#I’d never name any kid after a cartoon hedgehog character
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awkwardsonicphotos · 6 months ago
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I have had family from both my and my husbands side make similar jokes about naming the boys after Sonic characters. I also joked about the names “Sonic” “& Knuckles”
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But you actually aren’t far off on the one name haha! We decided we liked Luke and Miles for their names.
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jennikkugoesoff · 5 years ago
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Jennikku goes off about a Sonic the Hedgehog Reboot.
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If you follow me at all or have read many of my other rants, you’ll know I love Sonic the Hedgehog. A lot, with all my heart. I met my friends through Sonic and it’s a franchise that’s changed a lot in my life, for better, for worse and everything in-between. It’s the reason I started to draw, to write and to really give creativity a chance.
It’s a series that has been through many twists, turns, up and down and all arounds over the course of it’s long, 28 (as of the time of writing) year lifespan, and has stood the test of time, being heralded either as one of the best video game franchises of all time, or, well, one of the worst out there, becoming more and more dated by each passing day.
But, it didn’t start out that way. Everyone’s told the long, terrible story now about Sonic’s massive rise to the top of 1990s American Iconography and his massive plummet into the depths of Hell, dragging his now-bitter fans down with him following the turn of the century and segwaying into the modern age, so I won’t bog you with the details you already know, but here’s the main point.
Sonic the Hedgehog... kinda sucks.
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And that’s because it’s a mess. An astronomically confused, tired, and beaten mess. In the 28 year lifespan of Sonic the Hedgehog, it’s canon has become massively tangled in knots. Inconsistent games, inconsistent comics, inconsistent cartoons, and so on and so forth. Anyone who’s a fan of Sonic comes from a place where they heard about Sonic, be it the games, the cartoons, the comics, and so on, and therefore, have a different mindset about what Sonic the Hedgehog should be, which is the cause for much of the heavy, almost unpleasable climate the fan community gives off.
Really? The only way I see the series being salvageable is to wipe the slate clean and begin... at least somewhat anew, and see how these scatted pieces of broken glass we call the ‘Sonic canon’ can fit together.
This has been tried once, with Sonic Boom, but it didn’t really end well, and I’d like to change that, so let’s have this hypothetical reboot take the same form as Sonic Boom, as a potential ‘new face’ for the entire series, rather than a spinoff continuity. (I feel like this was the original intention of Sonic Boom, but due to the backlash, was revoked.)
Are you comfortable? Let’s go. It’s gonna be a long-ass, tiring, winding post.
(Seriously I spent fucking 3 days just writing this post. For that reason, there may be a few gRaMatTcul eRors here and there, just bear with me, okay? I’m tired and I just wanna heave out this monster of an idea.)
Housecleaning and on wiping the slate clean
Ok, before we actually get into redoing the series, I wanna make this clear, when I say I want to ‘wipe the slate clean’, that’s sort of an exaggeration. I don’t think Sonic needs to be completely rewritten from scratch, and certain elements of the series DO work very well, so it’s more we’re gonna ‘wipe the slate clean, but immediately redraw things back on, except bigger and better than they were before.’
The reason why is, Sonic the Hedgehog has a kind of ‘hoarder complex’ when it comes to his franchise. As I established earlier, the main problem with rebooting Sonic the Hedgehog as compared to another franchise like, say, Ducktales, or Ghostbusters, is that Sonic the Hedgehog has a lot of lore. Too much lore. Think about the crazy amount of lore surrounding Solaris, Mephiles, Dark and Light Gaia, the Wisps, Chaos, and Tikal, Shadow and the Black Arms, Silver, the Sol Dimension and Blaze, Eggman Nega, the Nocturnus Clan, the list goes on and on and on. It’s head-spinning, it’s confusing, and most of all, obtrusive to what’s actually important in the Sonic Canon versus what seems important.
This isn’t helped by the fact that Sonic has never really had a consistent ground to stand on in terms of his world and where he lives because where he lives changes with every game or new thing Sonic is in. So, introducing these new, complicated gods and grand, sprawling history all of a sudden doesn’t give the world Sonic lives in any ground or any real meaning if it’s just going to be ignored later on when Sonic Forces completely rewrites the world map from Unleashed. (This is a problem I have with the Mario and Kirby series too.)
Even if you claim something like the Sonic Archie comics have consistency in their setting, think about how much the comic’s version of Mobius changed over the course of its lifespan after not only being completely rewritten (thanks Ken Penders. I’m sure your horrific 3d render children are proud.) and two crossovers, not to mention all the subtle shifts and changes the comic made from its debut comic to its cancellation.
So, if we’re going to do this, we need to get this straight right now.
A new Sonic reboot will NEED to cover EVERY base of the Sonic continuity. Games, Comics, Cartoons, Merchandising (with the exception of maybe some anniversary stuff), The Whole Echidna- er, Enchilada.
If the problem with Sonic as it is, is that the continuity is messy because it keeps adding new stuff? THEN STOP FUCKING ADDING NEW STUFF!!
NO ONE’S GONNA LIKE THE NEW STUFF ANYWAY!!
PEOPLE FUCKING HATE CHANGE!!
THIS FRANCHISE IS SO FUCKing MiSTReATED!- FUCK!!
Nah, but seriously. If this reboot is gonna work, then it needs to BE a proper reboot. Not a side-series like Sonic Boom, not an ‘alternate dimension’ to dip into for mainline games, not a one-off series of animated shorts, no quills, no pillows. If we’re gonna do this, we’re gonna go all in. At least in terms of continuity.
So, you know what we’re gonna name this reboot?
Sonic the Hedgehog
Just, Sonic the Hedgehog. Yep. All in, indeed.
Audience, Tone, and Genre
I feel maybe I should’ve split these into multiple sections, but, they really all go hand-in-hand. 
If we’re gonna remake Sonic, we gotta first decide how Sonic should feel, and who he’s going to appeal to. So, let’s consider what we’re working with first, based on the history of who Sonic has appealed to.
The whole point of Sonic’s young, hip, snarky personality was to appeal to the American youth of the 1990s (kids, teenagers, and young adults), the young, hip, snarky and coolest people around. Sonic sought to identify with these kids by being a little bit ‘edgier’ and ‘cooler’ than most other cartoon characters of his era, but still with the capability to be as cute, wholesome and inherently charming as his competition. Like the perfect little blend of the sarcastic wit of Bugs Bunny and the lovable personability of Mickey Mouse and Felix the Cat.
Many Sonic clones of the 1990s like Bubsy, Aero the Acrobat, and Zero the [CENSORED] Squirrel tried to piggyback off of Sonic in this manner by trying to play up Sonic’s edgy, snarky appeal, but what they lack is that more wholesome, laid back, simple, round and friendly aspects of his design. It’s why Sonic can look like this:
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but also like this
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like this
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but also like this.
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It’s why Sonic works so well as a cartoon character in animated shorts and cartoons, as well as an action character in high octane blood pumping action anime, and one of the reasons why I think his design is so appealing. It’s this, this perfect balance between cool superhero and cuddly, wholesome cartoon character that makes Sonic such the iconic character he is.
So what’s the point of me telling you that?
Well, lots of people disagree on what Sonic the Hedgehog’s tone should be, and what audience Sonic should appeal to. Many argue Sonic is a series strictly meant for children, and therefore shouldn’t take any risks and be cutesy, wholesome and bouncy. Others argue Sonic should market itself to teenagers and young adults by pushing its envelope with it’s material and turning itself into a giant melodrama with three-dimensional characters, intertwining relationships and giant, epic Dragon Ball Z style showdowns with blood, guts and the crunching of noses and teeth.
You know what’s popular right now though and seems to have been for a while? A blend of those exact two things.
It sounds dumb but, think about it. Video games and cartoons have been taking this turn toward being a little bit of the best of both worlds. Steven Universe, Undertale/Deltarune, Star Vs. The Forces of Evil, even stuff like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, that sort of thing.
So, I think a new Sonic reboot should be an Action/Adventure-Comedy. It’s a series about long, lengthy quests and the ongoing war between nature and machine, but it’s also about a quick-witted cartoon character having fun picking on an overconfident evil scientist and his lackeys.
And you know what? I think Sonic is and has shown that this is the environment he flourishes in. Think about why Sonic Mania Adventures and Team Sonic Racing: Overdrive work so well, or why OK KO: Let’s Meet Sonic! is so great! It places Sonic and co. in an environment in which they have the opportunity to be funny and cartoony, but also leaves itself open to lead into more strict action sequences or serious, emotional moments, should it feel the need to. It lets the characters be the characters, without being impeded by everything needed to be babyproofed, but also not interrupted by fanfic-tier melodramatics every 2 and a half minutes. And, considering how much any media featuring Sonic relies on its characters to garner appeal, this is important.
Besides that, this is also important for something I think is going to make this reboot go from good to great.
: ✧・゚: U N I F I C A T I O N ! :・゚✧ : 
I’ve said this before in my other essay on how I’d reboot Sonic, but I truly feel that bringing together a lot of different elements of Sonic’s history together for this reboot is a top-notch idea for not only bringing the series back together whilst maintaining a wide appeal but also broaden the scope of potential characters, settings, and plot points we can work with, rather than just limiting it to just the classic era, or just the modern era, it also might leave veteran fans wondering just who or what was going to show up in the next game, or next episode!
Why limit ourselves to just a classic-style series or just a modern-style series? Why not mix it up a little?
Let’s take the cute classic stuff and mix it with some of the cool modern stuff!
I mean of course there’s gonna be purists but, hey, if we have a little bit of both we might just start seeing eye to eye!
So, what does that mean for the audience? Well, I think in that sense, Sonic should be able to appeal to, about anyone, really. Adults, Kids, Teenagers, anyone. It’d be like going to see a Marvel Superhero movie in the theaters or watching Spongebob on TV, yeah, it’d be something kids enjoy, but also something young adults can appreciate too. Although if we absolutely have to stick to a demographic, I’d say the ideal targets for a Sonic the Hedgehog reboot are two groups of people specifically.
Older fans of the series who grew up with the Adventure and Classic games, and Younger people who are more familiar with the modern games. As far as drawing new people or embittered old fans in?... Well, we’ll get to that.
Plot synopsis
It may seem like a no-brainer what the plot of Sonic the Hedgehog is, right? Well, of course it is. It’s been the same for over 20 years, and, I think the premise? Is fine.
“Sonic the Hedgehog is the fastest thing alive and a protector of nature who loves adventure. He’s smarmy and mischevious, but with a heart of gold and an unshakable sense of justice with a can-do attitude. His archnemesis, Dr. Eggman, wants to take over his natural, sprawling home and begin building his planet-conquering empire in its place. It’s up to Sonic and his group of friends to defeat Dr. Eggman, and restore peace to the world, and the green back to the hills.”
This? Right here? This is Sonic the Hedgehog. No matter who you ask, from any branch of the franchises thousand-foot tall family tree, this is Sonic the Hedgehog. There’s a couple of doodads and twists here and there depending on the specific game, but that’s really honestly it when you break it all down, that’s the plot of almost every Sonic game. But this can easily get lost and bogged down between all of the God-summoning and all that shit that other Sonic media does.
So, let’s keep the focus on this, and this alone. Just the ongoing misadventures, setbacks, leaps forward, threats and triumphs between Sonic and Co. and the forces of evil.
...(But let’s add the Chaos Emeralds and Master Emerald, I don’t think I can stand having a Sonic continuity without them and they make for good plot fodder, plus, I’ll be damned if I’m not seeing Super Sonic by the time a series finale or end-of-game hits.)
Setting + Background Lore
So, to set a location, let’s dumb down where Sonic actually lives. (Figuratively anyway, Sonic has no true home, just places he likes to be at any one time.)
In the Genesis days, Sonic lived on a tiny island called South Island, and the game’s settings often took place on South Island or on it’s neighboring islands Westside and Angel Island, and, given how important these old zones, like Green Hill and Chemical Plant Zone, are to the current Sonic Canon, I propose that maybe the setting for this potential reboot takes place on said islands, with one island for each of the cardinal directions on a compass, but also some of the other islands that are included in the Sonic series (as well as some adjusted ones!)
And, as a reference to the days of yore, we could even call it
The Mobius Archipelago
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Each of these islands would have their own unique areas (referred to as ‘Zones’ for both nostalgia and convenience’s sake) based on the different levels from Sonic games. I’m unsure of the exact geography of these islands in question, but, you get the idea if you’re at all familiar with the canon, South Island has all the zones from Sonic 1 (16 and 8 Bit), Sonic Chaos and Sonic 2 (8-bit), Westside Island has all the zones from Sonic 2 and a couple from Sonic Mania, Angel Island has all the Zones from Sonic 3 & Knuckles, North Island is essentially a fusion of all the different Eggman Zones (Crystal Egg, Sleeping Egg, Scrap Brain, Metropolis, Eggmanland, Robotropolis, Robotnik Winter, the zones from SegaSonic the Hedgehog, etc.), Flicky’s Island has all of the zones from Sonic 3D Blast, Cocoa Island has all the zones from Tails Skypatrol and Tails Adventure, Mirage Island has all the zones from Sonic 4 and also Never Lake, and Little Planet (and hence all the zones from Sonic CD) you get the idea.
I’m unsure what exactly Eastside Island would have on it, but I figured that Sonic games have so many zones and levels across so many games, surely something would find a nice home on that island, perhaps some of the zones from Sonic Mania, Sonic Blast, maybe even the Adventure games, who knows? But, inevitably, space is going to run out on those other islands and we’ll likely have zones or locations that’ll be good for the series to have.
And then, we also have a mainland sprinkled with City. This is where your Adventure/Modern style cities are, Station Square, City Escape, that sort of thing.
It may not seem like much, considering some Sonic games have settings that span entire planets, but when you think about how many zones are crammed into a few little islands in the genesis titles alone, it’s hardly a limited setting.
The natives of this island chain would be Mobians and Mobini. Mobians are your typical Sonic characters, your Sonics, your Tailses, your Knuckleses, and so on and so forth. They’re the more humanoid animals. Mobini, on the other hand would be all of the smaller animals, the kind that Sonic frees from badniks or are just knockin about doing little woodland creature things. For more information on Mobini, I’ve included a little blip about them in the ‘Side Protagonists’ part of this little shanty ‘pitch guide’.
Humans would live on the mainland, although some researchers and scientists would visit the Archipelago every so often because of it’s mysterious ‘new frontier’ kind of appeal, even if Mobians find their research a little weird.
Generally, Humans also keep to the mainland, and Mobians keep to their islands, but, make no mistake, Mobians and Humans don’t hate each other. Some Mobians and Mobini have taken to the urban lifestyle, whereas some humans have taken to the natural wonder of the Archipelago, starting environmentally friendly cities and towns in the sleepy groves and corners of this untamed wilderness.
This Archipelago would be the point of focus for our Main Characters because, well, it’s their native home, and it’d draw our Main Villains because this island is also home to the Seven Chaos Emeralds, and their Master Emerald.
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The Chaos Emeralds are the main MacGuffins of the Sonic series, and for good reason! Gathering all seven of these things grants their holder infinite access to chaos energy, a kind of force that will turn their thoughts into power, whether positive or negative. While most Mobians would prefer to leave the Chaos Emeralds alone, due to them causing, well, chaos, villains seek these gems out on purpose so that they can easier accomplish their goals. However, if a hero were to gather all seven chaos emeralds, and had enough purity, desire for good, and strength in their heart, the emeralds will grant them immense power, too.
Upon a vast amount of energy being used however, the Emeralds will scatter across the Archipelago, waiting for their next holders to come, and initiate chaos once more.
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And then, there’s the Master Emerald. The Master Emerald is very similar to the Chaos Emeralds, and contains tenfold the amount of energy of a full set of Chaos Emeralds, but also acts as an on/off switch for the Chaos Emeralds. The Master Emerald can completely drain the Chaos Emeralds of their power, or multiply their power exponentially if one knows how to control it, making the Master Emerald incredibly valuable too. However, villains usually tend to opt for the Chaos Emeralds instead, not only because legends of the Master Emerald are believed to be false, or even if it is real, no one knows how to control it, but the Master Emerald is also said to have a guardian. A very, very angry guardian.
There’s also the lesser-known Time Stones.
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The Time Stones reside on Little Planet, an anomalous celestial body that appears only once every year over Never Lake on Mirage Island. These stones seemed to have formed in a similar fashion to the Chaos Emeralds, but rather than bending SPACE to the will of their holders, the Time Stones will instead, bend Time. The Time Stones, for this reason, are even more dangerous than the Chaos Emeralds and are responsible for many of the temporal anomalies within the Archipelago. Due to their danger, the Time Stones see much more infrequent use than the Chaos Emeralds, and keeping them on Little Planet as opposed to bringing them to the surface of the Earth is much safer, as the Time Stones will only seemingly affect the time stream of Little Planet and not the Earth.
The Time Stones won’t matter until later in the series when Sonic and Co. start tampering with time, and for a while, the focus will remain on the Chaos Emeralds and Master Emerald.
But enough about where Sonic lives, let’s look at him and the rest of our colorful main cast, shall we?
Main Protagonists
Hooh, boy I am not gonna make many friends with this decision, am I?
This is kinda where my reboot starts to get a lot little tiny bit more personal, but, I have reasoning behind picking who I pick. The characters I’d pick to be the main protagonists, as in the characters that the viewers of the cartoon series, readers of the comic, or players of the games are going to be:
A) Playing as
B) Rooting for
C) Following throughout most of the adventures.
are as follows:
Sonic the Hedgehog
Miles “Tails” Prower
Knuckles the Echidna
Amy Rose
Mighty the Armadillo
Ray the Flying Squirrel
The first two seem obvious enough, Sonic and Tails are the two spotlight protagonists of most Sonic games and are the two chief playable characters in most games of the Genesis Era. Knuckles should come as no surprise either for the same reason, although I’ll touch on Knuckles later when I assess the protagonists on an individual level. 
I chose Amy as one of the leads because, well, Amy frankly hasn’t seen that much time in the sun as a true character, and I feel like that’s a shame given her longevity in the series, being with us ever since CD. Her most complex appearance was in Sonic Adventure 1 and even then, she’s kinda reduced to the same traits as her white-bread, palid, boring, Genesis counterpart. While I would like to have another female character so Amy isn’t a ‘token chick’, I don’t really want to shake up the formula too much.
Mighty and Ray are a little bit different. With the release of Sonic Mania Plus though, I feel that Mighty and Ray are more relevant now than they ever were, and considering their placement as main characters in Mania Plus, I think that we could really benefit from their addition to the main lineup of Sonic’s friends! Sure, Mighty and Ray don’t have much personality, but maybe this is where we can change that and give these lost stars a chance to sparkle as main characters after spending so long in the shadows of the past!
However, I do wanna state, that I understand if some people feel Mighty and Ray are irrelevant. I get that, really, I do. It’s one of the things in this projected reboot that I feel is much more personally appealing to me than it is ‘what I think is best for the Sonic franchise’. Put plain and simple, Mighty and Ray are just... not as popular as other Sonic characters. And, adding these two to the roster of main characters means that the main character count skyrockets from an easily manageable 4 to 6, which can seem like a bit much to some people I’ll agree, and means that they’ll likely see more screentime than other popular protagonist characters like Cream, Silver or even Blaze. But, at the same time, I also feel that if they’re popular enough to be included in Sonic Mania Plus, then there at least is some interest in the fan community of them being relevant, regular characters again. And, what better niche for them to fit into than being two of Sonic’s close friends again while going on adventures with him regularly?
(Side note, I also felt like including Sticks as a main character, and I may come back to that idea later if I end up making any content for this reboot, but as it stands I felt 7 main characters were just a bit too much, although it would’ve been cool to have a character for each Chaos Emerald, and I think there are a lot of real, genuine comedic possibilities, as well as some unique action choreography from her.)
I also don’t think Sonic’s design or the design of his friends need to be changed around too terribly much for a reboot? (Although there are some characters I think could benefit from a rework, but Sonic and MOST of the main characters are okay imo) There’s a lot of contention on Sonic’s design in any sense but, personally? I think Sonic’s designs can actually be pretty well unified, all things considered. I think Sonic could benefit from a few design ADJUSTMENTS, but maybe not a full-scale redesign like Sonic Boom.
For instance, these early concepts for Dreamcast Sonic are an excellent starting place, as I feel they capture the spirit of all three versions of Sonic pretty well all things considered, save for their quills being a little long. the proportions on them are a little off, however, with a couple of adjustments, I think this could actually be a really good idea.
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Nendoroid Sonic is also pretty close to what I think a unified Sonic design could look like, if someone held a gun to my head and told me to pick an ideal new design for Sonic, it’d probably be very close to this.
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(Credit to JaysonJeanChannel on DA for this render of Nendoroid Sonic.)
Or, even moving back a little bit, “Toei Sonic“, although kind of overrated in my opinion, is a really nice compromise between the cutesy, cartoony nature of the original versions of Sonic, while still updating Sonic to be more obviously sleek, sharp and spring-loaded for his modern audiences, and is full of personality. That’s not to say I think Toei Sonic should be the new face of Sonic the Hedgehog for years to come, but it’d be a great starting point to work from, given that Toei is a version of Sonic suited for intense, rubberhosy, slippery animations.
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In the end, the only thing that truly matters is that Sonic looks like Sonic, and not like a weird little blue goblin if the backlash on the first pass of the Sonic Movie is any indication? We shouldn’t try to fix what isn’t broken, I just think that maybe trying out a hybrid between classic and modern Sonic to see how people feel about it might be a nice compromise between those who prefer Classic Sonic vs. those who prefer Modern or Adventure Sonic, again, unification, the best of both worlds.
That being said, let’s have a look-see into each character individually, shall we? For this, I’ll give a name, my projected voice actor for them, and a little blurb about their personality, as well as a short list of their abilities.
I’ll also try to justify my reasons for some stuff that people may consider odd after all of the character bios.
Sonic the Hedgehog:
Voice Actor: Ben Schwartz/James Arnold Taylor
Sonic is heroic, ambitious, and a complete adrenaline junkie. He'll take on any challenge that's given to him in the history of forever, even if absolutely knows it's impossible or he could get hurt trying to do it or he's absolutely not skilled enough at what he's doing to do it. Hence, Sonic is extremely competitive and gets easily absorbed in things he does, even around friends. Sonic tends to not look before he leaps as he's able to get himself out of situations so easily, preferring to live on his feet without thinking too hard about anything, although he's not dumb by any stretch of the imagination and will slow down and strategize if he absolutely needs to, and will always be willing to slow down for someone in need. Sonic is cocky, snarky, and believes a little too much in himself, he has an ego the size of the sun and will do anything he has to protect his image, especially how he views himself. Sonic also has an incredible amount of attitude and makes fun of people he doesn't like or thinks deserve it with insulting nicknames or cruel jokes, often being sarcastic and witty even at the worst of times to be. Although Sonic tries as hard as he can to keep his cool a lot of the time and prefers to live without consequences or regrets on his mind, when he's angry, sometimes he can lash out at people and can become downright completely rude when upset. Sonic is also something of a juvenile delinquent, often breaking rules just because he can or he thinks it's fun or funny, which often gets him into trouble. Sonic EXTREMELY Dislikes being called 'slow' or things being faster than he is (often wanting to prove his mettle against whatever is faster than him even if it hurts him), and has even less patience for slowing down unless he absolutely has to. He hates to wait and hates to be kept waiting, oftentimes getting bored and leaving in mere seconds if a situation doesn't matter that much to him, although he's known to show much, much more patience when people are hurt, or upset, and has an affinity for relaxing for long periods of time with friends after lengthy expeditions and adventures. Sonic hates to see innocent people cry or have their feelings hurt and will often get  extremely upset at the cause depending on the person/situation, and believes that any situation he can tend to is important (as he often can do things so quickly it's often no trouble for him.) 
Abilities:
Insta-Shield (Allows Sonic to deflect incoming projectiles with precise timing. This also extends Sonic’s hitbox a bit so it can inflict damage, and gives him invincibility frames!)
Wall Jump (Sonic can wall jump, but they need to be timed properly, as when Sonic lands on a wall, he’ll begin to slide, sliding down a wall for too long will cause Sonic to slip and eventually fall.)
Super Spin Dash (Sonic can rev his spin dash up much faster and much more efficiently than other characters, Sonic’s spin dash also has higher maximum propulsion, and will break walls much quicker.)
Super Peel Out
Light Dash (Using the light dash on a trail of rings will allow Sonic to pick up vast amounts of speed instantly by traveling along a trail of rings, being slingshotted out of the trail at an intense speed, the longer the trail of rings is, the faster he’ll be when he comes out of the trail, but also the more vulnerable he’ll be when he’s flung out of the trail. Sonic can also easily reclaim his fallen rings by light dashing, but there’s no guarantee you won’t go flying into the hazard you just tried to avoid when you do.)
Can use the abilities of elemental shields
Miles "Tails" Prower: 
Voice Actor: Collen Villard 
Tails is Sonic's closest friend. Tails is very intelligent and is something of an amateur technician, roboticist and mechanic, although he specializes in work with aircrafts, small-scale robotics, and computer systems. Frequently he prefers a much slower, methodical approach to problems as opposed to rushing into everything headfirst like Sonic does. Often relies on his intuition over instinct. Tails feels he and Sonic hold a kind of 'mutual responsibility' over each other to keep each other safe, hence Tails keeps Sonic out of trouble or from doing things that are REALLY REALLY stupid, but most of the time, Tails likes to indulge in Sonic's antics with him and even enjoys being kind of silly or being a rebel with him. Tails really looks up to Sonic and wants to have the same kind of respect, cool and wit that he does, however, in doing this, because of his low self-esteem, Tails will often ignore a lot of his more positive traits and attempt to mimic Sonic instead in an effort to seem 'cool', which can really make him do some out-of-place or seemingly strange things at times when he doesn't mean it because he can be a little shy to be himself. Tails is a firmly humble inventor and often attributes his successes to the support of others more often than his own work, and he will not ever invent anything for the purpose of competing with someone or for the sake of jealousy, believing that his best work comes from his heart.
Abilities:
Flying (This would be nerfed significantly from Sonic Mania and S3&K so Tails couldn’t just fly over everything. Tails’ gameplay should encourage exploration in more ways than just one.)
Spin Dash
Tinkering (Allows Tails to reverse conveyor belts, turn off sawblades, and do other shit to help him get through mechanical levels.)
Ring Bomb (Short range projectile at the cost of rings, explodes in a small radius)
Remote Robot (Allows Tails to explore places he can’t otherwise get to at the cost of 1 ring per second)
Knuckles the Echidna: 
Voice Actor: Dan Green 
The key word to Knuckles is STRESS. Knuckles is the guardian of the Master Emerald, and boy does he take his job seriously, being the very last living Mobian Echidna, and being very in-tune with his family and extended tribe's history. He has an inherent connection with the Master Emerald that allows him to sense it's location, wherever it might be, if this feeling of his is tampered with only slightly, it sends Knuckles into an incredible, panicked rage that can only be quelled by returning the gem to where he left it, or by retrieving the gemstone from whoever stole or moved it. He will only leave the emerald alone for long periods of time once he is one-hundred percent confident no one will touch it or move it (and even then he oftentimes gets worried about it anyway) and hence, interacts with Team Sonic on a more infrequent basis because of this (although he still has plenty of moments dedicated to him.) However, when not guarding the Emerald and forced to loosen up and relax, one can find that Knuckles is rather stoic and full of quote en quote 'sage-advice' (or rather stuff that seems and can be profound but can also be kind of insane ramblings from someone who spends too much time alone with some rock.) He often doesn't understand Sonic's more urban lifestyle, preferring his more traditional, simple 'off the fat of the land' kind of life, but he's surprisingly receptive to new things (unless said new thing gets the emerald stolen of course.) Knuckles is also incredibly suspicious and paranoid of people, even believing people he's close to having the capability of turning on him, and because of this, he's incredibly gullible when it comes to people 'changing' or 'turning evil' or 'wanting to take the Master Emerald', although he's usually smart enough to not fall for the same trick twice... or at least, not for a while after it happens once. Because of his ability to be tricked so easily, and because tricking him often leads to bad things, Knuckles' temper and patience are very short, and very small things easily can make him very upset. Knuckles actually has a weakness for romance, being such a lonely soul, he often gets shy and acts noticeably different (read: Happier) around people that can charm him, but often won't admit it.
Abilities:
Gliding
Climbing
Spin Dash
Burrowing (works sort of like the burrow mechanic from Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, except Knuckles can remain and move underground for a bit to be invincible, although this ability is very limited and cannot be done on metal or synthetic flooring.)
Melee Attacks (Knuckles can punch things in a short range, nuff said.)
Amy Rose: 
Voice Actor: Kristen Schaal 
Amy is positive, bubbly, loud and honestly kind of a silly airhead sometimes. Although at first, it seems there's very little to her, there's actually a lot more to her than her outward appearance would suggest. Amy tends to not judge people by their looks or by their behaviors, and is very open-minded and emotional, often getting choked up over things she really doesn't need to. Amy is also pretty selfless, willing to help people without any benefit to herself or any reason besides being a good person, although that's not to say she just lets people walk all over her. Amy is also something of a social butterfly, having connections with about everyone anyone else even remotely knows, and can easily tell you all about them and will want you to meet them upon even the mention of their name. Her inherent energy makes her a lot to deal with at once, even people like Sonic, Tails, and Mighty can get tired of her very quickly, even if it's very clear that she means well. She also makes for a great therapist and is willing to help anyone with problems they might be having, even if they push her away at first. However, Amy isn't all the girly girl she seems sometimes and has kind of a violent edge, anyone who pushes her around or says anything bad about her friends is gonna get walloped with her hammer, and believe me, you don't ever quite forget a feeling like being Piko'd by Amy Rose. On this note, Amy also kinda... doesn't know her own strength, and can seem stronger than Knuckles, or even Mighty at times because she just absolutely does not know her limits, expect lots of spine-crushing hugs.
Abilities:
Triple Jump (Amy can jump three times in succession, however, each jump significantly degrades in height boost. Her normal jump will go the highest and her third jump will go the lowest. Because of this ability, Amy also does not spin when she jumps, meaning she can’t defeat Badniks or damage enemies by jumping on them, she won’t take damage from bouncing on them, it just won’t destroy them.)
Hammer Smash (A mid-range melee attack that will destroy most enemies instantly.)
Hammer Spin (Both an Aerial attack to make up for the fact Amy can’t spin jump and a dash attack to make up for the fact Amy can’t spin dash.)
Peel Out (Functions similarly to the peel out in Sonic Advance or Sonic 2: Pink Edition, replaces the Spin Dash.)
Mighty the Armadillo: 
Voice Actor: Beck Bennett/Travis Willingham 
Mighty is one of Sonic's oldest friends and is his foil in a lot of ways. He prefers to take his time with a lot of things and doesn't really mind going slow. Mighty is something of a 'meathead', he's naive, and kinda absentminded at times, even if he doesn't mean to be. Mighty is very strong and takes incredible pride in his abilities much like Sonic. He adores his own strength and quote en quote 'manliness' and will do anything to keep his ego inflated and his muscles bigger than everyone else's' (as opposed to Knuckles who views his strength as a humble reward for his years of training). Despite this, he has a very brotherly (read: dudebro) sense of personality though and likes to call people 'bro' and 'sis', and has a habit of saying 'not cool' when things don't go right or when people wrong him. Most of the time, Mighty's slow and naive ways can make him easily influenced into believing things (like conspiracies and the idea protein powder actually does things), and he's not afraid to speak his mind, often coming off as insensitive (which is how he got kicked out of Team Chaotix), when really, he just doesn't happen to know any better, although most of the time he really does mean well. Mighty also really likes to hear himself talk, oftentimes telling long-winded stories or going on long-winded rants or explanations. He tends to butt heads with Sonic and Knuckles, who get annoyed sometimes by his easygoing, borderline dim-witted nature, oftentimes reminding him of obvious things that are happening/have happened. However, Mighty greatly cares for his friends, and the one thing he absolutely will never bend on is he will not ever hurt someone who didn't do him wrong, and despite his naivety, Mighty's incredible sense of justice always triumphs over his unassuming nature. He's also Ray's best friend and will defend Ray over any other person.
Abilities:
Natural Armor (Allows Mighty to take one free hit from spikes, and defeat spiked enemies without being harmed. If a projectile hits Mighty while he’s spinning or jumping, the projectile will bounce off of his armor. This is only while Mighty is spinning, attacks from the back or while Mighty is running will still land.)
Hammer Drop (A ‘stomp’ attack that allows Mighty to crush most Badniks instantly, and will also instantly crush breakable objects and solid blocks much faster than other characters.)
Spin Dash
Mighty Arm (If Mighty presses an action button near an enemy, monitor or breakable item, Mighty will pick it up. While picking something up, Mighty will move slower and his jump will be downgraded, but he can throw the item to deal heavy damage to whatever it hits! And, picking up certain enemies or items may just come with some surprises!)
Super Wall Jump (Mighty can wall-jump much like Sonic, but upon sticking to the wall, Mighty will hang there, and will only slide down at the player’s discretion.)
Ray the Flying Squirrel: 
Voice Actor: Debi Derryberry 
Ray is neat, quiet, shy, easily disturbed and has a bit of a stutter to his voice. Ray tends to be sort of asocial compared to other members of Team Sonic and prefers not to get in the way if he thinks he's being a bother. However, despite this, Ray is much smarter than he might seem and has a level of resourcefulness to a point that even trumps Tails (who is much more intelligent) at times. Despite being so shy and cowardly, when he gets the chance, Ray is more than willing to do whatever it takes for the greater good, even if he's afraid to do so. Mighty is his best friend, and he gets obsessively worried about Mighty when he's not around, often worrying that he's wandered off or might have been hurt, kidnapped, etc. this often leads to Ray trying to find his friend or panicking that he's 'gone missing', even if Mighty was right under his nose the whole time, ironic, given his intuition and incredibly eagle-eyed nature. Much like Mighty as well, Ray can also be a little bit naive, although usually less so than Mighty himself.
Abilities:
Soaring (Ray will glide and can sweep upwards to gain height at a cost of speed, but also dip downwards to gain speed at a cost of height.)
Lite-Climbing (Ray can climb, and he can climb much faster than Knuckles, but players will need to position themselves carefully, as Ray can’t climb forever, and will eventually slip and fall, the more speed Ray has when Ray collides with the wall, the faster and longer he can climb it.)
Scout-Sense (Ray is able to detect hidden items nearby like Giant Rings, 1up Monitors, and power-ups, once Ray moves close enough to an item, an exclamation point will appear above his head, and the item he notices will be outlined in yellow.)
Dismantle (With similar timing to Sonic’s insta-shield, Ray can choose to land on a badnik instead of destroying it (even if he lands on something like a Shellcracker’s claw or Bubbles when spiked out), and he will begin to unscrew the badnik until it breaks. This rewards Ray with rings or more hidden items, and can make tricky badniks like Asteron and Shellcracker more bearable to deal with! This also works on bosses, except dismantling a boss will only cause a hit of damage to the boss, although Ray can stay latched on to deal multiple hits of damage if he isn’t knocked off!)
Hookay, if you’re not winded by all those character bios, let me try to explain some of my reasoning. I won’t be doing this with later characters because this post is already the size of a fucking dump truck, but, here we go anyway.
Yes. I chose Ben Schwartz over Roger Craig Smith and Jason Griffith for Sonic. No. I don’t hate Jason Griffith or Roger Craig Smith’s voices for Sonic. Yes, I realize Ben is going to play Sonic in the Movie. I know. But, you know what? I think Ben is the perfect person to play Sonic, he’s able to inflect a real smarmy teenager vibe and I DO like that a LOT. But Ben can also play a deeper or moodier teenager too, and I feel like that’s important for Sonic’s character just as much. Jason Griffith and Roger Craig Smith make a 15-year-old sound like he’s 24. Moving on.
I think Sonic needs to not be such a prep sometimes like he is in Colors, Generations, and Forces. Like, I get that Sonic is all about doing the right thing, but, Sonic is also a smarty-pants delinquent who disrespects authority because he can. There’s this great video on the design analysis of City Escape from Sonic Adventure 2 that shows just how much of a jerk Sonic is toward people he doesn’t care for, and how he feels about obeying rules and regulations. I feel being an asshole toward people he doesn’t like, is part of Sonic’s character, it’s just we need to make him an asshole in the right direction. Sonic can be a Bugs Bunny if we let him, it’s just that it shouldn’t be completely overblown... otherwise, we get STC Sonic.
Tails needs to do more things, and not sit on the sidelines like he does in Unleashed, Colors, and Forces. He does things in Sonic Adventure and Sonic Boom, hence this version of Tails is based more on those versions OF Tails. I don’t hate Unleashed and Colors Tails, but I feel the objectively superior version of Tails comes more from Boom (who I also feel captures all of the good things about Modern Tails ANYWAY) and Adventure (which is Tails at his most resourceful, intelligent and helpful.)
Knuckles needs to be not stupid. We can make other characters stupid, but Knuckles is not stupid, Mania made Knuckles stupid and I hate that because it’s never been who Knuckles is. Sure, he’s a bit of a dense knucklehead, but he’s not dumb, just dense, which is my problem with Boom Knuckles. There’s more to his reasons for why he does things the way he does than he doesn’t know better. He’s stubborn, he’s prone to anger, he’s traditional and very much centered on the past he never had, he worries, he panics. I don’t think Boom Knuckles is a bad character, I just think making KNUCKLES the character to get this personality was kind of a bad idea. 
Amy just needs a better-developed personality. Seriously, she’s, already kinda set in stone in terms of who she is, it just needs to be expanded upon. But, Amy kinda already has the groundwork laid out for her with Boom and Modern, it’s just it needs to be molded a little bit.
Mighty comes from the classic era, and he, therefore, has no real, defining personality traits besides being a wall-jumping armadillo. I think Mighty could easily inherit Boom Knux’s personality, (as I feel a character named ‘Mighty’ would have kind of a strongman, meathead personality) but maybe changed up a bit. Instead of being just, dumb, I think Mighty being more oblivious than just stupid is better, plus, at any one time, most of the characters in-game or onscreen are able to deduce what’s going on instantly, having Mighty be a contrast to that is interesting. I also think a slow, easygoing lifestyle is kinda befitting to the Mighty we’ve seen recently, given that he doesn’t seem to emote all that much when Ray finally finds him after he’s been missing for, well, a good while, and doesn’t seem to know his own strength all the time. The only other information I know about Mighty is that he doesn’t like to fight all that much and he’s similar to Sonic, so I tried to include aspects of Sonic in his personality, but also make him kind where he can be.
If Ray’s SegaSonic sprites are anything to go by, Ray just might be a little bit of a scaredy-cat. And, I think this would make for an interesting dynamic between Ray and the rest of the team, he’d make a nice Luigi to everyone’s Mario, a character who is afraid, but willing to set aside his fears for the greater good and even for himself. He’d also be #relatable to the stressed-out teenage and young adult audience he’d be appealing to. 
Side Protagonists
Here are my choices for side-protagonists in this reboot. These are ‘friendly characters’, characters that the main 6 characters regularly interact with, but are just not focused on as much. These characters would probably not be playable (except for Silver and Blaze MAYBE.)
The Mobini
Espio the Chameleon
Charmy Bee
Vector the Crocodile
Cream the Rabbit (and Cheese the Chao)
Big the Cat (and Froggy)
Silver the Hedgehog
Blaze the Cat
Now, I know what you’re thinking.
wHerE’s TeaM DaRK?!
Just, chill out..., okay? I’ll get to Team Dark in a minute.
I’d also like to clarify if this became a series, Silver and Blaze are probably not going to become relevant characters until much LATER in? I feel like Silver and Blaze should be saved for a very specific time in the reboot’s continuity and I’ll explain that later when we get into how I’d set this series’s continuity up, but there’s a very specific reason why I want to save Silver and Blaze for when the time is right, not because I hate Silver and Blaze, but because I think it’d make the most sense.
I also feel like the Chaotix should appear a lot more and play more of an active role in this new hypothetical reboot than they do in most modern Sonic games... and let’s make them a team of vigilantes instead of detectives. A team of vigilantes that uses TEAMWORK!... And combi-rings!
...Oh and while we’re here, let’s make Cheese a Hero Chao, mkay?
But enough talk about general things! Let’s dive into each of them individually!
The Mobini:
Voice Actor: Various, it’s likely mobini won’t need voices so much as varying sound effects.
The Mobini are the local, native, feral fauna of the world of this new Sonic reboot, all your normal birds, insects, lizards, fish, mammals, et cetera are all Mobini. Mobini, are mysterious creatures, as they harbor an inherent connection to the Chaos Emeralds, and are believed to contain small fractions of the Emeralds’ infinite energy. The Mobini are what first drew Dr. Eggman to the Archipelago in which South Island resides, as with this small portion of infinite energy within them, they can be used as organic batteries to power machines indefinitely!... Although this makes them very unhappy. Contrary to what you may think, Mobini are actually sentient, and remember friendly faces... and unfriendly ones too, so be kind! If you’re ever in trouble or lost in the sprawling forests of the Mobius Archipelago, Mobini may just be able to help you out. The most curious kind of Mobini are Flickies, small little birds native to Flicky’s Island and South Island (although they’ve seemed to branch out more recently), who are said to have an even closer connection to the Emeralds, and can even hold a super form! The phenomenon of Super Flickies is incredibly rare, but when it happens, Super Flickies will be more than willing to lend their power to someone who needs it.
Chao are a special type of genetically unstable Mobini that have no ‘Earthly’ counterpart. From the time a Chao is born to the time they pass away, a Chao will gain the traits of its parent, it’s friends, and or it’s caregiver. This makes Chao ideal pets, as their personality will adapt to suit their owner, this makes Chao not only incredibly diverse but surprisingly intelligent. Just be kind to Chao... you don’t want to know what kind of horror being unkind to these little creatures can lead to.
Espio the Chameleon:
Voice Actor: Phil LaMarr
The de-facto leader of the Chaotix, and the most responsible of the team, Espio is a lot quieter than most of the main cast, and much prefers the sound of a rushing, serene stream over loud, punchy rock music. With a powerful, free-flowing fighting style inspired by martial arts, Espio is an honorable fighter, believing only in fighting fair and straight and without exploiting an opponent’s extreme weaknesses. While he tends to be sort of reclusive and becomes easily annoyed by the antics of the Chaotix and Team Sonic, he’s a lot more unshakable than he looks, and actually kind of likes the excitement from time to time. He also has a long, sticky tongue which he happens to be embarrassed by, but sees more use as a tool than he’d like to admit. Espio will often dictate his mood or state of mind to people by changing his color.
Espio’s weapons of choice are giant shuriken, which he seems to be able to pull out of hammerspace.
Abilities:
Color changing
Partial Invisibility (Espio can cloak himself to appear invisible, as long as he stands still and isn’t connected to anything. This ability sees more frequent use when Espio is alone, as it doesn’t really apply much when he fights with his team.)
Combi-Ring Fighting Style
Tornado Spin (Similar to Sonic’s Spin Dash, except Espio spins horizontally instead of vertically, the tornado spin is very slow compared to the Spin Dash, but it’s just as deadly.)
Tongue (Much like Yoshi, Espio’s tongue can be used to grapple onto things with a surprising amount of force, either to pull them toward Espio, or Espio can ‘tongue punch’ things. He hates to do this.)
Charmy Bee:
Voice Actor: Sam Lavagnino (Ideally anyway, I understand if he’d be unable to, but imagine it! Catbug as Charmy Bee!)
A ‘junior member’ of the Chaotix, Charmy is a little bee in training to become a vigilante! However, he’s a little too excited about that fact sometimes. He’s meant to be cute and lovable, but also a realistic child fighting against things he probably shouldn’t be fighting against. It’s hard to hate him when he means so well though and tries his very best at anything he does. In this new reboot, Charmy also gains a small affliction toward electricity!
Abilities:
Flight (no duh.)
Combi-Ring Fighting Style (Charmy is surprisingly adept at carrying his fellow Chaotix members around with a Combi-Ring in hand, with Charmy around this can make for some high-octane, high-momentum fighting due to Charmy being so lightweight and quick.)
Volt Sting (Charmy can use his stinger, and believe me, it hurts. Fortunately, Charmy can sting more than once! and his sting will deliver an electric shock to anything it touches, this is bad news for anything mechanical, or wet!)
Thunder Shoot (Charmy can instantly ground any flying enemy by electrifying an ally and tossing them at the flying enemy!)
Vector the Crocodile:
Voice Actor: Keith Silverstein (Although I’m open to someone else if everyone else if sick of FIND THE COMPUTER ROOM!)
The Chaotix’s greedy, but fiercely defensive ‘leader’ (he’s able to make tough decisions a lot better than Espio, but he isn’t very responsible in many ways). Vector got into the whole vigilante business because of the money he could gain from it, but after meeting Charmy and Espio, his whole world changed, and the rough-and-tough reptile has found a new calling, being a leader. Although Vector is often harsh, blunt, and dismissive, he’s also incredibly resourceful and has an eye for small details, so if he does push you away, it’s likely because he has a hunch on something related to it.
Abilities:
Air Dash (Vector can dash in any direction while in the air. This does not protect him from harm.)
Death Roll (Vector’s trademark donut-like Spin Dash, it’s a bit less controllable than a traditional Spin Dash but it’s immensely powerful because of Vector’s spiked back.)
Combi-Ring Fighting Style (Vector specializes in a ‘wrecking ball’ sort of display with his fighting style, performing a Death Roll followed by his opponents flinging him into something by way of Thunder Shoot or Espio’s speed.) Vector can also achieve the same effect by flinging Charmy or Espio into an opponent, or by ‘holding’ (think Knuckles Chaotix) them.
Fire Combination + Volcanic Dunk* (While Espio is tornado spinning and Charmy is spinning as well, Vector can grab the both of them to make ‘fighting gloves’ of sorts. With this, Vector can perform the Volcanic Dunk, in which he turns Espio and Charmy into powerful fireballs which can smash into enemies to deal tremendous damage!)
*Yes I know this is what Team Sonic uses in Sonic Heroes but do you honestly want Vector Breath to be something that’s regularly used?
Cream the Rabbit (and Cheese the Chao):
Voice Actor: Michelle Ruff (I’d list a voice actor for Cheese too but... do I HAVE to? Chao can be easily voiced with stock squeaks or Chao sounds from SA2.)
A pleasant little girl who seems to get caught up in the ongoing war between Sonic and the forces of evil. Like Charmy, she’s a kid, although Cream is much more patient and polite than Charmy. Cream in this reboot would sorta fill the niche that Tails filled in SatAM, rarely going on adventures, but looking up to the main cast and always being ready to support them in times of need.
Abilities:
Flapping (Cream can flap her ears to gain a little extra height, although it’s made very clear this isn’t exactly equal to Tails’ flight and is very limited.)
Cheese (Cream can sic Cheese on anything she wants, although Cheese isn’t very tough, he’ll do his best until he’s knocked away!)
Big the Cat (and Froggy):
Voice Actor: Jon St. John
Big is large, and not very bright, even less so than Mighty. But he’s terrifyingly strong, he may just be one of the strongest characters in this new reboot in terms of raw damage output, probably second only to Omega actually. But, Big’s not a fighter and prefers to spend his days by the lakeside, fishing with his companion Froggy.
Unbeknownst to him, though, Froggy harbors a dark secret, and, in fact, is the current owner of the tail of the ancient God of Destruction, Chaos. How Froggy exactly came upon Chaos’ tail is unknown, but it’s gotten Big and Froggy into trouble before.
Abilities:
Super Strength
Fishing Sense (Big can sense what kind of fish or how many fish, or even foreign objects or other animals are in bodies of water. It’s unknown how he does or knows this, but he does.)
Silver the Hedgehog:
Voice Actor: Scott Menville
Silver is from an alternate future, a long-forgotten timeline in which Robotnik succeeded in conquering the world, But his massive cities and factories were later laid waste to by the sands of time, and ancient forces of nature, throwing the future Silver resides within into complete Crisis. And now, filled with a sense of vengeance and justice, Silver has come back to the past, determined to find the one responsible for whoever did this to his future, but... there’s just a couple problems. 
He’s only fourteen years old.
Silver is also rather bright-eyed and gullible, and him messing with the streams of time might have a bigger domino effect than he realizes, even if he has no intention of messing anything up.
Abilities:
Psychokinesis (Silver can move, and throw objects with his mind. Silver’s telekinesis is limited only by his focus and stress, as if Silver gets too stressed, he may release some of the objects he’s holding, the same goes for if he becomes unfocused. Using said telekinesis can make Silver very physically exhausted though, especially if Silver moves HIMSELF with his mind, which he can do to hover in the air for a while. Objects held by Silver will freeze, suspended in whatever state they were in when Silver grabbed them, and the objects Silver holds are denoted by a cyan aura.)
Psychic Knives (Silver can condense his energy into crescent-shaped blades of energy, which he can fire off at his discretion, again, only limited by his physical exhaustion)
Teleportation (Silver has the limited ability to teleport short distances, although he doesn’t seem to have a very good handle on it, as he often messes up his positioning and seems to almost... forget he can do it?)
Blaze the Cat:
Voice Actor: Tara Strong
Like Silver, Blaze is from an alternate future. Blaze is Silver’s best friend, but also kind of a sisterly figure to him. Blaze is older than Silver, and is much more reserved, mature and wary than Silver is, although she’s still more than happy to help Silver, and ensure a good future for both him and herself. Blaze is proud, trying to make the best out of her situation by trying and believing herself to be the best around, in a way, she sort of views Silver more like a sidekick, even if Silver does tend to pull his weight.
Abilities:
Pyrokinesis (Blaze can summon, control and is immune to fire. Her ability to do so is limited, although her fires are known to become more intense whenever Blaze is enraged. Blaze can use her fire either for offense by spraying jets of flame from her hands, or defensively by cloaking her entire body in flame, or using the power of fire to float for short periods of time.)
Tornado Spin (Like Espio, Blaze tends to spin horizontally rather than vertical, this, combined with her pyrokinesis, makes her incredibly fearsome to deal with.)
Main Antagonists
You know what the fuck’s going on already. These are all my picks for Major Villains in the reboot. The big bads. The guys who are gonna come in and try to take all those Chaos Emeralds and Time Stones and shit I was talking about and wreak havoc on the peaceful Mobius Archipelago.
They are as follows:
Dr. Ivo “Eggman” Robotnik
Orbot and Cubot
Metal Sonic
Heavy King (And the Hard-Boiled Heavies)
Great Battle Bird Kukku XV
Chaos
Emerl
Mephiles, Iblis, and Solaris
In the end, it was hard to decide on what villains to choose to be big bads, Sonic has so many good ones, but this is what it all bled down to eventually. I feel kinda like Dragon Ball Z or... like, any fucking action anime or cartoon ever tbh. I wanted to give some more underrated villains a chance to shine like Kukku and Emerl, while also bringing back some old favorites like Chaos and Mephiles.
...ALSO, I’M GONNA GET TO TEAM DARK DON’T WORRY!
Dr. Ivo “Eggman” Robotnik:
Voice Actor: Mike Pollock (as if there were any other choice.)
Dr. Ivo “Eggman” Robotnik is the biggest bad in this reboot, as he should be. Robotnik was formerly a young, gentleman scientist, who arrived on South Island with his colleague, Dr. Madonna to study the Mobini that lived there, however, using the grant money meant for his research, and not much caring about nature himself, Robotnik instead betrayed Dr. Madonna to begin forging an empire with his own two hands, an Empire he believed would eventually be able to conquer the world. And he would’ve gotten away with it, too... if all not for a meddlesome blue hedgehog child, who REALLY liked to compare the doctor to an egg. Since his first outing against the blue blur, Dr. Robotnik tried tirelessly, day and night, to get his empire up and into the air, coming back with bigger, and better firepower each time, even succeeding in conquering South Island and collecting six of the seven chaos emeralds at one point, but he was thwarted by this blue hedgehog, and later, his friends each time. This war has gone on for over 5 years now chronologically and maybe more in the actual scheme of things, and all those years of trying have really quite nipped at the doctor, who had gained a significant amount of weight, became a social pariah and had torn all his hair out, save for his mustache, which has overgrown and has become frayed, and the doctor had taken the name ‘Eggman’ as a shallow attempt to mock the blue blur. It’s not to say that Eggman hasn’t succeeded, his conquest and lust for power had bled everywhere, his Badniks, a series of small robots built by him, are an epidemic across the archipelago, he has factories, operations, and eyes everywhere, and Robotnik eventually succeeded in taking one of the Archipelago's many islands for his own, renaming what was once ‘North Island’ into ‘Eggmanland’, this little island is only a twisted glimpse into the madness of what a world under the doctor’s control could look like, his own personal carnival of evil, smog and dust, celebrating him, and only him. It’s these little successes, as well as his never-ending stubbornness and undying believe that man can and will always triumph over nature, that has warped Dr. Eggman from a nefarious, dashing gentleman, into a balding, crazed, nasty old coot. If trouble’s brewing on the islands, and you smell smog wafting by, you can be assured Dr. Eggman isn’t very far behind. To call him a ‘mad scientist’ is an understatement, but even through his delusions and megalomania, he really is a genius.
Orbot and Cubot:
Voice Actors: Kirk Thornton, Wally Wingert
Orbot and Cubot are the Doctor’s trusted aides and second-in-lines, and... probably the Doctor’s only friends as of current. Orbot and Cubot have special AI hand-crafted by the doctor and are arguably his most advanced and most sentient creations crafted by his own two hands. Orbot is serious, intelligent, and bitingly sarcastic, as he was meant to relay information about factories, schemes, and developments back to Eggman, whereas Cubot is dim-witted, slow, and lazy, as he was more meant to perform basic duties like keeping Robotnik’s living space neat and tidy (although he doesn’t always do the best job at this.) However, Orbot and Cubot have become more than that as time has gone on. Unlike the Modern games, Orbot and Cubot can actually hold their own in combat... well, sort of. They have their own unique ‘Scratch and Grounder’ style of dealing with Sonic and Co. and they don’t usually make much progress or get much done in this regard. In this reboot I want Orbot and Cubot’s designs to be updated besides being just ‘ball’ and ‘cube’ so that they can fight alongside Eggman and just look a lot more interesting in general.
Metal Sonic:
Voice Actor: Ben Schwartz (with an intense, robotic filter) if we HAVE to give him a voice. I’d really just prefer Metal to be silent or voiced by music cues and sound effects.
Metal Sonic is Dr. Eggman’s greatest creation. Designed and built by a Dr. Eggman from the future, Metal was sent back in time to aid the Eggman of the past, this, however, proved to be a mistake, as with Metal under his belt, the Doctor became easily overconfident in his victory, thinking now that he had his supposed greatest creation to aid him, nothing could possibly stop him. 
Which made it all the more disappointing when Metal Sonic inevitably failed and was defeated by Sonic.
However, that wasn’t the end of it for Metal Sonic, after being recovered from the future on Little Planet, Metal was repaired, and sent to do reconnaissance on Sonic and Tails during their visit to Mirage Island. In the process of getting there, however, Metal absorbed an artifact while patrolling around the Lost Labyrinth Zone, which superseded the limits of Metal’s hardware, and not only restored Metal to his former greatness but gave Metal something that few of Eggman’s creations can ever claim to have. True sentience. 
Now fully aware of who he was, and what he was doing, Metal easily made it to Sonic and Tails, and upon seeing his organic counterpart for the first time in so long ever since their duel on Stardust Speedway, Metal was filled with rage. Rage, unlike anything The Mobius Archepeligo had ever seen.
The artifact has given Metal all sorts of mysterious abilities, like the ability to manifest a near-indestructible shield, the power to harness the electricity flowing through his circuits to send himself into overdrive and utilize his own overloading as a weapon, and along with being a creation of a Dr. Eggman who has seen the fall of the Earth...
Who knows what kind of sadistic, inhuman thoughts lie behind those synthetic, glowing eyes?
Abilities:
Hyperspeed Thrusters (Metal’s thrusters easily make him as fast as Sonic, and, like Sonic, Metal can still spin, although Metal can also fly with his thrusters.)
Black Shield (Metal can form a defense matrix around him using the power of the artifact he absorbed in Lost Labyrinth, the Black Shield is completely indestructible. Nothing can break through it. Not even something as powerful as Super Sonic could even crack it.) The only caveat is, using the Black Shield renders Metal completely immobile, and unable to attack, and it has a slight warmup and cooldown period.)
Overdrive (Metal can use the artifact he absorbed to utilize the electricity flowing through his circuits to send himself into Overdrive. While in overdrive, Metal Sonic’s entire body sparks with electricity, and Metal can manipulate how he uses that electricity, whether it’s to cloak himself in sparks to beef up his physical attacks or create pillars of sparks and arcs of electricity to attack foes from a distance. The only thing is, Metal cannot do this too much, as doing this can easily cause Metal to overheat, or completely overload and have a ‘blowout’... in other words, explode.)
Heavy King:
Voice Actor: Jim Cummings (Yes, I know Jim did SATAM Robotnik but that’s not the voice I’m imagining for Heavy King. Jim can do more than just Robotnik you know, even though my decision was partially influenced by it being a nice callback. Again, these voice actors are only projections.)/Barry Humphries
Heavy King used to be EggRobo, a robot (which later became a line of Robots) built in the image of Dr. Eggman himself and meant to serve as a decoy for him, and as a stand-in to carry out his own ends.
But the energy of the Phantom Ruby changed that.
Now, Heavy King is the leader of an elite squadron of his EggRobo brethren known as the Hard-Boiled Heavies. They used to serve Robotnik, before breaking free of his control and serving their own ends, beginning a new (albeit, much, much smaller) empire under their own names. He and the other heavies are a force to be reckoned with, few are able to match the ruthless, cold, metallic hand of Heavy King. Despite this, however, Heavy King is known to be much more diplomatic and reasonable than Robotnik, ironically enough, because he believes himself to be vastly superior in every way to organic life. However, his inflated ego pays a steep price if you catch him at the wrong time. However, Heavy King is the current holder of the Phantom Ruby, and that alone should scare you.
(Also I won’t go over each of the Heavies individually because I don’t feel like it, but, I will list their voice actors.)
Heavy Gunner: Patrick Warburton... or at least a cheap impression of him.
Heavy Rider: Eliza Schneider
Heavy Magician: Alexia Khadime
Heavy Shinobi: Seth Green (I picture Shinobi having much more of a nerdy weeb voice than having a serious Japanese accent like Espio.)
Great Battle Bird Kukku XV
Voice Actor: Tom Kenny
A lesser-known big bad, or rather, big bird, Great Battle Bird Kukku XV (he gets upset if you don’t say the full name), is the leader of the Battle Bird Empire, a battalion of birds who, at one point, sought to take over the archipelago in a similar manner to Dr. Eggman, however, Great Kukku XV was thwarted by Tails. Tails, funnily enough, doesn’t remember him at all, in fact, no one does. As a villain, hardly anyone takes Great Kukku XV very seriously, even with his massive armies and capability. Fact is, Great Kukku XV is just a little too immature to be a leader, and hence, he’s not very dangerous. However, his battalion did give rise to a certain, screwy, trigger happy, fellow green bomb-throwing bird who happens to be a defector of his...
In this reboot, there would probably be a lot of jokes about people not knowing who Great Kukku even is, or how dangerous he is, but don’t worry, he’ll get his time in the sun eventually. 
Chaos
Voice Actor: N/A, Chaos only speaks in water sloshes.
Chaos is one of the many original forces of nature that populated the Archipelago many years ago. Legend has it that Chaos was responsible for the mass extinction of the Echidna on Angel Island, and was the one responsible for flooding Hydrocity Zone, and the former Hidden Palace Zone. Chaos was formed when a Chao, who happened to be very old and unhappy due to the Echidna tribes of the day treating his people very unfairly, mutated due to the exposure of Chaos Energy to the Chao’s genetically unstable body. Chaos is a being of pure hate and pure destruction. It’s almost entirely composed of a thick, water-like substance that can take on liquid or solid properties at Chaos’ discretion. His body hungers for Chaos Energy, and he is willing to destroy anything that stands in his way to have it, specifically by absorbing the Chaos Emerald. With each emerald Chaos absorbs, Chaos only becomes bigger, and stronger, becoming harder and harder to defeat. And if Chaos gathers all Seven of the Emeralds? You’d better hope you can find some way to calm this Great Old One down, otherwise, your world may just end up underwater. Luckily, Chaos was sealed inside of the Master Emerald by its former guardian, Tikal, and there he shall remain... for now, at least.
Emerl
Voice Actor: Various (copies the voices of others. To speak it splices lines that it’s heard together.)
Originally created directly to counter Chaos whilst the Echidna tribes were facing extinction, Emerl is a Gizoid, a kind of Robot created to copy the physical data of others. Although one can initially defeat Emerl pretty easily, it’s advised not to vary your tactics too much, as Emerl’s original purpose, and his ultimate capability, is to copy any behavior he’s seen, in order to not only replicate it, but replicate it better, and hence, conquer its original user. Terrifyingly, Emerl can even copy phenomenon that he otherwise wouldn’t, or shouldn’t be able to use, such as Chaos Control, Sonic’s Maximum Speed, or Tails’ intellect. The only thing truly limiting Emerl... is the kind of opponents he faces. And, if you give Emerl to someone who understands him and knows how he works, you may just be dealing with one of the most fearsome fighters the Mobius Archepeligo has ever known.
Mephiles, Iblis and Solaris
Voice Actor: Dan Green (Mephiles only) (This is just because Dan also voices Knuckles ideally but, again, if Dan doesn’t wanna come back to Sonic after being replaced, I understand that.)
If Chaos was the patron saint of water, Solaris is the patron saint of fire. Born from a sacred flame created by the Echidna, Solaris was worshipped by the surviving Echidna as a force that could potentially vanquish Chaos, as the ‘’sun’ to dry the rain. However, the tribes’ malicious intents caused their newly formed ‘God’ to become more of a beast, and it only helped Chaos in driving the Echidna extinct. Solaris later retreated to the bottom of the ocean after all was said and done, slumbering beneath the surface in an underground cave, in a damaged, unstable state.
Solaris has re-awoken twice since this has happened, and both times, his unstable shell split and formed two halves, it’s raw power, known as Iblis, and it’s mind, and spirit, known as Mephiles. The two halves of Solaris first re-awoke in an Alternate Timeline where Robotnik had conquered the world, re-awakening as the folly of the dictator had driven the Sun God’s split soul to awaken when the intense greenhouse heat began to boil the ocean. Mephiles’ primordial form simply died off in the intense heat, but Iblis remained awake, laying waste to the already horrible wasteland that was Robotnik’s Bad Future. Many survivors who reside within this future came to blame Iblis for their problems, even though Robotnik was what had destroyed it centuries earlier.
As for the other time The soul and body of Solaris re-awoke?...
Well... we’ll get to that. Let’s come back to someone I’m sure you’re all waiting for.
Antiheroes
HERE HE IS, OKAY? YOU HAPPY? I was saving him for a good reason! I actually want Shadow (and Rouge, to an extent, she kinda keeps her evil side tbh) to start out as a big bad! After Shadow’s done BEING a big bad though, he’ll become similar to his post-adventure 2 self, specifically how he behaves in Sonic 06 and Sonic Heroes, except with a bit more sympathy. Modern Shadow has a lot of brooding, edgy bite to him, and while that’s cool and all, I feel like there should be more to Shadow than just brooding and standing around crossing his arms and saying ‘tch’ all the time.
Shadow the Hedgehog
Shadow the Hedgehog:
Voice Actor: Anyone that’s not Kirk Thornton. I actually don’t have a good answer for who Shadow’s voice actor should be but, honestly, anything would be better than his current one in my honest opinion.
Shadow was synthesized fifty years ago on a small, man-made satellite called the Space Colony ARK by the brilliant scientist Dr. Gerald Robotnik. He was born from a desire to find a cure for the seemingly incurable disease for his granddaughter, Maria. However, due to an accident when splicing the genes of the quill of a Mobian Hedgehog, and experimental biomaterial found on the fragments of an asteroid that collided with the Earth millions of years ago, the doctor accidentally created something he absolutely didn’t intend, Life. And thus, Project Shadow was born. Gerald felt attached to his creation, viewing the resulting creation, which he called ‘Shadow’ as one of his own. Shadow developed rapidly, quickly maturing into an infant, and then juvenile, yet seemingly normal Mobian Hedgehog. Shadow’s equivalent age later capped once Shadow was done growing, and he remained that way, immortally perfect. The Ultimate Lifeform. Tests with Shadow later showed his destructive capabilities, as it seemed the asteroid’s DNA had morphed Shadow to be far beyond the capabilities of any normal Hedgehog, even in peak physical condition at that age, capable of creating explosions, firing bolts of energy, and even freezing time, appearing to ‘teleport’ in the process. Despite these curiosities, Shadow grew fond of Maria in his stay at the ARK, although Shadow couldn’t help her recover, he did make her much happier. However, a raid on the Space Colony by the mainland’s military led to a massive capsizing of the project, with the intention to destroy Shadow, who was viewed as a dangerous, alien, unholy abomination. Before he could be killed though, Maria shot Shadow down to Earth in an escape pod, where he subsequently landed deep in the jungles of Cocoa Island... but, Maria was murdered in the process of doing so. Shadow was later recovered by Gerald’s other grandson, Ivo Robotnik, 50 years after the tragedy. Hesitant to release Shadow immediately, it’s known that Robotnik has spoken to Shadow in his pod, although about what matters is unknown. For now, Shadow slumbers deep within the confines of Eggmanland, waiting for his proper, strategic time to be unleashed and to wreak his horrible vengeance upon the Earth.
I’ll bring up Shadow again later when we talk about how I project the series to actually go, for now, just sit tight and let’s talk about the rest of Team Dark... and some familiar faces.
Abilities:
Spin Dash
Homing Attack (Shadow can automatically home in on opponents while also performing an Air Dash.)
Burning Rollout (Inspired by the flame ring of Sonic Adventure 2, Shadow can cloak his spinning form in fire by turning on his shoes when rolling, doing this will significantly up the strength of his spin, and make a nice little ring of fire around his spinning form.)
Chaos Control (Can be used as short-distance teleportation, as a way to buff Shadow’s speed immensely, or as a way to freeze or dramatically slow Shadow’s relative perspective of time by dramatically increasing his speed.)
Chaos Spear (These are green bolts of pure, chaos energy. The energy used to form these bolts is so unstable that once hurled at something, the ‘spear’ will likely explode, although, if it doesn’t, it will easily pierce through whatever it hits. Shadow likes to shout ‘DISAPPEAR!’ before hurling these at things for some reason.)
Chaos Blast (Shadow’s Chaos Blast can be considered his ‘ultimate’ attack, Chaos Blast sees Shadow creating a kind of ‘mini-singularity’ with chaos energy that will detonate after a short time, easily eradicating anything caught in the explosion’s radius, even the ground around Shadow. The only problem with this is, doing this is a huge strain on Shadow’s natural supply of Chaos Energy, so a lengthy cooldown period is inevitable.)
and of course, we can’t forget
The Roundhouse Kick
Minor Antagonists
These are characters who are villains but are also more likely to show up in arcs that are only a couple episodes long or are side or off-boss fights. 
I’ll be honest, most of you know these characters already, so I’m just gonna run through them super quickly and give my suggested changes and my justifications for them.
Rouge the Bat
E-123 OMEGA
Dave the Intern
Fang the Sniper (Nack the Weasel)
Bean the Dynamite
Bark the Polar Bear
Rouge the Bat:
Voice Actor: Karen Strassman
Rouge is a thief and a treasure hunter but is also working for the military agency of the mainland, G.U.N. Rouge is sly, sneaky and has a silver tongue, easily able to manipulate people into what she wants by pure wordplay alone. Rouge is a lot less active of a fighter than Sonic and Co. as she prefers to stalk quietly in the shadows, and strike when the time is right. In this reboot, Rouge is gonna wear something a bit more modest. I’m sorry, I hate Rouges’ clothes in canon. That fucking catsuit? has gotta go. She can still look cool and... *gag* “”sexy”” but, I’d rather her not wear... THAT? But, I do want her personality to remain mostly intact because in full honesty? She’s not a bad character on paper. Like Shadow, though I do kinda want Rouge to be a straight-up antagonist at first, and a very greedy one at that.
E-123 OMEGA:
Voice Actor: Vic Mignogna
What can I say? Omega doesn’t need to change much at all, really. He works in about any Sonic setting tbh. He’s loud, and he likes to blow things up, and he doesn’t emote very well, what else is there? In this reboot though, Omega will be the only E-Series Robot, or rather the only... surviving one. And, yeah, like Rouge and Shadow too, I think Omega should start out as an antagonist.
Dave the Intern:
Voice Actor: Ben Schwartz (What? We gotta keep up the tradition of Dave sharing a voice with Sonic!)
An odd choice for a minor antagonist I know, but Dave the Intern is REALLY funny? And I love the idea of a character just hating Sonic for no discernable reason other than ‘he’s popular and cool and I’m not.’ I also thought it’d be cool if Dave frequently got way in over his head with the shit he does, and put himself into trouble that Sonic (reluctantly) had to get him out of. Plus, I really wanted to include some representation of Sonic Boom in this reboot because Sonic Boom as a show is really funny and really good, and I think taking a page from it might be good, plus, Boom is a part of Sonic’s history too!
Fang the Sniper (Nack the Weasel):
Voice Actor: Dwight Schultz
Fang is the leader of Team Hooligan, and in a similar vein to Great Kukku XV I think he’d take himself way too seriously, but would play off of other characters. In Fang’s mind, he’s a trained assassin, like an evil Aussie-accent Batman or something of that stretch. But, really? He’s just a sleazy conman with a popgun. I feel like a good joke to make in this series would be Fang reaching for what he thinks is his actual pistol, but then he’d pull it out and fire it and it’d be one of his fake popguns. And, do I even need to make a joke about the comedic possibilities between him and Shadow using guns? Also, his real name being Nack the Weasel but he wants everyone to call him Fang the Sniper is funny. I’m sorry but ‘Fang the Sniper’ is just a silly name and I like the idea of Fang being the equivalent of one of those nice guys with Otaku Katanas who think they’re WAY cooler than they actually are. I wanted to choose Fang as a minor antagonist in the reboot just because of the kind of character I think he is, he thinks he has everything under control and has all the cards laid out in front of him when in reality, this setup of his just fails dramatically. The kind of interactions between him and Sonic this could spell out are amazing.
Bean the Dynamite:
Voice Actor: Eric Bauza
What do you get when you throw Daffy Duck and Woody Woodpecker in a blender and make him an unstable arsonist? Bean the Dynamite, that’s what. I’d want Bean in this reboot to be an off-the-wall, screwy, but surprisingly resourceful and clever, explosion-crazed maniac. He wouldn’t be... *gag* ‘insane’, so much as he would be just hyper and unable to calm down, again, like Woody Woodpecker or Daffy Duck. He’d be quick-witted, fast-talking and zippy, even more than Sonic himself is. (In the end, Sonic would always outpace him, but the reflexes on THIS bird are crazy.) Also, I feel like the idea of Bean being a defector of the Battle Kukku Armada is just... great, considering they’re all bomb-throwing birds, but THIS one was a little too off-the-handle for even them? He’d be a real character and a surprisingly dangerous threat for Sonic and Co.
Bark the Polar Bear:
Voice Actor: I’m... actually not too sure who to cast Bark as tbh. Mostly because I see him being very quiet and not... speaking, much at all?
Bark is a quiet tough guy. He’s smarter than he looks, but he’s big, he’s mean, he’s tough, and he will Hulk slam at least one character in the length of this reboot. I don’t really have much idea on where to take Bark, I just think he deserves a place as a minor villain.
Projected direction for canon
So, we have all the pieces of the puzzle, let’s see how they all fit together! I’ll be going through these with the assumption that one game can be made to represent each season of the show in its entirety.
For this, I honestly think it would be best if we split this reboot up based upon Sonic the Hedgehog’s current history with its elements. Think, almost, the way Sonic Generations told its story. We’ll start with something with a more Classic Vibe to it, then move into something more Adventure-like, and then, finally, we do something a bit more Modern! It’ll be a little less linear, and we’ll double dip here and there, but it’ll all line up!
Because of this, I’d like to establish what games have already PASSED before going into this series. This is what all has happened going in, in roughly the chronological order they happened in.
Sonic the Hedgehog 1 (16-bit)
Sonic the Hedgehog 1 (8-bit)
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (8-bit)
SegaSonic the Hedgehog
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (16-Bit)
Sonic CD
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles
Sonic Chaos
Sonic Triple Trouble
Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episodes 1, 2, and Metal.
Sonic Mania
The intention is to begin sort of... around the time JUST before Sonic Adventure 1 happened in the old rudimentary timeline before Sonic Forces came out and clarified Classic and Modern Sonic were different beings.
Season 1/Game 1: Genesis
The first few episodes of the series will be more dedicated to introducing the characters and Sonic’s new home. We’ll see the new Sonic, the new Tails, the new Knuckles, Amy, Mighty, and Ray for the very first time, and we’ll also get to see some of the characters’ new capabilities as they take on some minor villains or assaults led by Orbot and Cubot for the first couple episodes; but not at all subtly tease at something bigger and better coming, although we’re also shown how frequent scuffles between Sonic and Eggman exactly are, as we see plenty of mention of the Doctor, but he never physically appears.
Then, I’d say at about Episode 5 or 6 out of say, 22-24? Eggman steps in and introduces us to his new Master Plan, as he does. To build a new Death Egg (which, Sonic obviously chides him on doing the same thing a THIRD time.), but, as Robotnik does, he turns out to be serious, and the episodes from there on out are a race against time for Sonic and co. to gather all the Chaos Emeralds from various different zones of various different challenging geographies, fight off villains and giant robots, learn valuable morals, run into some familiar faces, and have a couple laughs along the way.
The climax of the season would come with a few episodes left, where Sonic and Co. finally have all the Emeralds, and they chase Eggman down to the New Death Egg, maybe there could be an encounter with Metal Sonic along the way because nostalgia and to introduce Metal into the continuity, and of course things’ll play out from there, Robotnik gets the upper hand and shows his shit, gets in a giant robot, dukes it out with Super Sonic, and BAM! End of Season/Game!
At the very end of season 1/Game 1 though, I’d like to include a little teaser for Season 2/Game 2 in the form of a familiar-looking escape pod in the middle of a jungle, full of green bubbling fluid, and a flash of red eyes.
Season 2/Game 2: Chaos Emerald Chaos
Right out of the gate in Season 2/Game 2, we’re back in the game as Sonic and Eggman are seen duking it out a while after the first game/season has ended, but in a much different area than we’d seen in Season 1/Game 1. This fight would lead up to the pod in the teaser after Eggman lures Sonic into a dark room with the green glow in sight. By one way or another, maybe on purpose or on accident, this pod breaks open, and something is released from it. Sonic is understandably confused, but then, is knocked down, and a panning shot reveals one of three of our major antagonists for the season/game, Shadow the Hedgehog.
Shadow fucking wipes the floor with Sonic in this first encounter, but instead of finishing him off, Eggman instructs Shadow to leave him be and search for the rest of the Chaos Emeralds instead. Shadow nods and simply leaves via Chaos Control. Eggman, on the meanwhile, begins transporting Sonic back to North Island via dropship, revealing by surprise that this isn’t on North Island, but rather a much smaller place Eggman was using as a trap.
Meanwhile, Sonic’s friends (with Knux noticeably absent) are confused to learn that Sonic has been... committing crimes, upon his return back from a scuffle back with Eggman, and seeming very much unlike himself, always hiding away in the dark and staying away from everyone. When they go to confront him, it turns out that this was actually Shadow, disguised as Sonic, who was simply searching for the emeralds for Dr. Eggman.
Sonic’s friends demand to know where Sonic is, but Shadow kicks all their asses instead, and something about the Master Emerald is mentioned after the fight. We then cut away to Knuckles, who is soon confronted by Shadow.
Shadow puts up a hard fight, but, with the help of the chaos emerald he already had, defeats Knuckles, and goes to take the Master Emerald. But, in a last ditch effort to save the gem, Knuckles shatters the Master Emerald, causing the shards to scatter all across the islands. Shadow, understandably frustrated by this, scoffs and leaves, seemingly fooled into thinking the Master Emerald WAS destroyed. Unknowingly, however, shattering the Master Emerald caused Chaos, slumbering within the Emerald, to awaken.
Knuckles, obviously horrified by what he’s done, abandons Angel Island and sets to work on finding both the pieces of the Master Emerald, and any Chaos Emeralds he can, to stop Chaos before anything goes wrong.
At this point, we go back to Sonic, who finally escapes as the dropship taking him to EggmanLand and, by extension, escapes from the city as he hurries to try to reunite with his friends and tell them what happened.
From there, a combination of the events of Adventure 1 and 2 (with the addition of Metal Sonic and some other characters of course.) would transpire, with Rouge the Bat getting involved with Knuckles due to her finding the shards of the Master Emerald, and the Chaos Emeralds trading hands several times, all up until the Season/Game’s climax.
It would all build with Robotnik planning to use Chaos to terraform the Earth by transforming him into Perfect Chaos, who, once he takes form, begins wreaking havoc on a coastal city on the mainland. At this point, the Chaos Emeralds seem shut off, and even though the Master Emerald is restored, it seems like there’s nothing that can be done. Shadow, having already begun to go through a change of heart when he sees the kind of destruction the doctor’s plans have wrought, and after some choice words from Amy, decides instead to join Sonic and Co. in what seems like their darkest hour. And, Shadow mentions that Chaos only absorbed the negative energy of the emeralds, being in-tune with Chaos Energy himself, he’d know this.
And so, Super Sonic and Super Shadow defeat Perfect Chaos together, Knuckles and the spirit of Tikal work together to seal Chaos back inside the Master Emerald, and the city begins to drain.
Shadow, having felt satisfied with this, then decides to go off on his own for a while, and mentions something about ‘wanting to discover himself’, and ‘trying to decide what Maria would have wanted me to be.’ 
Oh, and Eggman is finally thrown in prison for literally capsizing an entire city. But don’t worry, he’ll be back.
End of Season 2/Game 2.
Season 3/Game 3: Triple Trouble!
This Eggmanless Season/Game would feature a ‘Triple Threat’, in the form of 3 major villains! And all three of them brand new to the series! We’re introduced to Emerl in this season, as well as Great Kukku XV, and Heavy King.
The entire season would be intense, Team Sonic rushing to get the Chaos Emeralds once again, while the Battle Birds (frequently interrupted by Bean the Dynamite, calling out to his ‘brothers’) and Heavies scramble to get them before the team does.
All the while... Emerl grows stronger and stronger by the minute.
And, in a surprise twist, Emerl, having copied the data of Great Kukku XV and the Heavies, among many others, grows the strongest he ever has, and, like Mecha Sonic in Sonic 3, uses the Master Emerald (likely stolen by Heavy King or Kukku at this point) to attain a Super form, and Emerl becomes a terrifying conglomerate of everything that has led up to this point, Perfect Emerl, the thing originally meant to take down PERFECT CHAOS.
But, luckily, Kukku and King realize when they’ve been beaten, and decide to help Super Sonic take down Perfect Emerl. 
End of Season 3/Game 3. But like Season 1, let’s end off on a teaser. How about a small, flickering flame, with a visible shadow?
Season 4/Game 4: Return of Solaris
This is the final season/game I have planned out, although that’s not to say more couldn’t be done with this concept, it’s just about as far as I got. Essentially I was thinking this season could be a retelling and retooling of Sonic 06 with some details omitted or changed up like, for instance:
The romance between Sonic and Elise being outright axed! Matter of fact, while we’re at it, let’s just NOT make Elise a focus character so she doesn’t eat up screentime?
The weird time shit in this season/game being altered with Time Stones instead of Chaos Emeralds!
Less plotholes!
Focus on NONLINEAR timelines with LINEAR storytelling.
Silver is less silly!
Metal Sonic!
The Chaotix! AND THEY’RE HERE TO ACTUALLY BE HELPFUL!
Important Sonic characters being important!
Hey guess what? Eggman’s back and busted out of jail and he’s kicking ass! And he’s totally gonna release Solaris even though that didn’t work out so well for him last time!
Mephiles is still a cool villain! And he gets cool new designs for this series too that don’t stray too far from his original form!
I feel like this season/game would be kind of a hard fusion of Sonic CD and Sonic 06, with elements of Sonic CD being changing the past to ensure the future, and the future/present changing as a result. 
The climax of this series would be, well, you know by now. Sonic getting shot in the back, but then revived using the Chaos Emeralds and Time Stones together. But, even with Super Sonic, all seems hopeless, but, Sonic and Knuckles seem to have an idea, and it leads up, to our grand finale:
Solaris, the extra-dimensional being of ultimate power.
Versus
Hyper Sonic, Super Shadow, Super Silver, Super Tails, Super Knuckles, Super Amy, Super Mighty, and Super Ray.
With Solaris finally felled, Sonic and Co. use the last of the energy of their super forms to do two more things. 
Vanquish the flame of Solaris and Mephiles, and ensure that Solaris may never return to any Time Stream.
Silver’s future, although still broken, now looks much brighter, and the world is saved for the final time.
End of Season 4/Game 4.
I’m sure these ideas could be tweaked or changed around to span more seasons/games if certain characters or aspects of the series become popular, or if demand for certain characters appearing gets to be enough. Sonic has an immense library of games to do over or retell in this reboot, why not? 
And, this is just my idea for it, it doesn’t have to go this way explicitly. My only goal with this was to try to unify the Sonic lore in an interesting, unique manner, but also in such a way that it was new, fresh, and it made sense, most of all!
Opening
This really applies more toward the cartoon part of this reboot, that’s not to say the video game COULDN’T utilize the cartoon’s opening or something, it’s just that the opening is more for the show than it is for the games.
There’s a number of ways to go here, but in my mind, the best way to open a Sonic cartoon? Is the way you’d open a Sonic game. How about a condensed ‘remake’ of Sonic CD’s opening, with a few short clips from the first few episodes thrown in there to get people curious and excited about the show when it first airs?
There’s a cover of Sonic Boom by Crush 40 and Cash Cash just waiting to be used for this very thing!
I also think a condensed (that is to say, censored. I hate to censor a great song but ‘kicking-ass fast’ is a bit much for a show that’s likely gonna be PG-rated.) version of the Zebrahead (aka the BEST) version of His World would make for a GREAT opening.
Or if we wanna piggyback off of the recent success of Mania, how about a condensed version of Friends? Maybe we could even end the intro off on a remake of Sonic Mania’s title theme if we wanna have like, a classic Sonic emblem at the end of the opening.
I’d say the opening should be about... 60% new animation with Sonic platforming around and parkouring like he does or whatever, and about 40% old animation of various clips from the show or maybe even the games if we’re feeling kinda frisky to show off the series we’re about to watch, but also for budgetary reasons and to, again, get people interested in what’s actually IN the show, or maybe we could even do it like Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure’s part 1 opening or something where a couple of important scenes from the very beginning of the show or games are re-animated in a flashy way to achieve the same effect, but also wow the audience. That'd be a huge budget sink though and going a classic clip-show-and-new-shit route may just be the ideal compromise.
Marketing
This next part is also a lot more cartoon oriented, and kinda heavily depends on who’s gonna be sponsoring the show and who’s gonna be running it, but, hear me out.
Part of Sonic’s rise to popularity in the 90s was controversial, competitive advertising. And you know what? I haven’t seen anything really quite like this in a long time (except maybe for cleaner commercials), but, lots of people remember how pushy and in your face these commercials were, and how much they really pushed the superiority of the product they were advertising. So you know what? Let’s bring this back. Let’s bring back Sonic’s violent guerilla marketing campaigns.
It’d be a great throwback as well as a statement about Sonic REALLY comin’ back and comin’ back hot; which might get some new people interested to at least watch a few episodes, and in the process of that, they may find they like the new show/games a lot!
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(NOTE: I DON’T HATE NICKELODEON, AND THIS ISN’T EXACTLY WHAT I THINK THE SHOW’S SONIC SHOULD LOOK LIKE, THIS IS JUST A PROOF-OF-CONCEPT OF WHAT I THINK THIS SHOW’S ADVERTISING COULD LOOK LIKE)
Or, if we want to opt for more positive, passive marketing strategies, why don’t we revisit an idea that was misused and make it better?
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Idk about anyone else but I actually really like the ‘blue streaks to show where Sonic’s been’ idea that the movie posters did, and I think it has potential to make a really memorable-looking advertisement.
Or, why not opt for a more nostalgic passive approach and recreate some of Sonic’s old box art?
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Again, it’d be a great throwback as well as a way to get people interested in the show. Although, if we go this route I WOULD say maybe we should make it a little more interesting than just ‘Sonic 1 pose on a black grid or popart background’? Maybe we should combine these box arts and add the pop-art details for little pops of color while Sonic bursts out of this black-grid frame with a richly detailed drawing of Green Hill in the background? I dunno.
Conclusion
Okay, so. I didn’t get to everything I wanted to explain (like other marketing stuff, merchandising, the new actual GAMEPLAY for these new games, how to write the characters and humor, how I think the general ART STYLE of these new cartoons and games should look, etc.) as a matter of fact, I still have a ton more ideas for this reboot, but, here’s the main point:
Sonic the Hedgehog, right now? Sucks. Because it’s such a mess. It has too many ideas that are going off in too many different directions. The best way to change that, in my eyes, is to start over and try to unify all these broken-up ideas into one. I believe this is possible, while still maintaining a pretty widespread appeal and giving broken, old ideas a second chance to shine, but still being fresh and new enough to have a lasting impact and leave the door open for new content later.
I’m really bad at ending posts like this, but, if you went into this post thinking that Sonic can’t or shouldn’t change, I hope I’ve at least provoked thought on the matter. And, maybe, all those hardworking people at SEGA will decide one day that things need to change, whether by a reboot, rewrite or just... doing something a little bit different.
Maybe then, just maybe.
Our blue blur will really shine again.
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- Jenny, of @jennikkugoesoff and @jennikku
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timegal25 · 5 years ago
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The Odd Side of Youtube
     YouTube, the popular video sharing website, has been around for over a decade. It’s had it’s over abundance of videos themed around Fortnite, “emotional apology videos” stuffed to the brim with ad revenue, a disturbingly high number of poorly animated nursery rhymes, and surprisingly graphic skits targeted at kids. But it’s also been an outlet for creative expression and connection for those outside the mainstream. For a socially awkward and isolated kid who found companionship in watching YouTube, fandom videos offered a sense of connection, belonging and reassurance that there were “odd people” out there who shared his interests and passions.
While the vast majority of people know about things like “Gangnam Style” and “Let’s Plays,” not as many can say they have extensive knowledge of the various niche fandom videos that make up a good portion of the website itself. These are the odd clips that either you only come across by looking up directly, or have randomly pop up in your recommended feed with no real reason as to why.  In my case, I remember a majority of these from watching them when I was younger, and then rediscovering them when looking deep into the site on late night nostalgia binges. It’s  a common hobby of mine, and it usually leads to me finding some of the strangest things as a result. Oddly, a great many of these strange finds just so happen to include Sonic the Hedgehog.
Let me preface this by saying what follows is in no way an attack on any of the creators of these videos, nor is it a call for others to go out and harass them. In fact, that’s part of the point. Many of the people who create some of the more odd or innovative content on YouTube are doing it as creative expression of who they are or what interests them. It’s a place to express a part of themselves, and it takes courage to do it. It’s easy for those who aren’t so brave to attack the creators.  I actually enjoy a lot of the content I’ll be referring to because the people behind it are genuine and clearly having a ton of fun making it. This is all done in good fun, and shows just how strange and odd fandom culture as a whole can be. And for some of these innovators who dared to put themselves out there, it paid off big time just by how fondly remembered they are by those who talk about them. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s begin.
Part One: Hedgehogs and Dragon Balls
To start things off, let’s look at a project that is fully animated. Before YouTube, there was the popular website Newgrounds, a place where you could watch videos, play games, and just mess around. This is where a lot of influential and important creators got their start by posting their little animations on the site. On August 14, 2006, user Chakra-X (real name Aaron Cowdery), posted the first part in a three-part movie called Sonic: Nazo Unleashed with part two coming a week later and part three following in 2007. All three parts were later uploaded all into one HD remaster under the title of Sonic: Nazo Unleashed DX on YouTube in 2014. The film follows Sonic and his friends as they take on the mysterious and powerful Nazo, an unused form of Sonic from a promotional video for the anime Sonic X.
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Now what makes this special from say the dozens of Sonic themed fanfics that follow a somewhat similar premise? Chakra-X did something no one had dared to do before. The animation was very heavily inspired by the anime megahit Dragon Ball Z and its then airing sequel Dragon Ball GT . The sound effects used and the presentation of special moves were ripped right from the series and even parts from the climax are just ideas presented in the show such as two characters fusing to make one new powerful being. In 2006, it was unheard of to see Sonic characters perform such high speed anime action. What was even more notable is that it was created by one single guy on the internet.  The professionally produced Sonic X TV show that was airing at that time paled by comparison, even with a team of professional animators with high tech equipment.
In the decade since Nazo Unleashed originally came out, Chakra-X has been a part of various animated collabs and now works for Titmouse Inc , an animation company that has done work for companies like Warner Bros., Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, and even Disney. What was even more inspiring for me, Chakra-X is a young black man . This was the first I’d become aware of anyone who looked like me being a much sought after animator. It told me that I could be him, I could be in his position if I put in as much effort and love into a creative project. And with how amazing the upcoming sequel he’s working on looks, I feel that kind of hopeful inspiration even more.
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The next piece I’m going to examine is another well known series in the Sonic fandom community that also is heavily influenced by Dragon Ball Z. While it is also animated and is full of high speed action packed fights, this one has its own amazing identity. The series I’m talking about is the always spectacular Super Mario Bros. Z by Mark Haynes, aka Alvin Earthworm, starting in 2006 and going until 2009. While this series was originally created on Newgrounds, it’s real exposure and popularity came from being uploaded to YouTube.
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The series follows Mario, Sonic and friends as they go on an epic race against time to secure the powerful chaos emeralds from the clutches of the evil Mecha Sonic. Much like Nazo Unleashed, the influence of Dragon Ball Z series is anything but subtle, with the plot of “good guys need to find powerful objects before bad guys” being one of the key ways to describe Dragon Ball as a whole. One of the key things that makes this stand out on its own is the fact that this entire series is animated using sprites from the games. Just about every character that wasn’t made specifically for the series has their models taken right from their games. Mario and Luigi for example come from the Mario and Luigi role playing game (rpg) series on the Gameboy Advance (GBA), while the Sonic and Shadow sprites come from Sonic Battle also on the GBA. An extra step is taken by having the characters act like they do in their retrospective series. Mario and Luigi never actually use dialogue boxes in their games, with other characters still understanding them. The same is true here with the brothers’ words never actually being seen on screen. Going that extra step to emulate the games made the videos feel more authentic.
I was relatively young and new to the internet when Super Mario Brothers Z  (SMBZ) started popping up. I wasn’t fully aware of what sprite animations were, as they weren’t as easy to make or common back then as they are now, so I would see all the action and Sonic and Mario on screen together and I thought that it was an actual game. I wanted to play it so badly on my Gameboy Advance SP. On one trip to a Gamestop, my young self boldly walked up to the lady working the register and asked “Hey, do you have Super Mario Bros Z ?” She gave me this look that said either she knew exactly what I was talking about or didn’t have a single clue at all and just nicely said that they didn’t. I went on to repeat this at several more gaming stores before I realized that it wasn’t a real game, nor did it ever claim to be. It was then that I started looking for games I wanted myself because sometimes just saying a title out loud can make you look like the strangest person around.
What made the SMBZ series so attractive and so entirely different from anything found on YouTube at the time was the animated action. You might think  that since the series is using pre-made assets and models, that there must be some limitations on what can be done. However, with a bit of help from some custom new sprites as well as some fast editing and sound effects, things can get insane . Being able to translate the speed and intensity of a Dragon Ball Z fight is hard enough to copy with regular animation, yet Mark was able to do this with 2 dimensional sprites and flashing lights. And even that pales in comparison to the pure adrenaline of fights concerning the series main antagonist, Mecha-Sonic.
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Originally starting off as a mostly side boss in Sonic and Knuckles , Mecha Sonic became a fan favorite thanks to this series. Like any good antagonist, he can easily prove himself as a threat to the heroes while also being able to take the hits himself. This comes across easily in the series most popular episode, Brawl on a Vanishing Island . This 30 minute episode has a variety of characters going up against each other, but the mood quickly turns the second Mecha Sonic arrives and absorbs the power of the Chaos Emeralds. What follows is an absolutely brutal beatdown of another team of antagonists, the Axem Rangers X. The speed, the sound effects, alongside an amazing remix of Sonic and Knuckles’ Doomsday Zone playing in the background, this is a simply amazing bit of animation that can’t really be put into words without it sounding absolutely ridiculous. And much like with Nazo Unleashed, so much of this was done by just one guy.
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After episode 8 in 2009, things basically ended on a cliffhanger with the series being presumed over. Haynes had his own life and things to deal with, and something that took up so much time to make could be easily seen as poor use of it. In the years following, many others tried their hand at sprite animations with heavy action scenes with that becoming its very own subgenre on YouTube. Then, in 2016, Mark made a glorious return with the first episode of what was basically a reboot of the series. Fans loved it, amazed to see how far things had come. And then..there was basically nothing else. Originally, Haynes had a Patreon set up so that fans could fund him making this as well as possibly being a way for him to make this his job. It was shut down, most likely due to him directly saying it was going towards the series and Nintendo seeing it as someone else profiting off their IP. With any funding that could go towards rewarding all this time and effort being taken away, as well as Haynes having more important personal things and depression, it is unlikely that we’ll see an update anytime soon. It’s been three years since the first episode went up on YouTube, and while I still hope someday he’ll return, but as someone who knows that forcing yourself to make something others want even if you don’t want to is like, the personal happiness and health of Mark Haynes is so much more important.  He’s already left an amazing legacy on the net, and the stuff he’s given us is already great enough as is.
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And now to go from flash animation, to sprite animation, we’re reaching the next logical step. Out of all the series discussed in this part, this one is my absolute favorite. And it is one of the weirdest things out there. Another crossover series featuring the world of Mario and Sonic, alongside a few notable others. One that’s full of action and character, and it’s all animated in PowerPoint (no, I’m not kidding), this is Chocobro Cinemas’ The “Dimension” Saga. Strap in, things are gonna get really, really weird.
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The series started in 2007, with Dimension Mix-Up as it followed various characters from Super Mario Bros, Sonic the Hedgehog, Frogger, Invader Zim, and Calvin and Hobbes. That was all 100 percent serious, and to the credit of both this and Super Mario Bros Z, there is a feeling of self-awareness running throughout the whole series. I unironically love this entire series from start to finish, mostly just due to the fact that there’s so much creativity and love being put into something that most people would just brush aside as another cheap fanfiction. When I originally found this back in 2007, it was like the most amazing thing ever. The computer I had at the time took forever to not only load flash animations, but even playing them took like 5 years for just a few seconds. I hadn’t really known what Newgrounds was fully back then either, so Super Mario Bros Z also wasn’t something I watched at the time, and I came across this. An action filled adventure that had characters not only from Sonic and Mario, but also Invader Zim which was still super huge at time, and Calvin and Hobbes?! To a megafan of all those things who would actually spend their time on Fanfiction.net reading stories about this stuff (Yes, even Calvin and Hobbes), this was like the holy grail. Also Frogger was there, so...that was cool?
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This story should not work, these characters all being together on screen expecting viewers to care for them all should not work, this idea of using powerpoint back in 2007 to simulate animation of any kind should not work. Yet somehow...it does. Even with the fact that this is clearly just a camera recording a screen at this point, there’s something rather entertaining about it all. And the action isn’t half bad for something made with a tool that clearly was never meant to be used in this way. It can actually be creative with how some fight scenes are done. The whole of episode 6 is able to show off a giant robot boss battle with some pretty decent speed, while episode 8 can trick viewers with its looping backgrounds. The best part of this comes just from watching how not only does the quality of the video improve over time, but so does the writing and the story. Dimension Takeover and Dimension Obliteration are amazing and admittedly addicting watches that have the same level of love and care put into them as the previous two series discussed in this. Giving the fans such high quality action and adventures while also doing a really great job of making all the interactions feel like they’re from their source material. Well, at least as close and one can get when you have a hedgehog talking to an imaginary tiger and a group of cartoon frogs. I can’t say thank you enough times to the people who’ve made all their series, as my love of writing stories based on my own favorite series probably wouldn’t be as strong today. And hey, one can surprisingly do a good job with powerpoint. At least it wasn’t just a slide show.
Part Two: These literally are just slide shows!
Sticking to the topic of Sonic, he seems to be a super popular subject for crossovers. Besides Mario, he and his friends have appeared in both official and nonofficial meetups with all kinds of pop culture favorites. The one series that seems to dominate the realm of Sonic crossovers online is My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic . The series itself has had quite the impressive run of nine years, with its final episodes airing this year. What probably would have been seen as just another cheap product placement by the majority of people if it hadn’t been for the rather large audience of grown up fans that for a time basically ruled the internet. While in the later years the fan base has shrunk as all fandoms do, there are still those that happily enjoy watching cartoon ponies and doing various things related to them online, myself included.  
Now how does a super fast and cocky blue hedgehog that saves the day from an evil egg shaped man and his army of robots have any kind of connection to a cartoon about six colorful and talented ponies as they go through their lives learning about and solving problems with the power of friendship? Well, both are series that have similar characters with Sonic and Rainbow Dash both being blue,fast, and cocky. Both series deal with giant world ending disasters by using powerful gems and the power of teamwork. And both believe in the real power of friendship. So, yeah. There’s bound to be a ton of fan series based on seeing these two worlds meet up. And hoo boy, Youtube sure seems to love hosting a ton of them.
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The common theme in all the Sonic/My Little Pony Crossovers in this part is that they’re all going to be slideshows. There might be a few clips from the shows or games, maybe a piece of fanart or two, but 99 percent of the stuff in these videos is just going to be static text. Let’s start with the...highest quality one of the three brought up in this part, Sonic X Equestria by Speedstar Productions . The plot is nothing new. Eggman shows up to wreak havoc and Sonic must team up with the cast of My Little Pony, or Mane Six as they’re called, to help stop him. When I said most of these are just slideshows... I wasn’t kidding. The entire series will go from random screen cap to random promotional images, with text overlaid on the bottom. There is no original voice acting either, with the only voices that occasionally can be heard coming from the clips or sound bytes. There is no promised sense of consistency either, as photos of the characters can be pulled from different seasons, games, comics and shows all together. In this, Sonic is supposed to have his normal modern look but some screenshots are from Sonic Boom which is a show with different designs. Another example of this comes from shots of Twilight Sparkle. This show takes place in the My Little Pony world after Twilight becomes the princess of friendship and gets her own wings. Even shots from the first episode will use photos of her without them. It’s never actually a thing that matters to the show, as it acts like everything is on model, and that we can perfectly see everything that’s going on.
Another thing that this and many others like it seem to have in common is the idea that Sonic is the one doing all the work, while all the ponies just kinda...watch in the background. Sure, Twilight will pitch in with her magic every once in a while, but if Sonic’s taking on Eggman? He’s mostly going in solo. Sure, these ponies have easily taken on things like chaos incarnate, and powerful tyrants with black magic. But a man in a giant robot suit? Too unpredictable . Sure, one could argue that it’s because the mech being used in the fight only has images of Sonic fighting it...but in a later episode , the girls join in a fight that’s entirely animated! I shouldn’t be mad about this, yet I am!
Though..despite the rant, I still find myself enjoying watching this series. I can’t fully explain if it’s ironic or if it’s unironic. Maybe it comes from the fact that everyone still acts in character to their on-screen counter parts, leading to interactions that fans wanted to see. We want to see the ponies talk to Sonic characters, and help take down Eggman. The use of actual pictures from the shows and games helps too, making us help visualize it as if it were an actual episode.  Maybe it comes from the fact that it feels like something I would watch in the early days of Youtube. The kinda low effort yet also decent attempt of trying to make events appear coherent in some way, even if the images shown aren’t the most in continuity. Though, episode 11 is literally the Shadic vs Nazo fight from Nazo Unleashed. Those things aside...this is still kind of a guilty pleasure watch that I’ll binge from time to time.
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Sometime last year, I was looking up Nazo Unleashed videos late one night, due to that time bringing out a large sense of nostalgia for days gone. As I was looking, I saw a thumbnail that stuck out to me. Or rather...a title that stuck out to me, as well as a runtime that had my interest set to max.
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The Adventures of Sonic in Equestria Nazo Unleashed The Movie HD , by Adam Selvig, is a title that feels like it should be one of those videos that promises an upload of a current movie in HD that only links to scam sites that will give your computer a virus. It isn’t that. This is a slideshow that’s the length of a movie. College lectures aren’t this long. The best way to describe this one is that Sonic and the ponies must come together to defeat Nazo as well Tempest Shadow, a character from the My Little Pony movie. Also, Sonic and Rainbow Dash have a daughter called Sondash, which is literally just art of a child Rainbow Dash. This series is weird. Another strange thing is that a lot of the channels posting Sonic / My Little Pony stuff in series like this...usually have around 1K subs. That’s nothing to any major Youtuber, but the idea that even just one thousand people subscribe to watch this stuff as soon as it comes out..is just mind blowing.
This film is part of a series, one that started all the way back in January of 2018. The playlist for this thing says that the series as of March 4th, 2019...is 103 videos long?! And with seemingly all of them in the 20 minute range...the question becomes, how long has Selvig been working on this thing, and does he have others help him with it? And again...why is it always Sonic that seems to be doing everything around here? Are the ponies just lazy now that an outsider is here?
The odd thing is that there are so many Sonic/My Little Pony crossover videos on Youtube, but when looked into, so many of them are the exact same content. Stills and transparent photos with clear backgrounds with text overlaid. And so many are able to get these creators at least a few hundred subscribers. In a surprisingly deep sea of similar executions, are there any left that stand out above the rest? Good news, there is at least one series that goes in another direction. In more mixed news, well…
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This is Harmony and Chaos by Michael Evans. While originally popping up as text on gradient background sometime in 2017, the whole series is now being voiced over by its creator. That’s all this is. Text on a background while one man narrates over it in various voices. And for the most part, there isn’t much there at all in terms of action. Now, I’m only nine episodes in this seemingly sixty plus episode run with multiple seasons series, so I might be wrong. The main focus of this series is romance, and boy is there a lot of it. If there’s a male character from Sonic and a female character from My Little Pony that interact a lot in this thing, there’s a pretty good chance they’ll end up smooching somewhere on down the line. This sounds exactly like what many seem to see fan bases as general as, writing overly long amounts of fan fiction that are also chock to the brim with romance and needless drama. In this series, Rainbow Dash is getting a divorce from her husband who she thought was cheating on her, when really he only made it seem that way so that she wouldn’t have to know that he was dying from a deadly disease. It’s a move right out of the soap opera playbook.
Despite all of this, I find myself coming back to all of these series and watching them in huge chunks. It comes from a sense of odd curiosity on how the story is going to play out.  It also helps that the people behind this stuff seem like just genuinely nice people that want to post their creations online and share it with the world. It’s just that the stuff they make is really weird, not bad, just strange. And even then, it’s not the most strangest thing on the net that’s out there.
Part Three: Big Adventures, Bigger Casts
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The best way to start this final part was with an image. An image that perfectly tells someone everything they need to know, as well as absolutely nothing at all. Welcome to Pooh’s Adventures , a seemingly endless number of movies and tv shows that are “edited” to include characters from Winnie the Pooh, My Little Pony, Transformers, Thomas the Tank Engine and so, so many more. I put edited in quotes because really, does this count as editing in any way, shape or form? To give a basic plot outline of just about every single Pooh’s/Thomas’/Insert Character name here’s adventure, large group of characters are inserted into popular movie or show, where they help the main character of said movie or show against the antagonist who is now usually joined by other villains from various forms of media. Rinse and Repeat for every movie ever with vague hints of events from previous adventures running into this one.  Take any movie, and there’s a good chance there’s at least the idea for a Pooh’s Adventures on it. Like for example Winnie The Pooh vs. Jaws , which while not a real movie as of this writing does have a devoted page on the fan wiki . And it seems to promise quite the cast of characters.
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It can actually be somewhat hard in trying to find some of these, due to the fact that they’re just full movies with other copyrighted clips put in at random intervals. Those that are still up on Youtube seem to be the ones that use the most obscure of movies as their source . And just like with the Sonic/Mlp stuff, all of these channels seem to have at least a few thousand subscribers thanks to it. Of all the adventures that still remain on Youtube, Winnie the Pooh Goes to Hotel Mario / Pooh’s Adventures of Batman Forever is the one I’m most proud still remains. There is no connection between the two, besides the fact that both Hotel Mario and Batman Forever are both seen as surreal experiences that have very little connections to their source and are enjoyed in a “so bad it’s good” way.
There are still ways to find both older and newer uploads of the various adventures online. Many of the members will just upload their older stuff to Google Drive or Dropbox , and more recently, a lot of uploads are being moved to Pandora.tv, a mostly Korean based website where they can run ads on the video.
The wiki for this fandom is massive, with there being over thirty five thousand articles as of the time of this being written, with new ones being added or updated seemingly every few minutes. Most fantasy wikis can’t reach numbers that high! Though, most of the pages on it are bare-bones with only a single line or two for a ton of characters while others are pages clearly ripped right from other fandom wikis. There’s also ideas for series that are just the title and then nothing else, along with transcripts and posters put next to dozens of dead or empty links. For a site that seems so bloated and full, it’s actually pretty empty and hollow upon closer look.
I wanted to share all of this because so much of this resonates with me in some way, even Pooh’s Adventures , since I’d be lying if I said I haven’t thought up crossovers with insanely large casts that really should have nothing to do with each other.I guess in a way...I saw these all as the things I wanted to make but never knew how to. I’ve always wanted to animate, to tell my stories with these characters that I know and love to as many people as possible, to hear their feedback on all of it. That’s why I got so passionate talking about all certain moments or episodes, it’s all the things I would do! They’re people just like me, and that’s why I wish Mark Haynes the best in his life, why I’ll say the guys who work on the Sonic and My Little Pony  seem like nice people. That’s why I’ll be so amazed by someone having a thousand subs or more. I see myself in these creations and the experiences of their creators. The pains of depression, the joy of seeing how their work has influenced others, the effort and care put into these things. I want to see them succeed and be supported, because that shows me that I can succeed too.  
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acrispyapple · 7 years ago
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50 more interesting questions
Rules: fill this out and tag at least one person you’d like to know more about! Or just fill it out! Or don’t! Answer only some of them! Make up your own questions! “What kind of requirement is that”, you ask? A reasonable one! Who am I to tell you what to do? Anything goes!
Tagged by @incorrectmidc i had this open for days and i answered a few questions per night lol @o0w0o and @deathbymidnightcinderella  <3
1. What kind of food can’t you stand? spicy stuff and umm food loaded with exotic spices / herbs
2. If you could choose one minor inconvenience to never have to deal with again, what would you pick? my mouse ending up double clicking after a year or so
3. Have you got any useless talents? i have way too much trivia and animal facts. plus random skills with no practical use. oh and playing the piano is also a useless talent for me since i don’t really “use” it
4. If you were really really good at one thing, what would it be? my answer isn’t an “if” thing lol. i have a really good memory. it really helps with mostly anything i do + it makes studying easier. but sometimes people think it’s creepy that i remember little things about them, they think i keep notes about them or something lol-- but i really do just remember.
5. Name a few people you think are extremely good-looking - umm neil caffrey (matt bomer) from white collar, nick burkhardt (david giuntoli) from grimm, daniel shaw (brandon routh) from chuck -- i seem to have a type haha. omg i forgot jo in-sung. i’ve always thought he was handsome! 
6. What was your favorite way to pass the time as a kid? i was a pretty boring kid. i just read books, watched cartoons, and organized things. as a kid i’d look at my toys but never really play with them because i liked seeing them all set up nicely. i just kept collecting stuff i liked. the most i’d do that’s remotely active was play with my dogs
7. What is something you’re proud of? i do well academically and i learn fast. and somehow i’m proud of how i’ve remained the same over the years.
8. What’s one character flaw in people that you just can’t tolerate? i don’t know if this is considered a character flaw but i really dislike poor manners haha. it drives me crazy when people open their mouth while chewing or if it’s too noisy. i die a bit inside. besides table manners and manners in general, i dislike people who are rowdy during inappropriate times.
9. Do you consider yourself to be more of a leader or a follower? both but to avoid stress sometimes i just want to follow. i’m a bit of a perfectionist / rule follower so i get frustrated a lot. i know not everyone is like a machine but it’s hard with my ocd lol. and no this isn’t just me saying ocd like most people when referring to certain things, i actually do have it and i have medication for it
10. What kind of student are/were you? normal i guess. i got along well with people, i didn’t fail anything, and i never rebelled or did anything wild. it was uneventful lol. i’m still technically a student now, but i see it more as an adult thing.
11. Butterfly effect question! Has there ever been a seemingly minor decision you’ve made (at the time) that ended up having a profound influence on your life? i’m sure everyone has one
12. Name your most irrational fear/aversion well it’s not a fear per se, but i have an aversion to most asian food, sorta? the smell sets me off especially if it has a bunch of spices or herbs in it. my nose is just sensitive and i get affected easily by strong scents. but i’m fine with japanese food, maybe some korean and chinese stuff. for fears, iono, i don’t think it’s irrational to be afraid of spiders and big cockroaches ><
13. Are there any fictional characters you find especially relatable? a bunch haha but it’s mostly people associating them with me first. i’m not tsundere..... how dare they
14. If you drink, what kind of drunk are you? Alternatively, what sort of person are you at parties? i don’t think i’ve ever gotten drunk the way people imagine people getting drunk to be like. i remain the same except i get a headache. i don’t really change at all. and in parties i guess i just stay close to my friends. stranger danger lmao
15. Do you fall in love easily? Or does it usually take a long time for you to trust someone? umm no i do not. i mean i can trust them fine but i don’t think i can believe their feelings until they can prove it isn’t just a short time attraction. i’m in for long term stuff so i don’t really wanna waste time if it’s not headed there. but yeah currently in a long term relationship
16. Would you rather have one close friend or 100 casual friends? having fewer friends makes it easier for me to update all of them without getting tired of repeating the same story over and over haha
17. Do you consider yourself to be more of a slob or a neat-freak? always organized and no one’s allowed to touch my things haha
18. Describe a place (imaginary or real) that you would find incredibly cozy i’ve always wanted a seating area near a huge window with a good view, bunch of pillows, earphones + music
19. Do you have kids? If not, do you want them someday? nah i don’t think i can handle it. i’d probably go insane trying to control them and making them become my idea of what a person should be like
20. What was your favorite book as a child? the chronicles of narnia, still love it to this day because it’s really written well
21. Name one thing you just don’t get what all the hype is about WHAT IN THE WORLD DOES A FIDGET SPINNER DO -- yeah i’m sorry, i think it’s stupid
22. Name one thing that you think is tragically underrated i should have an answer for this but i totally forgot lol
23. If you had to be glued to a person for a month, real or fictional (who you have never met), who would you choose? since im in the midcin fandom i’ll just say byron
24. What’s something you’d like the chance to do someday? visit all the haunted places i’ve ever read about, and prolly explore old ruins. i was way into archaeological finds etc way back
25. Do you typically speak your mind when you have a controversial opinion? Or do generally prefer to not rock the boat? i try to say it in the most courteous way possible. i can’t keep it to myself because it would bother me and my mind would just dwell on it forever but i also don’t like offending people haha
26. What’s the dumbest fad you’ve been caught up in? sTiCkY cApS in chat (but i stopped after a month okay, and i was 12)
27. What’s something you thought was cool as a kid/adolescent, but now cringe at yourself for? typing in sTiCkY CaPs. kill 12 year old me pls
28. What’s a trait you consider to be very admirable? being kind and yet still firm when needed even when it comes to friends. i really admire people who don’t just blindly agree with their peers
29. Is there a particular kind of item people always tend to give you as gifts? (For instance, people always get you things with ducks on them because you like ducks, etc.) people give me stuff with owls, bears, hedgehogs, or stars because i love them. i also love stationery and pens. i like getting different colors and i never use them. i just keep them forever haha
30. Do you speak multiple languages? Which ones? i know a bit of stuff from other languages but not enough to be proud of it. i don’t want to be a poser and claim yeaaaahh i speak this and that lol
31. Would you rather live in the big city or the countryside? city please. i hate the quiet countryside. it’s like if someone comes to kill you and there’s no one around and you’d be all “this is why i should’ve been in the city with people everywhere”
32. Has there ever been something you were certain you’d hate, but ended up loving? byron wagner from midcin. when i first started and i saw him i was all, ehh eyepatch dude. so edgy. lmao. i even purposely skipped him during certain events and i regret that now.
33. Do you mind being the center of attention, or do you prefer the spotlight to be on someone else? i don’t want to be the center of attention, i’d feel awkward
34. Favorite holiday? the usual, christmas and new years eve... but i miss having an actual christmas where it isn’t summer...
35. Are you a more go-with-the-flow type of person, or do you need to have things planned meticulously? i always have a plan lol
36. Is there something you loved so much you wish you could forget it and experience it all over again? (A tv show, book, series–anything.) hmm, i can watch something over and over with no problem. all good
37. What hobbies do you have? reading (but it’s mostly fantasy and sci-fi), watching crap, annoying my dogs, playing video games, making stories in my head. I WISH I COULD WRITE AND DO IMAGERY WELL. oh well
38. If you could have a superpower, but it was only mildly useful, what ability would you want to have? the ability to moisturize instantly, one click. that’ll save me time daily
39. Something people are always surprised to learn about you that i like video games and anime lol. and that i’m happy to talk to them T_T
40. Something that took you way too long to figure out i still don’t know how to knife. how to knife~ i mean how to slice things or chop things or do anything in the kitchen
41. Worst injury you’ve had? is it considered an injury when you’ve had to get 4 major surgeries in a year? i mean i guess tending to / waiting for the surgery scars to get better can be considered an injury since it took a while and it was sorta a pain
42. Any morbid fascinations? umm, i can’t think of one
43. Describe your sense of humor i don’t really know lol. i make a lot of jokes and sometimes it breaks the mood for people lol
44. If you had to be born in another era/place, which would you choose? i really like princess stuff but the real medieval stuff would be dirty people who don’t take baths and really horrible stuff so maybe just the fantasy version of that + high speed internet
45. Something you are irredeemably bad at not rambling when i really like something. to the people who’ve ever had to listen to me whenever i got excited about something-- i’m sorry
46. Something that sucked but you’re glad you went through going to a nature retreat thing 3 months ago or something. i had no internet and it made me cry inside but i guess it was fine
47. Would you rather have a really godawful ugly tattoo in a place that is only slightly inconvenient to conceal with clothing (upper arm, thigh, etc.), or the coolest, most beautiful tattoo ever in the middle of your face? (Neither tattoo can be removed or concealed with makeup, and the ugly tattoo will deeply offend anyone who sees it.) i don’t really want tattoos in general so i guess the ugly one.
48. Are you more of an optimist or a pessimist? optimist
49. What would be the most flattering compliment someone could give you? something that isn’t physical or shallow. i’d be really happy if people noticed my achievements or if they liked something about my personality-- or if they found me funny lol
50. Something you feel people often misunderstand about you that i’m not nice lol because i keep to myself unless spoken to irl + that unimpressed scowl i always have. it’s like my default facial expression!
not forcing anyone to do it since it’s very long, just tagging for the sake of tagging! and i think most of the people i know have already been tagged? i’ve seen this tagged post done by most of them lol
@ashnable @nimmywik @captiveotomeprincess @otometrashcan  @princessdiarymdc @arimii @madamemalfoy21 @kinkymint @oh-my-otome
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robotnik-mun · 8 years ago
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Answer ALL OF THEM.
....oh you dirty *BITCH*....!
A cartoon you remember that nobody else does.
At times I feel like the only person on Earth who remembers Exosquad.
It’s a real shame, because Exosquad was one of the best toons of the 90s and proof positive that just because something was made to tie-in to toys, doesn’t mean that it has to be little more than a mindless extended commercial. 
A cartoon you like but nobody else seems to.
That would be Beast Machines. A sequel series to the uber-good Beast Wars, this series caught a lot of derision for its shift in tone, design and character. Given the context though, I didn’t really see it as being ALL that divergent, with our heroes returning to a world where Megatron rules all and forced to learn how to use new, techno-organic bodies in order to combat him. Given the stress of the situation, I thought it wasn’t really THAT much of a stretch that the character’s personalities would change so much given the trauma of what had happened. Ah well. 
A cartoon you don’t like but everybody else seems to. 
That would be the Looney Tunes Show. At times I feel like the only person on Earth who just wasn’t impressed with it. I mean its not horrible or anything, but I feel like I’m the only person around who wasn’t all that wowed by it when it came out. 
A cartoon you wish would be forgotten.
Sausage Party. For being a simplistic, puerile, overhyped puddle of mediocrity, it deserves to be swept into the dustbin of history. 
The worst cartoon you’ve ever seen, and why?
You know, I had to give this some thought, but that would have to be Mr. Pickles.  Mr. Pickles is basically an amalgamation of everything you could ever hate about ‘adult’ cartoons in the US- it’s ugly, unpleasant and pointless. The humor is one note and entirely reliant upon grossing people out in the most nauseating ways possible, and there is literally no one to root for- the dog is the Devil, every human being alive is monstrous, ugly and stupid, the only person who is clued in on this is a feeble old man who lives to be bested and tormented by the devil dog, and given how awful everyone and everything around him is you’re just left to wonder why he bothers. Everything about this series is just irredeemably, endlessly unpleasant. 
The worst moment you’ve ever seen happen in a cartoon.
That would be the ‘Bunny Pajamas’ incident in Hey Arnold. See, there was this episode where quite by accident, Arnold discovered that Iggy, the coolest kid in school, liked to wear Bunny Pajama when sick. After having the information pried out of him by Sid and Stinky, Iggy forces Arnold to walk out in Bunny Pajamas in public as a means of forgiveness, utterly humiliating him in the process. What’s worse is that Sid and Stinky only *guessed* the truth. There was just... nothing after that. No resolution or anything. It was just a weirdly mean-spirited of an otherwise excellent series. 
The worst thing you’ve ever seen happen to a cartoon that ruined it.
The love triangle nonsense in Legend of Korra. I just... couldn’t let myself be invested anymore after it, I just couldn’t. I learned to detest everybody involved, and so I left the series before it could fester any further. 
A cancelled/forgotten cartoon you would bring back to television.
I have to pick just one? Geeze... well, I’m gonna break with tradition, and say War Planets. WE DESERVE AN ACTUAL RESOLUTION DAMMIT!
An animated character you remember but nobody else seems to.
Nilus the Sandman. I seriously feel like the only person who remembers that this guy was ever a thing. 
An animated character you hate the most, and why?
Hmm... that would have to be Cheese. It was bad enough that this utterly useless and unspeakably obnoxious little cretin got more and more screentime on the show, but as time went on he practically became the mascot for Cartoon Network. He represents everything you could possibly hate about a character, and more importantly, the tendancy for executives to latch on to the lowest hanging fruit in the name of grabbing attention and views.  
A non-animated property you would like to see as a cartoon
Oh, that’s easy- Starfox. I’ve always, always wished that there had been a Starfox cartoon out there and given the time the first game was released, I’m kind of amazed we never got one. 
A trope or trend in animation that you dislike.
I’m not all that fond of the reatreat from action toons that has been going on for a while now, or the fact that cartoons are increasingly focused on comedy at the expense of everything else. It’s not so much that I don’t like comedy or anything like that, but I just prefer there to be a bit of variety and feel a genuine regret that things like Batman: The Animated Series or SwatKats are increasingly becoming a phenomenah of the past. Well, who knows, maybe Netflix will give toons like that a place to thrive- Young Justice will be coming back, after all. Here’s hoping that starts a trend, or rather, RE-starts a trend. 
A currently airing cartoon that you know is going to be forgotten about in the future.
Pickle and Peanut. And thank God for that. 
The best episode of a cartoon you really like.
Code of Hero, Beast Wars. One of the best Transformers anything ever, this is always gonna be a favorite. 
The worst episode of a cartoon you really like.
Ro-Becca, from Sonic the Hedgehog. I love you SatAM, always will, but good GOD we could have done without that one. 
A cartoon you feel deserves more recognition than it gets.
Disney’s Gummi Bears. Besides the fact that this series is what really got the ball rolling with Disney’s major TV rennaissance, the series itself is really quite incredible from both a visual and storytelling standpoint, especially with regards for the time that it was released. Despite having a fairly typical ‘Gang of Critters’ setup for the time, right down to each character being named for a trait (Gruffi, Tummi, Cubbi etc), every one of the Gummi Bears has a lot more going on than the surface would indicate, and there is a maturity to the worldbuilding and storytelling that belies what its name and appearance would suggest. Besides that, Princess Calla has to be one of the most badass princesses ever to grace television. This series is a gem, and its a shame it isn’t remembered and recognized more than it is. 
A cartoon you feel deserves less recognition than what it gets.
Sausage Party. I’m mentioning it twice, but it really does not deserve the hype it got or the kind of reviews it got. In the history of adult oriented animation in the US, Sausage Party brings nothing new to the table beyond re-affirming that tired stereotype that ‘mature’ animation must be the most puerile and juvenile minded tripe out there. Everything from its supposed themes to the nature of its humor is just sub-par, and I will never, ever view it as anything more than a cheap gimmick film that banked on novelty rather than anything worthwhile. 
The worst idea you can think of for an animated series.
Lara-Su Chronicles- The Series! 
At what point did you realize a cartoon, any cartoon was starting to get bad?
Well, like many, I started to realize things were going downhill in the ‘03 Ninja Turtles cartoon once we reached the Flash Forward season. Now to be clear, I didn’t think it was a bad premise, and a lot of the ideas and designs in the season had a lot of promise. Unfortunately, that promise wasn’t really met- the season lacked a certain spark that those before it had. The magic was gone, replaced by something that just didn’t do the series justice. I lost track after that season, and from the looks of it I was right for doing so. 
An experience with a cartoon you thought you were going to like but turned you away from it.
Wolverine and the X-men. See, I like X-men. I like Wolverine. So surely, I should like this right? Well, initially I did... but as time went on, Wolverine became less and less tolerable, particularly since it felt like Cyclops was getting shit on as a character to make Wolverine look better even though their dynamics were now completely opposite from what it had traditionally been. Which could have been interesting mind you, but nothing of worth was really done with it. I abandoned the series and never looked back. 
Something you would like to see more than anything in a cartoon.
Hmmm... this is a fandom specific one, but honestly? I’d love to see a Transformers cartoon that does the old ‘Cybertronians Become Human’ bit, but to *actually* do it and explore the concept in a mature way, to explore how immortal war machines respond to suddenly becoming frail, short lived humans and all too aware of the fact, as well as learning how to endure a human existence. Maybe someday it will happen, but for now, I can but wish. 
What do you feel makes a cartoon forgettable?
I think more than anything, writing and plotting can be the key to if a cartoon is remembered or forgotten. Being overly reliant on stock plots and playing it too safe more than anything can make a cartoon bland or cliched. I mean don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot more to it than that, but this is I think more than anything is what leads to a lot of cartoons winding up forgotten. 
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redcapediaries · 8 years ago
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Requiem for a Rodent
Taking a break from my usual unrepentant cheerleading for the DCEU movies and/or ragging on fanboys for a bit, I saw today that Sega of America has officially ended their partnership with Archie Comics, and thus ended Archie’s 24-year-long run of Sonic the Hedgehog.  The book had been ‘on hiatus’ for months, so its cancellation was really just a formality at this point.
So why do I care?  Well, it was the comic book that got me into reading comic books.
When I was a young’un, I didn’t really care for superheroes-- this was the early 90s, after all, where your characters were barely characters at all if they weren’t drenched in ‘attitude.’  Like basically every suburbanite kid in that era, I was huge into Ninja Turtles, and by extension the legions of knockoffs that talked in bad approximations of surfer lingo.  One Saturday morning when I was six or seven, I caught an episode of the Sonic cartoon on ABC and was hooked.
(You know, the one that had Urkel in it.  And didn’t suck.)
While it doesn’t hold up in retrospect, it was a fun show with solid voice acting, relatively well-formed characters, and a surprisingly dark tone for a kids’ show in that era (remember, Batman The Animated Series was the exception, not the rule).  More importantly to me, at least, was the fact that I had just sort of stumbled upon it randomly, and none of my friends really knew about it, a sort of secret only I knew.  Ninja Turtles and Power Rangers were there for everyone, but Sonic?  That was the first hobby I can remember that I felt was truly mine.
Eventually the show got cancelled, and I was bummed out.  But a schoolmate of mine showed me a copy of the Archie Sonic comic, and from there, I made the jump from cartoons to comic books.  From fourth grade through middle school, I collected Sonic religiously, the first time I had ever made an effort to buy issues of any book from month-to-month.  It wasn’t quite the same continuity as the show I’d watched, but it was close enough.  And more importantly, it was really freaking good.  Maybe a little heavy on the melodrama considering it was a book about talking animals jumping on robots, but when you’re ten years old and you don’t want to be treated like a kid, your favorite book taking a darker turn can be the thing that keeps you reading it that much longer.
(I swear, Sally died more times than Jean Grey.)
Once I became a teenager, I outgrew the series (coinciding with the fact that this was around the time a guy named Ken Penders was in charge and the book got really weird and really bad), and shifted over to more conventional superhero titles-- namely Spider-Man and X-Men, followed by Batman and Superman, and I became an unapologetic cape-junkie from then on.  While I always kept the Sonic fandom at arm’s length (especially once DeviantArt and the fandom’s reputation became a thing), I never forgot the book that helped shape me into the geek I am today.  I made it a point to buy one issue of Sonic a year to check up on the book and how they were treating my old favorites.
I’m happy to say the last few years of the comic’s run were actually really, really good, thanks in large part to them giving Penders the boot and replacing him with a far superior writer, Ian Flynn.  His run on the book was exemplary, not just for a kids’ comic about video game characters, but just a damn good book all around.  Every character had distinct and consistent personalities-- no mean feat considering the book’s supporting cast had ballooned up to an absurd size-- and the plots were simple enough for younger readers to follow, but still extremely engaging.  The funny parts were actually funny, the dramatic parts were genuinely gripping, and for years, it was the only part of the Sonic franchise where the titular rodent felt like an actual, honest-to-God character, rather than just a brand mascot or a self-aware internet meme.
(No joke here, this was just a great run by a writer that knows what’s up)
Sadly, all things must come to an end.  Between years of Sega pressuring them to write stories more in-line with the video games, multiple lawsuits over original characters (mostly from that weirdo Penders), and Archie wanting to shift away from licensed books and focus instead of their title series (a move which also killed off their criminally overlooked MegaMan comic), it was only a matter of time before they sent Sonic to run off into the sunset.
I’m hoping that a company like IDW (who has done exemplary work with licensed titles) picks up the rights, and that they’ll be allowed to continue using SatAM/Archie characters like Sally and Rotor.  If not, it’s still a hell of an achievement that they were able to get nearly a quarter of a century worth of material from ‘blue hedgehog jumps on robots.’  Especially considering the people who make the actual games can barely go five minutes without tacking some new gimmick onto him.
Here’s to you, rodent.  We’ll always have that time you randomly bumped into Spawn.
(The 90s, everyone!)
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