\ /__\ Run       Roll

Jump /\ /__\              Run           Swing Hammer

Take the two triangles above. They describe the basic gameplay that the franchise began with and Amy’s gameplay. While they are similar, 1/3 of Amy’s gamplay is completely different and leads into a series of complex additional commands as well as a focus on melee gameplay which requires stopping to fight instead of maintaining the flow of continuous movement. As the versatility of “Swing Hammer” becomes even more in depth the triangle become unbalanced and you no longer have a platformer but a brawler with platforming elements. It is fairly disingenuous and betrays the simplicity and intention of rolling so as to not need to stop to defeat an enemy. It puts an emphasis on combat based gameplay instead of movement based gameplay. When approaching Mania and its return to the top triangle and the simplicity it relies on there is no room for the hammer, and thus Amy if she must have it. As someone who wanted Amy playable in Mania and was starting to have a desire to see how she could be explored without the hammer in a setting where it was not as much a part of her character, the insistence that she had to have that overly complicated gameplay even in a setting that thrived on the use of simple gameplay played into my dislike of the hammer. In a way, it was keeping one of my favorite characters and gameplay styles separate. I could not have both and that just seemed wrong since Amy originated in that gameplay era.

Further discussions I would have about Amy’s hammer and its use in the franchise would only fuel my dislike of it as I began to see it as a rather twisted and horrible tool. To me, Amy is a genki girl, or a girl who is overwhelmingly positive, optimistic, energetic, and is always trying to get everybody to have as much fun as she is so that they too can be happy. She is joy incarnate in a way, yet the hammer is the very opposite of that. While it is designed as a toy, a hammer is technically a tool for building things but that is far from what Amy primarily uses it for. She doesn’t build anything with it beyond fear as she wields it as either a sledge hammer or war hammer destroying everything that gets in her path. This destructive use of the hammer combined with the temper introduced to her character in Sonic X would convert what was once a silly toy into weapon of entitlement where any time Amy would not get her way she would bring out her hammer and get her way in an instant. She was no longer a genki girl, but an over entitled brat that no one would put in her place for overwhelming fear of her hammer. If she didn’t like something, just swing the hammer and the world would fall in place, a far cry from the bubbly and energetic girl who could win people over with kind words and a smile by calling out their inner good. To make matters even worse, she would turn that same hammer against Sonic, the very hedgehog who holds her affection and who she was once demonstrated as having enough respect and admiration for to use the –sama honorific when addressing him. But even beyond Sonic, her supposedly best friend Cream is also an unfortunate victim of hammer abuse if some her lines throughout the franchise are anything to go by. As the lead heroine of the franchise I find this type of behavior from her completely inappropriate, and further, as someone who sees the franchise as a children’s franchise it is content that can teach children all kinds of twisted values. It shows that if you want something bad enough you just have to swing anything you can make a weapon out of, even your toys, as hard as you can and everyone will fall in line. It’s a horrible lesson and not one that should be being taught on any level. For example, take Knuckles and his ability to punch. In his debut game he is demonstrated punching on a number of occasions, including at Sonic and Tails, but once he is playable his punching is a not an option for the player unless they try to use his glide leaving him instead to use Sonic’s special abilities. To a small child this can appear as only villains punch people and it is very hard for a good guy to punch anything, but instead a good guy has special abilities that they use to defeat bad guys. This can leave a profoundly positive effect on a child and can even potentially lead to a child having an interest in learning the right ways to deal with bad guys and maybe even becoming real life heroes like our police, firefighters, doctors, and soldiers. In contrast, Amy’s hammer encourages a more villainous approach of using weapons to get what you want and that if you act sweet enough everyone will let you get away with. It is disingenuous and is a horrible message to pass along to children. But it gets even worse. When Amy is using her hammer against her friends they are shown as weaker then weapons which undermines the roles of the heroes having special abilities to beat the bad guys. But then, if you take Amy’s hammer away from her she is usually made to be completely useless and helpless promoting a need for weapons and self armament. It is spectacularly tonally dissonant with the rest of the series and her optimistic ways.

Over the years the Sonic franchise has gone through many changes but one thing has stayed consistent; the image of a blue anthropomorphic hedgehog running with a confident smirk on his face to his next adventure. It is so iconic an image that at one point back in the nineties I remember hearing that Sonic was more globally recognizable than even Mickey Mouse. It’s lavish praise for a simple blue hedgehog who loves adventure but it speaks strongly of his image; red shoes for running and a shade of blue that evokes the freedom of the open sky and peacefulness of that scene. He may have a strong sense of justice and won’t stand for injustice but at the end of the day even he enjoys the peaceful times when he can run to his heart’s content. And that brings me to the image of Amy’s hammer. What does it imply if not combat. When it comes out everyone knows that Amy is intending to do harm. That does not evoke the peace that Sonic fights for and represents just by being. It instead evokes the very images of the conflict that Sonic puts an end to and is an opposite image of the optimistic girl that Amy is supposed to be. While it can be said that combat is as much a part of the Sonic franchise as adventure, to me part of what works is not glorifying traditional combat and instead using the fantastical specialness of a hedgehog’s ability to curl into a ball. It makes Sonic and his cast of characters unique from other franchises and can make any blue ball evoke thoughts of Sonic, or yellow with Tails, and red with Knuckles. But what about Amy? Well, when I see hammers I think of construction work, or the Animaniancs, or Thor and his hammer Mjolnir, or even Harley Quinn from Batman with the Tales of series usual being my first thought when I see the type of hammer that inspired Amy’s. It also doesn’t help that a hammer does not make me think of Sonic gameplay in any way and it does not conjure up images of rolling and running. As an Amy fan who wants to see more of her this lack of strong identifying imagery means that most people outside of the fanbase would not think Amy if you showed them a picture of a hammer limiting demand to see her. Even in fanbase it is not good as her hammer is usually affiliated with her violent representations where she uses the hammer in ways as to make people feel like she is a yandere, a type of character who harms those who show interest in their affection even going so far as to kill their affection so no one can have them. Further, when the hammer appears arguments for combat centric gameplay arise and sense of adventure is washed away in the wake of a clamoring for action. Praise is constantly heaped onto the hammer for its deep and involving platforming and combat. No mention is made of exploration and discovery with the worst parodies of the hammer simplifying Amy down to a cheep Incredible Hulk knock off. Imagery like this while made in good fun in some cases is disingenuous with Amy’s character. When you can show her on one hand as a bright and cheerful girl who you can’t help but smile at and then on the other where she is a hammer wielding force of terror it can be horribly jarring. While it could be argued that it shows multiple facets of her personality it can also be argued that she is treated almost as a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde character due to how different the personalities are. This change in imagery though is all controlled by whether or not her hammer is out. When there is no sign of it she is typically cute and adventurous with an all around cheerful disposition. Once the hammer comes out though, she becomes something else which is almost always affiliated with combat and destruction. This dual imagery is not conductive for a character that is intended to have a single image, especially one of being, curious, optimistic, cheerful, and adventurous. By affiliation with her hammer Amy is portrayed as having two extremes she can exist in which, while reconcilable are rarely shown as such with her either being in hammer mode or normal mode. As a fan of Amy’s character, hammer mode feels like a detraction to me that smothers the genki girl that she is at her best.

Amy’s affiliation with her hammer does more than just give her an unneeded violent image, it also affects her interactions with those around her. The first thing that typically comes to mind even in universe when Amy’s hammer appears is typically fear. Or occasionally in the reverse the sign of hammers will make the characters think of Amy. Her affiliation with her hammer makes her interchangeable with the sight of any hammer, effectively reducing her role to just hammer. If something needs hammered everyone thinks of Amy. It is a gross simplification of her potential in the franchise. She is never addressed as an adventurer or someone who has a great sense of intuition, or even just someone who can listen to your troubles and lend a hand. Her affiliation with her hammer and overreliance on it also cuts off her own potential for growth. As mentioned above, I see Amy as spectacularly competent and that she has been since Sonic CD when she debuted in the games years before she was given the hammer. Like Tails, she idolized Sonic and made every attempt to chase after him. Unlike Tails though who was gifted with the concept of flying like a helicopter to keep up with Sonic, Amy was given nothing back in that period and when she finally was adapted into a main game she still was not given gameplay that would reflect her pursuit of Sonic. Instead she was severely undermined and was even slower than Big the Cat. In a platformer series where you run fast and plow through enemies without stopping by curling into a ball she was made excruciatingly slow and provided a weapon that brought her to a stop every time it was swung unless she was going fast enough to Hammer Vault. In fact, her affiliation with her hammer at that time required you had to be going fast enough to attack without slowing down which was counter intuitive with Sonic design up to that point where you attacked by rolling so you did not slowing down. In other words, her hammer represented slow methodical gameplay in a franchise that was about moving fluidly with speed as a reward. Amy was instead rewarded with fluidity for moving fast but to tell you that you were going fast enough to be rewarded you had to wait for her hammer to appear, an almost cruel reminder of what it was that was keeping you slow in the first place. Even when the problem was resolved in the Sonic Advance series by giving her speed, she was still deprived of the classic rolling gameplay which allowed for fluid play as soon as you picked up the controller. But her hammer association would not get better from there as her next and final in her modern design platformer gameplay appearance in 06 sacrificed everything she had built up in prior games. From there it would not get better. Her violent image continued to get worse outside of the games and she was only considered relevant if she had her hammer. Her hammer became so relevant that when the Archie Comics did their 25th anniversary celebration with the Mega Drive Comic, Amy was only allowed to follow along because of her hammer and how it was useful with Sonic even then seeing her as at risk if Eggman decided to go after her. Her hammer is treated as so representative of her that when Eggman is bested in Cascade Temple Zone and everyone attacks him, Amy is left off screen with only her hammer being visible. In the next volume things get even more out of hand with the hammer as it is practically the only reason Amy, Tails, and Knuckles are able to best a dragon robot as swinging the hammer keeps Amy safe from its attack. Yet in the same issue her hammer is then useless against an animal container that Sonic can plow through with ease using the classic spin attack which is shared by Tails and Knuckles. She is again shown as useless if her hammer is unavailable even though she herself is a hedgehog who chases after Sonic and should be able to imitate him if Tails can. The fact that she doesn’t at all also cuts off some of her potential as a motivating character. Her and Tails were both introduced as characters who idolized Sonic and chased after him with Amy being the optimistic and cheerful one and Tails being the one who struggled to be confident. From a narrative standpoint it was a perfect opportunity to create a relationship between Tails and Amy as Amy cheered on Tails’ efforts to be like his hero even going so far as to give her best examples to show him that one could be like Sonic without being Sonic. Unfortunately it was a wasted opportunity and now outside of Sonic Mania even Tails has not attempted to be like his Hero in well over a decade. Amy meanwhile is waiting for a game where her hammer can fit in so she can finally be playable again. If she was not so affiliated with and dependent on it she would already be playable again and accomplishing who knows what. Just like Tails, the game she was introduced in showed she could keep up with Sonic and make it through Eggman’s death traps with only the most extreme of circumstances being beyond her, in her case a metal doppelganger of Sonic even he could not directly fight in game. It was a theme at that time that could have been followed to spectacular effect showing how Sonic could motivate young children to be all they could be in pursuit of what motivated them without fear of what others thought while subtly hinting at what is good and bad. Instead Amy out of all of the main cast, barring games like Sonic and the Black Knight and Shadow the Hedgehog, was the only character to be given a permanent weapon and not to have any lessons attached to it creating an image dissonance between a sweet bubbly character and nightmarish over entitled brat who even her friends were terrified of. It brings nothing to her character or her best moments, but her affiliation with it bars her from more traditional takes on the series and leaves her with a violent psychopathic imagery at its worse.

Though argued by many, I, after my long history with the franchise was able to look back and see it as the children’s franchise that it was supposed to be. A story about a blue hedgehog and his adventures and all of those he met and inspired along the way. As a children’s franchise the characters who best represented that were Tails and Amy, but where Tails was able to be like his hero for a while Amy was left out until she was given a hammer that did not allow her to truly belong. In light of the current times where equality and equal opportunity for all is being fought for in the public eye again, as well as equal representation for women, it really is a shame that Amy is held back from being able to achieve what Tails did in favor of a hammer. A message is left with Amy for any girl who wants to chase their dreams and that is that they will never be able to catch up to their heroes and so they might as well take up arms and make a ruckus until the world bends over backwards for them. That is one reason amongst the many above that I have detailed for why I dislike Amy’s hammer. I acknowledge its iconic place in the franchise but I would like to see Amy put it down for good and become a character like Sonic who fights for what is right and what she believes in without relying on the way of villains. I want to see her smiling brightly as she chases after Sonic with her heart on her sleeve and believing that she can catch up him. To me, as long as she holds onto her hammer she never will, because all she will be is the one who hammers, and not Amy Rose.

Whew that’s a lot. Anyway, I hope anyone who took the time to read this can at least see where I’m coming from. Not trying to change anyone’s mind, just trying to help them see why I have the stance I do.