#I've been in the sonic fandom I had to figure out how to go from mobians to skeletons

[starlovesspace]

WOW! It has been a hot second! So how about a question! Do you have any siblings Star? -Purple Anon

Chaos it HAS been a hot minute. I had to figure out how to draw sans again

[snapscube]

Remember when people were calling you the "long lost McElroy sister"? Do you see the similarity at all, or do you think it's just because you share a similar creative niche (gaming/streaming/comedy) with the McElroy brothers?

Lol, "when" people were doing it.

I still get it to this day, friend, despite my constant protests.

I used to understand, and it was even expected initially if not personally encouraged! There was definitely a period of time where they were my biggest comedic/creative inspirations, and the truth of the matter is that I am a mannerisms sponge. I mimic people around me, and people that inspire me, and whether or not it's more than the average person I have no clue, but I will go through seasons of daily watching a particular personality or creator I'm fond of and/or inspired by and usually come out the other end having picked up certain tendencies VERY quickly, a large portion of those being speech patterns.

There's definitely a segment of my content around 2017/2018 or so where, yeah, you can very much tell I adopted a McElroy-esque speaking pattern directly (like what felt like 70% of other Tumblr users also did lol) and it was both because of how much of their content I was into at the time AND also because at the time I found their output inspiring as someone who was used to more... Loud Gamer forms of comedy, to put it bluntly. So at first I took the comparisons in stride and saw it as a signal of my own growth as an entertainer, and my ability to be funny in a way that wasn't just Loud = Funny.

But the thing you have to know about me, and my time as even a minor public figure, is that this comparison was not the first of its that was constantly levied at me, and it unfortunately was not the last one in the slightest. Some will remember the days in which I was a reasonably renowned "Bill Cipher" impersonator in the Gravity Falls fandom, and the pattern was very similar at the time. I dealt with people CONSTANTLY telling me that, despite all of my attempts to separate myself from the voice work I did as the character, I always sounded Just Like Bill even when I was just using my casual speaking voice. If this sounds familiar to those of you who have only been around since the dubs popped off, it's likely because I also go through the same thing ever since I became known for Sonic impressions.

And then outside of voice work I've had my style of content continue to be compared to the McElroy's body of work and even beyond to the likes of Jerma and other big-name-of-the-era content creators. And I have to once again stress: I am completely self-aware that it is not entirely unfounded. I mean, the most recent one I got was just the other day when on stream someone told me I had a speech pattern similar to Northernlion. And like, I even admitted right then and there.... yeah! That makes sense! I've had NL compilations going into my ears and brain for hours upon hours on end lately. So I don't mean to only complain and say "this makes no sense" with delusions that it's completely baseless. BUT, I guess if I do have to circle around to a point, it would be that, though I can occasionally understand comparisons, I would hope y'all in turn can understand why it might not be an easy thing for someone like me to hear, especially in the way it never really seems to go away? Even if one like Bill Cipher fades out, the whole "SnapCube is just a female version of [insert larger male peer in the content space]" thing is something that cycles along regardless. And I get it, it's human nature to compare and contrast. I do it too! But as someone who is always trying to stand out in what I do and make my own value as an individual known above the cacophony of content saturation, I do implore people to think twice about the language they use when making otherwise favorable comparisons. Recommending my content by saying something like "if you like Jerma/McElroys/NL/etc., then SnapCube gives off similar vibes" makes of a WORLD of a difference compared to "This stream is just something Jerma would do" or "Penny is just a female Griffin McElroy" (both things I have heard almost verbatim, constantly). They approach the same ideas, but one gives me so much more of a chance to like... start off a first impression as My Own Person and not just a derivative Girl Alternative, if that makes sense.

Whoops I talked about this way too much :) Can you tell I think about this a lot LMAO

Anyway here's the obligatory joke response that's been spread before

[batshitspnblrmail]

Fandom History: How a group of toxic Sam fans got Sam kicked out of a christ figure poll tournament

In April of 2023, a tumblr user created a sideblog called christ-figure-bracket for the purposes of running a poll tournament. Tumblrs could send in nominees from their favorite shows. Sam was one such nominee.

Christ-figure-bracket placed Sam against Aslan (literal lion Jesus) in the first round, with the caption, "This one is actually coughing baby vs hydrogen bomb and I'm not going to apologize for it."

Some samfans were offended by the idea that OP had it out for Sam, while others thought it was funny and took it as a challenge: What if they could get a win for Sam against a literal Jesus stand in from a C.S. Lewis book?

Trouble began almost immediately in the notes of the post. Two screenshots were preserved by another Tumblr user before the OP blocked these accounts.

Very quickly, the post also attracted wincest shippers and the OP expressed their discomfort in a joking manner.

Most users found this response funny, but some wincest shippers were quite indignant about it, and decided to start reblogging the OPs posts and adding comments about wincest and wincest fan art in retaliation. These responses are difficult to find because OP blocked the accounts that made such responses so quickly, but here's one:

The OP responded by threatening to remove Sam from the tournament if spnblr didn't clean up its act

Five minutes later, OP posted the following:

Wincest shippers then further bemoaned Sam's removal:

Elsewhere across spnblr, disk horse about OP and Sam's validity as a christ figure was being hotly debated. Some blogs supposed OP had some other nefarious motives for removing Sam from the bracket, despite OP saying, when asked who they thought was the hydrogen bomb and who was the coughing baby, "Who's a lion and who's literally just some boy. Also I used to love Narnia and I've never seen supernatural so like".

God knows what OP's evil goal might have been in adding Sam to a poll only to remove him after being repeatedly sent incestuous media as a form of harassment for daring to express their discomfort.

Many users didn't seem to know about the harassment against the OP because it was deleted so fast, or chose to ignore it and rewrite history such that Sam was removed simply for wincest shippers quietly existing and not because of the continuous harassment OP was receiving from members of their community.

Other samfans understood the OP's decision to remove Sam from the bracket as a result of the harassment OP received.

One corner of sam fandom also fixated on at least one other user for daring to not agree about Sam as a christ figure and attempted to trash them behind their back. (I'm not sharing screenshots because I don't want the person who was being mocked to ever come across this post and be able to tell those screenshots were about them).

The poll continued on after being deleted by OP. Sam lost to Aslan, receiving 41.4% of 4,207 votes. Knuckles from Sonic the Hedgehog was the ultimate winner of the Christ Figure Bracket.

[lowpolyshadow]

i transcribed the sonadow bumblekast episode so you don't have to

hopefully the formatting isn't really weird lol

Kyle: So this time, for Pride Month, we get to address the hypothetical fandom ship that's probably helped more than a few Sonic fans figure out their sexuality: Sonadow! A lot of straight fans probably had Rouge or Sally be their awakening, so don't throw stones. 

Ian: True, true. 

Kyle: Shadow is not quite in a place where it's easy to imagine him having a healthy romantic relationship. But it is honestly a bit problematic to have one character shift until they're suitable for another, unless it's a mutual situation. How would you execute the character growth for Shadow and Sonic that would most help enable Sonadow? 

Ian: There would have to be an understood vulnerability to Shadow, he would have to open up to a degree that makes him more accessible at a personal level, and it doesn't take much? We've seen hints of it throughout his appearances, it would just need to become established, and that I think is all you really need to build that bridge because Sonic is casual and accepting enough as he is, and he's going to allow Shadow to be who he is which is kind of prickly and standoffish as you would have that occasional moment where Shadow lets his guard down and is more empathetic or emotionally available. But otherwise they would both play it fairly cool and aloof I think (lol). 

Kyle: Yeah, they're together. What of it? So? Big deal. I like it.  There are obviously a lot of different popular ships in Sonic. In order to make one really stand out, you'd probably need to really spark intrigue on it before pushing the two characters together. How would you arrange the first key romantic spark that was intended to drive the fans towards wanting them together? 

Ian: I think it stems more from the characters already having good chemistry. I mean you look at the fandom in general and the fleet of ships that are sailing and all of them are based off of the fact that these characters are fun in their interactions regardless of who we're talking about. So if it were an intention of building something from scratch, for most of the Sonic cast, I think the work's already been done and there's already a great deal of trust and mutual respect between most of the characters. It would just be a matter of realizing that there is more than respect, there's more than kinship, there's a romantic affinity, and for one of those characters to make that realization and start to pursue it in their own particular way.  And then it becomes a question of well, is the object of their affection going to reciprocate? And if they don't, which leads to an interesting story of, now that they are on this path, yeah, they know that this is an option, do they come around to it? Or do they not? Are both characters kind of interested but they don't want to take that first step and so you have that carrot on a stick that is ever so effective for however long you want to run it? 

(laughing) 

Kyle: There's nothing that gets, uh, Sonic's motor running more than being called a faker. Apparently. 

(more laughing) 

Ian: Oh, he'll show you how real he is. 

Kyle: Oh, no! This is a family show, sir!

(even more laughing) 

With that idea fresh in our minds, how would you make it official for the two of them? 

Ian: God, if that ever came to pass. (lol) 

Kyle: I feel like it would have to be kind of like, understated? Like it would just kind of happen? 

Ian: Yeah, I've, they're both so cool and aloof in their own way, I don't see them making any kind of dramatic declaration or ... suddenly turning all mushy and lovey-dovey, it's not who they are. Um ... I, you know, the adventure concludes and they're standing side by side on the hillside looking at the sunset and the wreckage ... and they share, you know, a compliment, and instead of like a fist bump or a "see you next time" and, y'know, one of them runs off ... maybe they throw arms around each other or something and just kind of stand there. Again, they're not gonna be all "mweh mehmehmeh" ... tonsil action, it's, I see them being very chill about it all. 

(lol) 

Kyle: Also, keep in mind everyone, this is all just ... 'fan ideas', this is probably never gonna happen, it's very unlikely, we're just having fun here. 

Ian: It's hypothetical situations that I am approaching as reasonably and as authentically as I can. 

Kyle: Yes, yes, just to keep that in mind, just keeping everybody on the same page here. 

Ian: I am not endorsing, I am not unendorsing, 

I am just answering questions. Everybody simmer. 

Kyle: Let's assume that for whatever reason Shadow decided to seek out advice from the following, and whoever he asked has to answer with an honest attempt at the best advice they could offer. How would Professor Gerald, Dr. Eggman, the Commander, and Black Doom advise him? 

Ian: Gerald would be the most wholesome and effective, I think. I think he understands people better than ... certainly a lot of his family. Uh, and would advise Shadow to look inward to ask himself what he really wants, and to ruminate on that and then act with caution, you know, don't be hasty on this particular thing. Like all great research, it takes time to get the results that, you know, you want, or the results that will come to be - don't take anything as a given, but don't be afraid to pursue the truth, whatever that may be.  Eggman would scoff at the notion and, you know, sarcastically offer to set him up on a date, making it quite clear that it would all be a trap and an ambush and whatever. The Commander ... I don't see as being a very romantic individual, but I think he might be direct about that, right. He would say that his partner was someone he managed to find for himself, but that was largely thanks to her, and her efforts, because he was kind of clueless about this, but Shadow is also kind of in the same boat so you know, maybe ... at least be aware of your surroundings? If someone is prepared to make that gesture, be ... ready to receive it and understand it for what it is. How do you do that? He's not quite sure how he figured it out himself but you know, he's not good at this sort of thing.  And Black Doom would again, scoff. Love is a weakness, it is a distraction at best, a malady at worst, it is ... an affliction of the mind. An illusion created by inferior beings to facilitate necessary natural processes. You do not need love, you do not need anyone, you are my Ultimate Weapon now go get me them Chaos Emeralds. 

Kyle: (laughing) Those damn fourth Chaos Emeralds! They're all fourth!

Ian: (mimicking Black Doom) Honestly, Shadow, what's love got to do, got to do with it. What's love but a second hand emotion. 

Kyle: (laughing) Well, we all know Shadow can't resist a dying wish. Let's say in the aftermath of a terrifying evil scheme, Eggman once more had to team up with the heroes to save the world, but he died in the process, leaving Sage and her brothers in the care of his uncle and uncle-in-law. Assuming that if money were real, GUN would pay the kind of money that would keep a classy act like Rouge on staff so the boys don't need to change their heroics too much, how would they do as parents to Sage, Orbot, Cubot, and after a while if she so chose, potentially Belle? 

(THIS IS METAL ERASURE >:( whatever he doesn't wanna be part of this family anyways)

Ian: I'm a little lost in the wording on who is acting as surrogate parents here.

Kyle: I think it might supposed to be Sonic and Shadow ... but Rouge is also there? I think? 

Ian: Well I mean someone would have to look after the kids because it ain't gonna be them. 

Kyle: (laughing) No, I guess not?!

Ian: I mean, Sonic would Sonic would kind of show up for birthdays and events and to check in but he's ... he's not the stay at home dad. He's not the stay in one place dad, he's the dad who gets his steps in, if you catch my meaning.

Kyle: Okay, no, it was more an example of they’re ... willing to pay Rouge ... so they would be willing to also pay them ... so ... but ... I guess Rouge would not be the caretaker. So ... they would have to be the caretakers ... I don't think it would go well! Luckily, I think they're self-sufficient ... for the most part ... (starting to lose it)

Ian: I mean I can't really see GUN letting them off ... interestingly, to anyone. They would be on facility. But it would be Sonic and Shadow weighing heavily saying they're not captives, they're not tech to be assimilated into the greater GUN network, they are wards of your facility, right? Right? Which again, Sonic would be checking in on occasion to make sure that it's going well. And maybe Shadow would kind of become a satellite agent of GUN, just keep tabs on everything, check in on the others to some degree ... but ... we wouldn't have a case of My Two Dads on this one, they're not the parental types.

Kyle: We probably shouldn't trust GUN with child care. Probably not. Even robot children.

Ian: And ... you don't even need them to be a pair to get the kind of ... bickering parental - conflicting parental guidelines in this scenario. Sonic would be very much, ehhh let them stay up, let him eat ice cream, let them do whatever they want, Shadow's like no, they need discipline, you're going to spoil them.

Kyle: Worst fathers ever.

Ian: Belle I ... I, again, I can't really see as a parental role but I could see her as the put upon babysitter. She tries her best to look after them and keep things under control but ... honestly ... they're Egg tech, they're not going to cooperate all that much.

Kyle: ... Yeah ... yeah I guess ... Belle would have to be the older sister and she'd probably end up being the one who does most of the work. Ugh.

Ian: Someone who tried to stop the caper of stealing the Commander's loafer or something. "I'm gonna get in trouble you guys! Stop!"

Kyle: Alright. Shadow is immortal, he will probably outlive Sonic. Unfortunately, given Sonic's lifestyle, that may not be that hard ... although given Shadow's first adventure, it could go either way. Sonic would probably understand that Shadow copes with things like this better when he has a sense of meaningful purpose to focus on. This seems like the type of thing Shadow would project onto his partner if it came to it, so what would each other ... so what if ... so what would each of their dying wishes to each other be?

Ian: Morbid. 

Kyle: (lol) 

Ian: You're going for the beautiful sadness type of thing I think. Uh, Sonic's would be ... what he wishes for everyone, is to be true to yourself and to live free. Perhaps that be true to yourself ringing a little more resoundly in Shadow's case, you know, don't close yourself off ... again. You know, be free to open up to someone else again down the road, and just be honest with yourself and be free to make that choice. 

Kyle: Open your heart, Shadow, it'll be alright.

(laughing)

Dammit! You would do that. 

Ian: Yeah, I absolutely would. 

(more laughing)

As for Shadow ... he would want Sonic to endure, you know, to just continue to carry on ... to not be defeated by anything. To find a way to escape death and just continue being, because, you know who else can replace him? Nobody. He would want that to endure forever.

Kyle: Yep. Good thing Sonic's got extra lives.

So Sonic and Shadow have gotten engaged, and they're trying to figure out how to approach their family name. Would Sonic take Shadow's last name, or Shadow take Sonic's, each keep their own, or each add the other's with a hyphen? Given Shadow's right to certain other last names, there could be a timeline with a Sonic Robotnik or (losing it) Sonic Doom.

Ian: No, they'd go with their current surnames, and as a sign of solidarity, they would just swap them so it would become Sonic the Hedgehog and Shadow the Hedgehog.

Kyle: Right, okay, okay ... good, good. Yeah, okay, it'll be fine, as long as Shadow doesn't take Maurice or something we'll be good.

(laughing)

Sonic and Shadow the Hedgehog. No relation.

Ian: We could hyphenate it! Sonic the Hedgehog-Hedgehog! (Shadow voice) Don't make me regret my decisions. 

Kyle: Too late, he already does. He already does.  Sonic has a great found family, and presumably in order to get Shadow to a point where he could date Sonic we'd be dealing with a much more Team Dark take on Shadow, who also has that. How would they both adapt to regularly hanging out with each other's found family? 

Ian: Uhhh ... The Sonic side of things is always very opening and it's ... open and accepting. And that's ... hilarious ... to the Team Dark side of things, because you can take such advantage of that. I think there would be attempts made on Team Sonic's side to incorporate everyone into the big happy family and eventually it would come to the understanding that, you know, there's appreciation ... there's respect, but there also needs to be distance. It's okay that they only get together for like, the holidays, and then they all keep to themselves. Nothing against anybody it's just, you know, oil and water don't necessarily mix all the time. And the time Rouge stole the Christmas presents ... Knuckles’s still a little salty about that one. 

Kyle: Aw. Poor Knuckles.  I play a lot of DnD with my boyfriend, he's big into it and happy to have another person for his DnD groups. Meanwhile I always enjoyed the little bit I got to play, but didn't get the opportunity as much in the past. It is unfortunately, for him, very much a ... forever DM for the group he has assembled. With this new little family we've assembled around the Sonadow pairing, who would be their forever DM? Omega is a war forged Barbarian, right? I mean yes. I mean ... you mean in the game? I mean he could be whatever he wants in the game, but in real life, yes.

Ian: I think you could make a case he's war forged Barbarian in every connotation of the word. 

Kyle: Pretty much! 

Ian: Uh ... I can't remember how we ... because I feel like this ties into just general DnD, we've been asked this before ... I would think Tails would be the DM. 

Kyle: Yeah ... yeah, Tails is the one who has the most, uh ... patience, I think, to really learn stuff. Amy maybe. 

Ian: Maybe ... I mean, he would like to construct the campaigns, he would be the better rules lawyer between the two of them. Um, I think he might be a little more of a stickler than Amy, I think Amy would allow for a little more rule of cool, but I don't think Tails would be obnoxious about it, you know. If you roll a one and things have gone very badly, he'd be trying to help you figure out a way around it. It's like, you know, okay, this is a bad situation! What do you see around you that could stop you from being on fire? Or, Amy! Don't you remember you have this particular Scroll of Healing or whatever? I - I haven't played DnD I don't know.

Kyle: I mean, yeah, that exists, it's fine, you got it. 

Ian: He wouldn't be a "rocks fall, everyone dies" DM, but he would be someone who's like, no, you can't fudge the numbers, you miss. "How do you mean I miss, I'm right in his face!" You rolled a two, what can I tell you! 

Kyle: He might think about "rocks fall, everyone dies" for a second, though, once again fed up - 

Ian Every turn, Omega's like "I KILL EVERYONE IN THE ROOM." Even the party? "YES." No, you can't do that! "IT IS IN CHARACTER." I don't care!!!!

(laughing) 

Kyle: Oh man, yeah, I mean, I don't know how long it would take for him to get fed up with Monty Python references but ... (lol) Probably not very long. Uh, and it turns out Monty Python is an actual python comedian in their world, and ... (losing it again) I'm here for it. That'd be cool. Time for the coveted Digimon question! I don't know who's coveting the Digimon questions, but alright, I guess Twilord is. In Digimon, there's a concept of DNA digivolution, where two digimon can fuse together. Sometimes this phenomenon creates a mental link between the Tamers and lets them glimpse each other's thoughts and feelings. This admittedly varies a bit so you have a lot of creative freedom on your solution. Assume the two of them were closeted for lack of it having come up yet, from those whose Digimon starters you might've ... you might choose to have DNA digivolve with Sonic's or Shadow's partners ... which partners figure it out from the basic mental connection, and of them how would they handle knowing without being told? I'm assuming that ... like, they have not confessed their love for each other but they somehow use this to figure it out.

Ian: And really ... Digimon ... it's not asking about the Digimon themselves, it's acting as Sonic and Shadow are the trainers, right. 

Kyle: Right. 

Ian: Uh ... The hardest question of this is who is more obtuse between the two of them ... 

Kyle: (LMAO) Yes. That's the answer. 

Ian: Shadow ... in general ... might be a little quicker on the draw ... so he would make the realization and that might prompt him to ... open up ... whereas Sonic just already kind of took it as a given, it wasn't really a realization to him, so he didn't really think much of it. 

Kyle: I guess ... Yeah, I guess that kind of fits. I guess that fits. 

Ian: (Shadow voice) Once we were linked, I cam to a realization ... and well, now that I know it's reciprocated, I guess I can say I'm really into you.  (Sonic voice) Oh yeah, I already knew. 

Kyle: (laughing) Yeah, everyone's into me. No, no that's not what I mean - 

Ian: (Shadow voice) It means you don't have a romantic bone in your body. 

Kyle: (LOSING IT me too dude) I think the idea ... apparently .. I'm getting word that the idea behind this question was that they haven't told anyone yet, and their friends find out this way.

Ian: Ohhh, okay. 

Kyle: Okay. Well here's the thing ... Most people in Sonic's world are very accepting and everything, so I don't think it would ... be a big deal? (lol) 

Ian: Yeah, I mean, if anything ... the biggest reaction would come out of Amy. There might be shock she found out ... Well, shocked at first, but if she found out, and they haven't really opened up to each other yet about it, she would go hardcore matchmaker. 

Kyle: Oh, no! (laughing) 

Ian: Like, if they both feel that way, and they aren't being honest with their affections, ohhhh no no no, she will not let that stand. Nope. She will move heaven and earth to see love realized. 

Kyle: (laughing) Even if it's not Sonic loving her, I guess, huh? (more laughing)

Ian: Disappointed, sure ... but, y'know, fine. What she wants is for him to be open and true with himself, and true with others. Love is a powerful force in the universe, and she will see its will done. 

Kyle: Yeah (lol), she is a true ally, yes. 

Ian: A real intense ally. 

Kyle: (laughing) Kind of frightening. 

Ian: Again, put down the torches and pitchforks, this is a hypothetical, this is for funsies. Let it be. 

Kyle: Yes, let's have some fun. 

Ian: Moving on, he's got a question for you, Kyle. 

Kyle: Alright. 

Ian: So in terms of romantic progression for fictional characters, you would say that after the romcom where the parents get home together in the sitcom where they all have to live their lives together ... can you please pitch me three episode ideas for the up and never coming sitcom, The Hedge Hogs, for me to rate?

Kyle: Oh, no. Uh, I didn't read this before we started! Uh ... hm ... come up with these on the fly ... um ... I'm like, not great at that. Let me think here ... Let me think here …

Ian: Let me help you out. 

Kyle: Okay, hit me. 

Ian: Fast and the Furious ... they both run out to get takeout quickly and they deal with incorrect orders. 

Kyle: Okay - 

Ian: Becomes a conflict of their personalities where Sonic's like hey, I'll take the pickles off! And Shadow's like he said no pickles. 

Kyle: Okay .. ! (laughing) Yeah, that's good. That's good. Um ... Hm ... hmm ... God, I really am bad at this (lol). I feel like there has to be one where they're trying to drive somewhere and they can't decide ... they'd like get lost, and then one of them is like, you don't need directions - it'd probably be Sonic, Sonic would be driving and he refuses to ask for directions, and Shadow's like trying to get him to pull over and ask for it. 

Ian: (Shadow voice) Please, pull over. 

Kyle: (laughing) Yeah, yeah ... I mean, that's another trope of sitcoms. (lol) 

Ian: Here's one for you ... Surprise Control - Sonic and Shadow are each trying to prepare a birthday surprise party for the other, not realizing that, son of a gun, they share the same birthday! No, they've never actually discussed this or put it together. Hijinx ensue. 

Kyle: (laughing) Do they, actually? - No, nono, Sonic Adventure 2's like a few days before ... but, you know, it's funnier if they do. 

Ian: Rouge is the first one to figure it out and she runs interference to make sure nobody clears it up for them. 

Kyle: (laughing) Yeah, yeah, I like that one ... Alright, let's see - 

Ian: Turns into a big blow up where they're both angry that neither of them knew what each other's actual birthday was, and then the tension is broken when Omega pops out of the cake like Marilyn Monroe. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE TWO OF YOU. 

Kyle: (laughing) And then ... he sets off the fireworks. Which are actually just …

Ian: Omega, not inside the HOUSE- !!!! 

Kyle: (LAUGHING) Which are actually just more DAKKA.

Ian: Has to be inside an apartment complex so Eggman can pull a Newman(?). "Hello, Sonic." 

Kyle: (losing it) Ohhh, nooo ... 

Ian: "I hear you've got the prime time cable package. Mind if I come in to play games on it?" ... Yeah, sure I guess, it's fine - "COME ON KIDS, HE SAID IT'S FINE!" 

Kyle: (still laughing) Oh, no .... 

Ian: Orbot ... Cubot ... Tribot ... a few Egg pawns ... 

Kyle: (laughing) Uh, who's the Kramer in this situation? (laughing) Knuckles?

Ian: Big the Cat. 

Kyle: Okay. 

Ian: Exact same mannerisms. 

Kyle: OKAY. (laughs) Yeah, okay. 

Ian: You know, mid conversation busts down the door, (Big voice) Froggy? Froggy, where are you? 

Kyle: (truly shitting it now) Oh, no ... Oh, no ... Oh nohoho ... The episode where Shadow's parents all come over for the holidays ... All four of them ... 

Ian: (cackles) (Shadow voice) Why do I have so many parents ... 

(laughing) 

(Black Doom voice) Now, we shall air our grievances on this festivus ... Shadow, finish the bowl. 

Kyle: (losing his mind) 

Ian: (Black Doom voice) Festivus ... is for the rest of us ... 

Kyle: Oh, boy. Oh boy. Terrible. I love it. I love it ... Alright, I think that's enough.

Ian: It certainly is. Happy pride month to all of you celebrating. Be good to yourselves, be good to each other, and we will see you next time.

[mister-eve]

another issue i have with sonic prime - shadow the hedgehog. ( very long )

.

just gonna say this upfront - do not interact if you are a prime shadow fan and just want to insult or start an argument // debate with me in the comments.

.

ever since his debut in the show, shadow in sonic prime has been frequently called 'the best he's been written in years', well loved by a large majority of the prime fandom.

because of this popularity, i was under the belief that shadow was going to be more like how he's written in sa2, satbk, or sonic 06. i've since learned that many shadow fans ( that i've seen ) just like shadow on screen

which isn't necessarily a problem, but i think it's safe to say the sonic fandom has always been a mixed bag when it comes to critiques of the games and their contents ( ever since sa1, or even before that, to sonic frontiers, but i can't comment on the comics, as i've never read them ).

so, in hindsight, i should've proceeded with caution and not take popular opinion into high account.

anyway, i'll get to the point. shadow in sonic prime is one of the worst characterizations of shadow i've seen. i think the only one worse is shadow from the sonic boom universe.

shadow is quite frustrating in this show for a few reasons:

he loses the chaos emerald within five minutes of obtaining it, like an absolute idiot.

he antagonizes sonic every chance he gets and seems to believe the only way to resolve an issue is through violence or aggression. like, yes, of course, shadow, i totally wanna listen to you after you punched me in the face so hard that i literally suffered amnesia.

does next to nothing in the entire show ( up until, like, s3? ), but acts like he's needed.

insults sonic's friends for no reason ( originals and alters alike ).

somehow thought the tech was the only reason sonic could pass through the gateways when he literally saw sonic pass into new yolk before he got the tech. it'd be one thing if he knew sonic could pass regardless and figured the tech would help himself pass through, but he just ignored or forgot what he saw, i guess??? and this is never brought up again.

real question, what does sonic need him for again? even if shadow was never there, sonic would eventually come up with the plan on his own. it's not rocket science.

keeps insisting the alters aren't real people ( this is a problem of the show in general, esp where they go back and forth with sonic in particular, but it's extremely aggravating with shadow as, even if he was right, he's basically saying that sonic shouldn't care about the people that look like his friends, even if they're copies ).

last but not least, HE KEEPS BRINGING UP THAT HE'S THE ULTIMATE LIFEFORM, WHO FUCKING CARES, GET A LIFE-

( should i also mention how misleading it was for it to seem like shadow was concerned and trying to warn sonic about the shatteverse, only to immediately go on the assault when the two meet up? what the fuck? )

after i got my hopes up by the reviews and all the love for this show, this was just sad and annoying to watch. how many times is it gonna take for sega and any writers associated with them to get it?

shadow is not an overtly aggressive, hot-headed, domineering person. that was never what shadow was or was supposed to be.

shadow is a kind, loving person. yes, you might not see it from pretty much every canon media of him aside from a few select games, but that's who he was meant to be.

of course, in sa2, he did nearly destroy the world. the difference between that shadow and prime shadow is that, in sa2, he did it out of the love he had for maria and because his memories were affected, making him misremember what maria really wanted.

in his debut game, shadow is meant to be something akin to a guardian angel. the 'ultimate lifeform' meant wish fulfillment, immortality, healing. and to have shadow believe that sonic is the true ultimate lifeform instead speaks volumes of who he is and how he's changed in a considerably short amount of time.

in prime, shadow isn't any of these things. sure, he protects sonic every now and then, but for a while, i didn't even know if it was because he actually cared about sonic or if it was because it was necessary to get back home. the 'ultimate lifeform' doesn't mean anything to him or to this show. it's just to wave his big dick energy around. it shows he doesn't actually see anyone, let alone sonic, as his equal.

yes, shadow is standoffish, but it's not like he's ever been out of touch with emotions or relationships. i don't believe that it was because of maria's death that shadow had essentially 'shut down', but rather because he wanted to grant her wish as soon as possible. and even then, he saved rouge's life. while the game could've led us to believe it was because she had the chaos emeralds, they showed us that he just couldn't let her die if he could prevent it by showing that he couldn't save maria way back then.

this is what a lot of the games, and frankly, most of sonic media in general, seem to have entirely forgotten about shadow.

even as a child, it wasn't difficult for me to understand that shadow did care. that he does care. in fact, that's pretty much what drives him throughout his entire debut game, that he cares so much for maria, so much for her wish, and, eventually, so much for humanity.

i think the closest we've ever been to getting a characterization just like shadow in sa2 is in sonic 06. say what you will about the game, i personally like it ( i acknowledge it has a lot of flaws, but let me be ).

in sonic 06, shadow doesn't have any hostility with sonic. in fact, sonic gives a silent thanks to him for saving him from silver. and shadow proves that you don't have to tell your friends you love them in order for them to know, 'cause he loves rouge and omega in this game. he deeply cares about them and is noticeably disheartened when he discovers what becomes of omega in the future.

shadow doesn't become persuaded by mephiles' tactics to turn against humanity, even when he gives plausible ( but not 100% ) evidence that it is likely authorities would blame shadow for the downfall of humanity, due to his power. in fact, the only thing about any of that information that brings shadow pause is the fact omega would have been the one to arrest him in said future.

and to mephiles' face, he accepts the possibility humanity will turn on him head-on and tells him that he will choose his own fate, that he will fight like he always has, that he decides how his story ends.

i find it hilariously sad that the few games that gets shadow is a game largely hated by a majority of the sonic fandom ( this included me at some point, i'll admit ). i think i'm seeing a turnaround though, especially with P-06 in the works, so that's some good news.

but back to my main point, there's a reason why sa2 and s06 shadow work much better than prime shadow. because shadow honestly, truly, completely cares.

he saves rouge from prison island.

he works alongside sonic without a second thought.

he saves humanity from his own wrong-doings.

he acknowledges sonic's power.

he saves rouge from eggman.

he is upset about omega's possible future circumstances.

he protects sonic from silver.

he is aware of how much rouge cares for him.

he helps in bringing sonic back to life.

and he does all of these with little to no complaint, no sarcastic remarks, almost no attempt to hide his true feelings under a mask, none of that. shadow is completely true to himself. shadow doesn't only care about others, he cares enough about himself to know who and what he truly is and everything he's capable of.

like, goddamnit, shadow isn't my #1 favorite sonic character, but he's SO close in these specific games.

this is why prime shadow feels so hollow and dry in comparison. he's just devoid of almost everything that made shadow... well, shadow. and it's been like this for years!

i'm not sure why people are saying this is the 'best he's been written in years' when, for a long while, he was no different from a majority of his characterizations.

but, hey, he's better in s3, right?

well, yes, but we don't know why he's like that.

in s2, he had balls of steel for treating and talking to sonic the way he did, but now he's...

kinder? protective? actually listening? ( sort of, dude's still kinda stubborn )

what the hell happened???

did his sympathy finally kick in? did he get hit by a coconut and had amnesia for a while? was he one of infinite's copies ( honestly, i would've bought that )?

seriously, what happened?

yeah, obviously, s3 shadow still has flaws, but i think if they were established in s1 or s2 and slowly developed over the course of the show, he would've actually been a really good character.

not that the shadow i know would call the alters 'not real' anyway, but, y'know, for the prime universe and all that.

anyway, overall, i think shadow in sonic prime is one of the worst versions of shadow to date. in their efforts to make him cool ( i guess? ), they made him devoid of a lot of emotion and connection with the rest of the cast, but especially sonic.

completely pushing shipping aside, shadow and sonic do not have a healthy relationship in this show. i'm not going to ignore that sonic definitely has flaws in his writing, but the relationship is unhealthy from sonic's passiveness and shadow's aggressiveness.

due to this, i only like specific moments of prime sonadow, and all of them are in s3. which is saying something.

if it were me, i would've written shadow more true to the original, with my own minor creative liberties here and there, in terms of his personality.

with sonic, i would've made it so he's definitely more on the line of friendly allies with him, but not quite friends yet. throughout the show, their bond would've become stronger and stronger, with a lot of queer undertones ( c'mon, i'm gay and i like these little freaks, leave me be ) and mayhaps a romantically undertone ending, if i didn't wanna be bold about it? maybe? i'm as transparent as glass.

i absolutely would've included omega into the cast and make his relationships with omega and rouge very important to shadow and his character, 'cause HOW DARE YOU TAKE THAT AWAY?!

generally speaking, there's just a lot i would've changed about shadow if i was in charge of writing sonic prime, but alas...

i can only write fanfiction.

and yes, i'm absolutely serious.

thank you for reading this long, ridiculous rant with me about a popular character that is guaranteed to get me some flack in one way or another.

lemme know if you'd have done anything different with shadow's character in the prime universe, or if you have any questions!

[sparkles-rule-4eva]

Analyzing Sonic's love language + Sonamy, pt. 1

Sonamy is probably one of the most conflicted ships I've seen in the fandom. Which I find funny, because it's quite clearly the ship that the Sonic Team favors the most and gives the most content for, at least when it comes to Sonic himself. But anyway, I've seen a lot of people claim that Sonic "clearly" doesn't like Amy back because of how uncomfortable he looks whenever she showers him with affection. (And yes, I know the more recent media has given her a ton of maturity regarding that, which I appreciate.) But from my observations, that's just not the case.

Why? It boils down to each of the characters' love languages.

And Sonic's love language is quite clearly NOT physical affection. And that doesn't just manifest with Amy; it manifests with EVERYONE that tries to show him more touchy-feely affection, including people we know for a fact he loves to death. Like Tails.

Sonic himself doesn't initiate hugs very often, so when Tails got hurt in the Sonic Boom episode "The Sidekick" and Sonic was trying to figure out some way to protect him and express how much he'd been worried, he does awkwardly hug his little brother. Look at Tails' reaction.

He's probably shocked right now. He would know better than anyone else that Sonic doesn't normally do that.

I don't think Sonic minds hugs, but he actually isn't a big fan of them in general. In the episode "Do Not Disturb," when Sonic and Tails ended up driving each other nuts with their personal lifestyles, Tails walks over and throws his arms around Sonic after they apologize and reconcile. This time, look at Sonic's reaction.

His stance and expression make it pretty clear he was not expecting it, and after a couple seconds he says "Kay, too long, gettin' weird," and gently pulls away. But he's still kinda smiling, so it's clear he's not mad, just slightly uncomfortable at the touch.

While we know there's many different variations of Sonic's character throughout the franchise, this trait is pretty consistent. Something very similar to this situation happens in the second live action movie, when Sonic tells Tails that they're pals, and Tails hugs him. Once again, look at Sonic's response.

He's startled and pretty quickly picks Tails up and puts him back, but he's smiling amidst it. Same as before; enjoying the emotion, but not necessarily comfortable with the means of affection.

Yeah, yeah, at the end of the movie after he comes back from being Super, Maddie and Tom both come running and each individually hug him. Sonic doesn't pull away that time, and I think he's more okay with it that time, since barely five minutes before they thought they were going to die together. He just kinda smiles a little and closes his eyes when they hug him.

(on a side note those screenshots give me such happiness 🥹 this family >>>)

I'm gonna leave it at that for this post, but yeah, this is part 1. Mostly because I can't add many more images, and I had too many more to share. Part 2, which I'll post as quickly as possible, will move on to Sonic X and apply these things to Sonamy. 😁💞

[idwsonicshowdown]

Botting and/or stuffed ballot concerns

Right, so now round two is wrapped up I have to address this unfortunate matter: I think the polls are possibly being rigged in some way Now, I have no idea how botting or rigging polls works and short of someone admitting to doing it, there's no way I can say for sure. It's a concern that other Sonic poll blogs have had in the past and there were concerns about it here, too (though back then it was over Starline winning and this time that isn't the case). I can't say for sure, but there really were a lot of unusual results this round Particularly, in the last hour of the polls I was watching the Don & Nite vs Jack Hammer and Belle vs Carina polls. Every time Don & Nite or Belle (the characters you'd expect to have the majority votes) got ahead, more votes would come to even them out in the next few minutes. I even tested it by reblogging the Don & Nite vs Jack poll to the shipping blog with a tag to vote for Don & Nite - even after this, when Don & Nite took the lead, more votes came in for Jack to even it out Now, it is possible that this is a massive coincidence and the unnamed guy from the 5th anniversary issue has a lot of hidden fans, but many of these polls didn't get a lot of traction. The Belle vs Carina one had 5 notes before I reblogged the results and yet got over 200 votes, which is an unusually high number for a poll that isn't being shared around Unfortunately, if the polls are being rigged, there's very little I can do to stop that. Short of asking the person doing it to stop and hope they'll listen - you're really not proving anything by fixing results on a silly fandom poll I've been tinkering away on setting up this tournament in the background for a few months, it'd suck to have to cancel it and spoil the fun, but if the results aren't genuine, then is there much point in carrying on? I'm going to take tonight off from setting up the next round to try to figure out what to do. If anyone has any advice, then I'd be glad to hear it

[true-blue-sonic]

.

My morning plans got cancelled, so I've been reading some of my more recent old fanfic. And it made me wonder... I feel as if I write the characters not so much in-character, especially Silver and Sonic. An explanation I can give for that is that I base a lot of my writing on my fic New Beginnings, which is three years old now, now that I think about it. At the time I worked on that I did not have that solid a grasp on character characterisations or writing, nor did I make so many analysis posts on Silver and such. But going through my own fanfics and recalling scenes from New Beginnings makes me see many little things that I feel like are "incorrect" or are something I would not write anymore. Nothing extremely egregious, but mostly word choice on Sonic's part and actions on Silver's. It's making me ponder about characterisations, how to figure out the deeper details behind them (especially in a franchise like Sonic where various "official" media have very different characterisations for many characters compared to the baseline of the games, which understandably often get mixed-and-matched in fandom spaces that I get exposed to a lot. Not to mention the huge differences between Japan and the West.), and how to write characters in a romance story when they do not have any romance in the media they are shown in.

Also, considering I don't like Silver as an uwu silly baby, I feel as if I do write him in that way, at least a little. For example, in New Beginnings he was quite heavily dependent on Espio and wary as heck but also sometimes far more explicitly wide-eyed and innocent, haha. If I don't like Silver getting cinnamon roll-ified, I feel like I should not be complicit in it myself in my own works either. It's definitely something I'll keep in mind if I ever go write for New New Beginnings (title still pending) in full, yet... I know that it's often recommended that you should do what is fun for you most when writing and that it's okay if that makes the characters a bit OoC because it's a fanwork. But I do really want to write him in-character, yet I feel like it's difficult for me to get his true character and his interactions with others down 100% correctly. A lot of my stories seem to kind of automatically put Silver into at least a bit of a cinnamon roll position, especially compared to the far more serious and world-knowledgeable Espio. But as I read my fanfics, it just felt... kind of unfitting? I'm not sure if it's something you can train, though, and I also feel like obsessing a lot about writing him "correctly" is going to stifle my (completely non-existent these days, rip) inspiration even more...

And it is making me ponder about what to do with my old fics. I figure it's best to just not touch them and treat it more like an artwork of "poor" quality that you made at the beginning of your learning journey: something that was still enjoyable to make and that people still like looking at, but that simply does not look as good as something you made years later when you had more skill under your belt. Hmm, this went a bit all over the place, but I hope it's clear what I mean.

[samethstarr]

1 year as a Sonic artist :)

I wasn't going to share this because I find it painfully embarrassing, but a friend told me someone else might find it inspiring so here we go, I guess. Today it has been exactly 1 year since I started making Sonic fanart.

The first was a simple Sonic Frontiers picture, I believe a friend of mine had recently finished their play-through so we were constantly geeking out over the game. As a result of posting art into the fandom, I was starting to peek into the community a little more and I noticed that the IDW comic fans were freaking the heck out. Issue #55 had come out and I kept seeing these panels from it:

I had seen Starline a few times before and was mildly curious about him, but my first impression of him was that he was a comic relief character. I thought people liked him because he was comically extra. But people were talking about how messed up he was and I was intrigued because he had clearly died at some point and left some sort of mess for everyone, serious enough that the heroes and villains were teaming up to deal with it.

The art for this issue is amazing and combined with the realization that Starline was actually a kind of serious villain, I just HAD to know more. Once I started seriously reading the comic there was no more hope for me, I was hooked. I did some fanart of Starline in January and people loved it, which made me even more interested in the community. I like positive attention and Starline fans are really really really nice to people who feed them. Shoutout to Starline fans for being so awesome to newcomers.

It was a bit of a one off for me skill wise, but I put a LOT more effort into it than I had put into anything else for a long time. The attention I got motivated the heck out of me. I felt appreciated.

I ended up joining several communities, I've made friends, I've done 4 Bumblekast thumbs, I got accepted into 2 zines, one of which I completed a 5 page comic for and the other one is probably one of the coolest things I have ever drawn in my life and I can't even share it here T.T

But the biggest thing starting Sonic fanart did for me is it got me practicing and studying. Not just drawing pictures and improving after each one; I was drawing with the intent to build skill, not to create a final result. I seriously wanted to work to improve.

My main goal for this year ended up being figuring out an effective method for learning how to draw characters and objects on model in general. Not just Sonic characters, any character I want.

I improved a lot with technique and my eye for color has improved a little too. I've got a knack for technical drawing, so I pick up things like perspective really quickly, but I have a difficult time making things look organic and I still struggle with that, but I am getting better.

What I'm gonna need to focus on for the next year is looking like general composition, dynamic poses, and expressions. With the amount of improvement I've seen this last year, I'm curious what kind of skills I'll have this time next year.

[my-name-is-jefferooni]

I listened to one edit audio and now I have a new Sonic AU.

Okay, well it's more like a What If, I guess.

So for context, I have this STH AU that I've been silently developing in my brain for the past like 2-3 years now, basically since I first joined the fandom. It's an idea I had where Sonic had a family and shit but then Eggman existed and they got killed and so the mad genius took Sonic under his wing. After a whole decade of being used as a literal lab rat, the blue hedgehog finally finds freedom in the form of the Resistance, (Ironically enough I've decided to add in more resistance factions. One of them is called the Freedom Fighters like the one from Archie and yet Sonic didn't find freedom with them lmfao) and befriends the main cast.

What I'm thinking of right now is a sort of aftermath of Eggman's rule being taken down, when everyone finally gets to live in peace. Sonic and his friends (Including Omega because HE IS AN MVP AND SHOULD NOT BE OVERLOOKED) have a little camping night and decide to tell ghost stories. Unfortunately, Knuckles being Knuckles, he took it all a bit too far and planned his whole story out after like a month of brainstorming. And I am not kidding when I say his story is fucking dark.

Mostly because it's actually my story lmfao but I digress.

It all begins when Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles are called by some random guy to help take care of some weird haunted house situation. Knuckles wants to help because he wants to prove to Tails that ghosts are very much real and are in fact very terrifying. Sonic joins him just for the hell of it, and Tails is there to make sure those two don't commit any war crimes without his permission first. And, well...

Suffice to say, they find more than just ghosts there! :D

The first obstacle they run into is an angry doll spirit of sorts. The spirit is a physical manefestation of a horrified, terrified, screaming body crying out for help, and it plants little seeds of poison or something of the sort in your appendages if you get too close. Its screams are loud and can shatter one's soul in an instant! It glitches all the time too, allowing it to go through walls with some effort. And when laying dormant, the spirit resides within a little itty-bitty doll with a distorted face.

After running away from that thing, the group runs into a crack monster. (It's scarier than it sounds trust me) It's a black, inky humanoid monster that comes out from the cracks in the floor, grabbing onto to anything it can reach and never lets go. The only way to make it loosen its grip is to cut its arm off entirely. Don't worry, that doesn't harm the monster, because it's already dead! It'll grow back a new arm anyway. :3

What comes after this guy is a mix between a vampire and a ghost. This guy is a little more confusing cuz I didn't flesh it out very much but it kinda only shows up in pitch-black areas. No light to be found when ur with this guy! It's a bit more neutral compared to the other spirits. Just don't provoke it and you should be relatively fine! Key words: You should be fine.

Next up is a brain-sucking bat! (idk man I just wanted something that crawled around on the ceiling but a spider didn't feel right) And I know that doesn't sound as haunting as the others but trust me, it is terrifying! I don't know how to explain it, it just kinda crawls around on the ceiling and waits for you to lose your mind.

The next one is by far one of the scariest. Don't read this next paragraph if you have depression or have lost a loved one because it may be a little tough.

This spirit is... Interesting, to say the least. I still have yet to fully flesh out this one but basically it's a completely humanoid figure, no face, no eyes or mouth, just long thin hair in clumps on the scalp. It's not a full head of hair, it's all just scattered about like they put too much bleach on or something. And there is always a very strange aura around it as well... The neck is split in two, their hands tied in a noose and their feet tightly bound with shackles. Their only mode of transportation is eerily floating about, and it gains speed if it decides it wants to chase you. If you get too close, your neck will snap and you'll immediately collapse on the floor, dead. Knuckles and Tails don't have any interactions with this spirit, but Sonic does, and he somehow manages to make it out alive. However, the encounter changes him for the worst.

These spirits all reside within a seemingly small house, at least on the outside. When the three Mobians step inside though, they immediately get trapped inside and discover the house is far bigger than they could've ever imagined. It's dark inside, with hardly any light available, and every room feels cramped despite everything. Hallways are like mazes, and bedrooms are filled with this creepy, terrifying aura that can paralyze you just from stepping inside. So suffice to say, none of them have a good time.

The three begin to change as time goes on. Tails loses an arm to the first spirit, the doll one, and he has no way of replacing it. He becomes saddened, apathetic, but still holds out hope in finding some sort of exit. If not for himself, then for his brothers.

Knuckles becomes extremely paranoid, flinching at every little sound, movement, or wisp of the wind. The sight of dust just existing sends him into an internal panic, and encountering spirits just sends him into "Defend brothers at all costs" mode. He's also just the slightest bit selfish, but it's only because of his uncontrollable survival instincts and his heightened paranoia. He is prone to mood swings, but they're not nearly as bad as Sonic's.

As for the blue devil himself, Sonic just. Went insane. There is no downplaying it, he is a goner. There is still a strong moral code within him and he never wishes harm on anyone, least of all his brothers! However, when it comes to social queues or listening to what anyone has to say, he's just. Gone. He also experiences very drastic mood swings! They're so bad that one second he'll be crying and being all sad and pathetic, and then the next he'll be all happy and giddy and hyping everyone up! This still makes him the hype-man of the group despite everything. Due to his changing emotions, Sonic does tend to get a bit aggressive from time to time, and constantly belittles his brothers without meaning to. The others are understanding, but after he eventually realizes what he says or does, he becomes inconsolable, and his two companions just have to let him stew in his regret for a while. It never ends well, but when all is said and done, Sonic means well and just wants to get out like the rest of them.

After an undecided amount of time, the three do find an exit and begin to leave, but the crack monster gets ahold of Sonic's entire fucking body and puts its whole weight into it too. Knuckles and Tails don't have anything on them at the time to save Sonic, but they refuse to leave without him. The crack monster begins calling for its companions, and Sonic starts begging for his brothers to leave him behind. He's scared and he's hurting and he knows he'll be in even more pain if they leave, but they're family. Sonic can't just let his family share that pain.

Knuckles and Tails insist on staying, but after Sonic continuously begs them to leave, screaming and crying and trying to shove them away, and... Well... The two have no choice but to oblige.

The three give each other very quick and clipped goodbyes since the other spirits are literally like right outside the room, and then just like that... Knuckles and Tails are gone.

And Sonic is alone.

[prowerprojects]

(Modern Tails anon) Considering there's apparently financial troubles going on with IDW, one has to wonder if the comic lives long enough to see that story one day.

Heh, the funny thing is, he could technically do those things too. Maybe not as well, but a kid fox genius running around with a flamethrower he built being alongside Blaze has to invoke some type of interesting imagery. Same with a stealth mission with Rouge.

I figured, especially with Sonic is one the earliest examples of seeing a video game character having a clear personality. (At least those Origins cutscenes added something more upfront; albeit very late for this decades-long series. But something to refer back to nonetheless.)

I think I've seen that somewhere. The most I know of Tails himself in that continuity is that he and other foxes are from some secret zone and he has grown the title of hero in that village through rather clumsy, but well-meaning antics. Albeit through lying at first.

(Yup, AOSTH Tails even turned an entire truck into a mechanical dragon and handled himself while Sonic was frozen in stone. The most SatAM did was that one episode near the end. I still wonder if the plans for season 3 had gone through, would Tails be looked at a bit differently depending on how it went since his role was supposed to expand greatly.)

Hmm, it's going to depend on how these next set of episodes go. Seeing the other Tailses will likely strike a chord in Nine; but that doesn't fully mean villain arc. Existential crisis, maybe. I expect him more to tap into something hidden within him he didn't notice before. (Probably doesn't help that outside of Sonic and Shadow, we don't know the Prime versions of the characters that well; not great if you don't have at least basic knowledge on Sonic. If Tails did show some "Nine" traits during his early days with Sonic; specifically the trusting and friends part, I think there'd be a fairer grasp of why Tails didn't end up like Nine and why Nine is slowly resembling the original Tails. This applies to the other counterparts too, not just his alone.) Heh, never doubt the power of a fandom has when they catch the slightest bit of angst fuel from any character. And missing the nuances that come with grey/neutral characters. (Trust me, I'd love to see Tails let loose some raw, unbridled emotion that could have you think about his morality or sense of justice, but in the right context. Something I don't see Prime fully committing to, whether they DO go through with it.)

Two intelligent scientific minds, separated by different upbringings and how they apply their emotions to their logic, but still learning about how the world works and defy said logic through personal experience. All while seeking approval and praise. Lots of potential there.

There was another Sonic Channel story last year that basically said the same thing about their bond. One being "they have something that goes beyond trust", that "they know what the other needs without having to speak". (Also, their dynamic breaks some the typical tropes you see with 'hero-sidekick'. Like, the latter has the base of operations, not the former. Also, it is not funny and wholesome that Sonic considers this baby fox that attached himself to a younger him the biggest source help he could have ever hope for?)

Honestly I'm not very knowledgeable on how this whole deal works, so I won't say anything on the matter. I wonder if we could get a Sonic webtoon? I know DC comics and Archie both have at least one. Of course, both of them are of questionable quality, but who knows, maybe we'll luck out!

Haha, that's true! Personally I don't really care for him being a kitsune spirit, but I've been thinking of an idea where he replicates their abilities with his tech to make someone else believe he is one.

Yep, Fleetway Tails is from the Nameless Zone which is kind of like old-timey alternative dimension with magic and goblins and stuff. He was kind of loser there, so he moved to Mobius hoping he'd make a name for himself, but he was still a loser there too. But he was too embarrassed and wrote to his family that he became a hero. In the early StC, the writers weren't kind to Tails. He usually just messed things up or got captured (you could kinda understand Sonic's frustration with him, though he could stand to be nicer), and if he did manage to save the day, it was due to sheer luck. He got better though, especially after Sonic got stuck in another dimension. (After he came back, the Freedom Fighters kind of went their separate ways, but S&T often had adventures together as a duo. They both kinda grew up, Tails became more competent and stopped caring as much about impressing people (including Sonic), and Sonic mellowed out and stopped being as harsh on him. They became a better team! I have a soft spot for the stc!Unbreakable Bond, you just kind of have to take into account the specifics of the writing of stc as a whole, I understand it's not everyone's cup of tea.)

(I... have mixed feelings on satam, but mostly I just can't finish watching it. It feels like a drag. Not something I would be watching if it wasn't Sonic-related. Not gonna comment on the quality of it, because there are some other shows I felt similarly about and they're super critically acclaimed, like atla. (If Tails was more prominent I mind have at least been watching for his sake) I promised a friend I would read Archie and I wanted to watch satam first, but it looks like at this point I'll just have to skip to the comics.)

I really want to see different counterparts interacting. I'm kind of with Shadow on this situation, try as I may I don't really see them as separate people, I'm more interested in what they could say about the Prime versions of the characters. But it would be more effective if we spent more time with the Prime versions in the first place. I'm hoping for more flashbacks tbh. (Plus I just love how the og models for the characters look without the Shatterverse clothes)

Oh yeah I remember that one! Man I love how Sonic Channel hypes up their bond. I hope we'll get to see more of this in the next games. Sonic really lucked out (and so did Tails of course!)

[crusherthedoctor]

6, 12, 22, 23 :P

6. Has fandom ever made you enjoy a pairing you previously hated?

Not really.

…Yep, that was a quick one.

12. Is there an unpopular arc that you like that the fandom doesn't? Why?

If we're talking characters specifically, then I support Sonic and Tails having a disagreement that furthers the plot, as attempted in Lost World. Obviously it wasn't handled as well as it could have been there, but the idea on its own is reasonable to me, particularly if both sides have a point rather than it being purely in Sonic's favor just because he's Sonic, and as long as it's not wildly exaggerated to the point of a House of Cards-style affair where they're both acting like dickheads.

If we're talking story concepts in general, then I really like the idea of Solaris, since whether it was intentional or no, it sets itself up well as a unique parallel to Chaos in more ways than one. Unfortunately, they had to separate it into two less interesting halves with shittier designs, and gave them the lion's share of plot focus.

22. Popular character you hate?

*rolls out the list*

Let's see… Scourge, Surge, Kit, Mephiles, Mimic, Clutch, Rough and Tumble, Belle, Chip, Eggman Nega, Eclipse, most of the Archie cast in general, post-Flynning Starline… is it too early to add Eggette Sage?

For the longest time, I used to heavily dislike Sonic himself, because for all the praise he received for being the most awesome guy ever until Big Bad Pontaff came along and allegedly ruined him, he ALWAYS came off to me as obnoxious a lot more times than intended. While I've warmed up to him since then, in part due to portrayals like IDW, SatAM and Fleetway making me appreciate how better off Game Sonic is by comparison, and in part due to figuratively spending so much time in his head via the fanfic writing process, I'll admit that he still annoys me on occasion, like in Frontiers.

I also used to not care all that much for Shadow, since the dark rival archetype normally fails to interest me, combined with the preferential treatment he received in the mid-00s. Nowadays, while he's still not one of my favourites per say, I like him a lot more after taking note of how he manages to avoid most of the cliches that I associate with said archetype. (For just one example, Shadow is mostly reserved and polite, whereas other such characters tend to be overly hot-blooded and full of unwarranted bluster.) And the memes involving him are always fun too.

Then there's Silver. Hate is too strong a word in this case, but out of all the main recurring cast members, he's the one I'm the most utterly apathetic to, whether it's his Shadow Lite portrayal in most of the games, or his Steven Universe-itis portrayal everywhere else. His gimmick of saving the future from Cataclysmic Event #47 has also gotten old, and we all know how I feel about Blaze being reduced to his sidekick for most of her post-Rush screentime. If they stopped using Silver for whatever reason, I'd feel bad for his fans, but I wouldn't exactly be shedding tears personally.

And finally, while I normally try my best to not have my opinion on a character be influenced too much by fandom perception of them alone, since I realise it's not entirely fair… I must admit that I have grown completely sick of the Freedom Fighters after all the overblown fandom wanking they've received since Archie got bumped. Over the last couple of years, it's proven impossible to go a month without something like #Rally4Sally rearing its head, or another attempt by Flynn to directly or indirectly shoehorn them into everything he touches ("REMARKABLE RESEMBLANCE TO DULCY"). By the time it became clear just how much of IDW was already recycled from Archie, my patience reached its absolute limit.

The Freedom Fighters themselves may not be the worst characters ever (well, most of them), but I will never understand what makes them so special. And half of them were redundant from the very beginning anyway.

23. Unpopular character you love?

Eggman when he's in-character.

Rouge when she's in-character.

Amy when she's… alright, you get the joke, I'll come up with a serious answer.

Do the Hard-Boiled Heavies count? Sure, they got a lot of praise and fanart when Mania was new, but it feels like they've been left in the dust since then, and outside of that one IDW comic that I'd like to forget, they've barely been used for anything… Well, I always appreciate a quirky miniboss squad when the personalities involved are properly endearing instead of annoying, so I'll always love these guys, and despite all of them being roly-poly Egg Robos, their animations in Mania managed to convey a lot of character, without dialogue, that some characters in this franchise have struggled to match with dialogue.

Another one is Marine. It's mostly calmed down now, but back when Rush Adventure came out, everyone seemed to have a rabid hateboner for her, to the point where it felt like her only purpose in Archie was to be treated like shit. And for what? For overestimating her capabilities? She's still young, and she clearly developed some maturity and genuine skills towards the end anyway. Because she supposedly didn't do anything? That's not even true, but whatever. Because of her stereotypical Australian lingo? As someone who grew up listening to Dingodile and the entire cast of TY the Tasmanian Tiger, this had absolutely no effect on me. I already developed an immunity. All I thought when I read her dialogue was "Ha ha, just like one of my favourite Crash characters. B)"

How about Erazor Djinn? He's another one that's less hated and more just ignored period. Even among fans who love Secret Rings, only some of them like @greenyvertekins bother to actually acknowledge him. As someone who is not exactly a Secret Rings connoisseur, I nonetheless declare that Erazor is without question one of the best non-Eggman villains we've ever had… the hairdo's a bit goofy though, but genies do tend to have them like that, so touche.

Black Doom is the Best Bad Villain. Whereas other villains like him have made me nothing but grumpy, Doom's combination of Dr. Claw voice, Chinese bootleg Wizeman design, cartoonish levels of in-game contradictions (how the fuck can I progress if I DON'T kill your troops?), and even some genuinely intriguing quirks here and there (like not knowing what lightning is), has made it simply impossible for me to hate him. It helps that he never gained a disproportionate fandom like Mephiles did, as unlike Mephiles, Doom tends to be rightly acknowledged as the unintentional comedy goldmine that he is.

[nblatinotails]

I have so many feelings about the new sonic prime trailer, how good it looks and all, but for the few days it's been out I've been grappling with the strange familiarity it invokes in me. I think I've finally figured it out however, a combination of two older pieces of media that I had nearly forgotten about, struck me similar to the tone and character designs of the trailer. Firstly, the addition of the spider-like robotic augmentation on Tails bounced around in my brain as familiar, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out why, till I remembered

This comic, 'where was my hero?' by Mercybhk (the tumbler attributed to that name seems to be deactivated or deleted, but there are credits to deviant art accounts under the same name in yt dub videos)

Now this isn't too wild, but it just kinda leaves me in a bit of awe, baffles me a bit how this individual AND a tv production team went "you know what this kid needs more of? Trauma and fuckin tails" and they were Goddamn right. Now clearly there are a few differences and this has no cannon bearing, but I do think it's nice to identify the fandom significance of tropes having to do with Tails' tails. The ever popular ones exploring the loss of one or both of said tails, augmentation or replacement of the limbs, gaining multiple additional tails (organic or inorganic) and, apparently, cool spider tails 🤟

Secondly, from what the trailers showing us so far it seems like the story is going to be told to us in a way akin to the tmnt 2003 Ultimate Drako arch, where a team is scattered through different universes and dimensions; we get to explore each unique world, and, intern, each character, briefly over the period of an episode (or two, maybe, we'll see) while a linking sub-plot of working to reunite in the base universe is bubbling in the background.

The universe from the trailer particularly catches my interest with the similarities it hold to the infamous '03 SAINW episode. A dystopian future where the villain has won and the world has gone into ruin due to the disappearance, or perhaps complete absence of the main character. While greated with less than stellar fanfare by the aged and battle hardened friends and family, the mc provides the necessary tools and motivation to make a final stand and restore peace... even if it comes at a steep price.

I think we're gonna see something similar to that story play out, maybe with the fun inclusion of the council of Eggmen popping in as the main antagonists of their respective worlds

[gbgamebun]

Road to Cream64 v1 Part 3: So many friends and an egg.

I was hoping to do two of these a week but man this has been a crazy week. Anyway, we back to wrapping up the rest of the NPCs. Actually had to grab

Star Toads were next and I wanted to make each one unique. The thought process for who got chosen was a mix of who was connected to Cream and just who I liked. The obvious answers were Amy and Blaze and I ended up choosing Blaze for the second toad. Doesn't mean I would leave Amy hanging, as she got a little side story in v2, but when we get there of course.

In Blaze's dialog, she mentions that Marine was also with her and that she's somewhere. So go help her find this mangy raccoon! I wanted to do something special and stick Marine in a level where you'd just run into her. Though with very limited code knowledge, even if you find Marine, Blaze's dialog stays the same. Mostly just a cute little event that would eventually fuel my desire to add more stuff like this in later versions. So much more...

The first star toad as you can see here ended up being a leftover from a small edit I did when just figuring out dialog edits and stuff. Eventually just ran with the idea of a single stubborn toad who refused to leave when Peach gave the order for every toad to go on vacation for this party.

Even after all the latest versions and dialog rewrites, his has been the only one that's stayed the same since v1. People really have come to love this little asshole.

For the last toad, I ended up choosing a little blue bunny for reason that should be clear: she be my bun bun.

Around early 2020 is when I finally had gotten out of my weird funk about my drawing ability and stuff and finally started getting back into Sonic stuff. Bare with me for a bit for I must go into a tangent into what I've been doing for the past few years before all this.

Near the end of 2019 I started slowly getting back into Sonic AUs and OCs again, a bit of that can be attributed to the Sonic movie and my friend's revigorated interest into that part of the fandom. One of my oldest characters, Mark, was stuck in a weird limbo of being in a Sonic AU and being in an original story for a few years. It reached a point where I just tired of it and shelved him to focus on an entirely new story and characters unrelated to anything I've done before.

Now back to the start of 2020, I actually go out of my way to try and update his design and do some stuff with him.

And we have our new design. I swear one day I'll go into his backstory but I'm dragging on. So where does this rabbit fit in? One of the new story bits I had in mind was that he would find a little rabbit named Katalina and adopt her. Then while he does his adventurin', he would leave her with Vanilla and that's how she would form a bond with Cream and the rest of her family. It's also why she calls Cream "Lil' Sis" in her dialog since she's like slightly older than Cream.

So yeah this hack is based off my AU, which is still mostly just told through these hacks. Don't blame people for getting real confused as to who the heck she is and eventually her adopted pappy. Sorry for the long bit, I rarely get a chance to speak about them as much like this. Speaking of, let's go back to him since that we're now done with the toads.

Changing Yoshi was just like changing the other model though this is the first time changing someone's model who was bigger than the model swapped (in this case it's using Mario's rig on a model that's taller). The best way to describe it is that the root position is off so he's kind of sticking a bit on one side, even if his shadow looks fine. His collision is kind of wonky as a result.

I would end up leaving this for v1 but it is something I would fix down the line. It was just a matter of changing the root point or even moving the rig a bit before exporting. Also noting, Mark here has changed again, with Blaze like fur sticking out instead of the weird white hair flowing from the back. Saved me a lot of effort down the line, lemmie tell ya!

Ya know I guess I should at least show what they're latest designs are. From the ref sheets I got, made by my friend @fudgernutter.

And now time for the big boy. That's right, it's time for Eggman and his Egg Koopa Mk 2!

God, this monster was one of the hardest thing to put together, if only just to uncrumple him so I can apply his textures and fix up the head mesh.

WHY IS YOUR JAW SO FAR APART?! It was one of those that was so bad I had to write down which bone was moved and how much so I don't accidently mess up the whole thing. Gah, it was a mess but as the years have shown me, it was 100% worth the effort.

It wouldn't be the first time messing with Bowser's model and rig, as I did an edit for Super Suwako 64 by turning him into a Cirno cosplayer. Don't mind the missing jaw, had messed up rotating on of the bones. This is what can happen.

The actual design of the EggBowz basically just comes down to "I wanted the robot to look as close as I can with him". So changed the hair to brown, the horn and spikes to gold to match Eggman's buckles, the upper torso is red to match his coat and the lower half is black for his pants and shoes. The mustache model is just his SA1's stache slapped on the front of the nose cause it seemed like something he would do.

Carving a hole into Bowser's head mesh wasn't too hard thankfully and then just repositioning Eggy to look like he's sitting and we're good! Still weird to think that it was initially just a random thought to actually do this but hey that's how half the ideas in his hack have worked out. Shoutouts to Cream nerds on twitter.

And with that, we got every major character swapped out! I suppose the last reoccurring character not mentioned here would be Mips so I'll just stick him at the end here.

Sonic is full of small animal critters so grabbing one of them was perfect for Mips. Ended up grabbing a model of Pocky from I forget either Smash 4 or a mobile game where the animal friends are there (and low poly). Everything here is still the Mips model except for the head obviously. Then just applying Pocky's textures and even connecting his ears so that they're a single mesh.

Whew that's a lot but there's not much else left. Just enemy models, UI stuff and the soundtrack and that's gonna be fun to discuss. Gotta see if I still have spreadsheets of the songs I chose before adding them.

[kitkatopinions]

For the character bingo:

RWBY: Torchwick

Kingdom Hearts: Axel

Sonic the Hedgehog: Amy Rose

Tangled the Series: Eugene

These are all characters I adore, so this will be fun.

First off, Roman Torchwick! I'll elaborate on anything I feel like elaborating on below.

This is one of two characters in RWBY that I've put a lot of thought into them and why they do what they do. I've invented an entire past, relatives, father figures, ex-partners, a semblance, ways he coped with his trauma, what songs he loves the most... I did too much thinking about Roman Torchwick. XD

The funny thing is that one of the things I've projected onto the character of Roman is the tendency to project onto people. Once while I was writing Roman to get into a fight with Mercury, I had Roman project his own tendency to project onto Mercury while Emerald was calling him out for projecting.

Canon isn't real if I don't look at it is basically how I live my life. And in my head, Roman survived the Fall of Beacon, teamed up with Emerald and Mercury, found Neo, and all of them started on a lengthy and difficult road to redemption.

I love writing for bastards and Roman is a great one. I just said I liked to imagine him going down a lengthy and difficult road to redemption, but I can't write him to be a 'nice' person, because Roman is at his most fun if he's able to sling insults or make fun of people or have fits of rage.

Now for Axel, formerly known as Lea!

By 'I am so normal about them,' I of course mean I am not normal at all. I adore Axel and flip my lid every time I get to see him.

I've written fanfics specifically centered around most of the Organization members, so I have tons of headcanons about the whole of the Organization. But tbh, especially Axel.

I put in that if anything happened to him, I would cry, because after all Axel’s been through, isn't he entitled to some happiness with his children Roxas and Xion? I think so!

Now for my girl Amy Rose!

She really is a beast. You guys, Amy can fuck people up! This is especially clear in the IDW comics. And I haven't read lots of the other kinds of comics outside of IDW, but I do have this Sonic Select comic where Amy is getting in a fight with I think Eggman and Shadow and Knuckles are there and she's like "you know what, I don't even need to do it myself" and has Knuckles and Shadow beat stuff up for her. I love her so much.

Not to get too into some drama, but sometimes people tend to just disregard Amy completely. I know she was invented to be a Sonic obsessed 'would be girlfriend' who gets Damseled all the time, and that's obviously pretty sexist, but at this point, Amy (especially in the IDW comics) has had a lot of advancement and some people still tend to treat her like a useless airhead. Also some Princess Sally fans make fun of her and I think that's... Lame.

The ‘they are so silly’ is more about Amy in things like Sonic Adventure and Adventure 2 and even up to Sonic 2006. Because she was very silly, but I still absolutely loved her.

Now onto my boy Eugene Fitzherbert!

Honestly, he is such a goofball and I love that. He's also so good because he actually doesn't take himself super seriously all the time and can joke around and take and give some ribbing.

His first look in the series is pretty much just his look from the movie but with a black vest, but the season two look is great. Aaaand my favorite look is his purple look with the jacket! And the captain of the guard stuff looks so good too! Eugene just serves looks all the time.

Sometimes fandom people can be mean, but not the whole fandom. Lots of people like him, but there are some people who hate him because he gets in the way of their favorite character or ship, and that's fair (I've hated characters for that very reason,) but some of them then search for ways to justify that hate and it gets extreme and irrational.

But yeah, so those are my bingo answers, thanks for sending these!

[werewolfwriter323]

Hello and welcome to my Blog

I am Werewolfwriter323 and this post is basically just a way for me to organize all the stuff I post or reblog, so that I can find my own stuff and whatnot easier. And to find posts that I want to look at or reblog again.

Here’s the most used tags that i’ve included

#not tma (these are for most posts that aren’t tma or other fandoms)

#other’s art (art that I didn’t create)

#free palestine (any post that I reblogged about palestine)

#werewolfwriter does stuff (my tag for any “original” stuff that I post, whether it’s art, aus, writing, shitposts, memes, edits, etc.)

#werewolfwriter [ ] draws, edits, writes etc. (A more detailed tag for whatever “original” thing that I posted)

#important news/info (Anything that I reblogged that I think will be important to look back on, or important info or links, or the like)

#queer stuff (Any Queer/Gay/LGBTQ+ posts. To note I usually use the term Queer to speak about the community, just because for me it works better as an umbrella term, it fits better for what I identify with.)

#random stuff (random posts that I found interesting or funny enough to reblog)

#memes (It’s memes, what do you want from me?)

#writing stuff (Posts that usually include writing tips and the like that I know that I’ll want to look back on)

#art stuff (Posts that usually include art tips and the like that I know that I’ll want to look back on)

#save for later (Posts that I want to look back on for whatever reason)

I have been using tumblr for a while, and I had an older blog that I was often on, but it wasn’t until a few months ago with this new blog that I finally figured out how tagging works. I hadn’t really given it though until recently, and now I am glad to be able to use it to organize my stuff somewhat.

Despite being a mostly TMA and WTNV blog here's some other fandoms that I love and will gush about given the chance.

Gravity Falls

Danny Phantom

Avatar The Last Airbender

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventures

Mob Psycho 100

Kingdom Hearts

Sonic The Hedgehog

Other Random tidbits

Most relistened to TMA eps:

MAG 01 Anglerfish

MAG 13 Alone

MAG 15 Lost John's Cave

MAG 22 Colony

MAG 51 High Pressure

MAG 50 Trail Rations

MAG 77 The Kind Mother

MAG 81 A Guest For Mr.Spider

MAG 91 The Coming Storm

MAG 125 Civilian Casualties

MAG 132 Entombed

MAG 170 Recollection

MAG 177 Wonderland

MAG 178 The Processing Line

Podcasts I've listened to:

The Adventure Zone (Balance & Amnesty)

Welcome To Nightvale

Random Number Generator Horror Podcast No.9

The Strange Case of Starship Iris

The Magnus Archives

Scared Gay

Wolf 359

Wooden Overcoats

Red Valley

Jar of Rebuke

And finally this is a safe space for any queer/gay/LGBTQ+ folks (including aroace people, or anyone else on the acesexual spectrum, trans folks of any sort (gender can be whatever you want or don't want it to be), and Bi and Bi adjacent (Pan for example) folks.

It's also a safe space for any neurodivergent folks.

And honestly a safe space for anyone else who isn't an exclusionists of any kind, I try to be a pretty open minded person, and I try to not judge others, but if you are going out of your way to harass people online for no good reason, then I won't deal with you on my blog, you will be blocked.

That's all for now, thanks for reading if ya did, and I hope that you enjoy what stuff I've got here.