#Robotnik: Well i'm off!

[invader-reggie]

Robotnik: I am going to REARRANGE your ORGANS until you're BEGGING for MERCY and then TAKE you OUT.

Stone: Really?? YES. I thought you'd never realize, Oh my god YES.

Robotnik: Wait you WANT me to cut you open, mess with your organs and then KILL you?

Stone: Oh. Please no.

Robotnik: What

Stone: What

Stone: Latte?

[likeanegg]

of COURSE I wouldn't get my wig basically just right until the last day of con X|

[thedemoninyourcloset]

Fellow Stobotnik shippers, I fear we have won the battle

I ACTUALLY THOUGHT THEY WOULD KISS LMAO 😭😭

THESE PICS?? I'M SORRY, STONE IS ON ROBOTNIK'S LAP?? THIS IS ACTUALLY FUCKING CRAZY

Stone cover you tits for God's sake🙄 (PLEASE DON'T OMG)

I CAN'T WITH HOW UNBOTHERED STONE WAS (I feel like that wasn't the first time Robotnik has taken his shirt off)

HE IS WEARING STONE'S SHIRT

Lee said back when they finished filming, that we would lose our minds. Well, I've already lost mine bc of this trailer, so I can't wait to see what the movie has to offer

[thankskenpenders]

Thoughts on two specific areas of the writing in Sonic X Shadow Generations

The best new 3D Sonic game in over a decade (or even two, depending on who you ask) dropped late last year. And I didn't write anything about it! Sometimes life happens. Well, I've finally sat down to finish Shadow Generations, and by now everyone has already been singing its praises for three months. This is the rare instance where the entire Sonic fandom, and even mainstream reviewers, are in agreement on something. The level design is the best it's been in a long, long time and the cool factor is off the charts, embracing Sonic's peak cringe era in an incredibly confident way. It's great. If you're even reading this post, you probably don't need me to tell you that. So I won't!

No, what I'm really interested in here is the writing. Because this is me we're talking about. But I actually don't want to talk about the main narrative of Shadow Generations, which is really solid little story about Black Doom trying to mold Shadow into his perfect soldier. No, I'd like to zero in on two other aspects of the writing here: the revisions made to Sonic Generations, and Gerald Robotnik's unlockable journal.

The updated Sonic Generations script

The new package mostly presents Sonic Generations how you remember it. There are some tweaks, but it's not a major overhaul. Graphically, I don't think the game has been touched much, if at all. I certainly can't notice any difference without a side-by-side comparison, despite playing it on a PS5. The most notable update is that the game's script has been rewritten by Ian Flynn.

Naturally, this caught my attention. Generations always had a nothingburger story, so with Ian rewriting Pontac and Graff's lame dialogue there was nowhere to go but up. (I don't like to pin the blame for those games' stories entirely on them, as a ton of it was dictated to them by Sonic Team, but, well, I don't think they're very good dialogue writers.) But it's less a complete rewrite and more like Ian was brought on as a script doctor for some minor touch ups here and there. Many lines of dialogue are completely identical to how they were originally written in 2011, and many others only have slight wording changes. Ian was clearly not allowed to request additional scenes or extend the ones that already existed. He has to match the original beat for beat so that they can reuse 99% of the cutscene animations. Don't expect it to be a whole new experience compared to the original.

Still, I think the new script is an improvement, albeit a minor one. Various things have been tweaked to maintain characterization consistency. Cream calls Sonic "Mr. Sonic" instead of just "Sonic." Instead of calling Sonic "buddy," Rouge uses the pet name "Blue," like she tends to do in things like the IDW comics. Espio doesn't have to remind you in the dialogue that he's a ninja, and he no longer has a line making it sound like he has some kind of soul reading power. I also like that Modern Sonic now actually has responses to what his friends say when he rescues them, rather than being silent like Classic Sonic. They won't blow you away, but they make Sonic feel a little more engaged with everything.

In general, the altered dialogue just seems tighter to me, and some of the more childish or trite wording of Pontac and Graff's script has been altered. Here, let's actually make a direct comparison, just because this stuff is interesting to me as a writer. Here's a couple lines from after the Egg Dragoon fight late in the game, in the original script:

Modern Eggman: Ooooh... I can't believe this! I was supposed to beat you this time. Modern Sonic: Aw, I'm sorry! I didn't get that memo. I beat you every time! [Turns to Classic Sonic] No, seriously, we beat this guy every time. It's like it's our job or something!

This is a simple exchange. Eggman is mad that he lost. Sonic is unflappably confident because he always beats Eggman, and he explains this to his younger self. But the wording here isn't particularly good. Eggman's simple and direct wording makes him come off like a little kid who's mad because his older brother beat him at Mario Kart, rather than a mad scientist who just had his plans foiled. It's making light of the situation.

And I've never liked Sonic saying "It's like it's our job or something!" That doesn't feel like a thing Sonic would say, it feels like a thing an outside observer would say about Sonic. This is a frequent problem with so-called "MCU dialogue," where quips meant to echo the commentary of a casual, somewhat disinterested audience are inserted into the story itself so that the writers can be like "See? We get it. We're genre-savvy, too!" It also just reminds me of bad Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric lines like "Rings! It's like they're made for me!"

And then here's Ian's rewrite:

Modern Eggman: I recalibrated everything! This was supposed to be my time! Modern Sonic: Oh, please, keep dreamin', Egg-head. I beat you every time. [Turns to Classic Sonic] No, seriously, we beat him every time. Our score card's flawless.

Eggman's still mad about his defeat, but the line "I recalibrated everything!" makes it more specific. He put all this work into the engineering side of his latest scheme and got tunnel vision, thinking if he got his creations just right there'd be no way he could lose. "This was supposed to be my time!" also turns it into a time travel pun, which is a bonus. He's still pitching a fit over losing, but it feels more like Eggman pitching a fit, rather than sounding childish.

And then instead of saying that beating Eggman is "like his job or something," Sonic says he's got a flawless score card against Eggman. He doesn't take Eggman seriously as a threat—at least, not to his face. He acts like it's all a game. But he conveys this in a way that feels truer to the character, rather than feeling like the words of a real world observer poking fun at the tropes of the Sonic series.

Is this amazing, A+ dialogue that blows me away? No. Again, it's not a completely different scene from the one we already had. Ian had to fit the beats of what was already there. He couldn't go all out and write an all new story confirming his longstanding headcanon that the Time Eater is a remnant of Solaris or whatever. But the wording here makes the existing story land a little better and feel truer to the characters in subtle ways.

But to me, the main change is that the Sonics and Tailses seem to have a more solid understanding of what's going on with the timeline and the Time Eater, compared to how idiotic they sometimes seemed in the original game. Which is good! No more standing outside Green Hill and wondering why it seems so familiar. Thank god. As part of this, yes, there are a few more references to past games in the dialogue, like Sonic briefly being confused about the fact that they're time traveling without the Time Stones, or South Island and Westside Island being acknowledged as the normal locations of Green Hill and Chemical Plant. Yes, ha ha, insert joke about how Ian loves references here. Look, it's Sonic fucking Generations. It's a game built entirely out of nostalgic references. Just own it! And, again, in this instance Sonic and Tails come off as less stupid when they make it clear that they do, in fact, remember their adventures from presumably less than a year ago in-universe.

Eggman, too, seems to have a better understanding of the powers he's toying with. Where in the original vesion his focus was simply on going back in time to undo his previous defeats and he seemed kind of oblivious to how much the Time Eater was actually fucking up the universe, here Eggman says he wants to use the Time Eater to give himself complete control over the entire timeline. Eggman also makes way fewer references to his own failures and shortcomings. Of course he won't admit that Sonic has defeated him time and time again. To him, he's never truly lost—Sonic just keeps delaying the inevitable total victory for the Eggman Empire.

So, yes. The new Sonic Generations script is better. It won't blow anyone away, but it's better than it was. It's been elevated from "kinda lame" to "fine." No, if you really wanna see Ian flex his ability to breathe new life into old Sonic stories, look no further than...

Gerald Robotnik's Journal

Hoo boy.

The story of what happened aboard the ARK has always been... a bit confusing, to say the least. Fans with encyclopedic knowledge of the script for every route of Shadow '05 may disagree, but it's the truth. We've had all the pieces to understand the story for a long time now, but that info was given to us out of order by a pair of unreliable narrators—Gerald, who became a vengeful lunatic shortly before his death, and Shadow, who was subjected to multiple rounds of amnesia and altered memories. Some of the ambiguity left by Sonic Adventure 2 was cleared up in Shadow '05, but that game also retconned in a bunch of new elements to Shadow's backstory (aliens!) that lead to further confusion. Not to mention the fact that that game had multiple routes and only revealed the truth about Shadow if you sat on the ultimate final boss battle for WAY longer than the fight would normally last. Or the fact that Sonic X made its own tweaks in its telling of the story. Or the fact that none of these things ever had the best English translations. I can't blame anyone who hasn't played those games in two decades for not remembering the truth about these characters and getting some details mixed up.

What we needed was something to piece together all of the info we have into one coherent backstory, told in chronological order. And thanks to Shadow Generations, we have that, in the form of an official journal tying together what we knew from Sonic Adventure 2, Shadow '05, and Sonic Battle into the tragic tale of Gerald's rise and fall.

Ian Flynn was the perfect man for the job here as the guy who started his career by tidying up the mess that was the first 159 issues if Archie Sonic. This is what he excels at: taking disparate bits of weird Sonic lore from multiple different sources, boiling them down to their most interesting elements, and connecting it together in a way that will make the audience see the dramatic potential he's always known was there. Rather than feeling like a cynical exercise in franchise building, going back and explaining things that never needed explaining so that people can add more bullet points to the wiki, he puts a new spin on things that retroactively enriches those past stories. The story here means something to the characters involved and gives us a better understanding of them as people, rather than as plot devices to motivate Shadow.

(And, of course, Ian didn't do this journal alone. He wrote the story, but I also have to give a huge shout out to Evan Stanley, who made the final product. All of her handwritten journal entries, sketches, and "photos" included throughout. The physical damage done to the journal over the course of 50 tumultuous years, passing from Gerald to Eggman to a certain special someone at GUN. The way Gerald's handwriting gets less and less legible as his mental state declines. So much love was put into what could have been a mere text dump in a menu, and it really elevates it to the next level. Congrats on officially getting hired by Sega, Evan, you've sure as hell earned it!)

The main idea the journal conveys is that Gerald was under a lot of pressure from a lot of different parties—GUN, the President, his colleagues aboard the ARK, Black Doom, even his own family—and boy did it get to him. The known incidents aboard the ARK mentioned in previous games are put together here to form a story where everything slowly spirals out of control as Gerald keeps compromising his morals to further his research, thinking he'll eventually find some way out of all this because he's a genius. I won't recap that whole story here (if you haven't already played the game and read the journal entries, I would highly recommend at least reading it on the Sonic wiki), but I'd like to highlight my favorite elements of the story, as Ian tells it here.

1) The Eclipse Cannon

Here's something that never quite made sense in Sonic Adventure 2: why does the ARK have a laser that can blow up the Earth built into it? It was supposed to be a peaceful research colony. Sure, Gerald went crazy and swore revenge on the Earth, but, like... when did he have an opportunity to go back up to the ARK and modify it? Did he have someone else do it? How? The ARK was raided by GUN and shut down! And then they arrested him, held him in prison for an unclear period of time, and executed him by firing squad when he was no longer useful! It doesn't add up. Shadow 'the Hedgehog '05 would give its own answer by introducing the Black Arms and saying that the Eclipse Cannon was always supposed to be a secret trump card against the Black Comet. But, like... we know that's kind of a bullshit answer, right? You don't need enough power to blow up a whole planet just to destroy a comet.

Well, the new journal retains what we already knew, but it paints a much more complete picture.

See, long before Gerald ever made a Faustian bargain with Black Doom, he had already made one with an even greater evil: the military. GUN gave Gerald much of the funding for the ARK, Gerald's personal utopian research station in space, but it didn't take long for GUN to start pressuring him to design them weapons. Gerald tried to get GUN off his back by personally contacting the President of the United Federation, and the President gave him an alternative: how about, instead, you just use your genius brain to figure out the secret to immortality for us, so our soldiers can be immortal? Gerald was initially sickened by the notion and found it completely absurd, like chasing a shadow... but given no other option, the sarcastically named Project Shadow soon began in earnest. (Maria would later put a more positive spin on the name after Shadow's awakening, pointing out that a Shadow can show us the direction of the light, like she says in the game itself.)

Of course, this search for the ultimate life form didn't go very well, and without any results on that front GUN kept hounding him for weapons. Gerald would throw them a bone here and there to get them off his back. His research on Chaos resulted in the Artifical Chaos prototypes, which he worried would be used for warfare but could at least theoretically be used for search and rescue missions in floods, in his mind. But that wasn't enough. So he gave them Chaos Drives to power their mechs. And that still wasn't enough. He's got Emerl. He'll give them Emerl. They're not impressed by Emerl. They'll shut the whole ARK down if Gerald doesn't give them something big.

Fine! GUN wants something big? Gerald builds a huge fucking laser cannon into the ARK. However, as a middle finger to GUN, Gerald makes it so powerful that it would destroy the Earth if it was ever fired at any target on its surface. In other words, GUN now has their ultimate weapon of mass destruction, fulfilling his contract, but they can never actually use it. Oh, the delicious irony. (And also Shadow will blow up the Black Comet with it in 50 years yada yada yada.) Is this perhaps extremely shortsighted and naive of Gerald, to believe that such a weapon would never actually be used just because of the risk? Of course. But hey, that's Gerald for you. And I love this as an answer.

(Also, this, uh, kinda echoes something from real life! Remember the bit in Oppenheimer where he says all nuclear war will become unthinkable, and Edward Teller responds "until somebody builds a bigger bomb"? Yeah, Teller went on to conceptualize a superweapon codenamed Project Sundial that would have been able to kill all life on the planet, as the ultimate deterrent for war. This was never made for obvious reasons, but hey, there's a basis for this sort of thinking outside of heightened sci-fi! There's a whole Kurzgesagt video about this if you're interested.)

2) The Biolizard

The Biolizard is, of course, brought up as the initial failed prototype of the ultimate life form, from before Gerald met Black Doom. We don't really learn all that much about it that we didn't already know, but I just love the way it's framed in the story.

As you can see above, we actually get to see a picture of Maria holding up the cute little salamander that would end up mutating into the Biolizard through Gerald's experiments. (Researchers want to figure out how to replicate salamanders' regenerative abilities for humans in real life, too, so this was a natural starting point for the project.) And then, after it grows to a monstrous size and goes out of control, Gerald has to lock it away in an unused sector of the ARK. He needs to keep the poor thing alive for his research into harnessing Chaos Energy, building life support systems directly into it, but he doesn't have the heart to tell Maria what happened. So it just becomes this first dark secret weighing on his conscience. The Biolizard becomes Gerald's Tell-Tale Heart beating beneath the floorboards of the ARK. I love that.

3) Lost Impact was the breaking point for the ARK

Remember the level Lost Impact in Shadow '05? The flashback level on the hero path where Shadow is running around fighting Artificial Chaos enemies on the ARK 50 years ago? Yeah, that wasn't just a random incident. That was important, as we now know due to its placement on the timeline.

See, Emerl's rampage aboard the ARK that was chronicled in Sonic Battle and Dark Beginnings set off a domino effect. Emerl riled up the Artificial Chaos, causing Gerald to lose control of them. They became violent, and so Shadow had to stop them, as depicted in Lost Impact. The thing is, that incident sent an SOS signal to GUN telling them that shit was going down on the ARK. Gerald didsn't fully understand the trouble he was in and assumed that he'd simply be reprimanded by the higher ups, or maybe face legal action. But, well... the next time he heard from GUN, armed troopers were raiding the ARK.

So Lost Impact was the straw that broke the camel's back. I just really like that detail.

4) Maria

And, of course, there's Maria herself. Maria has often been more of a symbol than a character, this perfect embodiment of everything that's good and pure in this world who gets killed to motivate Shadow and Gerald's revenge plots. But I really like the wrinkles this journal adds to her and Gerald's story, and their relationship. This is the most fleshed out they've ever felt.

For one, the journal leans into the idea of Maria's intellectual potential. The rest of the Robotnik family is all geniuses, after all, and she was proving to be a really bright kid. She excelled in her studies on the ARK, and she even helped design Shadow's jet skates and inhibitor rings. When Maria died, the world didn't just lose a symbolic personification of purity. She genuinely could have been a hugely influential scientist who did so much good for the world. That's what Gerald wanted for her. But we'll never know, because GUN killed her.

Speaking of her family, their presence isn't just mentioned for the sake of fleshing out the Robotnik family tree. It's mentioned that as Gerald struggled to find a cure for Maria's illness through his genetic research, he faced mounting pressure from his family. They didn't want Maria to be up on the ARK forever. They wanted Gerald to hurry up and find a damn cure, or otherwise just send her back home to Earth so she could be with her family again. She'd been up on the ARK for so long that Gerald's coworkers started thinking that she had been born up there. Eventually she gains a baby sister on Earth who she's never met. A rift forms between Gerald's two sons, and he's unable to really deal with it because he's so consumed by his work. There's this sense that the family is falling apart, and that everyone is dreading the possibility that Gerald will never find a cure and that Maria will just spend her final years up in space and die far away from her family, because Gerald just couldn't let go. If that happens, it'll break the whole family. But he can't stop now. So he just keeps working. Curing Maria is the only way to win his family back, in his eyes. It can't all be for nothing.

But my favorite detail regarding Maria is this one paragraph:

Maria is growing into a lovely young woman. It breaks my heart that someone as bright and energetic as her is diminished by disease. There are no visible effects, and I've caught my fellow researchers muttering to each other, doubting her illness. It is infuriating. I find all my reason and restraint vanishes when she's slighted.

This is SUCH a great addition to the story! It's always been true that Maria doesn't really seem all that ill, just looking at her in cutscenes. With this one little comment, Ian flips that issue on its head and turns it into a story about invisible disability. She doesn't act like she's in chronic pain, so she must not be, everyone thinks. And this really, really gets to Gerald, as does the pressure from his family. He's dedicating his whole LIFE to saving her, and they think she's faking it?! It's such a small addition, never referenced elsewhere in the journal, but it adds so much flavor to the story, as does the implied family drama. It grounds Gerald and Maria and makes them feel more like real human beings, rather than being pure archetypes. It's just enough info to let my imagination run wild filling in the blanks.

You also get the feeling that Maria being such a walking ray of sunshine was the only real source of joy Gerald had left in his life before Shadow was awakened, and the only thing keeping him from snapping under pressure sooner. All this stuff just keeps piling on, everything's spiraling out of control, but at least Maria is keeping her chin up, right? It makes so much sense that losing her would make him go off the deep end when it's framed like this.

It's just... man, I never thought I'd care so much about Gerald and Maria. But that's the Ian Flynn touch. After years of less than stellar Sonic writing that seemed to be embarrassed of itself, I'm so happy to have new games coming out that fully embrace the history of the series like this, making its world feel so rich and real instead of just serving as an excuse for a string of platforming levels. I don't even like Shadow '05, but I'll be damned if Ian and the rest of Sonic Team didn't make something amazing by "yes, and"-ing Shadow's cringe past here. Sonic has truly reached levels of "we're so back" never thought possible.

[autisticshadowthehedgehog]

So according to this article, the writers of Sonic 3 actually did consider killing off Tom to push Sonic over the edge into Act 3. The reason they decided not to was kinda like. It would be a bit of a downer to end the movie with Shadow, Gerald, Robotnik, Funny Olive Garden Guy, Maria AND Sonic's dad being fucking dead. Leaving Sonic off on a really depressing note as well as killing off a character the target audience seems to like just wasn't really something they wanted to do. Also they called "killing a beloved character to raise the stakes and do nothing else" a cheap writing tactic, which shows how much they care about the quality of their work.

Why I'm saying this is that it's really funny that of the multiple people I've sent this article to, I've got almost a 50/50 split of people going "what??? oh my gosh that would have been insane. thank god they didn't do that" and people going "they should've fucking ended him"

[arcaneoddity]

No I'm not done actually bc rewatching S3 had me realizing just how fucking jaded Stone is from the beginning of the movie. Almost as if the added snark happens bc he's keeping an iron grip on the very last dregs the seemingly bottomless well of his patience holds.

He's had a very rough couple months, zero vacation or even much privacy considering the Crab's proportions, and barely any thanks. He's burnt tf out, and pretty much the only instance when we see him crack a genuine smile again is when Robotnik finally gets a fraction of his spark back and gets his ass out of the depression chair.

...and then we have to watch Stone get replaced, fired, and witness the guy he loves and has worked his entire ass off for (who also just so happens to be responsible for All Of The Above, with regards to his troubles) get blown the fuck up. tO SAVE HIM.

Please, I need this man to be so incredibly mad about it.

[theocddiaries]

[At Stone's café, Robotnik places plates of cookies and sweets in front of the Wachowski brothers and Amy. Sonic opens his mouth to speak, but Robotnik beats him to it.] Robotnik: I know you only ordered juice. But business is bad because all the tourists go to the downtown bar instead, and now I'm a supportive and romantic boyfriend, so either you eat this or… [pulls out a spray bottle]: it's gonna start to drizzle in here. Sonic: The only thing you are is dumb. We ordered drinks, and we have every right to just order that. No one is going to touch these-- Knuckles [having eaten three plates and reaching for a fourth]: Ultimate hedgehog! Bring milk to wash down the cookies! [Robotnik smirks] Tails: The downtown bar, you said? Robotnik: Yep. Tails: No wonder, there was an article recently saying Hemingway ate there once. Knuckles: That bar is so good even zombies go there? Amy: I don't know what surprises me more, that you know who Hemingway is or that this knowledge coexists with you believing in zombies. Knuckles: When they attack, don't look at me to save you. Amy: Don't worry, neither I nor anyone else will. Those guys are after brains. Knuckles: Oh, poor ignorant soul— Sonic: We are not having that argument again. Robotnik: Yeah, we were talking about my problem… Hey, if that Hemingway guy ate at the downtown bar, who's to say he didn't stop by here for some water? We're close by. Sonic [scoffs]: Eggman, please, that was decades ago. The only thing that was here back then was the potato salad, which has been sitting around untouched since the Declaration of Independence was being drafted. [Everyone bursts into laughter. Shadow approaches with a tray holding the milk Knuckles ordered and fresh juices for the others. He’s smiling, trying to hold back his own laughter as he serves.] Robotnik: …Yeah, well… in here there's the potato salad and one pointed Smurf who comes here to only order juice and warms the chair for two hours. [laughs falsely] Knuckles [laughs] Sonic [glares at him] Knuckles: What? He called you a Smurf, it's funny. Shadow [to Ivo]: So what’s stopping you from just making up that someone famous did eat here back when this place actually existed? It’s not like lying is hard for you… Robotnik [nudges him on the arm]: Eeeeh, look at you being all sharp when you want to, Shadow. I almost feel a twinge of pride. Amy: Beeeeeeep. Oh, sorry guys, that’s just my ethic-meter going off because that idea doesn't sound ethical to me. Robotnik: Well, I’ve got an moron-meter, and it’s been going off since the day all of you were born.

[cc-cobalt-1043]

Comforting words can go a long way (A sonic 3 oneshot):

It was late now at the Wachowski campsite, Tom, Maddie, Sonic and Knuckles had drifted off to sleep hours ago but despite his best efforts Tails couldn't sleep.

He could only think of one thing...Stone.

Tails couldn't think of why, but despite being Robotnik's lackey Tails had never thought of him as a particularly bad person, not only had he seemed genuinely horrified when he heard about Gerald Robotnik's plans for Earth, but the man had tried to shield him when Shadow attacked them...that had to count for something right.

After tossing and turning for a good while now and still unable to sleep he got up with a irritated huff and grabbed his backpack walking out the tent.

Sitting down near the now dead campfire he pulled out his Miles electric and tapped away at it.

After several minutes of tapping away he located Stone.

The man was located at Kings Cross Station in London, however according to the schedules no trains were departing for several hours and apparently Stone's signal had been stationary for a few hours now.

Deciding he needed to do something, anything to help the grieving man Tails pulled out a ring he'd been keeping for emergencies he threw it and stepped through.

London:

Stone was sitting on a bench at Kings Cross, the station was deathly silent, the usual trains weren't running at this time, Stone noticed several parked in the platforms but they weren't the reason for him being there.

He was looking up at the stars as well as the now damaged moon, he couldn't get his thought of the doctor.

People only saw them as two madmen but to him Ivo Robotnik was a friend...yes a very very flawed friend, but one nonetheless, the two having met back when Stone was in the military, the two having formed something of a partnerships, neither he nor Ivo had been able to figure out what they were and now they clearly never would.

"Erm, excuse me." A tiny voice said.

Taken by surprise Stone looked and saw the young Fox, Tails or something looking at him with a pair of bright cyan eyes.

Stone blinked not sure if he was hallucinating but after a moment he realised he mustn't be as the fox kit was still here.

"Not to be rude, but how did you get in here?" Stone asked.

"I used a ring, how did you get here?" Tails asked blinking innocently at him.

"That's for me to know and you to find out." Stone said simply.

He looked at Tails who simply stared at him.

"So what are you doing here...Tails was it?" Stone asked.

Tails nodded.

"Technically it's Miles, but you can call me Tails." Tails told him.

Stone nodded.

"So Tails, what brings you to merry old London?" Stone asked.

"I wanted to see you, make sure you were ok." Tails said.

"Oh I'm just fine, all lollipops and rainbows." Stone said bitterly.

"I may be a kid but I can recognise sarcasm you know." Tails said crossing his arms and looking at him with a pout that even Stone thought looked adorable on the kits face.

"Alright fine I'll level with you kid, I've just lost the man I loved over some stupid thing I barely know the details of, he was the first person who actually treated me with some level of respect after I withdrew from Afghanistan and yeah you know what, maybe he was kinda crazy, and maybe he was a bit of a jerk at times but we had each other and that was enough, I loved him kid and now without I'm completely lost and confused, do you have any idea what that's like Tails." Stone snapped.

He looked at the fox seeing his tails had wilted and ears drooped back and he frowned.

"Sorry kid, I didn't mean to go all dark and gloomy on you." Stone said.

"Actually I kinda get it, when I was younger I was always picked on for my extra tail and my smarts, even my own parents had abandoned me by the time I was three." Tails said.

Stone grimaced. "Wow, that's horrible." He said.

"Well I've been staying with Sonic, Knuckles and my mom and dad for a while now they took me in and loved me regardless of my flaws, but if I lost then I guess I'd feel like you do right now, I know it's probably not what you want to hear right now, I just want you to know I understand." Tails are.

Stone looked at the kid in front of him, he would be lying if he said the kid's statement hadn't resonated with his own lonely childhood.

"Sorry, didn't mean to give you my life story." Tails apologised.

Stone shrugged.

"No Tails, that actually did help, guess we have more in common than we thought." Stone said.

"I guess." Tails said.

Just then the Fox let out a very wide yawn, it was then Stone noticed just how late it was, he looked at Tails who looked absolutely exhausted, if he was right about how young the kit was he should have been in bed and fast asleep hours ago.

"You have a way home right?" Stone asked.

Tails suddenly realised he hadnt grabbed a spare ring and face-palmed when he realised his error.

Stone let out an amused snort.

"I'll give you a ride home, want me to carry you?" He asked.

"Tha---s." Tails said, the rest being drowned out by another almighty yawn and he climbed onto the mans shoulders.

Stone simply snorted again and made his way out of the station and towards crab-bot as Ivo had dubbed it.

Thankfully the streets were quiet even by London's standards so thankfully they got very few looks.

Stone wasn't sure when but at some point the kit fell asleep on his shoulders.

The Fox's soft snores echoed in Stone's ears as he walked and not even he could hide his smile at the child's innocence, expecially when the world seemed so determined to snatch it from him.

They got to the crab-bot and Stone set the snoozing fox down in the co-pilot seat, the kid shuffling slightly in his sleep using one of his tails as an improvised pillow.

Stone smiled at the adorable sight before setting course for Green Hills.

By the time they got there it was early morning and when they got to the campsite the Wachowskis were staying at Stone could see the kit's family looking for him.

They certainly weren't expecting to see Stone appear with said Fox snuggled up in his arms.

"Relax, I'm just bringing him home." Stone said seeing the alert looks on Tom, Knuckles and Sonic's faces.

He handed Tails over to Maddie who took the sleeping fox with a much kinder look than the others were giving him.

Tails let out a tiny yawn and groggily opened his eyes looking at Maddie with a sleepy smile.

"Hi mama." He mumbled sleepily cuddling into her.

"Hi pumpkin." Maddie cooed before heading to the kids tent with the exhausted fox, the two talking in hushed whispers.

Stone turned around and was about to leave when he saw Sonic in front of him.

"What were you doing with Tails?" The blue hedgehog demanded.

"Nothing, he came to me, we had a chat and he couldn't get home so I gave him a lift." Stone said truthfully, well he was hardly lying was he.

Sonic gave him a look but seeing no trace of a lie nodded.

"Well, thanks for bringing him back...and look I'm sorry about Eggman, yeah I didn't particularly like him, but he did the right thing in the end, and despite our checkered past...I guess I can respect him for that." Sonic said.

Stone nodded.

"Thanks Sonic...you've got a good brother there, take care of him." Stone said.

Sonic nodded and with a brief smile Stone climbed into the crab-bot and departed the Wachowski campsite.

[amallory]

Don't Interfere I don't want you as my enemy

PART 2

It would be a lie to say you didn't feel embarrassed after being thrown onto shadows bed as if you weigh nothing. You felt anger and confusion of your sudden kidnapping. You knew this was his way of thanking you for your short interaction with him and maria but you didn't think he would think much on it but his actions says otherwise. However you know the planet is in danger and the only way to stall whatever plan robotnik had in store was to stall time for team sonic or the usual stop them yourself. You always did find it easier solely since it meant moving on your own paste.

However it's unfortunate because your falling asleep and the half human side of your sometimes requires the basic necessity at the wrong time. And the robotic necklace hovering around your neck not helping you stay calm either. So, you decided to swipe at it only for it to enclosure closer to you sensing your desire to tear it off.

Y/n: How is this even possible I knew that man could make machines but not to this extent. Regardless I'll get out I refuse to let this be another punishment of mine. After I...after I sleep...first...damn you hedgehog-

Suddenly all the body aches caught up to you making you drift off to sleep.

Meanwhile

Robotnik: So you made your choice.

Shadow: hmp

Robotnik: Have you grown soft shadow?

Shadow: Never

Robotnik: Perhaps a change of heart then?

Shadow: hmp...I decided to take matters in my own hand and take her here. I managed to secure the necklace around her. It won't hurt her right?

Robotnik: No but it can if she tampers with it too much. She'd only end up hurting herself. Where is she?

Shadow: Safe where she will sleep.

Eggman: You kidnapped the woman? You do realize that other annoying hedgehog and his friends will also come back for her. Why did you bring her in the first place don't tell me your trying to get her on our side you know that's not going to work. So, news flash your weird woman over there has wreck my our robots before and she'll most likely wreck this place!

Shadow: Let them come and I'll deal with her if this happens.

He then turned to walk away back towards you. But unfortunately for you when you sleep it's usually for more then a day which is why you try to avoid it unless you necessary need it. Shadow had return every so often wondering why you haven't woken up yet in the pass 3 days. At one point he thought about yanking the necklace off you but he didn't. He even reported to the doctor about this but even robotnik was intrigued on your situation. So he had asked if shadow knocked you out or did something during the time on earth when he was stalling you from helping the trio but, shadow denided it saying he didn't really fight you.

Thankfully you did end up waking up 3 days later as you raised one hand towards your forehead only to feel a wet cloth on it making you grab it lightly and pull it towards your neck/collarbone as you gently rub the tattoos their closing your eyes.

Y/n: Something you want to say?

Shadow: Why did it take you 3 days to wake up? We're you already injured before?

Y/n: No

Shadow: Then why?

Y/n: Exhaustion

Shadow:...

You then slowly get up sitting on the bed as he was leaning on the wall the opposite side of his bed.

Y/n: You know we still plan on interfering right?

Shadow: I'm aware.

Y/n: Yet your here letting my friends get the upper hand from afar. Shouldn't you be down there?

Shadow: I can but I am no fool to see this is your way of talking me out of this so I can leave giving you the chance to escape.

Y/n: Ah aren't you very smart.

Shadow looked unamused at your words

Shadow: What is that suppose to mean? I am the ultimate life form I can very well acquire basic comprehension of anything.

Y/n: Yet you can't even tell if I was insulting or teasing you.

Shadow: Well?

Y/n: Which ever one pisses you off more.

He just huffed as he watched you get up and eyed the place and then suddenly you yanked the blanket towards him catching him off gaurd as he quickly yanked it away only to see you no where as he scoff at your pathetic attempt to distract him so teleported out the room only to see you walk towards a huge window where you can view the earth below. You looked relief to see it in one piece but you knew the job was no where near done yet. So you backed up looking around feeling the hedgehog gaze as he walked behind you.

Y/n: Hmm I wonder...

You continued to walk around getting familiar with the place as you made sure to make eye contact with every camera you see. Shadow began to grow suspicious but he didn't know what to make of it however you on the other hand knew by now team sonic would have managed to fet away and tails would probably hack into the system seeing as he's a tech genius when it comes to hacking you knew he has probably checked through the camera systems by now and seen you which is why you made a point to glance at every camera and even angle yourself in a way displaying the magnetic necklace around you making it visible as possible for him to see.

Of course you didn't want to make it to obvious that, that's what your doing so you continued to walk around now putting one hand on the wall as you would slowly began to leave markings on them time to time causing eggman to comment on your weirdness or rudeness as you seem to be creating a mess of the place little by little by little. You would turn to shadow ever so often to make sure he was watching hoping to throw him off which you did but he didn't say anything yet you could tell he was warning you silently to stop whatever plan you had in mind.

Y/n: This should be enough.

Shadow: What is?

Y/n: Oh who knows.

Shadow just slightly glared at you as you shrugged with a teasing smile knowing tails has probably seen you through the camera alerting the others. So you knew if they knew you were unharmed that could at least ease any worry they may have especially sonic since he tends to become irrational when a loved one is at stake and that's the last thing you want. So you continued to walk until your nose was filled with the scent of flowers making your eye twitch as you sneezed at first, looking for the flowers to find them in a vase nearby on a table.

Shadow glanced at the flowers then back at you as you let out a number of sneezes then cover your nose as you quickly walked towards a different hall trying looking for a bathroom to rid the scent of flowers from your sensitive nose. Which you did but the effects are still there despite splashing a lot of water. You just sigh again and decided to fill one of the sinks with water and dunk half your face in to fully cleanse the smell for a few minutes.

Shadow standing outside the bathroom leans on the wall waiting patiently for about 3 minutes knocks on the door after not hearing any movement after he knocks again then announces he's coming in as he teleported in seeing your head submerged in water made him quickly yanked you from the sink almost making you lose balance yet the hedgehog held you firmly before teleporting you both back into his room as he had you sit on the floor while leaning on the bed once more as he disappeared and appeared again with a towel before throwing it at your face with an angered expression.

Shadow: Are you trying to kill yourself? What were you thinking?

You just patted your face with the towel then glared at him as you scoffed offended by his actions.

Y/n: I knew what I was doing. What were YOU doing? I was simply washing my face.

Shadow: By submerging your face into the water.

Y/n: It was half my face and beside I would of been fine you just ruined it and happened to misread the situation.

Shadow: Couldn't you just splashed your face then? That would of been better then drowning yourself.

Y/n: As if you knew what I was actually doing and no it wouldn't help at all.

Shadow: Then what? What do you expect? Do expect me just stand there watch you drown in a sink?

Y/n: Take it however you like I knew what I was doing-

You sneezed once more again

Shadow:...the flowers...

Y/n: Shut up this is ... *sneeze* your fault. If you would of just left us alone on earth I wouldn't be in this situation.

Shadow: If I would of left you there you might of ended up captured by GUN as well or perish like the rest of earth will. I'm doing you a favor.

Y/n: Unecessary and you guys won't be destroying earth.

Shadow: How can you be so certain?

Suddenly the alarms start to go off as you both look up and then back at each other. You held a a told yourself look as shadow just narrow his eyes at you hands almost making a fist as you watched but he then started to approach you but, stopped midway.

Robotnik: Oh shadow looks like those 3 pesky brats are near done me a favor and get rid of them.

You just giggled quietly but shadow heard it as he held a questioning face.

Y/n: Told you your not going to destroy the earth we won't let you.

Shadow: And what role did you exactly play here?

Y/n: Looking at those cameras had another meaning to it while I was walking around you know silly.

He then put it together realizing they were hacked but that didn't bother him one bit. It was the fact that you were able to play it off and still remain calm despite the odds of this battle.

Y/n: Figured it out already? As expected from you I guess. You should probably get going now.

You then sneezed once more and shook your head as you then turned your attention towards the towel and began to fold it neatly.

Y/n: Why are you still here?

Shadow: Don't

Y/n: Don't what?

Shadow: Interfere it's pointless.

Y/n: Oh ultimate life form whats wrong for fighting for a planet with millions of people on it who have no say nor power to stand against you?

Shadow: You know why

Y/n: Then let those specific people pay the price, not the world.

Shadow: Quite, quite trying to protect everyone. They don't deserve mercy. How would you feel if they took someone who admire the one place they desire to go their whole life waiting to be greeted among their kind only to be killed by them.

You just looked at him as he came closer to you to the point where his eyes glowed waiting, searching for your answer you booped his nose breaking his harden exterior for a second as he looked at your finger waving it around to regain his attention as you took a deep breath.

Y/n: They have taken many things that caused me to punished those who had it coming. Have I wanted to kill people before? Yes have I ever wanted to kill the planet due to repetitive crimes I've heard, witness, or experienced? Yes but everytime I feel myself wanting to rid of this planet I know their are people and creatures here who have no idea what the horrors that others have experienced and if they did I'm sure many of them would of intervene to aid one another. I can't harm someone who has no relation or saying in someone else pain. Don't you see people have a choice.

Shadow: And that choice that day was to take her life and not a damn person intervene nor understand that she was completely harmless, innocent, pure...yet they...Yet THEY...

He held his hands in front of him replaying the memory in his head unaware of his power started to show as a spark managed to come in contact with y/n necklace making her quietly hiss at the sudden contact of it touching her neck. She then stand up quickly to where the glass of water was stationed and poured some of it onto the towel as she gently patted her neck between the closen distance where the necklace has started to lift up from.

You could feel his stare from behind but thankfully he didn't spur out of control again. You had to admit he had such a sharp gave and even though you may brush it off it did alarm you seeing as he stares intently but it's hard to read him most of the time. Shadow the approaches you once more holding the glass in one hand and then slowly taking the towel from you in the other as he poured the rest of the water onto it then loosely but gently wrap it around your neck but out of panic grabbed it while swatting his hand away. You took a quick breath out of panic and turned to the side and said.

Y/n: All I want to say is even if earth was destroyed then what?

Shadow:... I don't know

Y/n:...

Shadow: But, I do know I don't want to engage in combat with you. So, just stay out of the way...I didn't mean for that to happened. Just don't interfere, I don't want you as my enemy, I've made up my mind and I'd prefer if you were here out of the way. It's like you said we have a choice right? So my choice is to keep you out of harms way and for that I won't fail this time not again y/n.

And just like that he disappeared leaving you in your own state of mind questioning his way of...protection.

Many of you seem to like the first Shadow x reader post so I was like fuck it I'll right another for ya since that ending could open up for continuation or end there. This will be officially PART 2 of " Your not leaving my side"

Bruh Keanu as shadow is just 🤌 his voice is everything as shadow zamn!

[bugslaststraw]

Ugh I explained this to Nat before but that was a vm and now I have to try to put it into text lol. Bear with me. Spoilers for Sonic 3 below...

So like Okay, original game Robotnik has that "machines are better than people and I love them and I hate people" thing going on. And movie universe Jimbotnik does the same thing right. Except his reasons for preferring machines are a little weird? To say the least.

When most people aspire to the perfection of the blessed machine they tend to focus on how machines are perfect because they aren't saddled with those pathetic human emotions, and how they're stronger and smarter and more perfect and all that. And like. There are elements of that with movie Robotnik don't get me wrong, he bullies Sonic for loving his friends, but we all know that's bullshit because his actual personality complex trauma thing stems entirely from being hurt that people don't like him? and nobody's ever genuinely cared about him enough to not betray/leave him, as we learned in movie 3. Daddy issues, et cetera.

The actual first reason he gives for why he prefers his robots, in movie 1, is that they do what they're told and they never need time off to go do stuff other than what they're told. What's worse is that he outright ignores the part about machines that don't line up with what he is. Machines are cold unfeeling things right? And Robotnik is a madman, just complete ditz entirely controlled by his emotions. He's all over the place. So obviously that isn't why he actually likes them. Nor does it seem to be because they're smarter or stronger.

Now all this wouldn't quite have clicked in my head and started forming a pattern, if I hadn't spent half a day getting ahold of reading the movie novelizations lol, they're not good exactly but they aren't bad either (not exactly) and they have this really interesting. Detail. Take. Choice, even, that stood out to me. In the novels we get exactly zero scenes written from Agent Stone's perspective. So he's entirely filtered through Robotnik as we see him. And, like. Robotnik ascribes? Robotic traits to him? That he straight up doesn't have?

This being the most infamous example... But it happens again at least once, which is a lot for the novels cus they're short as hell, where (from Botnik's pov) Stone takes on this more mechanical tone when talking to him or being around him, that he seems to like or prefer/speak positively of. Okay. Weird, homoerotic, but not entirely out of character.

It did make me think though. If Robotnik is kind of loose about why he actually likes machines. But is still adamant that they're good and humans are bad... And what he actually likes about them seems to be that they're... Loyal? I think. And they do what they're told. And they don't need time off to see their families and get laid and leave him alone I'm so sorry then. Well.

Those are traits a human being could very well have. For example, his actual human assistant, who's standing right fucking there as he says it. Right? Stone is still all that, he's loyal and he actually likes + is nice to him and he does what he's told and that's why he actually likes him, as we find out in movie 3, right? So.

What I'm saying is when. In the third movie when he says you were the only person who ever blah blah right. And, like, of course he was. Who would want to be loyal to? This dickhead who mostly wants to achieve world domination? Why would you want to do what a villain says? But Robotnik doesn't care about that, he likes being a villain and above that he's just hurt, right, by it all, and doesn't gaf if his own actions affect others so.

So he ascribes robotic traits to Stone not because they're actually there (Stone is professional when talking to others, but far from emotionless, and it is in fact his emotional connection to the dear doctor that makes him as loyal as he is) but. Rather because in his mind, Stone is on the same level as a robot, because he has the same traits that Robotnik actually. Likes about his robots. That mainly being loyalty, I think.

And, well. In the third movie granpappy Geralt hacks those robots of his and makes them stop obeying him, doesn't he. Not even they were entirely loyal by the end, much like Geralt himself, right?

You can't hack a human being, though.

Anyway. Keep your heads up, okay? I'm like. 99% sure Robotnik is fine (fight me in the comments I guess) and I tend to be good at predicting this stuff so he'll be back one way or another. Jim Carrey officially un-retired, the space station time travel thing is still an active theory, and they can't just fucking kill Eggman guys, come on. Cheers!🥂

[sparkles-rule-4eva]

Idk if I'm gonna make a review post, exactly, but the things that went on with Sonic's character in movie 3 have left me reeling, and dying to analyze. I don't have many screenshots to share, and the ones I do aren't good quality bc the movie's not released digitally yet, but here goes.

(edit: now updated with HD screenshots :3)

For one, the theme of dealing with grief was so well handled. I was hoping they were going to use the parallel of this Sonic losing someone close to him, just like Shadow had, and that's just what they did. What made it even more painful, however, was how Sonic was faced with the possibility of losing a second parental figure.

Shadow saw him hunched over Tom, pleading with him to wake up, and remembered himself doing the same when Maria had died. That was where Shadow saw a bit of himself in Sonic.

Shadow took mental notes of it, but he didn't back off, though he didn't make any other attempts to hurt Tom. Heck, he wouldn't have attacked in the first place if Tom hadn't been disguised as Walters.

And just... watching the way Sonic just started spiraling after this scene was so heartbreaking. The way he looked so lost and broken as they were taking him away in the ambulance, when Maddie didn't say anything to them, and the camera just zoomed out for a few seconds, showing him and his brothers looking so small and so lost in the world as they were left alone, unsure if their dad would be okay.

Sonic didn't want comfort. After the initial fear and grief, the anger he'd felt earlier when he turned on Shadow came back with a vengeance, quite literally. Looking at their calmer, almost normal everyday life earlier in the movie, it seems everything's fine. Sonic seemed fine and perky. I was taken aback at how calm he was about finding his old cave. He seemed fine, all things considered from earlier in his life. The Before Times, as fanfics have dubbed them.

But the moment his found family was threatened, the moment he was faced with the possibility of losing the home and love he'd finally gotten after so many years of pain and isolation, he fell apart. He became aggressively protective of it. Of course he would want to defend those he loves, but not like this. Not the Sonic we know.

The way Shadow phrased it later, "What kind of hero abandons his friends to seek revenge? Abandons his family?"

That struck a nerve, but Sonic just snapped back, "Don't you dare talk about my family."

The expressions he had after he'd taken the Master Emerald and gone after Shadow were so complex. You can see the mix of emotions on his face. Most clearly, the anger. But mixed in, you see the pain, the grief, the paralyzing fear of losing someone else, and you see how emotionally fragile he really is.

Shadow scoffs about how he'd thought that Sonic cared for them. "Especially the one, what's his name again? Tom?"

And that pushed him over the edge.

The way he just let out that chilling scream of rage and grief and went on to punch Shadow so hard he quite literally sent him flying straight into the moon. He was enraged. He was distressed. He was spiraling. And he was, for a few minutes, completely out of control.

We know that this version of Sonic is not so reserved about killing people, like the game version. In the second movie, Sonic had every intention of killing Robotnik in the final battle, and he thought he succeeded. This marks the second time that if someone threatens Sonic's family, he's out for blood. In that vein, he's like his game counterpart; it's the safety of his loved ones, not himself, that he's concerned about. Passionate about.

Except.

He could not bring himself to do it.

I think part of him was remembering what Walters had said about Shadow having experienced loss, the way he had.

He'd won here. He could've just killed Shadow right then and there. Shadow was even goading him into just doing it. Demanded what he was waiting for. Pointing to his own chest and yelling that he was right there. To just do it. (Another thing to analyze; Shadow was just done with everything and didn't even care if he died at this point, but that's for another post.)

But something was stopping him.

Even in those screenshots, you can see the pain and anger mixed on his face. I could be mistaken, but it looks like there's a tear in his eye. (If I'm right, the idea of him crying during this fight makes me break apart in sadness.)

And then came the flashback. This is what drives me insane.

In Sonic Adventure 2, Shadow is out to destroy the world, and it's remembering Maria's true final wish that stopped him.

I never could've predicted that in this version, it was Sonic who was out to kill someone, kill Shadow, but remembering Tom's words to him about not letting his pain change who he is was what stopped him. Sonic was the one who needed to stop and remember. And that's just what he did. 🥺

And then, only then, was he able to calm down, remember himself, remember what Tom would want him to do. He wasn't handling this the same way he'd handled Longclaw's death. He was turning into exactly what Shadow had become. The horror at realizing what he'd nearly become, what he'd almost done, set in.

He made the right choice in the end because of that. Just like Shadow did in the games. Just like he later did here, too. But Shadow was able to have "redemption" of sorts in this version, not because of some talk, but because he saw the example in Sonic, right in front of him.

We know what happened next, I'm not gonna go much into it. But seeing this whole side of Sonic, the side that just barely slipped out in the last movie, was so, so fascinating. I love how each movie continues to explore him as the main character, in a different way. This one probably got me crying the most. I cried even as I wrote this post and put more pieces together. The more I think about it, the more I love it. 🥹😭💙💛❤️

[niyana-the-ambiguous-mobian]

Hi, Do you by any chance have any movie!shadow angst head canons while he was an experiment at GUN.

Ah headcanons, haven't done these in a good while.

And we got an angst one this time, huh? *cracks knuckles* Okay, here we go.

Pre-Sonic 3

When the scientists started to realize what Shadow was, they began various and multiple experimentations to test his abilities. Unfortunately, due to Shadow being unfamiliar with anything they were doing and being basically in a "newborn ultimate lifeform" state of mind, he wasn't very fond of that.

Each time someone tried to go near him in the temporary box where they kept him, they'd either end up unconscious, a broken limb, or both.

It got to the point where they had to sedate him heavily with tranquilizers just to get close enough for basic readings on him and his growing high patents of energy.

The tranqs would make him feel terribly ill afterward to where he wasn't able to eat, see anything clearly, stand properly or even sleep soundly for a few days, by the time he was starting to go back to normal, they'd do it all over again.

Seeing an unforseen advantage, the head scientist, Gerald Robotnik, took the opportunity to see if he could try and communicate with the creature.

He didn't get much out of him other than sharp glares and some low growling, but he managed to make some connection when he would stay near the cage long enough to where Shadow was curious and studied him and copied his movements.

After earning his trust, running tests him became a lot easier as long as Gerald was in the same vicinity as Shadow to help keep him grounded. But whenever he wasn’t, it was bad news for them to where they had to sedate him even more.

Best to say, Shadow hated being around the scientists. Each time he was, he was always poked and prodded at. They stuck things all over his body that felt uncomfortable on his fur that made him want to just tear it off him. He was viewed as a "scary extraterrestrial" as he would hear them whisper things around him.

The rocket shoes he had on were placed on him by the scientists as well as a way for him to move around quickly (if they decided to put him on the frontline). Initially, they caused great discomfort since he didn't have anything on his feet prior to that and tried to get them off to no avail since they knocked him out while they placed them on.

He got accustomed to them but wasn't fond of the heavy weight they brought whenever he would move

Gerald had told him that he needed to not lash out at the scientists when they would perform tests on him so they wouldn't have to hurt him again.

"You have to behave for them even when I'm not around. They like behaved children, so that's what you must do."

And that worked for the most part. They moved him from the cage to the glass tube that was located in Gerald's quarters, to which he would spend a short period of time. The last time he was in it before being allowed to walk around freely was when Maria came to the base, who voiced her open in letting him be able to be released from it.

Shadow had some trouble adjusting to being outside of his area, which wasn't for testing his abilities. He would stand in one spot, watching everyone and everything moving around him, not knowing what to do.

I also think that sometime after he met Maria and was able to roam free, he was starting to develop having bad anxiety, which eventually became more harsh as he began to have anxiety attacks, the cause of which also is due to how the scientists had treated him prior.

It got to the point where Maria helped ground him by doing a technique that helped her whenever she felt overwhelmed. She would get down to his level, gently take him in her arms, sway their bodies back and forth, and hum a little melody in his ear while petting him until he calmed down enough.

During the night of the raid amd before Gerald came to get them, they were sitting under their pillow tent and one of the last things he asked Maria was, "How is it that you're never scared of anything? You're always smiling and happy, even when I'm sad and you try to cheer me up?"

"It's not that I'm not scared. It's okay to be scared. But I like to be brave so that other people feel brave too."

"I always feel brave when I'm around you, I guess it works for me too."

"See? It's working, and you didn't even realize it. Grandpa says that people with brave hearts run in our family. Now you have it, too."

"I suppose so..."

Only the last thing he felt wasn't bravery as they shoved him in the tank and started filling it up with a liquid with the same stench he despised each time they would put him under. It was sadness, it was pain, it was guilt. But most of all, there was hatred.

[kexyyxx]

SonAmy Fankid time again!!!

You'll get used to it Ivo, no worries. At least you got a spiky stress ball you can squeeze now /jk

I couldn't even be BOTHERED to shade/do a background, like TSK, who does that🙄 It also didn't help my situation that I was drawing Ivo while crying lmaoooo he looks wonky. Again. (Btw don't worry, I'm completely okay, I get stress off of myself by crying a little and it becomes so much better after it XD)

Anyway, my little itsy bitsy baby sonamy hoglet ahshsuswiwiwoddkdsisdjjd I wanna hold him and kiss his head and keep him safe😔😔😔 (I'm normal about him I swear)

@zealouswombat btw you get a tag, bc I remember you were kinda freaking out when I first posted about my child XD And due to that, I wanna tell you that just because the little stinker grew up next to a supervillain, he was really well cared for. (Well, at least Robotnik never tossed him the frick off when Spiro slept on him lol)

[miimo96]

Things I Do and DON'T wanna see for Sonic 4

⚠️SPOILERS AHEAD FOR SONIC 3⚠️ DO NOT READ yet

With the introduction to Sonic 4 being Announced, here something's I wanna see happen in the 4th Sonic movie, now keep in mind these are just things I wanna SEE happen in the 4th movie and not that I know they're GOING to happen, it's just something I think Paramount/ SEGA should decide to do if Sonic 4 is going to be PEAK

1 thing I would absolutely love to see adapted into the Sonic films is the inclusion of rail grinding, Since it's obvious that we're going to be getting a metal Sonic storyline and therefore possibly a time travel one, I think seeing Rail grinding in probably an Apocalyptic future setting would be absolutely an amazing thing to see in live action, especially since it's pretty much a staple in Sonic games and hasn't really been adapted yet. Another thing I would love to see is the inclusion of the iconic Soap shoes, since this movie was basically taking inspiration from Sonic A2, not including the soap shoes was surprisingly a shock to me, especially since they're so iconic in that game, However I understood their reasoning probably being that they're just not in style anymore and therefore wouldn't really be serving a purpose, other than just being fan service, HOWEVER, if they were to include them in the 4th movie being that we're probably going to be seeing a possible Apocalyptic setting, then seeing Rail grinding and Soap shoes would definitely be a possible thing, especially since the Soap shoes would Definitely fit in with the overall futuristic vibe

Next up is Sonic and Amy's relationship, tbh I HONESTLY do not want her to just be solely obsessed with Sonic, I get that's her character and all but there are so many different ways you can go about it, With how she's been characterized recently, I think she'll be more than just that but I really hope they actually go that route and change her, as much as I hate the show, I really love how she's depicted in Sonic Boom, her design is beautiful, her voice is on point, and her relationship with Sonic is just so damn cute because she's not just a damsel and is actually an effing fighter and leader, Also 1 more thing I whole heartily want to see, is Sonic to just be awkward around amy and actually have him experience/ fall in love for once, most Sonic games and shows like to keep him closed off from amy and kinda deny his feelings for her, i think it would be cool if they would break away from that trope and actually have him acknowledge his feelings for her instead, Maybe that's just because I'm such a huge Sonamy shipper and have been since the beginning but it's whatever lol

Finally one thing I DON'T want to see them do again for this film is bring back Dr eggman, I feel like This will be the absolute perfect opportunity to determine weather or not the Sonic movies are ONLY Successful because of Jim Carey. if they decide to not bring back robotnik and actually decide to focus on a whole New villain and are still able to succeed in the box office, then this will undoubtedly PROVE that the Sonic films are the BEST way to do a video game adaptation and were meant to be successful with or without Jim Carey, because let's be real, if it wasn't for Jim Carey's performance then the Sonic movies wouldn't be doing as nearly as good as they are now, that isn't to say they're BAD cuz they're NOT, it's just to say that they wouldn't do as good or as well if it wasn't for robotnik. Going forward without Robotnik I think would be a Great way to test the franchise and not only give a New Villain a chance to shine, but would also prove to Paramount, that they can still COOK with or without Carey, in my opinion, having Metal Sonic be the Main Villain of the next movie would not only give you the chance to adapt other Sonic villains in a unique way, but I think probably make THIS ONE the SCARIEST villain of all time, especially with Metal/NEO Sonic.

A Villain with No emotion, No alternate motive, no remorse, No DEEPER meaning other than simply having the "I Want to KILL YOU" mindset and is just STRAIGHT UP Evil is something I haven't seen done in a Long time, tbh you can probably make him the Ultron of the Sonic universe and have him JUST be evil and it wouldn't bother us at all as long as you write him well, Plus robotnik LITERALLY had the greatest character arc in this film, from wanting to take over the world, to ending up being the one who saves it, yeah it doesn't get better than that. I Guarantee you that if Robotnik DOESN'T come back and we Actually get a new Villain that will be the BEST move for the Sonic films as a whole and I think will have the chance to ACTUALLY expand on more of his cast from here out, anyway those are just my thoughts but whaddya think?

[thankskenpenders]

At long last, the trailer for Sonic movie 3 is here, giving us our first look at Shadow! It looks like a fun time, though my excitement is probably more tempered than a lot of peoples' due to a few things I have mixed feelings on. Here are my off-the-cuff thoughts about it.

Shadow

Yes, it does seem like they've really nailed Shadow here. Fowler's attachment to the character clearly shows. The action looks cool and really sells Shadow as a serious threat. He's got his bike, he's doing Chaos Control all over the place, it's great. Keanu is very much just doing his regular voice, but it fits well enough. The backstory from SA2 seems to mostly be there, though I'm sure some details will be adjusted. Mostly I'm still just amazed that we're getting a major tentpole blockbuster movie this Christmas starring Shadow the fucking Hedgehog that treats him as a serious character worthy of respect. We've come such a long way...

I mean, just... what an image to see on the big screen.

I also really like the way they're setting Shadow up as a foil for movie Sonic, kind of his dark mirror image as a Mobian hedgehog whose family life on Earth ended in tragedy and turned him into a vengeful antagonist. It's pretty straightforward, but it works well.

Robotnik(s)

Welp. They put Jim Carrey in a fat suit. I suppose we knew this day would come eventually.

I guess a small part of me is glad that movie Eggman finally actually looks like Eggman in every way that matter, but they're completely playing it as a joke at his expense here. And, yeah, the Sonic franchise isn't immune to fat jokes, the early years of the franchise (particularly Western adaptations) gave Sonic tons and tons and tons of jabs about Eggman's weight. But I thought we'd moved past that. But here we are with a depressed movie Robotnik binge eating and gaining a lot of weight like Fat Thor and the other characters think he's so GROSS and look his clothes don't even fit him anymore, haha! There's so much of this crammed into the trailer. I can only pray they don't do this in every fucking scene he's in in the movie.

I do like the plot of Sonic reluctantly teaming up with Robotnik to try and stop Shadow, though. It's very different from SA2, but we knew it would be, and I think that gives the movie some potential for Sonic to have kind of a dark turn of his own that mirror's Shadow's. I have a feeling that Sonic will try to get back at Shadow for something he does - maybe hurting Tom or something like that - and in the end Sonic sympathizes with Shadow and decides they have to stop their cycle of revenge, teaming up to stop some final threat.

Oh, and, of course... Jim Carrey is also playing Professor Gerald. Who might still be alive? Or maybe it's a hallucination on Ivo's part? I don't know, but either way, I'm here for it. Everyone joked about them doing it and then they went and did it. Yes, it risks playing him as a joke character, but the shot of him and Shadow mourning Maria while surrounded by GUN soldiers makes me believe he won't be a total joke. I wouldn't be surprised if he was the true final antagonist of the film, which would diverge a lot from the games but would work as its own version of the story.

And again, WHAT an image to see on the big screen lmao

Everyone else

The human cast is VERY downplayed in this trailer, but let's not forget that they're still going to get a lot of screentime one way or another. The Sonic 2 trailer barely showed anything from Hawaii. Where oh where is my best friend Wade?

Speaking of the Wade show, Knuckles... frankly still seems to be mostly a comic relief character heavily influenced by MCU Thor here, getting some jokes in the trailer but immediately getting Worfed by Shadow when it comes time to fight. Tails seems to be flying the gang around in a real-ass helicopter, and his big pilot's helmet is funny, but otherwise he doesn't really do anything here aside from getting stomped by Shadow. I really hope they don't get sidelined too hard, but frankly I fully expect them to, Tails especially.

And, of course... I can't help but think about who isn't here. Namely: the girls. Yes, three movies and one streaming miniseries into this film franchise, exactly zero of the female (animal) characters from the games have made the jump to live action. Please allow me to bitch about this.

Despite her being both 1) a main character in the game this movie is loosely adapting and 2) my fave, I suppose I can understand why Rouge isn't here. Paramount took one look at that bat cleavage and went "nope," cowards that they are. There was some speculation that Kristen Ritter could be playing Rouge, but we now know she's just playing someone at GUN. But, again, I at least get why they'd be hesitant to include her.

But Amy... Amy is such a glaring omission at this point. There's no excuse. She's the female lead of the franchise. She's one of Sonic's closest friends. (Honestly, these days it's more accurate to say Team Sonic is Sonic, Tails, and Amy, not Knuckles, especially in the comics.) And she's also a key player in Shadow's arc in the game. Shadow has his change of heart because Amy reminds him of Maria! And yet, she's nowhere to be seen. It sucks.

(I know some fans are still holding out hope for Amy, but the toys for the movie already leaked and she didn't get anything, so I have to assume she's not in it.)

It's not like I really expected either of them to be in this movie, but that doesn't make it less disappointing that they set up the film franchise in a way that makes it logistically difficult to include 90% of the characters and conveniently managed to leave all of the girls in the "low priority" pile. Yes, I know everyone points to how much Tails was downplayed in the third act of Sonic 2 as evidence that it's just so impossible to introduce more than one new Mobian character in each movie and give them the focus they deserve. Yes, I know having to come up with a story excuse to bring more characters over to Earth is an obstacle, especially when they're gonna have to devote time to Shadow's backstory. But these are excuses. It's a writer's job to figure out solutions to problems like this. They could make it work if they really wanted to. I'd take Amy having a suboptimal amount of screentime over her not being in it at all. It's just not a priority for them. That's what disappoints me. You can justify these absences from a logical perspective, but I just care way more about Amy and Rouge as characters than I do about Shadow, so there's no way for this to not sting.

But, at the end of the day, for what the movie is actually trying to do, it seems to be pulling it off well. Aside from the fat jokes. I don't like the fat jokes. But the Shadow stuff is good. As always, this live action version of the franchise is never going to be my ideal version of Sonic, but it's turned out far better than it had any right to, and I'll probably have fun when I go see this in theaters and hear Live and Learn.

[ponett]

ive seen you post about doctor robotnik's ring racers occasionally on twitter and would like to hear your overall thoughts on the game

I'm enjoying it a lot! It plays well, has a ridiculous number of unlockable characters and tracks, and is generally just really polished. This would be impressive even for a paid indie kart racer that cost like $20-$30, but for a freeware fangame that's somehow built off of Doom? It's nuts. So much love and care went into this. I've been having a lot of fun playing through all the Grand Prix cups and clearing out the challenge board, which I've only completed 47% of it even with over 15 hours of playtime logged.

It's absolutely one of the most hardcore kart racers I've ever played, though, and that's gonna turn some people off. While playing solo even easy mode can be difficult, especially thanks to the rival system that gives one CPU buffs over the others. Anything below 150cc is a complete joke for me in Mario Kart, but even playing on the "normal" difficulty in Ring Racers (now renamed "intense" in the 2.2 patch) kicks my ass, and if you place poorly in a Grand Prix race it gives you a game over and makes you redo the race. I can't even imagine touching the higher difficulties at my current skill level.

This is compounded by how technical the game is and how many options are at your disposal. Spin dashing, tricks, fast drops, collecting and spending rings, an item roulette that can be manually stopped, a high risk high reward chargeable melee attack when you have negative rings, the ability to harass and be harassed by other racers while positioning yourself before the start of the race, gates that can only be passed through when you have a high level of boost, lots of items with different quirks that reward skilled play. And of course, perhaps most daunting of all to new players, there's the game's unique slope physics designed to mimic how they work in the 2D Sonic games, which will often require you to either spend rings for a small boost or stop and charge up a spin dash to get up a steep hill.

All of these add a lot of complexity to the game that can be pretty daunting early on, which is why it has an infamously long story-driven tutorial to introduce all of these mechanics. I'm not sure said tutorial actually does the best job introducing how those mechanics will actually be put to use in races, but I can't blame them for thinking the game needed it. (I do have to admit I am annoyed by the game's insistence upon framing everything via Sega Saturn inputs, though. I had to open the settings screen to figure out what buttons the tutorial actually wanted me to press.)

Some of these things have already been addressed in the first couple patches, of course. You can now exit the tutorial way earlier, some unlock requirements have been relaxed, there's an option to let the game automatically use your rings for you, easy mode has been made easier, a handful of problematic courses have been tweaked, etc. And I'm sure they'll continue to refine the game based on player feedback. But it's probably always going to be a fairly hardcore game. It's hard and has a high skill ceiling by design. Nintendo's never gonna make a super technical new Mario Kart for sickos - not on purpose, at least. They need it to be a pick-up-and-play party game that sells 70 million copies. But a freeware fangame not beholden to shareholders can experiment more and try to cater to that more hardcore crowd. Say what you will about Ring Racers, but it absolutely has a specific creative vision of its own beyond "Sonic Mario Kart," and I respect that even if the game sometimes frustrates me