#I think Amy’s hammer is just advanced

[two-of-tails]

Do you ever use your Tails for storage? I imagine you could keep quite a few things in all of that fluff. Like maybe your wallet, a pistol, a granola bar, a mint. Heck, maybe a whole bazooka for all I know. It would certainly make more sense than Amy pulling her hammer out of thin air.

Yep, I do! The tails itself isn’t a reliable storage space, (considering I fly with them, and anything I store in them by itself will fly out) but I like to use my tail fluff as a sort of “coverage” to hide all the stuff I got in there. Usually I carry my Miles electric and a can of mints at the very least.

Amy’s hammer is a special case, I think! Plus, maybe she has pockets in that dress, who knows.

[alexissara]

Sonic Fighting Game Dream Roster!

Me and My Metamore messed around to make a sonic fighting game roster and I wanted to share kinda like the roster and the thought behind it and stuff for fun since this was a silly little fun thing. Our limitations where only including canon sonic characters in the main roster, the roster was going to be 24 characters because that was the base Dragon Ball Fighters Z roster size at launch, we were assuming the game would be an another Arcsystem Works Tag Fighter. I elected not to go for an even gender ratio like I normally would since we were aiming for a realistic roster but obviously when between viable options I favored a woman. 10/24 of the base roster are women so pretty close to half and like do Mecha Sonic, Chaos or Omega even really have genders? This game would also be one that focused on a more modern control style given Sonic is intended for children but also that modern controls are becoming simply the norm.

The team play is important for this game since sonic is not really a fights alone guy. Since Sonic 2 Sonic has been a serious about working together to overcome evil and it's been that way since with Sonic 3 adding another playable friend, Knuckles Chaotics having a whole squad, leading to the eventual adventure games and that eras bigger rosters. Like Skullgirls you could pick between having 1, 2 or 3 people in your team and have the characters enhanced on the smaller team number but lose access to the full sweet of abilities being teamed up gives you.

It's one thing to make a roster but another thing to try and think about how the characters would play. I have minor concepts on many of the playable characters, one requirement we had for putting someone on the not DLC part of the roster was having an idea of how they played.

Sonic obviously establishes the Foundational parts of the game being a rush down character to stay true to the archtype but one with a bit more resilience, he'd have just a tiny bit of everything to teach people while staying true to the speed focus. Blaze gets a mild zoning game with fire balls but is more aggressive being more of a combo focused character with the ability to further her combo potential with her blazing blade super similar to Juri in Street Fighter. Surge would be a character who was able to damage herself to increase damage to others, reckless in her desire to prove her strength and get out of people's shadows. Metal Sonic would play like sonic with a few different moves and a tankier set up but lower combo potential. Shadow would have the most advance moveset of the rushdown characters. having tricky moves that result in high pay offs but require solid execution.

The Balanced characters present most of the games features in the movesets. Honey the Cat being from Sonic Fighters makes her the perfect character to be the most basic fighting game character having basically just Ryu's moveset with no frills but some additional girly flare to give her some personality. Trip is a transformation character like Hellsing from Blaze blue with her dragon mode providing her a more aggressive style but a bigger hit box and body while still working off the more fundamental gameplay. Tails would have a bit of it all but with a bit of a stronger zoning game as a charge character. Emerald being from Sonic's second fighting game and copying movesets would be like Seth from Street Fighter 5 and other similar characters giving them a diverse moveset using moves from other characters.

Amy Rose would be a perfect midrange character wanting to not be too close or too far, her hammer being the distance away she wants to be. Tangle would have some command grabs she could preform further away and in general she wants to be fighting with just a bit more room than the average fighter. The deadly six are summon type character who work at any range but average out to about wanting the same distance as Amy and Tangle. Each of the six bring different abilities to the table similar to Captain Ginyu in DBFZ.

Chaos is a tricky grappler with a lot of strange movement tools. Big the Cat is our big time joke character where he is just trying to find froggy in battle and your just in his way accidently getting boddied by his long distance fishing hook grabs and friendly hugs as Froggy is set up on opponents allowing Big to hit with bigger damage. Omega is a more classic big body, get the fuck out my way or I'll kill you zoner with a weak projectile it can use to discourage running away from him.

Rouge is our iconic trap setter allowing her to steal wins from opponents who aren't ready to deal with the puzzle game she throws before them which includes inflicting some debuffs that remove options from your opponents for a particular amount of time like tagging out. Starline has his warp topaz for movement allowing him a more zoner focused gameplay style with a command grab that is styled after his hypnosis and otherwise his inventions being little traps on the field to control where the foe is and their approach. Nights and Cosmo would be characters more focused on the assist role creating items that their team mates can use with buffs. Nights would have a higher risk reward where the opponent could also use them where Cosmos would be locked to benefiting the player. Finally Eggman is tanky with all the traps and annoyances of a zoner. He can't do big damage but he is hard to take down and there is probably a boss version of him that is even more annoying.

Fang/Knack had the name sniper, their an archetypical zoner. Whisper's whispeon allows her to customize her shots by switching which whisp she has loaded into the gun, this allows her a diverse arrow of zoning options allowing her to always keep her opponent guessing on what is the best way to approach her. It's no use trying to beat Silver when he can yet you away to keep his ideal distance having a weak command grab that allows him to toss his foe full screen and keep up the aggressive physic assault.

Cream is our Puppet character with a special twist on being a puppet character with a puppet that evolves over time from Cream to Cream + Cheese to Gemerald building a meter to have a stronger puppet to use but stage 2 having some reasons to use it over stage 3. That can be paired with one last appearance in her ultimate attack allowing her mother Vanilla to get mad at the foe for attacking her daughter and finish off the opponent in a motherly rage. Knuckles would function like most boxing characters only having punches and being a bit of a bully in battle who is hard to handle but his special ability to glide would allow her far more air mobility then most other characters in the game. Espio would be a classic ninja character with all that entails having lots of moving and plenty of tricks to serve. Jet wouldn't be fighting alone coming in swinging with his crew able to dive in from the air like a hawk and take opponents into large air combos where on the ground he is pretty lacking.

While this is typically the type of thing reserved for Youtube videos but I felt like idk writing out this kind of thing and if you enjoyed it please let me know. I had a blast doing it and I would love to make more dream rosters with my lesbian edge where I am gonna favor women. I think these are just fun ways to nerd out about a series I enjoy and I'd love to go even more in depth I stopped myself from being extra indulgent on this one but I'd have loved to go into how I imagine a single player mode would work, talk more about universal mechanics and everything else.

All I want is some feedback if you enjoyed it but if you wanted to I am always happy to get support on making my own original queer art over on Patreon and Ko-fi which includes my current ambition to make an SRPG along with my for sure going to happen TTRPG projects.

[prowerprojects]

Finally figured out Amy's thing in my aosth au!

You see, in aosth Sonic is... how do I say it nicely... would not be normally be frazzled by a girl's romantic advances. So I needed to give Amy something else to put her and Sonic in conflict. Her wanting to fight Robotnik wouldn't be it either, probably. He often encourages civilians to raise up against him.

And now it hit me: school! If Amy goes to school (I imagine fancy private school with uniforms), and Sonic wouldn't want her to sabotage her education to help him fight Robotnik. Even if he doesn't go to school himself. Or maybe, because of that. Tails goes sometimes, but it's obviously not fulltime, and I hc Sonic feels bad that Tails had to choose between the apprenticeship and hanging out with him, so he wouldn't want to put anyone else in this position. Amy, of course, would take it as him not respecting her or not believing in her enough (and Tails would definitely be a brat about it and not help), so there you go, conflict.

(Since it's also the au with Metal Sonic, I could go into Sonic's thoughts on being a role model and then boom – killer robot but it's only the bad parts of himself? Idk need to think on it. And yes, I am well aware there already was a robot copy of Sonic in aosth but it's different. It's actual Metal Sonic this time)

Feeling down on herself, Amy goes off and merts Scratch and Grounder, who are also in misery because Robotnik just made Metal Sonic and he does everything better than them and now they're treated even worse than before. They bond and she eventually helps them realize that they need to leave Robotnik if they ever want to be happy.

Meanwhile Sonic and Tails are fighting Metal Sonic and it's totally kicking their asses for once. (It seems like Amy, Sonic and Tails don't have character arcs in this but they totally do I'm just still working on it)

It all ends with Amy learning to balance her school life and fighting Robotnik (I also have a few ideas for a few school-related plots post-story), she makes up with Sonic and Tails (maybe Tails gives her the hammer as an apology gift). Scratch and Grounder finally leave Robotnik (this is actually the reason why I made this au in the first place, I wanted someone to take pity on them but I knew it couldn't be S&T because of their history). Metal Sonic is beaten but not yet defeated... next: Angel Island (?)

[skull001]

Amy hot takes.

Amy's Sonic Advance gameplay is still THE superior 2-D gameplay for Amy, and the only reason it hasn't been revisited in newer games is because Sega are cowards still stuck with the "one-button" approach that only works for Sonic and Tails.

Even when games like Origins Plus and Sonic Superstars nerfed down Amy to just two moves, she is still more fun to play as than Sonic.

Amy's gameplay in Sonic Advance >> E-122 Psi Amy hacks >> Amy Mania by Troop Sushi/Codename Gamma >> Sonic Supertars >> Origins Plus.

Sonic X's Amy is the full package of how Amy should be like. Even with her flaws, she was one of the most fun characters to watch, and surprisingly got plenty of moments that humanized her and even explore a bit of how she saw her relation with Sonic, proving she isn't deluded about it like her detractors claim.

Giving Amy a toy hammer is one of the best things Sega did, and wish the full potential of what she can do with it was more explored in gameplay terms.

The tarot cards should be only a back-up weapon, never the main one. Story-wise, the can guide her in her quests, providing the player with hints that they have to interpretate.

IDW's characterization of Amy is alright. The issue if anything, is that she, like the game characters, are hardly the focus of the stories, nor are they allowed to be shown in a more personal manner. Don't care if it's because Sega is too strict, or if the writers only use them to get to the characters that THEY really want to write for. Either way, the situation sucks for the game cast.

I think Amy is better suited to be the franchise's co-protagonist alongside Sonic. She is very versatile as she isn't restricted to be by his side 24/7, and as long as she sees Sonic as her prince in shining armor, there really isn't any reason to keep her from growing into a stronger and more beautiful heroine.

I'd like to see a story where Amy tries to help a character find redemption, but is ultimately unable to, betrayed by them even. I think this would be an interesting change of pace because, even if let down by those Amy tries to help, that she still remain kind of heart would be proof of just how strong her heart is.

Superform. Of all characters not named Sonic, Amy's noble and compassionate heart should be more than worthy of awakening that miracle.

Morio Kishimoto really should go all out with exploring more of Sonic and Amy's relation. I think he is one of the few people capable of doing so and pushing the status quo to ot' limit whole keeping things fresh. After the let down of that last Tailstube where Amy's feelings were again the object of mockery from american writers ( especially HIM), I'd more than welcome the more respectful approach from Japanese writers towards the dynamic of these two characters.

Amy IS part of the main cast, and should be treated accordingly to her status as lead female character. That means, not giving away Amy's roles to less important ones. Wether it's things like her compassion (which Tyson Hesse mentions to be unique) or being the most adventure loving of the girls.

Don't make Amy be "mature" by becoming a party pooper who dislikes fun. This is a very outdated stereotype of women that honestly, doesn't apply to the real Amy. She would join the boys in doing dumb things, while still doing girly things with other girls too.

Enough of sad face Amy. Why the hell is Sega afraid to show an Amy that, no matter what, can be a beacon of hope for those who have lost their faith. Further more, why is she not expressing faith anymore on Sonic? I swear ever since Sonic Boom, only Tails is allowed to do this as an artificial means to push the bff thing, in contrast to previous games and even shows, where Amy did this. It saddens me how in Prime, she complains about Sonic not sticking to the plan, while Tails is the one who reminds that he has never let them down. Like, helloooooo? Amy also knows this, so why treat her like she doesn't?

Sonic, Tails, Amy & Knuckles >> Sonic, Tails and Amy >>>>>> Sonic, Tails & Knuckles.

Writers shouldn't be afraid to show/play out Amy's flaws. I like seeing characters make fools of themselves once in a while, as long as they are also allowed to get out of their mess by also playing out their strengths and positive traits.

[ganymedesclock]

When you get into sonic vibes again I'd love to hear your ideas on Amy's hammer?

I feel like you can choose to interpret it as Amy having pocket dimension storage she keeps all sorts of things in but I personally feel like if she had that she'd use it obviously for a Lot of things, so my personal favorite take is Amy's hammer is a magical girl weapon.

Like, my gameverse-canon read is that she just, needed a weapon and hadn't prepared, so sometime during Sonic CD she just grabbed it from Little Planet, possibly Good Future, so it's this advanced magitech thing that has registered her as a user and will just materialize to her due to its command of time-space weirdness, which is why she can also duplicate it and modify its size depending on her situation. Amy herself doesn't really know how it works, and may think of it as her lucky hammer because it just always seems to be usefully what she needs, unaware that it may have a simplistic AI and be learning and evolving from her usage habits.

I definitely like the take it's actually really dang heavy, like she could barely swing it in Sonic CD and came off that and went "well, that was embarrassing!" and worked out heavily. I mean, her hammer jumps in Adventure imply that it's heavy enough to offset her entire body weight if she swings it quickly.

[beevean]

Evan Stanley actually made a post about Amy's strength the other day on Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/spiritsonic/725115207765098496/are-there-any-parameters-for-amys-strength-yet?source=share

In relation to your other post, what do you think of her explanation? I myself found it a bit... odd. I wouldn't say Knuckles, Big and Vector are defined only by being strong. It's part of their character and when looking at them you can easily infer they are meant to be strong, but one look at Amy swinging her hammer does have the same effect to me (though that does depend on how large the hammer is depicted and what she does with it). And furthermore, "as a more comedic character"? I wouldn't say Amy is meant to be particularly comedic, or at least she's not displayed overly that way in more recent games imo (for better or for worse, now that I think about it). And, to be very honest... Amy hasn't had that many comedic moments in IDW at all either, in my opinion. Most of the time she's either Sad Overworked Woobie or Hypercompetent Girl Power™️ Woman of the bunch. I would go so far as to say her moment in issue 58 was not comedic as well, since she's... both supposed to have a Moment Of Power because obviously she's very strong if Sonic and Silver are praising her!!!!1!1!! while in the same vein she's not because she's supposed to be struggling and needs Silver's help still? Or was that supposed to be comedic after all? But wouldn't that directly contradict her being Stronk Woman of the team? In what way is IDW trying to present Amy??

... uhhhhh

We don't really bother to do "this character can lift X lbs" stuff, but she's considered one of the stronger characters. Not Knuckles or Mighty levels of strength, but she's up there. It's largely a result of her rigorous fitness routine, which is in itself a reflection of her enthusiastic and driven personality.

I relate with the inability to do a power scaling lol, but "up there with Knuckles and Mighty" is still very high up. Knuckles is the Power character. He's the guy every other "strong" character is compared to. So this tells me that Amy is still way, way stronger than average. And to justify this with "rigorous fitness routine"... I'm not sure I can take it seriously. That's One Punch Man stuff.

(side note, why Mighty and not Big? We have seen in the games how strong Big is, both in SA1 and Heroes. Mighty was only playable in Knuckles' Chaotix, where he was a Sonic reskin with the power of wall jumping, and in Mania, where he has the Hammer Drop that yes, can destroy the ground, but still... not my first pick when it comes to strong characters? Unless... Unless this is another Archie thing :) )

It's an important distinction that she uses her strength differently from the exclusively "power-type" characters; she has it , but it doesn't define her identity. She's prone to underestimating what she's really capable of, because she just doesn't see herself in that light.

I see her point. Amy is not a Power character in the sense that strength is not her defining feature. Which I have just elaborated on. She's only considered "Power" when paired with Knuckles in Advance 3. In fact, Amy is often described in guides as not affecting the team type at all: she's flexible like that. Also, yes, it's stated in her bios that her strength is underestimated.

Amy is graceful and powerful at the same time and though she often gets into trouble, she is stronger than most give her credit for.

I wouldn't say that other Power characters have their identities wrapped around being strong, though. Knuckles, maybe... but Omega? Big? Vector? Especially Big, who I think is more defined by his relaxed, friendly nature?

And then...

And finally as a more comedic character, her shows of strength are often (but not always!) played for laughs.

whu?

I... where? I mean, yes, she has comedic moments, but that's... nearly everyone, isn't it? Sonic is a lighthearted series and all. She speaks as if Amy were inherently a comic relief. And this doesn't really apply to her IDW version, as you said more eloquently than I could... and it doesn't remotely apply to the scene in #58, it's not meant to be comedic at all! Is the joke supposed to be that Silver thought he could help Amy while in reality she's too #girlboss to need help????

Oh joy, it has been a while since IDW made me feel stupid <3 I nearly missed it.

[rubywolf0201]

If there’s one thing that Amy admirable, is the fact that she embodies the trope of ‘Any normal person can become a hero in their own rights’.

I mean, look at Amy’s development from CD, assuming if you want to think it’s her past self, where she was just a normal hedgehog girl that got kidnapped by Metal Sonic but upon getting her first taste of adventure when being she was saved by Sonic, Amy started to involve herself in his adventures as a training of some sorts.

Over time, we see her strength and potential developing in the many courses of the game to the point that she has other ways to get powerful asides from her signature hammer:

- For one, she can perform some parts of Sonic’s moves like his spin dash for example. Sure it’s a bit clunky due to some parts of it using her hammer to boost it but it’s still impressive given that Sonic never taught her any of his moves but here we are! (I’m of the personal headcanon that Amy observed his spin dash many times and has attempted to try it many times before mastering it)

- Amy is known to use her signature Piko Piko Hammer but as evidenced by Sonic Advance 3, she is capable of wielding a big ass hammer when partnered up with Knuckles!

- She has the potential to go toe to toe with Sonic, Shadow and Silver but while she isn’t there just yet, she is trying!

These are some of the things I’ve seen of Amy so far. But I just want to point out that Amy has grown out of being ‘normal’. Amy got herself into Sonic’s adventures not only because of her crush on him but also it’s fun to her and to get her adrenaline rush too!

[notajinn]

Top Games Played in 2023 - Number 6: Sonic Superstars

6. Sonic Superstars (PS5)

The first new 2D Sonic game since Sonic Mania had a lot to live up to.

Note that this writeup will have SPOILERS because there's some things I need to talk about that require them.

What I Like

First and most importantly, Sonic Superstars is not trying to be like Mania or even the classic Genesis games. It is clearly its own game, and I appreciate that. The physics are nearly matching those games, but the level designs give it a more unique feeling closer to the Sonic Advance series.

In general I think they did a great job with the level designs. They feel fun, unique, and mostly don't overstay their welcome. They also have a bit more emphasis on exploration, but not to the extreme level of Sonic CD.

The final zone in particular is hands down my favourite final zone in a 2D Sonic stage. Act 1 is already pretty cool, but Act 2 involves going through Act 1 backwards! I know that's been done in other games, but this is the best it's been executed in a Sonic game.

I love that there are character-specific stages. This is especially helpful for Tails who never got stages designed for him in the old games, and Amy Rose who just wasn't playable. As a big Tails fan, I really enjoyed the Tails-specific stage because it gave a challenge for a character that is otherwise considered the "easy mode" in previous games. Precise flying and backtracking were the right way to go about it.

Amy's playstyle is quite fun where she is somewhere between Sonic and Hammer Kirby. She's not quite as combat-focused as Sonic Advance, but in exchange she does platforming much better here.

The other new playable character Trip is also a lot of fun. Her spin dash lets her travel along walls similar to one of the Wisps in Sonic Colours. She has gets a very unique and weird Super form.

Speaking of super forms, this game has what I consider the easiest special stages in 2D Sonic. Not only are they about as easy as Sonic 3 & Knuckles Blue Sphere stages, but they are also extremely easy to replay if you fail since you can replay levels from the hub world. This makes them less stressful. This is also important because you actually get tangible differences from each Chaos Emerald thanks to the Emerald powers. Since I played as Tails outside of character-specific stages these weren't as important to me, but they have some useful functions like a screen clearing attack, an additional jump for a limited time, or a climbable tall vine. I found these powers most useful during boss fights.

I love that Fang the Sniper returned after so long. He's one of my favourite Sonic characters, so seeing him with a proper 3D model in game and in the animated cutscenes is just really cool. I also appreciate that he's still somewhere between genuinely dangerous and a goofball. They did a good job capturing his vibe in the aerial boss fight against him.

Adding a simple hub-world gives the game a nice level of polish. It also makes it easier to retry stages, or play the optional stages like character-specific acts or unlockable fruit acts.

The game is surprisingly long with 11 Zones, and you unlock a second Trip-specific campaign after finishing the game. I haven't tried the second campaign yet, likely leads to the true final boss

As a Tails player, I found it much easier to defeat enemies by flying in this game versus any other 2D Sonic. One other small thing is you get a special cutscene for Tails completing the game (you probably get one for each character).

What I Didn't Like

By far the biggest weakness of this game is the bosses. After the first few which are pretty standard, the bosses end up becoming FAR too long. In retrospect I realized much later that they probably intended for you to use Emerald powers, and I did for the last few bosses with great success. But they are still so long, even that aerial Fang boss that I otherwise enjoyed.

The final boss in particular is so long that it's almost as bad as the Death Egg Robot in Sonic 2. But it's still not quite THAT bad.

The other huge problem of the game is the unremarkable music. What kind of Sonic game doesn't have amazing music?! Even the ones I don't like much like Sonic Heroes had an amazing soundtrack.

I'm not a big fan of the Knuckles exclusive stage; he climbs very slow.

I was also bummed that Super Tails does not get any Flickies. He just gets the general speed/jump boost and invincibility.

Another small annoyance is when you exit the shop, you always end up at Zone 1 in the hub world regardless of where you entered. And then it can take up to a full minute to navigate back to where you were.

Final Thoughts

Sonic Superstars went for something different instead of emulating that classics. This worked great for levels, but not for bosses. If they can keep this quality of level design but make bosses quicker like the classics, a sequel has the potential to be one of my favourite Sonic games.

[mzhydes-funtimes]

Aight going back to my sonic game idea

I really enjoy when games, especially platformers have two abilities (other than jumping) to their characters

For example how megaman x, at least the boss rush section of the legacy collection has two attacks: your boss weapon/mega buster and zero's sword, a long range and a short range. Now sonic is pretty simple so none of the characters need that much complexity however i do think we can borrow from this.

We'll take knuckles, for example, i think punching could be a useful skill, especially for taking on bosses, and, before i start on downsides for an extra skill I'll explain how this would work: you have three required buttons: Spin Dash (B), Jump (A), and with this addition, Action (X). For knuckles specifically, he would have Spin Dash with B, Jump with A, then A in midair to Glide, which can stick to walls, which leaves him vunerable but can climb to get to hard to reach areas. Then X would be Punch which would knock enemies back a little while knuckles moves forward a little and can defeat enemies in half the hits a jump would do. Now the downsides to these actions, still using knuckles is it slows him down to a near stop, and can be hit from behind, and if he's in a spin attack, it takes him out of it, for example you hit x in the middle of a spin jump you come out of the spin jump, pressing A again will put you back in the spin jump, but its more to incentivize "use this on the ground to take care of enemies to scout your surroundings" or use it on a boss to keep yourself safe while dealing damage to the boss.

Taking from each characters movesets as listed in my last post about this we could have

Sonic with his midair action being insta-shield when near an enemy and homing attack when no enemies are near him, and his Attack Action (X action) being Light Dash allowing him to get to places only following a trail of rings could get but he can be damaged while doing it causing him to fail the dash.

Knuckles i already explained

Tails has Spin Dash and Fly as his midair action, we could make his Tail Spin from SADX (to distinguish from advance since its the same abbreviation) his Action with he can hit in front and behind him but he is vunerable from above, below and projectiles (but knuckles would also be i just forgot about projectiles until just now lol) and he wouldnt be able to move while performing it, but he would also be able to perform it while moving, just halfing his momentum and wouldnt be able to move while using it (due to the fact that you could just spam this at full speed and be practically unstoppable due to it lasting about a second so losing momentum wouldnt really matter so to combat this and make it mechanally different to amy rose instead of amy just being a superior version of this skill i decided that this would be the change to differenciate it)

Amy is really easy. Midair would bring out her hammer giving the spin a larger hitbox then her action would stop ALL movement but would deal damage all around her except below her, similar to how she behaves in SADX except instead of just being in front of her, its also above and behind her (the hammer attack in SADX sucks lol)

Mighty would have what he already has, (A) midair to do a slam attack similar to sonics Stomp attack in Generations, his new Action would be to curl up in his shell as a shield similar to that as in smash bros but would hvae the fuctionality of kirby's Guard skill where the longer you do it the weaker it gets and you start to get pushed around and eventually take damage if held for too long.

Espio wouldnt have a midair action but instead that gets replaced with a new skill, if he falls while running or runs into a wall(thats at an angle that you normally wouldnt be able to run up) he'll run up it like knuckles climbing but he has to continue going fast or he falls, similar to sonic in SADX. His Action would be a Shuriken from SH BUT it goes straight and when it hits a wall it becomes a temporary semi-solid platform he can stand on, unless it hits an enemy in which case itll immediately disappear and insta-kill the enemy.

Vector would be similar to knuckles and also Trip with having a circle jump instead of a spin jump (theyre functionally the same as a spin jump) and as vector's midair he can glide, BUT he cant climb walls so he can pretty much stay in midair for a long time and keeps his running speed in midair but cant climb walls. His Action ability would be taken from SH and he would spit his gum out similar to Espios shuriken but wont create a platform.

Cream the Rabbit would also be able to fly just the same as tails. For her action, however, cheese would attack the nearest enemy to cream, it deals only half the damage a spin jump would but if youre surrounded spamming would be effective or use it to cheese bosses (Cheese bosses hehe)

Shadow would be almost the same as sonic except his Action would be Chaos Spear, the downside to this being that its a projectile that hits where an enemy was when initially fired (or straight ahead) but shadow is in a prone state (in in a spin) when he does it but he would also have a meter that, when filled he could use chaos control, freezing the whole stage for 10 seconds

These last three i have no clue on their Action button but i have some idea of them

Blaze is probably the most unique one on here. Instead of a spin dash she would get a meter that starts full and would refill with rings and defeating enemies with Boost. Her midair would be a homing attack as well, but ONLY a homing attack, and her Action attack would be... not entirely sure but something to do with fire, would love some feedback

Ray would have his midair be, essentially Brawl Meta Knight, as it is in Mania, however i dont know what his action could be

Charmy is honestly the hardest character to figure out, he doesnt have many skills to pull from and he's honestly the smallest playable character in any sonic game, so i genuinely have no clue, he's the stand in for tails in Knuckles Chaotix so most of his abilities are from tails and his only other playable game is heroes where his only unique skill is he can pollenate flowers, so if anyone has any ideas to make charmy unique, please, be my guest

There are a few characters that dont have a 2d appearance so they probably cant be included those being: Big the Cat, all E-1000 series, particularly gamma (whos dead so he cant be included) and Omega, Rouge the Bat, Silver the Hedgehog, and, the least favorite of all of these characters, Sticks the Badger, but i do think if given a proper characterization she could thrive

[chipstertool]

The Curious Case of Amy Rose the Rascal

Hello, this is Chipster here! Lately I've been seeing the discourse surrounding a particular character within the Sonic franchise which is a fellow pink hedgehog named Amy Rose.

From what I could gather, Amy is one of the characters that seems to get themselves into controversy by her characterization and I wanna look into her from her debut to her current "form" while also giving my own insight.

So let's start from her debut! To the 90s we go!

[Below are game spoilers]

In her debut game, Sonic CD (1993), she appears on Little Planet as a somewhat genderbend version of Sonic. It seems like a love at first sight thing and follows him through Collision Chaos until she gets kidnapped by Metal Sonic. The game itself has no dialogue while the game manual [PC/US version] has some with the former naming her Sally to possibly tie in to SatAM. After she is saved by Sonic in Stardust Speedway and out of Little Planet, all we get is a short scene where Sonic adjusts her and making a break for it.

Again, these games have no dialogue so you'll have to come up with something at that time.

By the time the Dreamcast was finally out and about came Sonic Adventure (1998) where we could play Amy's campaign story and also use her Piko Piko Hammer which first appeared in Sonic the Fighters (1996). This is also the period where she has a full redesign of the one we all know today. In her story, she reminisces her time during Sonic CD (possibly) and wishes there was that thrill and excitement of adventure until she encounters Birdy.

By her opening cutscene, we can interpret or explicitly state that she loves adventure just as Sonic.

After the opening, Amy approaches Sonic in hopes he'll take care of Birdy which is differs between EN and JP: in EN, Sonic says "No way! Uh uh." while in JP, Sonic says "I guess I have no choice." Fast-forward, Amy meets E-102 where he develops a change of heart where Amy considers him as friend the next time they meet. This kindness is also displayed where she goes out of her way to defend E-102 as she believes that he's a good person and telling Sonic that he helped them escape.

With this, this can be interpreted as Amy being a good-hearted person who believes the good in others, doing her best in her own abilities, and having Sonic respect her (or make him turn around depending on the EN or JP) from her ending.

Amy also appears in Sonic Adventure 2 (2001) as a minor character but has a small role towards both Sonic and Shadow. In Sonic's case, he gets rescued by her where she displays a seemly playful nature where she asks him to marry him then proceeds to let him out afterwards. In Shadow's case, Amy tells him to give the people on Earth a chance which brought back the real memories of Maria's wish, in which, pushes his drive to save everyone.

Now, this is where the franchise would've ended due to the Dreamcast being discontinued the same year SA2 came out (I wouldn't blame people that think that way as they might've believed at the time being the end of Sonic as the time) although Sega made a shift into being a third-party developer. So, in a way, this marks the end of Amy Rose within mainline Sega consoles.

This is where I like to call, the shift from First-Party Amy to Third-Party Amy.

Now, with Sega doing third-party stuff, the Amy seems to be in good hands with being playable in Sonic Advance and whatnot until Sonic Heroes (2003) where it slowly cracks to what shaped the "stalker fangirl yandere type" Amy received as the most notable moment was her trying to get Sonic into marriage which are there in both EN and JP. It doesn't help that Sonic Battle (2003) presents her (aside from a slight hint of her hardworking nature) in a way that's perceived as obsessive towards Sonic which fuels the fandom's dislike and/or hatred towards Amy.

Through, the whole marrying thing could be interpreted by some as being playful, calling back to SA2, most however differ. There is no video of Sonic Battle's JP version since this script is in the EN version.

With Shadow the Hedgehog (2005), she seems mellowed out a bit as she assists Shadow throughout the hero path. On the other hand, Sonic Rush (2005) has her proclaims to be Sonic's girlfriend in Blaze's campaign when she first meets her and a aggressive manner in Sonic's campaign where he asks about Blaze where she interpreted the 'girl' part until she realizes it was Blaze as she met her earlier beforehand.

Although, this may be from a surface-level perspective since she does have that side that shows off her usual self just like in SA1 and 2. Later in Blaze's story, she does tell her that it's okay to ask for help and does calm down to mention where she was in Sonic's story.

In Sonic Riders (2006), she's a bit less obsessive and seems to slowly mellow out from Sonic Battle as she a bit flirty & does get angry at him for creating tornado while she was with Eggman as it slightly implies she has some limits with Sonic, though it may be me. This also seems to be the case in Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) where she's looking for Sonic but tags along with Silver on finding their respective person until she stops from hurting Sonic while also forming a bond with Elise. This also continues in Sonic Unleashed (2008) where she apologizes to were-Sonic where Sonic, to my surprise, is distraught by this while also curious about what happened to him. I should add that the date was mentioned in Sonic Unleashed where it plays at the end of Sonic and the Black Knight (2009) where Sonic was unable to via teleportation and to Amy, she saw this as him forgetting about the date.

With these set of games after Sonic Battle, it seems that Amy is in her resting period as she seems to slowly retrace back to her "First-Party" self during the mid to late 2000s with some slight hiccups that people like to put a huge emphasis on, causing the flanderization to continue.

Now we head into the 2010s where she varied to say the least as some people may say she was at her worse or her best during that decade since she's there most of them doing other stuff. Make what you will about 2010s Amy as we go on to the recent decade of the 2020s as we have this pink rascal in Sonic Frontiers (2022) where it divides outsiders and fans on how she's viewed.

People claim she's better now due to the notion of 2000s Amy, especially within stuff like Sonic X and Heroes, and that she isn't a one-note Sonic-crazed fangirl anymore. On the other hand, people claim that Amy is now the 'basic main girl' of the group which is often associated with being either the level-headed one, mature one, or 'group mom' and that all her flaws (plus quirks) have been removed to make people like her to which points to the first point of view above.

There are possibly two outcomes that may come from Frontiers afterwards: Amy slowly comes back to her first-party self from 1998 and show people what made Amy, Amy to begin with or that she becomes someone people will eat up just because of her controversial characterizations in specific games.

So why does Amy get all the attention while other characters like Blaze, Rogue, and even Wave are often praised. To me, it may come down to how they're handled on their characterization along with their interaction on others, especially with male characters.

[aether-weather]

The game that lets Knuckles carry people around while he's gliding is Sonic Advance 3. Other playable characters include Tails, Amy, and Cream- but there's more movesets than just five due to the way the team system works- though every character has the same tag actions. Knuckles always carries friends around in the air, and either throws them or is thrown on the ground( I think is thrown), and Cream always lends friends The Blue Demon™ on the ground and multiplies vertical momentum in the air! Tails does what you'd expect in the air, I don't remember what he does on the ground. Amy as a partner actually gives everyone a hammer in their moveset, and I don't remember her tag actions either.

[theplotghost]

amy for the ask meme???

:D !! Tyty another ask whaaaaat!!

favorite thing about them

Amy puts 200% of her time, energy, passion into everything she does. She's just so much in such a good way...intensely loving for her friends and determined.

least favorite thing about them

She gets shafted by the narrative a lot.

favorite line

"Just watch me. I'll make that Sonic respect me!" - SA1

brOTP

I have to pick one? Because Amy/any of her friends counts, right? Like damn she's got enough love to go around.

OTP

Amy x Blaze, Amy x Shadow, and Amy x Knuckles all tied for first place bc I can see them as being QPRs as well.

nOTP

Sonic x Amy (romantic). Idk, it just doesn't gel. Sonic spent so many years dodging her advances, they both deserve better.

random headcanon

She keeps increasing the weight of her hammer as she gets stronger.

unpopular opinion

Shes not straight (not that anyone on Tumblr is gonna think that's unpopular lol). She's gay, bi, pan, oriented aroace...but she's not straight.

song I associate with them

Favorite picture of them

[mintmechs]

Hello, sorry for bothering you, but do you have any sny headcanons for how the Sonic characters would interact with an autistic character? (Sonic, Knuckles, etc.)

hello hello! thanks for the ask! hmmmmmmmm • tails would be really supportive of people's special interests! he'd love to listen and learn about new things, and he can resonate a lot with seeing someone be passionate about something, no matter what that might be or how "strange" or "out of the norm" it may be considered by others (think tails' backstory). the last thing he wants is for anyone to feel like they matter less for caring about what makes them happy. he'd encourage any and all rambling and chip in too! if there's anything he can do to help fuel someone's hobby, such as providing materials or tools, or making up a small gadget to aid with it, he'd be in full disposition to do so. he'd want to do everything possible with his skills in terms of accessibility, i.e. sensory, and with information by doing research on and helping the character's and his own friends to better understand autism • knuckles is good at listening for the needs of others and he has a great deal of patience, so i think he'd be very understanding of how nonverbal communication works, and i know he'd be great to just sit in silence with. he's no stranger to taking things literally or missing social cues that should seem "obvious" so he'd make sure that nobody has to go through unnecessary confusion and call out anyone who gives you a hard time with that. he'd try to gently steer the character away from self-harm, i.e. by giving alternatives to release that anxiety or create a more soothing environment. he'd be pretty concerned at first and i think it'd take him a bit to know exactly what to do but he's a fast learner • i bet sonic would be great with leading stimming sessions or joining in them, routines with lots of high energy and movement! he'd gladly accompany the character on a jog or shake his hands along with them (think sonic advance idle sprite animation where he does exactly this and also stretches his legs). he definitely won't be one to judge • i don't feel as confident in my understanding of shadow's character yet but i have a feeling he'd be surprisingly good at dealing with meltdowns. don't ask how it's just a gut feeling based on what little i've seen of him • espio + breathing exercises! that is all. also charmy bee would be the best drawing partner if they're an artist, he loves to draw

sorry i don't have too many thoughts on this but it was fun to think about! i hope that these were helpful to answer your question, anon. i tried to focus on ways of interacting that align with autism-specific experiences though ultimately the characters would treat a character with autism with the same respect as anyone else • bonus: amy smashes ableist folks with her hammer

[scorpiolight-madd]

Laid-Back Battle

Sonic Rebellion: Chapter 1 - Scene 1 (1st Draft)

I’ve been wanting to upload drafts, so I can show the progress I make on the series as I go. This’ll be queued, so it’s not going to upload exactly when I finish the draft, but I’ll be sure to upload them in order. Eventually, there’ll be updates and more drafts, until I finally upload the completed thing, but for now here’s the first draft!

 Sonic shoots through the forest like a rocket, zigzagging through its maze-like paths as if it were second nature, the dense foliage barely managing to slow him down. He can feel the familiar rush of adrenaline rush through him as he flips upwards, crashing into two badniks before landing on the third in what he hoped to be a really cool-looking pose."Quit showing off!" Amy calls from the forest floor below. Her stance is wide, feet planted firmly in the ground to steady herself as she swings her hammer, smashing another badnik to pieces."Wait, are we showing off?" Knuckles turns his head to blink at Amy, and an opportunistic badnik swoops down on him the moment he looks away. He snatches it out of the air, slamming it into his fist and crushing it with his bare hands without even glancing in its direction. "Hang on, I gotta think of something cool to do."

Sonic rolls his eyes, flipping over backward to send the floating badnik he had been posing on hurtling into a tree. He lands deftly on the grass below, backflipping to kick another badnik out of commission. It spins off into Tails' direction, who quickly crouches to catch it. He reaches inside the smouldering hole Sonic had made, yanking out a handful of wires and sparking cords.

"Hey, did you change the types of circuits you use in these?" He calls, making Eggman pause his lazer fire."Well, yes, you mentioned last week that you were having an easier time after switching to a new type, so I thought I might give it a try.""It looks really good! Though you may want to rewire a few things, I noticed you're probably overloading the-""Tails!" Sonic interrupted, giving his little brother a what-on-mobius-do-you-think-you're-doing type look."Oh, yeah, sorry." Tails tosses a bomb over to two advancing badniks, shorting them out with a blast of electricity. They collapse in the grass, their metal shells falling off and piling around them. Eggman heaves a sigh, staring down at the mechanical carnage."Do you guys have any idea how hard it is to clean this stuff up?"Sonic simply shrugs, his snickering destroying his attempt at feigned ignorance.

"Well, now I'm gonna..." Eggman glances around his Eggmobile for something, anything to attack them with. "... Go back to my lair and think of something to destroy you with. I'll be back.""Seeya, Egghead!" Sonic waves, shouting at Eggman's retreating form. The moment he's out of sight, Sonic turns back to his friends. "How much do you wanna bet he's gonna come back with a robot we've already beaten before?""It's likely." Tails shrugs. "Honestly, it seems like he's starting to run out of ideas.""Maybe it's a budget issue?" Amy suggests, resting her hammer over her shoulder as she turns to head back to the village. The others chuckle, close on her heels.

The forest grows silent as the team of heroes leave to return home, only the quiet sparking of broken machines and wind rustling the leaves above. Sunlight glints off their metal exteriors, the smoke slowly dissipating in the gentle breeze. A rustle finally breaks the silence, a cloaked figure stepping out of the shadows to survey the destruction. Heels sink into the soft dirt below as they circle the robots, kneeling beside one to run their hand against its shell. They frown, looking over to the opening between the trees. They could just barely make out the heroes' retreating forms.

[leverage-commentary]

Leverage Season 2, Episode 13, The Future Job, Audio Commentary Transcript

Marc: Hello, Marc Roskin, producer and director of this episode.

Amy: Hi, Amy Berg, supervising producer and co-writer of this episode.

John: John Rogers, executive producer.

Chris: Chris Downy, executive producer, and co-writer of the Future Job.

John: Uh, this, did this start out of the haunting episode? Is this how the psychic came about?

Amy: The origin of this? No, the um, no I don't think so. Psychic Job was—

John: Was that Dean's?

Amy: No, it was literally a card that was on my board at the beginning of the season, along with Three Days of the Hunter, and Two Live Crew Job, so this was essentially plucked from the well.

John: This was one of the ones that sat there, that sat there for a long time, she was great, what, uh...

Marc: Jen Taylor, local Seattle actress. She was wonderful.

John: But it was Dean who really dug in on this one, because he really liked the bad guy. He really said, you know, ‘I really wanna hammer the fake psychics.’

Amy: Yeah, and he was the one who, sort of, had the vision of, sort of, making this a Parker episode and, sort of, getting to delve deeper into her backstory a little bit.

Chris: And there's Luke Perry.

John: Luke Perry was fantastic.

Amy: He was great.

John: How did we wind up casting Luke Perry?

Chris: I think it was suggested by our casting folks, and I think it was the first one on his list, and he said, Luke Perry would be fantastic for this role. And we all, we were kind of like wow. You know, you didn't really think of him as- as an evil psychic.

Marc: I would leave my wife for Luke Perry. 

[All Laugh]

John: Luke Perry—uh, as a director, why don't you talk about working with Luke Perry, Marc?

Marc: He was wonderful. I mean, you can just really, when someone has that much experience working in television, I mean, it's amazing. He was on time, he never left set, he was always talking about character and would take any suggestions, you know, from me as a director, if you wanted to go another way, just let me know; he was just a dream to work with.

John: Now, what was the idea on this particular setting for the psychic, instead of like a formal office, or like, what was the set dec idea on this?

Marc: Well we wanted to have him working out of, like, a home type office, and actually we had to find something that we could build on the stage to work on.

John: Oh so that wasn't a location, that was-

Marc: No, that was just our basic, uh, hospital and Gina apartment set.

John: [Laughs] The Frankenset.

Marc: Shot on the same day as this day, on the stage, in our bar.

John: Okay, cool. Nice shot through the glass, by the way. I didn't know those taps worked. If I'd known those taps worked I would have been up north a lot more often.

Marc: They work. As soon as you request it, Eric Bates we'll start pumping a keg through them.

John: And this actor playing the brother—

Marc: Uh, Eric Riedman, he was great, too. I mean, he really, really clicked with Tim in this scene. They really worked well together.

John: And it was interesting. We were trying to figure out—we had a great victim, but ordinarily our victim has already had the thing done to them, but in the design of this, you needed the victim to sort of be in suspension.

Amy: Yeah, we needed a proxy. And uh, the brother was sort of a great emotional investment tool for us.

John: Yeah. And Portland actor, just a really, really great job. That was a good, 'I hate that guy moment', when we made her pregnant. And uh—

Chris: And taking her house.

John: Take her house, don't leave money on the table.

Amy: I guess we should point out that, uh, I named a lot of these characters - with the exception of Dalton Rand, Luke Perry's character - after the assistants on our show.

John: Oh, this one is the one where we used all the—

Amy: Yeah, it's Wilson, it's Nicholas, and Ryan, and—

Chris: I love that logo there, by the way, that went by.

John: Oh yeah, who designed that? The great Dalton Rand logo?

Chris: Oh they did a great job.

John: It was actually designed by Derek, right? Our computer graphics guy?

Marc: Yeah, Derek Frederickson in Chicago.

John: He banged it up for us. And it is amazing, this is another one where you could assume we are doing one or the other of any of the very sundry famous psychics, but really they all use the same cons.

Amy: Yeah, they really do.

John: And I’ll also say, Derren Brown was a big influence on this episode.

Amy: Yeah, I think you and I are maybe a little too obsessed with Derren Brown, and uh—

John: He is dreamy.

Amy: He's dreamy and he's sort of an—

John: And a powerful, commanding presence.

Amy: And he's an expert in NLP, which a lot of the stuff we talk about in this episode is, and he debunks a lot of psychics and mediums and things of that sort.

John: That's a really interesting way, too, by doing shows that make it look like he has those abilities.

Amy: And Apollo Robbins, our consultant, was helpful in, sort of, submitting some great terminology for us to use throughout.

John: Oh yeah, that's right, the cold reading terminology, yeah. Um, now this, where was this set?

Marc: This was an actual cable access station that they, again, just opened the doors for us. We didn't have to change any of the logos or the numbers, the people working the camera are the actual camera crew—

Chris: Wow, that's great.

Marc: —of this station, they were wonderful.

Amy: They absorbed us into their own productions.

Chris: Just like Three Days of the Hunter, this is another example of Portland opening its doors to us.

Marc: So all those monitors, they had up and running and feeding through our system as well, it was great.

John: Now did you take a look at any of the extant shows, in order to, sort of, see how this works?

Marc: Uh, I did, and a lot of it at first was just to see the set. And everybody—once you start looking at their sets—were like 'oh, maybe ours is a little too pretty.' [All Laugh] Some of them were just like two chairs and an easel, with something leaning against it.

John: 'I'm gonna sketch what your dead mother is saying.'

Marc: And then our construction crew, you know, built the risers, so we can have some depth with the audience. This was a fun scene. It wasn't supposed to be a physical scene, but Eliot and Lathrop turned it into one, so it was kinda fun.

Chris: I love when he gets mad here.

Amy: This was supposed to be a con, and then it turned into something altogether different.

John: He's just really annoyed at that dude up in his face. And you know what's interesting is we- it was a little weird developing this, because all the tricks that a lot of fake psychics use—not the real psychics, of course, with giant lawyers behind them, but the fake psychics use—are actually techniques we use in the cons, and so it was kind of this weirdly recursive thing. It's like, we're kind of exposing to the audience how they do this, but we do it every week.

Amy: Yeah, we're exposing ourselves as much as we're exposing Dalton Rand here.

John: And this is where he goes into cold reading. What was the—and it's interesting, cold reading is a fascinating subject, there's actually a couple great books that Apollo Robbins hunted up, and the idea that just by playing the numbers, just by playing the odds, any one of these guys can hit at about 80 to 85 percent success rate.

Amy: Yeah, it's act- it's basically asking a series of questions, and, sort of, gauging reactions to people without knowing anything about them in advance. Whereas hot reads or warm reads, as they’re sometimes called, are basically doing your homework beforehand, and getting research on the people you're about to meet with and, sort of, using that knowledge to, sort of, manipulate them.

Chris: The hot read is really more what our guy's doing, which is kinda how this thing broke down in the episode, was when we hijack and sort of take it over and hot read.

Amy: Yeah. Well we, the team basically underestimates Dalton here, and he surprises them.

John: They think that once they throw him, they'll get him, and he's able to cold read Parker. Which is also a big thing, not just in anchoring Parker's story into the episode, but the show always works when the nemesis is a bit more formidable.

Amy: Absolutely.

John: And it was kind of important, especially since Luke's kind of a really nice, he's got a nice guy vibe, it was kinda really important to start to hammer in on the fact that this guy is as good as they are. If he knew they were coming, this would be a very different game.

Amy: And I think Tim is great in this scene, because he's playing the audience, he's like, ‘Wait a minute, like, we were supposed to come in and sort of take over this guy, and he's sort of manipulating Parker, and surprising me in turn.’

John: Wow, look at Beth there. She is working.

Chris: Now, how'd you work with her on this when you went into this scene?

Marc: Um, it was interesting, because the scenes we shot first are the scenes later where it was really emotional in the Leverage apartment, where she really broke down, so she was already at that place once, and she just brought it right back, and I think Luke worked really well with her.

John: I also like that beat in the van where Jeri sort of chose, it was a very nice choice, where Aldis has got Hardison really pissed off, and Jeri's just admiring the craft. She's not as emotionally invested in the team, so she can kind of step back and admire this guy's chops.

Marc: And this scene was just such a great scene where all of our actors work so well together in, not only just rehearsing it, but getting Beth to a certain place, you know, where she should be, they were all really emotionally involved in this, and took a lot of time to rehearse—

John: Probably took twice as long as we usually do to shoot this stuff.

Amy: Well yeah, it was the characters being really protective of Parker, and the actors being really protective of Beth, it was really great.

Chris: Well I think it was actually, when it was written, more angry. You know what I mean? And I think seeing the dailies, it was, like, she took it to this incredibly vulnerable place that I don't think it really was on the page.

John: Also big credit to Dean Devlin, because he also had pushed that.

Marc: He did, he did. And this was a great scene, we have all the emotional arc with Beth, but as you guys were just explaining, in the script we explain the hot read and the cold read and we break it all down.

John: Yeah, and this is—again, we are always agonizing over how to explain this stuff, and having someone with a specific emotional response or attitude in the scenes makes a giant difference. And having it be Parker, who the audience is very very fond of, really helps, you know. We're now dumping an enormous amount of exposition on your plate, and you don't care.

Chris: Right, because it's—you know, we're seeing her in this really, just devastated place.

Marc: And we just found out a lot about her past that we didn't know about.

John: And he—I love that look up, just like, ‘Help me out here, I got nothing.’

Chris: Well the thing about it, and we'll talk about it when we get there, but the way she plays the scene at the end, with the brother, really was informed by all this, which was not at all on the page at all.

Marc: Right.

Chris: Like, when she hugs the victim's brother, and we'll get there, it's as if she's hugging her own brother.

John: And also it's interesting, because—oddly, it certainly wasn't intended, but it's just the way TV shows evolve—it helps, sort of, explain her relationship with Eliot and Hardison, you know. That's sort of how she fell into that rhythm, and that sort of proxy family—

Chris: It was not intended.

John: I would like to say, I'd like to say it was a sort of subconscious Alan Moore idea space.

Amy: Speak for yourself Chris, I totally did that on purpose.

John: Like two years ahead, like two years in advance?

Chris: Oh sure. That's what you're supposed to do on these commentaries—

Amy: Yes, many many years.

Chris: —you're supposed to go 'well, you see, I laid these—'

John: 'So this moment, two years earlier—'

Amy: Reason we're awesome, number 427.

John: But here's what's amazing is, we really, we're always like, in the show, could we possibly fool people with this? And then when you do this, this explanation scene, could you possibly fool anyone? They do! This is how they do it! We're not making any of this up.

Amy: No.

John: If anything, we're giving them better tech.

Amy: We're giving them ideas on how to be better at it.

Chris: And by the way, from a technical standpoint, these scenes were very difficult to shoot because we're going from monitors to action—

Amy: To flashbacks.

Chris: —to flashbacks, very hard.

Marc: And they're all green screens on the day we're shooting them.

John: Oh that's right, we didn't have the footage.

Amy: Nothing was on these monitors.

Marc: Nothing is on the monitors.

Amy: All we had was a nice bulletin board.

Marc: Yeah, we had a little bulletin board to show that they had the seating chart. And here, one of my favorite lines is coming up, it's just a great release valve, with all this tension, and, and her emotions—crying.

John: Yeah, you can see her turning, too. There's the sort of old Parker coming back, and the anger kind of building up in her face.

Amy: Yeah it's like, wait a minute...

Marc: And then this line from Eliot. 'Can we kill him?' 

[All Laugh]

Chris: I think that was you.

John: Yeah that was, I think that was me. Quite sure. ‘Yeah, alright [Laughs] absolutely.’ I like, and Chris played it just right too, like...

Chris: Just a shrug.

John: And it's interesting, 'cause, that actually was intentional in the back half of the season this year. We really want to remind people, Eliot Spencer used to kill people. I mean, because it's really easy, because Chris is very charming, and he's very funny... yeah he was not a pleasant human being by any stretch of the imagination. And every now and then, you lose it a little, you know what I mean? You lose track of it, because he's such a nice guy. And who's that?

Marc: That is Lana Veenker, our casting associate there in good old Portland.

Amy: How did that come about? [Laughs]

Marc: You know what? We were just reading people and all of a sudden I'm like, ‘Why don't you read?’ 'No no no, I won't. Okay, gimme thirty seconds.' All of a sudden she read and we were like, 'Done.'

John: Done. We're out.

Chris: Didn't we write some pages where they have a long passionate kiss here? 

[All Laugh]

John: Yes, we did. We did—actually we didn't write them, you know, they were faxed in, and I don't know where they came from.

Chris: Handwritten.

Amy: Yeah I think it was a Portland IP address, somehow.

John: Yeah, it was a little creepy, to tell you the truth. [Amy Laughs] Ah, no. And this, uh—you know, we need a new name for the assistant who's not a Busey.

Chris: Uh... Well, I mean...

John: Because we've had a couple.

Chris: Lackey? It’s kind of a lackey.

Amy: Do people know—have we explained—

John: We've explained the Busey's on both seasons.

Amy: Okay good.

John: Uh, yeah, he's not quite a lackey, he's more of a henchman.

Chris: Henchman, yeah.

John: For those of you building the characters in Savage Worlds, he would have one wild die. [Laughs]

Amy: Lackies don't have lines, henchmen do.

John: Ah, there you go, good point.

Marc: And this scene as well, the opening scene in this office was shot at like, one in the morning, twelve o'clock at night, Luke's first day—

John: [Laughs] Welcome to Leverage, Luke.

Marc: Yeah, exactly. And he just rocked it out.

Amy: Yeah, he's great.

John: He landed unctuous. It was a pity because it was one of those performances where in the middle you're like, ‘Oh man, I love when we find an actor and we want to bring them back— oh wait, he's a villain.’ This almost never happens with villains.

Marc: Yeah.

John: Drew was the exception, but he was a good guy villain.

Chris: I think he mentioned that he was a—he is a con man here, and that he could always have a twin brother.

[All Laugh]

Amy: Without the beard and mustache.

John: This is, uh, I actually showed up on set, I think this day, or the—I flew in...

Amy: This was my first day too.

John: Yeah, and we arrived and Marc was in the middle of planning the most insane thing ever.

Amy: Well, the thing is, I put this camera move in the script thinking and hoping maybe just to freak Marc out—with no expectation that he could possibly pull it off—as a joke!

John: Oh like the giant blue whale structure.

Amy: Yeah, yeah, as a friggin joke, and then like, he shows me this move, and, like, I nearly died.

Marc: I thought about it, and I was like, ‘Well, can we do it?’ And our First AD David Wechsler and New York AD goes, 'Do you want it?' I'm like, 'Yeah.' He goes, 'Then we could do it.'

John: Yeah, Wex stops traffic in New York; stopping traffic in Portland wasn't—'cause that's what happened, I showed up and I'm like, 'I'm going to the set' and they're like, 'I'm sorry sir, you can't go. They stopped traffic.' 'Well I know, but I'm a writer' 'No no, they're doing some sort of s—' I'm four blocks away! What the hell?’

Chris: By the way, Jeri Ryan here, fantastic look from Nadine—

Amy: Yeah.

John: And she's also got a great character going here—

Marc: She looks fantastic.

Chris: Got a great character.

John: This is a softer character than Jeri usually gets to play, even in the cons.

Marc: A little hippie-ish, yeah.

Chris: The hair was great. I mean really, they nailed this.

Amy: Well Luke even comments on it, “It’s a little on the nose, but [laughs] it works for you.”

John: But that’s the idea, to just kind of you know, not try to overthink it.

Amy: Yeah, it’s great.

John: And it was interesting, again, the—Jeri was great for us and she was really fantastic all year, but you know one thing she mentioned is, she got to play roles that nobody usually lets her play, even within the cons.

Amy: Yup.

John: And there’s another clue for you, where she spent the last—the time before her con career.

Marc: And here comes the shot.

Amy: I’m excited just thinking about it.

John: I’m a little giddy. Yeah, there you go.

Chris: Oh, around the corner!

John: Now that’s all done in camera, so what happens is you have to have everyone within view of that camera freeze. And then the camera man basically runs, we put a steadicam through and then we digitally speed it up.

Marc: Poor Gary Camp.

Amy: Gary Camp!

John: Poor Gary Camp.

Chris: Now that I thought about it, I bet you in the finale that’s what prompted Dean to do that shot with Sterling. 

John: Right.

Chris: I bet Dean was like, he saw this and he was like ‘Oh you wanna try and top me with that? Well come and watch this!’

[All Laugh]

John: ‘I start and stop it four times!’

Chris: ‘I gave you your chance!’

Marc: But I don’t know, if you play it back you can see we also put some digital birds that are stopped—

John: Seriously? Like, if you slow-mo it you can see?

Marc: Yes. If you slow-mo it you’ll see two pigeons in the middle and we pass right past them.

Amy: That’s awesome.

John: I like the fact that, again, they’ve electrified the table, and that Nate is on board with Parker. ‘Cause again, that’s one of those little hints that Nate’s… sadism, for lack of a better word? is really starting to overtake his good judgment.

Amy: Yes. He’s—yeah it’s, little by little he’s starting to sort of fall to pieces here and sort of turn to the dark side.

John: Well, what’s nice is we started with the arc with the hospital one with- with the sadism, and then, you know, we had to sort of lean back on it for Gina’s arc. And then when we came back it was nice, that was basically the thrust of the back episodes. This was a lot of fun coming up with what the possible fucking visions could be. Oh that’s… I’m sorry, I’m drinking. [Amy Laughs] They’re used to me swearing on these by now! This really is like making, building a puzzle backwards.

Marc: This was really clever writing, and then to have the ability to shoot it was so much fun.

Amy: Aw. Thank you Rosky.

John: Yeah. We try to keep you entertained up there, after all your—this was only your fourth?

Marc: Yes.

Amy: Fourth episode?

John: Fourth episode, with no notice.

Marc: Yeah.

Amy: How was this episode different from the other three you’ve done?

Marc: It was fun to be in different places, you know, just to new places in Portland. It was fun to have a guest star like Luke to work with. And I loved having the emotional hook with Parker, ‘cause my first episode I did in the first season was a Parker episode, it was the Stork Job.

Amy: Oh! This is like your Parker bookend basically. That’s great.

John: Also it was interesting, watching with the sound off, I didn’t realize that’s one of the longest villain character scenes we’ve ever had. Like just when he’s parked there at the chair and she runs the con on him. Luke was really, really great.

Amy: He’s not bad to look at. [John Laughs] That’s kinda my job since you’re all dudes. [Laugh]

John: Well you know, I can appreciate a nice piece of man flesh as much as the next person. What is in this?

[All Laugh]

Marc: And the coffee finally spills.

John: And did we do the driving stunt there? No the driving—yes, the driving stunt’s after this.

Chris: It’s after this, yeah.

Amy: Yeah, yeah it was, the first part of it yeah.

John: But we shot it that day.

Amy: With the amazing, highly maneuverable Hyundai Genesis.

John: Hyundai Genesis was great. If you’re gonna murder someone with a car, the Hyundai Genesis is the way to go.

Marc: This was another local actor, I mean he just has… what a great face for television.

John: You know what, he looks a little like the British actor Peter Mullan actually, the guy who was on The Fixer?

Amy: He does! Yeah he does.

John: It’s really, I’ll tell you what Portland gave us - good cops.

Marc: Yes.

Amy: Oh yeah.

John: Our cops up there, ‘cause we just look at the Bottle show, and the three guys who played the Boston cops in the background, they’re just grounded.

Amy: This guy smells cop. [Laughs]

Chris: If you’re a cop-looking guy living in LA and you wanna get some work...

Everyone: Move to Portland.

Amy: We’ll employ you!

Chris: Just go! You listen to this right now? Load up the car, get up there! There’s work for you, my friend.

John: After these commentaries come out, people are gonna be on buses. There’s gonna be, like, bus tours for actors. And this was a lot of fun, was coming up—this was actually, I think we’d had the fortune cookie con in something. What was the story? Remember? We’d had it on the board for a while. The fortune cookies, the substituting.

Amy: Oh dude, so long ago; I wish I had the answer to that.

John: A lot of the, I mean that’s the thing is, there’s actually in the writer’s room a board of stuff.

Amy: Yeah.

John: And some of the stuff has been around long enough that it’s like, I know there was a provenance.

Amy: I think there was a fortune cookie con card.

Chris: Mm, I don’t know if a whole… might have been a story beat; it wasn’t a whole con.

John: Not a whole con, it was a story beat, yeah. But the idea of substituting—

Chris: This is a great- Here we go; here it is. [Laughs]

Amy: Look at it shining in the sun, beautiful.

John: And that’s a great—what was the choice on the, like in the moment, in the script it just says, ‘He realizes.’ How did you decide to go to the slow-mo and..?

Marc: I wanted to do a slow-mo in the 360; the world’s kinda spinning on him and just the— 

Amy: The camera’s a great touch, too. I like it.

Marc: Yeah, well I wanted the can to just show the proximity of how close he was, how much he’s tempted fate.

John: This was also one of the sequences that—who cut this?

Marc: This was Sonny.

John: This was one of the sequences where Sonny Baskin really, really, really slammed it together because this is always tricky, figuring out how the flashbacks work. In what order, in what pace, at what exact moment in the scene. And I think in the script we played around with showing some of it upfront, and then—

Chris: How much of the dialogue to replay was kind of the trick.

John: Exactly, how much we make sure the audience is following.

Marc: And I don’t think some people were understanding, like, why I took so long to shoot that car sequence when he stepped out. That it does play later, and it does have to have different feels and looks to it.

Amy: There’s two parts to it, yeah.

John: And again, this is another one where you have to anticipate, this guy checks credit reports, we know he checked the victim’s credit report earlier, you know.

Chris: And another thing is, one of the hallmarks of our show is that when we create a character, we don’t always create powerful con characters. We create characters that have vulnerabilities that our bad guys can exploit. So here, we created a fake story of her having bad credit and being in debt for hospital bills.

John: Yeah it’s like Chris in the MMA one, Kane, he plays in a very power-negative position in that. Pretty much every variant of a con character you can possibly find.

Amy: José! The name on the cup.

John: And Chris is ridiculously delighted to be doing this at this point actually. [All Laugh]

Amy: How can you tell?!

John: I think he’s just enjoying stealing—driving a truck to tell the truth. And I love the idea that Hardison would do this and this is just what he does. He spends his weekends filling fortune cookies with fake messages. He does all the grunt work.

Marc: That’s a good shot.

John: That is a great shot. And we’re locked in. And this was also tricky, too, because again, because the victim had not been burned yet, essentially, and it was a preventative con. It’s not something we usually do, and trying to figure out how to accelerate this con, and what exactly Con A was, was really—it kicked our asses to tell you the truth.

Chris: The danger was really the tricky part, when to introduce the danger.

John: And now we knew we wanted to do the maestro Hardison beat in this script. Marc, you had a very specific reference for this whole bit, which was the radio announcer in Warriors right?

Marc: Yes. 

John: Though Hardison is basically being a geek hacker—what year was that, 1980… Walter Hill, The Warriors…

Marc: Late 70s.

Amy: ‘79, or something. Around there.

John: Basically Marc reached back, like 35 years, and found himself a really great filmic reference for her side.

Chris: Well the key here is, the writing of it was making sure to go quickly from one, to the next, to the next.

John: Boom, boom, boom.

Chris: Each piece of information feeds to her, and she synthesizes it and comes to a conclusion.

John: It also helps explain how good Tara is.

Chris: Yeah.

John: She’s gonna run this con character as she’s getting all this crap dumped into her ear.

Amy: She’s playing vulnerable to him, but sort of expert to us.

John: I also love that he’s just given up at this point. We had not told the set people to put the orange soda in the fridge, but they just filled it and it just stayed that way for the year. I love that Nate’s just given up.

Chris: Yeah, this is Hardison’s war zone. He’s gonna need to be armed.

Amy: Gummy frogs, always important.

John: Gummy frogs, a call back from the magician episode. And Aldis really dug in there, really great job. Oh that’s Ire!

Amy: That’s Ire!

John: Was our…

Chris: Camera intern?

John: Camera intern, yeah. And she does some acting, and she was fantastic. 

Amy: Her audition was fantastic, yeah.

John: Yeah, that was one of the ones where it was like, ‘Okay we’ll audition you.’ At the end of the audition, ‘Wow…you have a career in this.’ [Laughs] But she’s going into camera work. She’s gonna, believe back this year as one of our camera people...

Chris: Oh she’s gonna come back? Oh that’s great.

John: And why the choices on the lights in the- the blue? Just liked it? Just like the set of one color tone?

Marc: Yeah, just liked it. Dave had an idea about it, and it just worked real well.

John: And it stayed consistent through this setting. It’s a very nice contrast with the sort of warm orange and wood tones of like, Nate’s apartment. It helps track locations a lot easier.

Marc: And Beth freaked out a lot of people when she walked on set with that wig.

Amy: Many many people did not recognize her.

John: I know, that’s really odd, right?

Amy: It was fun.

John: It’s a great wig.

Amy: Yeah it is.

John: Hair and makeup did a great job with that, ‘cause you guys sent me the photos and I was like, ‘I have to shoot the season finale. Did they cut her freaking hair?’ No, great wig. And this is hot read, this is our crew doing hot reads on the fly, and it’s a lot like the Bottle show, where it’s like, you can’t do the wire in two hours. In theory, you can’t hot read someone simultaneously as you’re conning them. Well, you know.

Amy: Maybe you can if you’re Leverage!

John: You’ve got the little camera movements here, is that, you tried to track those or do you just assume that Camp and—?

Chris: Yeah, you’re making sure as you move in one direction on one, you move in the other direction on the other?

Marc: Uh, a little bit. We always wanna keep the sliders going, just pushing in at the appropriate moments especially when Ire- I mean she just did such a great performance, and did it in one take.

Amy: One take; it was one take.

Chris: And didn’t you say to her, ‘Save a little bit ‘cause you may need to do this again’?

Marc: Yeah. I said, I said, ‘Don’t let it all out so fast.’ And Luke was so great with her. Knowing that... He’s seen her pulling cable, and all of a sudden she’s in front and having to break down.

John: He was great with her. Now here’s the thing, most people don’t know what sliders are, why don’t you explain what sliders are? Most people know cameras move left and right but they, you know-

Marc: Sliders are what we have on our dollies and tripods that allow the camera head to move, I guess laterally, left and right, in a fluid movement. Just drifting, so always- the background’s moving just ever so slightly, so it never looks too stale or stagnant. There’s my Warrior shot!

John: And I notice you punched in, like closer, closer, til you land on it. It’s very nice. Also, I like the fact that the name of the National Transportation Safety Board—is that, that’s the name of Parker’s friend from… Peggy Milbank, is like the name that’s coming up, that’s Parker’s friend from the first season.

Amy: Yeah, it’s sort of like a little inside joke.

John: And Hardison, ‘Get the hell out of my way.’ It’s interesting, this is a big, kind of, Nate as guardian episode, and he’s not driving it. It’s one of the great episode examples of where Tim Hutton and Nate kind of just ground it, is kind of the center of it. There’s Wade.

Amy: Wade Williams, awesome actor. Perfect for this role.

John: I was wondering how he would play this reaction, because she’s, you know, he’s giving her a line of bullshit, and he’s gotta, he’s in front of everyone.

Amy: Yeah, he knows he’s on camera.

John: That reminds me of that guy who proposed to his girlfriend at the basketball game and she turned him down.

Everyone: Oh yeah!

Marc: Then the mascot walks him off.

John: Just put a- just end it. No, Wade was fantastic, he’d just come off Prison Break? Wasn’t he a guard on that?

Chris: And we had a long search for that part, too.

John: Yeah, we read a lot of guys. Well, because the original dialogue was somewhat baroque. [Laugh]

Amy: It was! It wasn’t exactly an easy thing to pull off, which is why we ended up casting it out of LA. It was just a really meaty part.

John: Nice fight coming up here, by the way. They actually banged the hell out of that van. You had to hammer a dent out, didn’t you?

Marc: Oh yeah. Yes we did. 

John: Just every now and then you bounce a stuntie off a van. Jeri mixing it up. Jeri was in there, yeah. Good hit! 

Marc: Our local stunt actors and Kevin Jackson choreographed this. 

Amy: The moment where he, sort of, notes the tattoo on the guy’s hand.

John: It’s a nice beat. It’s interesting, the Portland stunt guys really dug in. Because we did a lot more stunts and a lot more fights than four or five movies that have shot up there combined, and they really rallied. They were fantastic. And this was the—

Chris: But here’s where he has to synthesize everything. I mean, now, you know, is where he really steps forward.

John: Well this is really where he digs in on the mastermind thing. This is a good, ‘Let me get this straight’ scene. This is a nice- the ‘let me get this straight’ scene is where you just reset for the audience, you know, just reset the stakes, reset the plot.

Amy: Also known as ‘So you’re telling me.’

Chris: It’s a general rule of writing to show, not tell, and the exception to that rule is when the situation is either so absurd or entertaining that you get a second laugh on the retelling of it.

Amy: Just commenting on it.

John: ‘I wanna get this straight,’ yeah. And you can also hide it in planning, or when the characters don’t have enough information. But no, because the episode at this point—

Chris: There it is, I think she just said ‘so let me get this straight.’ 

[All Laugh]

John: ‘Cause this is the point where the episode becomes an entirely different episode, because the first con worked. Again, because that’s always the trick on these, like, in theory you don’t want something to just fall out of the sky and be wrong.

Amy: Well they basically had Dalton Rand in the bag, and then, a totally unexpected-

Everyone: It worked too well.

John: This was a lovely shot. Marc?

Chris: Oh, I love this.

Marc: This was, I wanted to try and get this in one steadicam shot and just show the energy and movement throughout. I mean we spent so much time in this apartment that it’s fun to try and mix it up again.

Chris: Oh here we go, and up the stairs!

John: Nice, how many takes was that?

Marc: I think we did it in about three or four takes.

Amy: That’s crazy.

Chris: That was it? Now that was planned as a one- or, or was that just the end of the day, we gotta get this shot?

Marc: No, that was planned. That was one shot I wanted to try and do that had a little more energy and fun to it. 

John: Marc’s lived at that set for a lot of shots, he wants to vary it up a little.

Amy: Time to mix it up. 

Marc: And this, this was an idea that Connell had. When he saw the location and the time we’re shooting at, he said, ‘Let’s establish their faces,’ and then just, she’s walking into darkness.

John: Just bump into silhouette.

Chris: And she’s in boots, so let’s pan out from them, so, let’s be honest.

Amy: That’s what boots are for.

Marc: This happened to be in the paper factory.

John: Is this the The Bottle Job paper factory?

Marc: Yes, it’s just the area that didn’t have paper. 

[All Laugh]

John: Now, yes, now we’re basically—yeah, there you go. He’s really digging in on this. ‘Come, come join me!’

Marc: And that was his idea, he said, ‘Get the lady a chair!’

John: This entire speech, I think I did drunk. 

Amy: This was me taking notes on a notepad when you were drunk in the writer’s room, reeling off this speech. 

Chris: It was a big debate about the- about what we- this guy, what was called in the writer’s room the evil scary guy.

John: Evil scary guy.

Chris: The appearance of evil scary guy. We typically don’t have dangerous villains appear late in episodes. Usually we’ve established them and so this was the idea that we were gonna have evil scary guy come at this point in the episode and you know, put everyone in mortal danger. And you went off in a very oddly baroque manner.

John: Yeah. I really—‘cause what I was doing was actually making fun of the idea. Because I was like, ‘Seriously guys, we’re gonna do this? Some guy’s gonna show up and go ‘Gentlemen, I have a problem!’’ And I basically did this speech with, like, a fistful of scotch, and Berg and Chris sat on the same side of the table and they both looked at me and went, ‘Yeah.’

Chris: ‘Yeah, yeah if you like that. That’s great.’

John: ‘Pretty much. Exactly like that. Thanks gentlemen. Debate’s over.’

Chris: ‘Debate’s done.’

John: ‘Debate’s done. That was entertaining, we all enjoyed it, therefore it is in the episode.’

Marc: This was fun to shoot; we had a circle track with, you know, two cameras and two separate dollies.

John: Wait, at the same time?

Marc: Yes.

Chris: Wow.

John: Oh, Jesus Murphy. So where is the circle track laid down, it’s on the outside of this beam?

Marc: On the outside of the beam, and yeah, just around everybody. 

John: Two sizes.

Marc: Yeah, two sizes. And then at one point towards the end we, you know, change direction, just to mix it up a bit. But it was fun to have this type of villain. In the beginning we’re dealing with someone who’s smart, looking at bank statements, and now we’re dealing with a guy with a gun and thugs, who spent time in upstate New York.

John: Yeah, and he really sold it. And also it- the rule is: the villain has to suffer. And interestingly enough, we started Darlton Rand’s suffering really early in this episode. His loss of power here is really, he has just a bad back two acts. And Luke played it very nicely. Like right here, where he’s trying to keep control.

Marc: Yeah, when he’s trying to keep control, and he’s still trying to sell the idea that he’s the psychic. 

John: Wade is terrifying. That was nice, picking up around here as she was dropping into it; that was very nicely done.

Marc: Yes, Gary Camp and Dave Connell.

Chris: Now how long did this take? Do you remember how many takes you did with this, with the circle track?

Marc: I think this scene, we… I believe we did it in just over an hour. Yeah, but it’s a lot of dialogue, and Wade did such a great job because, you know, he had to do it so many different times.

John: And there’s a lot of looks in this. There’s a lot of angles in this.

Amy: He just cracks me up.

John: Yeah, he does. He’s so happy. Yeah, you gotta bang them up from both sides, you’ve gotta pick him up talking to them. There’s no good way except a circle track to shoot that.

Marc: Yeah. I think that Jeri sells this really well in this scene.

John: She does. A little distressed, a little—

Marc: Yeah he’s walking in one direction, no, it’s not, this way. And it’s nice seeing, shooting over, oops, too early.

John: It’s always a little too early. A little too early.  Timing is a big part of the show. And yeah, fainting damsel never, never fails. 

Amy: Best stall ever.

John: Where was this? Was this, like, the storage unit place? Or this was on the road outside?

Marc: Uh, this wasn’t far from our sound stage.

John: Really? Really, we shot near the sound stage?

Chris: We got a lot of mileage within a couple hundred yards of our sound stage.

Amy: Clackamas.

John: Beautiful scenic Clackamas. And this actually, the fake registration idea came from Darwyn Cooke’s comic book adaptation of Parker. The Donald Westlake novel. In the opening of it, remember, he has the thing with Parker and—it’s one of my favorite starts to a novel, Parker’s walking into New York on the Brooklyn Bridge, like, but on the street? And people are—So what happens is, in the 1960s, he goes and gets his replacement driver’s license, and then he ages it. Because… and we spent a little time in the room like, what doesn’t have your picture on it? What can we age believably that, and, yeah that was where the idea came from. And then constructing this backwards to get the series of clues was- was a long afternoon.

Amy: Yeah, that was a tough—but then we broke this episode in one day, so it wasn’t that tough.

Marc: But I wasn’t allowed to break the window.

Amy: Oh that’s right, I remember that. Yeah, we had to, she had to jimmy it open.

Chris: ‘Cause that glass is expensive.

John: Breakaway glass is not cheap. Uh, there’s something creepily sexual about this exchange.

Chris: ‘Can I have your overalls?’

Amy: Yeah, and the look on Tim’s face, too.

John: Yeah, well I think that might not be the matching dialogue with that take, ‘cause I think it got a little dirty in that shot. Now this is a great location. I think we actually broke into a couple of storage units for this. People don’t mind, it’s Portland, they’re totally cool with us doing that. Good stall, and then we finally get Nate into a costume for the stall. Storage units, the anonymity of modern life is the key to Leverage. Storage units, cell phones, instant messaging, email, you know, I don’t think you could do this show in the 50s. And there you go, yeah.

Chris: Here he is.

Marc: Uh-oh. Gun, danger.

John: And, is that Dashiel Hammett or Raymond Chandler’s rule?

Amy: Yeah, Dashiel Hammett’s.

John: Dashiel Hammett. When in doubt, have a guy enter with a gun. And we actually have on the board in the writers room, ‘Man entering with gun > man exiting with gun.’ You have to understand, dude coming in… And Tim has an enormous amount of fun.

Chris: And this is his fumfering bureaucrat.

Marc: This was a fun shot to do. Craning up just to see, and then that’s the CG building that we added in the background.

Chris: That’s right, to set up the ending.

John: Yeah, in the original ending it was all done through remote camera, and then Dean suggested that we actually put it, attached it to it, and since cable access shows are shot in the middle of fricking nowhere, it actually worked out fine. And whenever- Oh, there you go.

Amy: Well I think Dean’s idea of that was just, sort of, to give our villain a bigger comeuppance, if he had to, sort of, face his victims...

John: Face-to-face. And that’s interesting ‘cause we always go like, you need the gloat, but you also need the suffering. And in the non-him-showing-up version, we had—

Amy: It was basically just the gloat, yeah. I mean he still ends in jail, but.

John: We have the people upset, but you know, you don’t get him looking them right in the eye.

Marc: Small spaces to work in. 

[All Laugh]

Chris: How was it like, shooting the storage locker?

Marc: It was a little tough.

Amy: I remember this day.

Marc: You know, it was a double, but we just made it look like one, so we had room to always just have the camera on one side.

Amy: Yeah, there was actually another storage locker that opened up right next to this, to the left, so we could have somewhere to switch the cameras.

John: So did you throw up like a half-wall over on that side, or is it just, stack some boxes to feel like-

Marc: We just stack some boxes and just move the camera, but you’ll notice the camera’s usually on that side, looking that direction.

Chris: And here’s where he’s really starting to lose it, ‘cause he does have an arc, from inexplicably baroque, to just completely losing it.

John: No, he totally sold this. There’s no doubt about it whatsoever. And you guys took what was a joke pitch and turned it into a real character. That was just me on a long drunken rant. I’m inexplicably baroque, in the room, often! 

Amy: This is, by the way, true. 

John: Yeah. And Luke, losing it. Really the whole confession, the whole begging; he really sold it.

Marc: And of course, you know, time constraints. His stuff was shot all at night, hers was all in the daytime.

Amy: Of course. That’s how it works.

John: Really? So looking at Luke, you were looking, you had night behind you looking out?

Marc: It was night.

Chris: Here we go.

John and Chris: Det cord. 

[All Laugh]

Amy: Det cord is great. 

Marc: Our friend for the back half of season uh—

Amy: Thank you MythBusters for det cord.

John: Thank you MythBusters for showing us how det cord worked and how effectively—

Amy: I think I pulled that from a YouTube video.

John: Yeah, well we started with Thermite, remember? ‘Cause I remember how it melted through the car and you were like, ‘No, that’s too huge’, and you found us some det cord.

Marc: Here I just wanted to have a shot of Eliot’s arms.

John: So here’s a little something for the ladies, as my wife says. And now, this is very flashback heavy, but it’s all in continuity. You did a nice job of making sure we’ve seen just enough of these that we never floated. ‘Cause sometimes it’s like, ‘Oh god, do we know exactly where we are in this flashback?’

Chris: I think we compressed a little of it in editing too. I think there was a little bit more and we kind of just moved it all.

Amy: Yeah, there’s a lot more here than…

John: Ah, the network is unhappy; they’re gonna go get one of these real psychics now, not a fake psychic like this.

Chris: And then we get to see our victim again, and our other victim.

John: The proxy victim. 

Amy: And the camera lady’s like, ‘I don’t wanna be part of this,’ backing out of the scene.

John: And the begging and the pleading. There you go. And there’s all the people who’ve been hurt. 

Chris: The man from Michigan. 

John: Did he stay in a hotel? Why is he still there? He got his reading yesterday. I don’t remember why he…

Chris: He wanted to come back; he had more to find out.

John: I guess so, I guess so.

Marc: This is always fun when you shoot things on two different days, that end, and that end.

Chris: Is Tim looking at a tennis ball, what do you do?

John: Is that like Jurassic Park? Or it’s like this tennis ball on a hockey stick is Chris’ hair. ‘Just track this.’

Chris: You just make sure your script supervisor takes good notes of uh...

John: Look at that, you’re shooting past the car! He’s in the car. 

Chris: Nice, I never would have known that.

John: Nicely done. And this is actually, you know what? The president of the network the other day mentioned how much he loves the scenes where they’re all there. Where the guy actually, like, sees the whole- the whole con.

Amy: The family gloat, as opposed to just the singular gloat.

Marc: That’s the way we pull off this show in seven days - cheating.

Amy: Cheating very cinematically.

John: I prefer to call it cable awareness.

Amy: Cable awareness? Nice.

Marc: Now I think this next scene in the bar is, I think, one of my favorite wrap-up scenes that I’ve got to direct.

Amy: It’s one of my favorite, too.

Marc: It was one of these days where it was- there were so many tears on set.

John: We were coming to the end, too; we were getting there. Everyone was kind of rung up and spun up.

Marc: But everyone just, you know, Tim and Jeri and Beth and everybody, our guest actors, everybody just came in so strong and it was great.

John: This speech, by the way, you can really tell Tim’s a dad. That’s really how he lands this speech, it’s like, yeah.

Chris: Well the story, it’s an interesting story because the little peanut butter bit, a very good friend, a writer friend, Steve O’Donnell, who is a long time Letterman writer, and he has a twin brother Mark O’Donnell—also a writer, wrote the book to Hairspray. And I remember talking to him one time about the closeness of the two of them, and he said that they’re so close, that if you laid out peanut butter, that somebody spread on different pieces of bread, he could pick out his brother’s peanut butter. And it always stuck with me that that is something that, when I was writing this scene, that there’s just things that you see in your child that you just recognize from yourself or your father, and it has nothing to do with what you did, it’s all biological. And that was really, it did a beautiful job with it.

John: Nice landing on that. And Jeri there, by the way, she’s got a little glisten going there; she got a little moist.

Chris: And here’s this moment that was not scripted at all. Well, not intended in the script, but just through the acting.

John: But that was nice. Jeri landed the arc. She kind of completed Tara’s arc through there. 

Chris: Yeah, she got it.

John: She had gone through all six episodes and she, you know, a lot of actors would come in and take up the space and say thanks for the job, but she really put in the work from [unintelligible].

Chris: There it is. I mean, that’s like...

John: I mean, she’s breaking your heart there.

Chris: She’s hugging her brother.

Marc: And I just gotta make sure that she makes that eye contact with Nate.

Chris: And it was all because that part about her brother was added after that scene was written, but she brought it together in this moment.

John: It’s a lovely beat. We have very, very good actors.

Marc: Then we release the valve and let you chuckle here.

Chris: Yes. We call it, in the comedy business, a treacle cutter.

John: A treacle cutter, yeah. And also Kane really lands these beats. He really- it goes from a smile, all the way to annoyed. He hits both of the crucial Eliot beats here. It’s the grin, and then, ‘I’m gonna kick your ass.’ He really hits all the bases on that one.

Chris: And we kind of end on her surrogate brother here.

John: Yeah. Who she may sleep with. Still haven’t decided that.

Amy: It’s a little incestual.

John: Yeah, you know, all television’s a little incestual. 

Chris: Oh they’re all...

John: What, they’re all sleeping together, is that what you meant? What’s going on up there?

Chris: No, that’s—Come on. It’s like Star Wars.

John: Oh there you go, that’s perfectly legit. Anything you want to say to the nice folks?

Amy: Thanks everybody.

Marc: Thank you. It was a great episode to work on. 

Chris: Thank you guys.

John: And actually thanks for David Wechsler, ‘cause he came in late and really helped us out on that. Really good job. And hopefully Luke Perry will be back. Less evil.

Chris: As his twin brother.

John: There you go.

Chris: Why not?

[koolkat9]

Heya! I don't know if prompts work this way, so feel free to choose whatever you want, but can you make more than one prompt into a whole story? Like - “Please, don’t leave.” , “Kiss me.” , “I think I’m in love with you and I’m terrified.” - where Francis takes drunk Arthur home, so they talk, cuddle and Arthur is more honest to Francis about his feelings than normal, so after that they fall asleep and date??? Idk if this would be too hard, anyway, tnx in advance and have a nice day!

Oooh I haven't had such a detailed request, but hey! It's very inspiring.

Prompt: “Please, don’t leave.” , “Kiss me.” , “I think I’m in love with you and I’m terrified.”

Paring: Fruk

Word Count: 1312

Are We...

‘1:00 am,’ the clock laid out in big red numbers. Who the hell would be calling at this hour? Heaving himself up from his warm sheets and comfortable bed, Francis trudged over to his dresser where his cellphone was going off.

“Ever heard of beauty sleep?” he hissed into the phone when he picked up.

“Please forgive me Francis...it's just…” Francis softened at the sound of Ludwig’s voice. Something really must have been wrong for Ludwig of all people to be calling at this hour. “I’m sorry to wake you, but would you be able to take Arthur home. I would but Gilbert tagged along tonight and he’s hammered too.”

“Say no more mon ami. I’m on my way.”

---

When he came upon the bar, he found Ludwig, clearly tired, supporting both Gilbert and Arthur who were arguing about some drunken nonsense. Normally, Francis would have found it amusing, but it was late and he had had a rude awakening.

“Bonsoir, thank you for taking care of him,” He greeted.

A look of relief flashed across Ludwig’s face. “Of course and thank you for coming so late.”

When Arthur turned his insults to him, Francis only sighed, taking the Brit into his arms. “Get your grimy hands off of me,” Arthur hissed, words jumbling together. Not in the mood to argue, he agreed and let go.

As soon as Arthur took a step he fell forward landing right on his face. Francis bit back a laugh as he helped the now sputtering man up and to the car. “Goodnight Allemagne and take care of Gilbert.”

“Goodnight.”

When he got them both situated into the car, Francis noticed Arthur furiously wiping his eyes. “Did you hurt yourself?” he asked, trying to hide his amusement, “maybe next time you don’t push me away when I’m trying to help.”

Arthur only let out a ‘hmph’ as he turned to look out the window, his head pressing against it. By the time they pulled up to Arthur’s house, the Englishman was fast asleep. He remained as such even when Francis picked him up and brought him to bed.

When they got to the bedroom, Francis debated putting Arthur in his pajamas. He ultimately decided it would be best to just tuck him in right away (he wouldn’t want to overstep any boundaries or do something so intimate without consent). It was relatively easy, or at least easier than it normally was to get Arthur in bed in his drunken state. That was until Francis got up to leave and a hand shot out to grab his wrist. “Please, don’t leave,” Arthur slurred, his grip tightening.

Francis looked at Arthur and then at their hands. He knew he wasn’t getting out of this. A soft smile spread across his face as he climbed into bed beside Arthur. “What’s this all about mon lapin?” Francis asked, laying down to be face to face with Arthur.

Arthur cuddled closer, burying his face into Francis’s chest. “Don’t...Don’t make me say it.”

“Okay, but you know you can always tell me anything. It wouldn’t be the first time one of us has confided in the other.”

Arthur’s shoulders rose and fell as he took a deep breath. “I...I think I’m in love with you and I’m terrified.”

It was as if the whole world stopped at those words. Francis, though a flirt and self-proclaimed romantic, felt his cheeks grow warm and his heartbeat quicken. With a lack of reply, Arthur’s shoulders began to shake as sobs began to rack his body.

“Oh...Oh, Arthur…” Francis murmured.

“Shut up,” Arthur shrieked, pushing away from the Frenchman, “don’t you dare pity me.”

“H-How could I? I know...I mean... I’m scared too...but I love you so much.”

“D-Don’t lie to me,” The Englishman shrieked.

“I’m not.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Then how shall I prove myself hmm?”

Arthur went quiet for a moment, his brows furrowing and his nose scrunching up slightly as he thought. ‘Just like a bunny,’ Francis thought fondly.

“Kiss me.”

Arthur was full of surprises tonight. For a moment, Francis found himself unable to form a complete sentence at the sudden forwardness. Still, Arthur was drunk so he knew his answer would be ‘no.’ “You’re drunk. Maybe when you’re sober-”

“I knew it.” With a huff, Arthur flipped himself around, his back now facing Francis.

Francis’ stomach dropped at how hurt Arthur sounded. Sure he said he liked making the man’s life miserable, but in recent times, he stopped meaning it. “Oh Angleterre," Francis whispered. Leaning over, he placed a soft, goodnight kiss on Arthur’s cheek, “maybe if you remember this tomorrow, I’ll give you the kiss you want.”

Arthur grumbled some more, but he seemed to accept it, and eventually, quiet snores began filling the room. After one more kiss planted on the back of Arthur’s head, Francis started to nod off.

---

Arthur woke up the next morning with a splitting headache. ‘When will I ever learn?’ he thought as he closed his eyes once more, trying to block out the light. When that didn’t work, he pulled a pillow from beside him and covered his eyes with it. As he tried to regain his bearings, memories from the previous night came flooding back. A blush spread across his face and down his neck as he recalled his confession to Francis. “God damn it.”

He turned himself around to find the place where Francis had been sleeping empty. His chest tightened at the thought of Francis leaving in the middle of the night after he had poured his whole heart out to him as he did. Then he remembered how the Frenchman had claimed he felt the same way. If that was true, where was he now?

“Oh, you’re up,” Francis’ voice called. Arthur turned to find him in the doorway, a glass of water and a medicine bottle in his hand. “For your head,” he explained, handing him the items. Arthur took them gratefully before settling back down and putting the pillow back over his face.

“I take it you’re not feeling too hot,” Francis said, joining him on the bed.

“Wonder what gave you that idea,” Arthur spat back, though it was more teasing than anything.

“This is why you need to be careful.”

“Okay, mum.”

“Ugh you’re hopeless,” Francis tsked. “What do you think we should have for breakfast?”

He was avoiding what happened last night. Not that Arthur had much room to speak since he also hadn’t mentioned anything. As they conversed, Arthur realized how easy it would be just to forget it all. Surely it would be easier, but at the same time, Francis' words: “I’m scared too...but I love you so much,” were still at the back of his mind.

“So...where’s that kiss?” Arthur asked, glancing away from Francis. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Frenchman’s eyes widen and his mouth fall open. He didn’t say anything for a good five minutes much to Arthur’s annoyance. “So much for the country of love,” Arthur scoffed before pressing a firm kiss on Francis’ lips. It was quick, but at least it got the message across.

“What...How...I…Espèce de petit bâtard effronté!” With that Francis was on top of him, attacking the Brit’s sides with tickles. Arthur wasn’t about to let Francis have the upper hand and started fighting back. Soon enough the two were rolling around on the bed in a fit of giggles, trying to exhaust the other and end up on top. Despite their best efforts, neither ended up winning as they tried around the same time with Francis collapsing on top of him, red-faced and panting. Arthur’s arms made their way around Francis’ waist, keeping him right where he was.

“So…” Francis began once he caught his breath.

“So?”

“Are we…”

“Lovers.” It came out as a statement, not a question.

A goofy smile spread across Francis’ face. “Good.”

With a quick kiss on the nose from Francis, they laid there, content just being with each other. Breakfast and Arthur's headache were long forgotten.

Espèce de petit bâtard effronté=You cheeky little bastard