#Which sonic character would be the most likely to kill someone if necessary?

[polling-sonic-fans]

Which sonic character would be the most likely to kill someone if necessary?

Sonic

Tails

Knuckles

Amy

Rouge

Shadow

Omega

Thanks anon! Polls for the Sonic fandom on just about anything. Share polls you like to get more data. Asks and submissions always open.

[anthurak]

So I watched the new Death Battle earlier today, and speaking as someone only BARELY familiar with/interested/invested in either Sonic OR Mario, I actually found myself vibing more with Team Eggman over Team Bowser and was even rooting more for them by the end for some reasons I find rather interesting.

Mostly because I feel like Team Eggman had a more interesting and varied team composition and dynamic throughout the fight. Namely in that they get more shared and balanced focus and attention.

You see, for basically the entire fight, Bowser is very much the center of attention for his team. He’s the lynchpin, the keystone. He’s both the leader AND by far the heaviest hitter of his team, with everyone else mostly just working to support him. And because of that he gets most of the cool moments of his side.

Meanwhile, Team Eggman is nowhere near as focused on one guy. Eggman is the leader, yet Metal Sonic is the heaviest hitter, and even he isn’t so much so compared to Sage, Nemesis and Eggman himself. And because of that, I feel like they all get a broader spread of attention and cool moments in the fight.

Like some might say that Bowser always fighting front and center of his army might make him the ‘better’ or ‘more-noble’ leader/dad compared to Eggman spending more of the fighting hanging back and having his decoys, minions and kids do much of the heavy lifting, but personally I feel like that makes Team Eggman more interesting?

Like I think it’s pretty interesting that while Eggman is the leader, he isn’t the heaviest hitter of his team. He may not even be the real keystone of his team (more on that later…). And again, this leads to broader spread of attention and cool moments. Like how the fight starts with Eggman fighting Bowser through a decoy, and through the rest of the fight, Bowser is having to fight Infinite, Metal Sonic and even Sage just as much if not moreso than Eggman directly.

It feels like Team Bowser very much a case of ‘the Main Character does everything’, while Team Eggman is very much a subversion of that trope. Some might say Eggman is making his kids do most of the work, well I say he’s giving them time to shine. Like how the climax of the fight very much feels more like a 3v1 battle of Eggman, Metal Sonic and Shade versus Bowser, rather than a 1v1 or 3v3.

Again, I feel like that gives Team Eggman the more interesting dynamic throughout the fight. I mean remember what I said about Eggman not necessarily being the real keystone of his team? Well I imagine (coming from someone with admittedly not much familiarity with the source material) that Team Eggman COULD very much continue the fight without him if necessary, whereas the same very much could NOT be said for Team Bowser.

Like imagine an alternate narrative of the fight where Bowser Jr gets killed in the crossfire, which sends Bowser flying into the expected rage and killing Eggman to avenge his son…

…only for Sage, Metal and Infinite to take down Bowser to avenge their father. Which technically would still be a posthumous win for Eggman.

Obviously I’m not saying that’s how the fight should have gone, I’m not nearly that petty/headcanon fixated. I just think it’s a fun idea to imagine.

Particularly as I feel like ‘cooperative revenge’ is a quite underused trope XD

Also, given the episodes underlying theme of parents and children, I think there is something interesting to be said of how Bowser's kids are very much stuck within the shadow of their father, while Eggman's children can, and in some respects arguably have, surpassed their father.

[hyperfixated-homo]

OW Perks and how they contribute to world building

Building a world off of a shooter game means integrating a lot of information about your main characters through game mechanics. As someone who is both into the gaming and fandom side of Overwatch, I’ve always found it really interesting how the game’s development of it’s characters has carried over to their fandom interpretations. Obviously, voice lines, skins and cinematics are the big things, but character abilities are a super big part of it too. So, being as obsessive over this silly game as I am, I spent a few hours combing through the character perks, and wrote a long ass ramble about how I think it could influence the world building of Overwatch. Like a normal person. <3

First and foremost; this is absolutely not meant to be some sort of study on what could be canon to the Overwatch universe. It’s already been established that the game isn’t “canon”. These are just self indulgent rambles, mostly.

If you want the full list of each character’s perks, here’s my post on that: https://www.tumblr.com/hyperfixated-homo/775376445686071296/all-of-the-new-ovw-perks

If you have any thoughts, please lmk! It’s been a while since I’ve made a long, in depth analysis like this and I’m sure I have definitely missed some things.

So if I was more insane, I would probably make a detailed exploration of how every perk impacts each hero and what it means for them as a character, but that’s. That’s 168 perks. And 43 characters. That’s a lot of things. A few too many. And most of them would just be analyses of where they got their tech from and how that tech works, which isn’t all that interesting to me. Unless it’s about my favourite characters, or something I’m specifically intrigued by,,,,,

Anyways. There are a lot of things to talk about so I’m going to start with how I personally like to view the implementation of perks within the canon (fanon, whatever) universe, which is basically as choices made by characters in the context of the battle. It opens a whole new world of how we can imagine them participating in actual in world battles.

For example- I was watching Flats try the new Doomfist perks, and he mentioned that it was like being able to choose between DPS Doomfist and Tank Doomfist. This sort of thing is a decision that I can imagine him making in canon going in to a fight- should he be focusing on tanking damage so that other Talon agents can finish the mission, or should he leave them be and finish it himself? And that sort of thing applies to any character. Hanzo going for a hit and having to consider if he should focus on stealth (using sonic arrows) or killing his target by any means necessary (using scatter arrows). While yes, these choices are made by us playing the game, they also probably need to be made by the characters themselves. They can’t do everything all at once.

I feel like the introduction of perks could be really interesting in this sense because before they existed, it was sort of up to fans to explore how characters would deal with equipping themselves for what is- essentially- their job. This opens up so many more doors for the active choices the heroes themselves need to make.

Moving on from that, the abilities themselves are fascinating. Some of them I find interesting in general- mostly ones that have a healing element to them. I’ve mentioned at some point that I think it’s interesting that Genji has a perk where he can heal during his Deflect, and I’m really interested in that- how can he do it? My first thought is that it’s connected to the Iris somehow- maybe that spending enough time following Zenyatta’s teachings, he learns how to harness it just the slightest bit. But really, the possibilities are endless. It could be that he’s repairing his mechanical components, sort of like Bastion’s self heal. Maybe it’s something chemical within his body- a sort of biotic injection that gives him an extra boost. There’s a lot of potential ideas here! How many times have we explored how Soldier could use biotic fields- now that can apply to any hero with new self heal perks.

Along that line of thought, the heroes that have gotten new lifesteal abilities (healing while damaging enemies) are also super super interesting. Any character with new lifesteal perks could have so many potential ideas for why they do it. To name them; Hazard, Genji, Junker Queen, and Reaper all have perks that include lifesteal. And for each character, you can come up with entirely new reasons why. Genji’s specifically is a result of his dragonblade- is the dragon literally sucking the life out of his enemies and giving it back to Genji? I have no idea!!! But it’s a cool concept, right?

In that sense I’m very impressed by the specificity of each character’s perks. They work so well with their already existing traits in the Overwatch universe. All of them feel like they could naturally work with the existing ideas of each person’s abilities. It’s a super natural transition, if for the lore moreso than the game itself.

Okay now I’m just going to speedrun some of the more interesting abilities that I’ve found that I just wanted to bring up.

Sigma and Zenyatta can fly/float respectively. First of all, goddamn awesome. Secondly, very interesting how neither really fly- maybe both of them can, but neither want to. After all, Sigma does fly during his ult? So why wouldn’t he do it on the regular? He’s already floating, why not go the extra step? ¯\(ツ)/¯

I’ve already written a lot about it but Soldier’s new stim pack?? So much potential there. Is it a drug? If so who made it? Where did he get it? How does it affect him in comparison to a normal, non super-soldiered person? Does it have long term affects?

Some characters (Hanzo, Freja, ect) have perks where they get increased firing speed if they get hits/kills. I like to imagine that it’s related to adrenaline. Could use that for some interesting character analysis :) (Especially considering how Hanzo’s specific ability is called “Dragon’s Fury”… could connect that to his own bloodlust as a result of being connected to the dragons. Or something. Hmm)

A lot (I think literally all) of Junkrat’s stuff is related to his weaponry. I like to think that it’s because he’s constantly modifying it to fit his own needs- sort of clunkily, but it works, and it’s fun :)

There’s a lot to be said about characters that are initially more on the pacifism side (Zenyatta, Mei, ect) having perks which allow them to do more damage. There are definitely ways to explore character conflicts using their new abilities. This is sort of less about perks and more about them as characters though- I don’t think they’d be happy to use any of their abilities to do harm

Reaper has his soul orbs back!! We can bring back him eating the souls of the dead. Was that ever a thing? Idk. I want it to be. Imagine- Reaper pulling a death blossom in the middle of enemy lines, then collecting their souls in front of whichever of their comrades still live, slowly gaining power… filling the room with more smoke… laughing maniacally all the while… yknow?

Roadhog’s “take a breather” has two perks that he can choose between to upgrade it- either making him faster when he uses it or healing allies. This sort of thing can very easily fit in to how he learns to integrate himself with Overwatch or another group, learning how to share his heals instead of hogging it (no pun intended)

I’m never going to shut up about Sombra being able to heal with hack. There are. So many concepts you can do with that. Especially with how much more of a sympathetic character she’s been portrayed as lately- there could be any number of situations where she had to learn how to do that. Why would she? How could she? Does it work better for certain heroes than others?

Torb can give his allies repairs during battles. Imagine the shenaniganery. Imagine Torbjorn hanging off Reinhardt’s arms or something, trying to fix his rocket booster, while they’re both yelling at each other and everyone else is trying to murder them. I’d animate it if I didn’t suck at it <3

Venture being able to see things while underground is?? So fun?? They’re very bug to me. I like to think it’s like a specified sensor. A sixth sense if you will. Because it’s not like they can actually see, but maybe they can feel the vibrations or something? I don’t know!!

That’s most of the thoughts I wanted to get out, but honestly there’s so much more to explore here. These are just the ones that immediately jumped out at me- I’m sure that just playing with the perks themselves will bring up more ideas. If this is slightly incoherent I apologise lmao. If I come up with anything else, maybe I’ll write something about it

[skaruresonic]

Why do you guys always add the caveat of "Sonic only kills... if he absolutely has to" like it matters? Dead is dead.

Does Sonic kill? Yes. Okay, good, we have established that he does. There's no need to add fine print. It's not like those he kills can suddenly un-die just because he says "You left me no choice. :<" which tbh I'd argue he almost never does anyway

And no, Sonic does not whip out killing as a "last resort" after exhausting all available options; otherwise, he would not have stolen Eggman's jetpack hose at the end of Lost World.

This idea that Sonic just lets Eggman go all la-di-dah when he technically could kill Eggman right then and there is so incredibly bad-faith. Why doesn't Sonic just seize the opportunity?

1.) You're assuming he hasn't tried, many times, while also forgetting that Eggman is good at escaping and surviving things that would usually kill other people,

and 2.) I don't know, same reason Shadow doesn't kill everyone in the room and then himself even though he technically could at any given moment. You're pointing at Sonic just... Being Sonic(tm) and citing that as damning proof that he's somehow bestowing freedom on people. Literal "Luigi wins by doing nothing."

This is predicated on the most asinine possible reading of the games' various endings. You are literally making shit up and trying to convince people that that's how it went down in the games.

To hearken back to the SA2 example, the game says N O T H I N G about Sonic "letting Eggman go"; you just assume he did. We don't know how the crew got back to Earth. We don't know if they took a teleporter. We don't know if Sonic and Eggman left at the same time, even though Sonic is last to leave the control room. We don't even know if Eggman snuck away like usual. You are essentially writing fanfiction of the events you think transpired, because the game's insistence that Sonic's beef with Eggman isn't the ending's emotional priority at that point in time has eluded you.

"He doesn't attack rulers" - why would he? What beef does Sonic have with the President? With Elise? Is the implication supposed to be that he otherwise would have reason to attack them if either one got too big for their britches? That sounds a little panopticon-ish for how Sonic usually operates, isn't it?

Fuck me, the Commander is 10x bloodthirstier than the rest of GUN, and yet Sonic still chooses to team up with him in the Diablon boss fights just to stop Shadow's rampage. Again, Sonic makes allies out of convenience; he doesn't go out of his way to rehabilitate people.

Besides, if these world-ending exceptions occur on a regular basis, then they can't exactly be called rare, can they?

This is such a circular goddamn argument. You're arguing as if the mitigating circumstances really matter to Sonic's character. Like he performs some form of moral calculus of "Should I offer this guy freedom?" before every kill, instead of playing things by ear and by common sense.

When nearly every game has Sonic killing the monster du jour because he absolutely has to or else the world will end, the last part of "Sonic only kills when necessary" really doesn't matter anymore, does it? It becomes less of a rarity and more of a pattern.

Like, the only thing you could possibly be implying here is that Eggman doesn't count as the kind of villain that merits the "omae wa mou shindeiru" treatment from Sonic, despite being the most persistent threat to the planet.

Also, Sonic hates Eggman so badly that Shahra has to beg him to save his facsimile. King Shahryar merely suffers from the misfortune of resembling his nemesis, and Sonic only begrudgingly saves him. He wasn't like "Oh, no, poor Shahryar! I'll rescue him right away!"

Sonic so happens to accept the help of new allies out of pragmatism. He doesn't make the conscious decision to offer people freedom and second chances like he's the arbiter of who gets to live free or die. If someone he "lets go" so happens to survive, that is pure coincidence.

Until those who fuck around find out, he will continue to throw down with them without scruple. Conflating what is essentially Sonic making allies of convenience with "Sonic rehabilitates people through the power of justice" is not only wrong, it's disingenuous as hell.

Besides, if Sonic is supposed to be the series' rehabilitationist, then he's really fucking shitty at his job, considering that half the time he's not even the one doing it.

It's other characters like Amy and Cream who sway hearts and minds. It was Cream who befriended Blaze and introduced her to the crew long before Blaze and Sonic ever had their final confrontation. It was Amy who won over Shadow and Gamma. It was Rouge who convinced Omega to team up with her and Shadow against Eggman.

Some important nuance is definitely being lost in these debates, and I don't know what, but rest assured Sonic lives the way he wants. He does what he feels is right.

It so happens that the thing he wants to do is the right thing. I need you all to understand that that is not me saying Sonic is immoral, or even amoral. I am saying that Sonic is not guided by staunch principles of freedom and justice because, ironically enough, principles would limit what he wants to do.

[merrilark]

20 questions for fic writers

Thanks for tagging me, @i-seeaspaceshipinthe-sky!!

1.how many works do you have on ao3?

Only 2 after I purged and changed my username. I used to have around 10 or 12, I think, but I was embarrassed by my writing and deleted them. Sorta regret doing that. :x

2.what's your total ao3 word count?

1,044! They're both quick one-shots.

3.what fandoms do you write for?

The fics before I deleted everything were mostly Doctor Who and Sherlock. The two there now are for Bad Samaritan. Fics I'm currently working on are for Doctor Who, Misfits, Bad Samaritan, The Umbrella Academy, Red Riding, and Wanted: Dead or Alive.

4.what are your top 5 fics by kudos?

LOL. Well, seeing as I only have two still up, my most kudos'd fic is my Whumptober prompt fill focused on Sean. :)

Before I deleted everything, though, I'd say that my most kudos'd fic was a Doctor Who AU where Rose met Simm!Master. It was also, now that I think about it, 90% whump.

5.do you respond to comments? why or why not?

Always! I love chatting with other people. :)

6.what is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Not posted yet, but it will almost certainly be my Bad End AU for Bad Samaritan in which Cale does actually kill Katie and Sean becomes Cale's new project.

7.what is the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Deleted this one, too, but it was a slice of life kind of fic about the Tenth Doctor and Rose going out for chips before heading off on their next big adventure. Fluff and silliness all around. Maybe one day I'll rewrite it.

8.do you get hate on any fics?

No, but I did get a weird comment on a Teen Titan fic where someone started talking as if their OC was part of my fic, then began roleplaying with themselves in my comments. It was really weird lol

9.do you write smut? if so, what kind?

I dooooo, but I'm too shy to post it. Maybe one day. Usually the smut I write is pretty emotionally charged, whether it's happy emotions or sad/angry/whatever... I'm not often too interested in writing PWP (or at least, not to post lol)

10.do you write crossovers? what's the craziest one you've written?

I loooooove crossovers. I haven't written too many crazy ones, though. I guess the most tonally jarring one would be a Doctor Who/Red Riding or Doctor Who/Bad Samaritan WIP I tossed around for a little bit before deciding that it was more fun for me to think about than actually write.

11.have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of!

12.have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope!

13.have you ever co-written a fic before?

A few times! One I love the most is an Umbrella Academy fic that was supposed to pick up immediately after S2. Me and my friend had planned on finishing it and posting before S3 but life got busy and it's back in WIP hell.

14.what's your all time favorite ship?

I'm too much of a shipper to answer this question LOL. I can't possibly pick just one.

15.what's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

All of them. D: I simply cannot get over the fear of being bad or boring. It's like hitting a brick wall every time I try to finish or post.

16.what are your writing strengths?

People have told me that I'm pretty good at understanding the psychology of characters that I write and that makes me happy. It's my favorite thing to sink my teeth into.

17.what are your writing weaknesses?

Pacing is hard for me, and just getting plots out onto the page is hard. I know what I want, but getting a character from point A to point B in an interesting way is like pulling teeth. Which is insane because that's such a necessary thing lol

18.thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

No opinion! Write what you want.

19.first fandom you wrote for?

LOL probably Sonic the Hegehog when I was 9.

20.favorite fic you've written?

Unfortunately I do not have one. :x

Most of my favorite writing has been with other people through roleplay. I think that's where my writing creativity tends to shine. It's just a little sad it's not something I can easily share with others.

---

Tagging! @salvador-daley, @jozstankovich, @crabstick, @elliethesuperfruitlover, and I am totally blanking rn so actually anyone who wants to! sdkfls sorry! long day

[teahatts]

you know what, fuck it. i have more to say about silver

Silver is, as mentioned, always being ignored by Sega in literally any media they put out. even in Sonic Prime, or Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog, both in which they could have very easily incorporated him into (especially Sonic Prime. seriously. Time Travel, diffferent timelines, a mess of keeping each variation in check??? this is literally all Silver. i'm coming for you Sega) even if it were as simple as Silver coming in at the end and going batshit at Sonic and Shadow for causing such a big mess for him to clean up and keep in place

AND AND ☝️ don't even get me STARTED on he gets treated in canon.

Sonic 06 is the one i'm gonna bring up the most bc memphis tenesee can catch these motherfucking hands.

like, mephiles is, and i will die on this hill, one of the best written villains, perhaps even THE best villain that Sega has produced. he is evil for the sake of being evil, but not in the same way that eggman is. he's evil in a dark way, a manipulative way that we see with how he treats Silver, and by extension Blaze.

when you were to look at Mephiles plan, silvers role was not necessary at all. mephiles didn't manipulate and gaslight silver due to a greater plan, he did because he was bored. Silver nearly killed Sonic (and don't say he didn't, silver was more than ready to kill a man if he thought it was necessary) simply because mephiles wanted to see how it would play out.

THEN, him befriending and proving his worth, creating friendships and actually better understanding the world, IT ALL DOESNT MATTER BECAUSE THE TIMELINE GETS RESET (i love angst so so much, but by god im gonna climb up the wall)

Silver being a time traveler doesn't help either considering how he is stuck in between two impossible situations. on one hand he can befriend ppl from the future that may begin to exist whenever the future is saved, however, every time the future is ruined, those people wouldn't be alive anymore. then when the future is safe, those people may just straight up cease to exist due to technicalities that could arise from time travel or they would not remember silver because of him going back in time and due to time travel technicalities.

then we got the other side because what would sega do besides give us so much fucking angst hidden in optimistic characters that just want to see other happy. (Sega, once i'm done with memphis, i'm coming for your jugular.) The otherwise is Silver befriending the people of the past. him befriending Sonic, Amy, Espio, Vanilla, Blaze, and everyone else is all fun since they are all very good people. until you pay attention to the fact there is a over 200 year time difference between them and Silver and that when Silver were to come back to his home, y'know, the one that he never knows will be an alive place with actual living organisms or an endless ball of fire, all of them would be dead!! oh and also them really seeing him as a bad omen since he almost always come when something bad happen. this doesn't affect his mental health at all!!!

So Silver is stuck between two options that both suck and aren't good for him. He is constantly lonely, lonely in all things someone as optimistic and joyful shouldn't be.

and i distinctly remember when i was a kid, first getting into sonic, the way that Silver was treated in the fandom. he was hated on so much. i didnt understand it and i still don't understand the sheer amount of hate i saw my favorite character receive. i'm so glad the fandom be a lot nicer to him and actually treat him like a character, but goodness, the damage that he received simply from being connected to Sonic 06 was insane to me.

in the end, Silver is still a kid. a fourteen year old that just wishes for a better future that was lok

Sega really did just give silver the most depressive backstory in all of Sonic history. like they just straight up said

"yeah he lives in an apocalyptic world that is on Fire in complete isolation and his only best friend was sent to a different dimension after the whole universe was reset bc some Evil Dude took advantage of his naivety and hope for a better future to destroy all of time and space and he's stuck over 200 years in the future so every friend he ever makes would be long dead by the time he time travels back to his home that, incase you forgot, is a ball of fucking fire because ppl keep on trying to destroy the world and he has to keep trying to travel back in time to fix a problem that will only repeat itself and he is considered an Omen of Death by many as his prescience means destruction and he cannot catch a break and he is only 14"

pleas let this boy be in a big game, series, comic, literally anything i beg of you sega let this poor boy breathe he has been through enough

[000marie198]

Opinions on Tails murdering eggman if anything bad were to actually happen to sonic?

Like this kid has so much trauma at some point when smth bad happens to Sonic, tails just goes "yknow what. I'm making scrambled eggs. Burnt."

Remember that one particular scene in SA2 after Sonic was ejected into space?

Yeah... That one.

Or that episode of Sonic X in which everyone back on Mobius was going nuts because they missed their blue friend? Remember how he went feral with the biplane in the middle of the night when Eggman attacked?

Or better yet, recall how SCU Tails has actual lethal weapons?

Or simply everything that happened on Coco Island?

Tails was the first character in the franchise to have a canonical kill count.

After being raised by Sonic, he has been thought not to kill and he is not the one to deviate his morals from what his brother taught him but this kid also has lethal weapons and isn't afraid to use them when necessary.

If something actually happened to Sonic due to Eggman, Tails would snap alright. He has a level head and good composure in the most pressuring moments but he won't hold back.

I think that Tails wouldn't go on a path to seek hateful vengeance but he absolutely would not hold back from murdering the one who brought intentional harm to his best friend. In a way, he would act just like Sonic would in a similar scenario. The hedgehog doesn't strike to kill unless he is aware that it's the only option (SatBK, Secret Rings) and Sonic doesn't hesitate to unleash a wrath on someone who harms his brother. Tails would be the same way.

[egg-emperor]

I really like that scene with Starline you mentioned because although IDW often gets Eggman wrong, that moment hit the nail on the head. This. This is why he always fails in the end. Because he can’t just get rid of Sonic, he has to make it a huge victory and that’s where he slips up every time. His need for the special moment where he has Sonic in his clutches is his downfall, because it leaves Sonic room to escape. And I think he knows it, too. But he just can’t let it go for the sake of his own ego! It’s a very good way to frame things because it allows for the glorified game of cat and mouse to keep going without it becoming unrealistic that Sonic always wins, by making it a key point of Eggman’s character. It’s the one thing he just can’t let go, it’s his main character flaw. And I love that, because it’s not that he’s stupid or doesn’t think things through, it’s that his focus on his plan always slips in favour of going for Sonic personally. It’s just not as fun if he nukes the whole area, he needs to have the hedgehog in his clutches personally. I know I’m sort of rambling, but I just love those moments where you can really get into Eggman’s mind and see exactly what he needs for his win to be worth it in his eyes.

I loved that scene for the writing too, my liking isn't just a case of me only liking the art and the way that it's very thrilling and sexy to see Eggman physically attack someone. It certainly plays a part heheh, but this page was also in the earlier days of the Metal Virus arc, when I actually liked what his portrayal seemed to be shaping up to be. At that point, I'd loved it from the moment Starline helped him get back to his real glorious ingenious self. It feels so weird remembering how much hope I had.

And the scene provided a reasonable explanation for why he doesn't typically aim to kill Sonic in the fastest most simple way possible, if he has the choice. One that isn't 'ooh he secretly cares and can't really bring himself to kill him!' because that would massively contradict canon. Which is why I'm baffled by the way I've seen this scene interpreted as him having a soft spot for him and not wanting him killed. He's literally saying that he should be the one to do it instead of Starline, hello???

There have been other examples of him having a similar reason to keep Sonic alive in various media, with game canon examples being: Eggman saving Sonic in Lost World- he didn't want him to die simply by falling into lava by something the Deadly Six caused, he wants it to be his doing. He needed Sonic to hold off them off while he took back control of the energy extractor and destroy Sonic by himself with the Eggrobo that was powered by the energy from the extractor that he regained control of after betraying him.

Also the way that he kept Sonic locked up for six months in Forces- he wasn't sparing his life because he cares about him. He was keeping him alive so he could show him his completed empire before banishing him and dealing with him as necessary for good. He'd find victory most satisfying when he can make him know what it feels like to be defeated, proving his power, brilliance, and superiority, and finally accomplishing his goal so he can rule the world and make all the dreams of the glorious Eggman Empire come true at last.

Also note that, after Infinite is defeated, he says he didn't believe he could lose but that victory will be so much sweeter when he defeats Sonic because it's not anyone else's job. Having him successfully weakened and locked up and gaining 99.9% of the world is something to be immensely proud of, yes, but true victory to him is when he gets to complete that final step by destroying him. And it'll be much sweeter if he's the one to do it instead of Infinite, so he's truly beaten by him and he can prove his superiority.

It's a similar deal with this scene in particular in IDW. Eggman is pissed off with Starline because he's trying to go behind his back, act without permission, and destroy Sonic by himself without even asking if it'd a sudden move he should make. These are things that Starline should've taken his word for because he'd keep on making similar mistakes by going behing his back again to bring in the D6 and then trying to defeat Sonic and hand over the throne, despite Eggman very clearly wanting to defeat him himself and it's his victory to earn, not Starline's.

There are times where it's no longer a choice/he becomes desperate to kill him there and then, especially in the heat of the battle where he's clearly trying to kill him by any means necessary. Then it doesn't seem to matter how he does it. But Sonic manages to win and in the end he always goes back to wanting to draw it out and make it more impactful and more personal, so he can truly feel that he's gotten the most satisfying victory he desires after all the times he's gotten in the way of getting what he wants. He wants to finally get the last laugh and all the power he's always wanted!

While it's not always the case as sometimes we see that he settles for other robots, deities, or lackeys to destroy him, I also enjoy the concept of him having a type of fucked up possessiveness where he ultimately feels that Sonic is his to destroy, if he has the choice and feels it's the right time and place. And nobody else is allowed to try to do it for for him if he didn't say that they could, like Starline. I like his aggressive assertion of this desire, proving how damn serious he is about it. He isn't just messing around like some people think he is and it's certainly not out of a care for Sonic.

I think it's a good reason to put behind why he doesn't just quickly kill Sonic and have it over and done with just like that. Also a way to prove that he doesn't fail all the time because he's incompetent and lazy with the execution of his plans and doesn't take his chances (which IDW still decided to imply later on despite this scene, for some fucking lame and bizarre reason ugh), it's because he has a set goal and a specific way of doing things and he does get a thrill out if it and belief that he'll get it some day. After being a thorn in his side for so long, he wants his victory and Sonic's loss to be greater than ever, so he can feel truly accomplished and superior!

[mashounen2003]

What to do with Amy Rose in SatAM/Archie Sonic fanfics

There's something I was still very conflicted about until recently: Amy Rose’s presence and roles in my stories.

When she was created -or at least when she was given a more elaborate and detailed personality, in the Adventure series-, she was supposed to stand out for her compassion, unwavering optimism, a strong and bright character capable of inspiring others to act, and a contrast between her actual personality and some stereotypical superficial traits (her dress, her taste for anything romantic and sweet, having bubblegum pink and red everywhere). The Adventure games have shown this quite well despite Amy's fixation on Sonic, and when she asked him to marry her in exchange for getting him out of jail in Sonic Adventure 2, that was also supposed to be a joke.

But from Sonic Heroes onwards, each of these traits got hyper-simplified, with gruesome results (yeah, Sonic Heroes is to blame for a lot of trends still present in this franchise). The joke about marrying Sonic, which could have been some kind of game between them? Amy actually meant it. Her stereotypical attitudes, which could have been merely something quirky and anecdotal, with no influence on her actions when the going gets serious? Now they’re present at all times, regardless of whether the situation warrants putting them aside. Her unwavering optimism? It’s a disconnection with reality, Amy lives in a fantasy world. Her strong character, keeping her from giving up on a problem no matter how big it is? It becomes a possessive, pushy and invasive behaviour and a lack of respect for others’ personal boundaries. Her ability to inspire others to act and follow her? That becomes important only in Sonic Heroes when she teams up with Cream -a little girl even younger than an 8-year-old Tails- and Big -the franchise's signature walking ableist joke-; in any other case, the method by which she gets others to follow her is actually just to threaten them with her hammer. Her feelings for Sonic? Now they are everything and kill any chance of her being independent. Her character development in the Adventure saga? It never happened.

With the IDW comic being published since 2018 and starting the story around the point where Sonic Forces had ended, it was established Amy was the de facto leader of the Resistance and Knuckles was just a figurehead, the organization’s visible face; this fact, along with the way Amy began to be portrayed in IDW-Sonic and the kind of leader this version of the character was, made many notice a strong similarity between this version of Amy and Sally Acorn, leading the North-American continuity’s most nostalgic fans to criticize the new comic’s writers for their apparent lack of originality. This may surprise more than one, but I think that Amy would be a better leader than Knuckles, and even that writing Amy like this actually makes sense... albeit in a very, very ironic way. You see... It’s almost the same thing the British comic published by Fleetway had done all those years ago: taking those basics on which Amy Rose's character was created in the first place, going their own way to develop Amy from there, and ultimately getting a version of Amy Rose who leads the fight against Robotnik/Eggman, has got the knowledge, skills, training, and sanity to play that role, is still "feminine" in her own way, isn’t obsessed with Sonic and is even able to draw attention to call him out for his mistakes (although this is probably also due to the British Sonic’s... “peculiar” personality, which would have stopped the British Amy from idolizing him). The big difference between the British Amy and IDW's Amy is that the British one had the necessary development to justify her being the leader of her team, was the only version of Amy who ever received any character development at all, and was conceived from the get-go as someone better and quite different from what would later become her counterpart in the video games. On the contrary, it’s clear that IDW's Amy is the result of a hasty, rushed attempt to give the character something else to do, after several years during which people were deconstructing gender roles in both real life and fiction and realized the "official" version of Amy was the opposite of something romantic, adorable, admirable, cool or exemplary.

For a moment, I considered the option of writing Amy just like in the British comic, but then I saw that this would lead to basically having “two Sallys” in one place. I finally found a way to develop Amy, and I can already tell in advance that it’s tied to the more mystical and less Chaos-related side of the Sonic franchise. But I must warn that this version of Amy might seem unrecognizable to most Sonic fans.

[another-sonic-blog]

@maishemicalromans​

(Sorry for posting this like this but Tumblr won't let me answer your ask properly, idk it's acting weird)

Alright, so I was going to post first the Silver character analyzation and writing tips but I’ll love to answer your question first since I think I need to put this out before the Silver post.

I want to first say that I am not doing this to talk negatively about the current writer of Sonic IDW’s comic. This is merely my opinion. An opinion of a fan, who although does not master the art of writing, I am still allowed to express it. However, I still believe that every opinion should be backed up with evidence and that’s what I am going to do. Sorry, if the answer is too long but I think what I am about to write is necessary.

I haven’t read the Archie comics because I heard that was a mess until Ian Flynn showed up, I read he wrote pretty good things. However, because of the whole mess with Archie Comics, SEGA implemented rules as to how people should write Sonic and friends. I don’t know how strict these rules are and if that’s the reason why Flynn is writing a very ‘unlikeable’ Sonic (In my opinion)

I am not here to talk about that but just putting that out there. I am not criticizing Flynn nor SEGA (If we had to blame someone it’ll probably be Ken Penders and SEGA but we don’t talk about that guy in here) but just the writing.

Alright, now that we have that out of the way I am going to say that there are 2 things that I STRONGLY DISLIKE about Sonic’s character in IDW.

1. Sonic manipulating Shadow

I don’t have words to express just how wrong it is to bring up someone’s past mistakes, use that against them and manipulate them. Yes, this is manipulation. Sonic is using Shadow’s insecurities to benefit him. How does even Sonic DARE to compare Shadow to Eggman? Eggman who has tried to conquer planets, destroy worlds, kidnap innocents, tortured him, tries to kill him (and friends) and started wars? Eggman does all of these when he is CONCIOUS, he does all of those things because he WANTS to. Shadow in the other hand, in SA2 he doesn’t want to destroy Earth but he is doing it because he CARED too much for Maria and the ‘promise’ he made to her. He did everything because of a PROMISE he made to a little girl, a sister, the person who cared for him. The person who sacrificed their life in order to protect him. How does that even compare to Eggman? Who only seeks destruction for his own benefit? Not only that but Shadow redeem himself. He helped save the planet and Shadow continues to help saving the world. He does this for multiple reasons but one of them is that he still regrets trying to destroy earth back at the ARK. He still remembers this incident and the regret still haunts him till this day.

Why would Sonic even bring this up? Sonic out of everyone must know the turmoil Shadow has been through and still he decides to use Shadow’s insecurities against him. He really went out and said “Look I am not saying you are wrong but remember that time you fucked up? Yeah that was bad, you were really evil back then too. You are in the same level as the person who constantly tries to kill me and my friends. Oh, but you saved the world multiple times? Yeah, I know and I don’t care. You are always making the wrong decisions, just listen to me because I am right. Your opinion is invalid because of the mistakes you made, because you were bad.”

Can’t he see Shadow’s hurt face? Can’t he understand how the words affected him? Shadow was again reduced to thinking that no matter what he does, he is always going to be seen as evil. That everyone will remember his mistakes and that no matter what, they will always remember that. Sonic just deepened that wound, he increased Shadow’s insecurity.

And Sonic still has the guts to smile? Boy, what the heck are you smiling at? You just denigrated Shadow the Hedgehog, a hero, to the likes of Eggman. Get out of here.

“Losing one’s memory doesn’t make them any less dangerous”

And you know what makes me sad the most?

That I am sure that Shadow saw himself in Mr. Tinker. Shadow said that he wanted to ‘destroy’ him. It makes me think that if Shadow could, he would also like to destroy the past version of himself. If the Shadow right now could go back to the past and destroy his past self … He would.

I am sure Sonic knows this. So, still it just makes me wonder why? Why Sonic the Hedgehog, a character who is said to always live in the ‘present’ looks backs at Shadow’s past mistakes and manipulates them to his benefit? To the benefit of a Eggman who he knows has brought pain to him, to his friends and the world?

You would think that after Sonic Lost World, Sonic would have learned something about listening to others or thinking before acting. Especially when the whole mess on Sonic Lost World was due that Sonic jumped into action without listening to Tails first. Shadow is really telling Sonic to not trust Eggman so easily for two reasons.

1. Experience, Shadow more than anyone knows that losing one’s memories does not make them any less dangerous. (No pun intended lol)

2. He is doing it to protect what is left of the world. In Sonic forces, it is stated that Eggman conquered 90% of the world (Or more, I don’t remember exactly) The world is basically in ruins and after the war they have begun to restore it. If Mr.Tinker remembers he was Eggman, the Resistance would be at a total disadvantage. They have no resources nor people … how can they win another war?

This bothers me as well …

Sonic doubted Eggman … and he still left him … unsupervised. Like why in the world you trust a man who has attempted to do genocide multiple of times?

2.   Sonic’s lack of guilty

This? Good

This? Bad.

“But heroes have nothing to be sorry about.”

           Can he just shut up?????

Was that really necessary to say? Honestly, he could would have said, “But she has nothing to be sorry about.” That would have been great.

Why?

When Sonic and Tangle are talking, he is actually apologizing. Tangle tells Sonic that he has nothing to be sorry about and that she knows that Sonic would make things right. At first, I thought Sonic was saying that Tangle was right to reassure her. That way, Tangle could get infected with some peace at her mind. She can go away thinking that her hero didn’t do anything wrong and that he will fix things for everyone.  However Sonic still thinks he is at fault.

That would have shown so more deepness in Sonic’s character. But no, Tangle got infected and he went ahead to make it about himself because he is that self-centered, right?

That line, ruined it. ‘But heroes have nothing to be sorry about?’

This whole thing really went down like:

Tangle: “You have nothing to be sorry about.”

Sonic: “Lmao you are right.”

Because that line wasn’t meant towards Tangle, NO it was meant for himself. He literally is saying that he has nothing to be sorry about. Now, I am not saying its Sonic total fault or that Sonic should be crying saying that he is sorry or something like that. What I am saying is that Sonic was really reckless, overconfident, and naïve (Which is no good because he already has enough experience dealing with Eggman, this can even be see as stupidity.)

Maybe Sonic it’s not at fault that Mr. Tinker got turned into Eggman, but Sonic DID contribute to the problem at hand. To an extent he is at fault.

Letting go of Metal Sonic even when there was the possibility of him turning evil? Of someone using him for their benefit?

Not listening to Shadow and recklessly leave Mr.Tinker alone when there is the possibility that Metal Sonic is looking for him? Or that they may encounter each other at some point?

Deciding to trust a criminal who constantly tries to kill you instead of trusting the hedgehog who saved the world, redeem himself and knows better of how dangerous people with amnesia can be because he himself has being there?

I think what bothers me the most is that we have already gone through this.

In Sonic Lost World, Tails pointed out that Sonic trusted Eggman more than him. Tails was right, Sonic did trust Eggman more. Sonic trusted Egmman to shut down his machine over Tails. (Sonic has seen Tails do amazing things, why wouldn’t he trust he can shut down a machine? IDK but oh well) Sonic even admitted to doubting Tails’ abilities and then went head and said he was never doubting him again.

So, watching this I was like alright. Sonic learned something, he developed. Sonic will trust his friends, listen to them and won’t doubt their abilities.

But then again, he decided to trust Eggman.

And the worst is that he is no showing remorse whatsoever? Even after they had been through a similar situation before?

He didn’t listen to Tails back then. He didn’t listen to Shadow now and because of that the world is at stake again.

To conclude all of this, I want to say that it just seems that Sonic hasn’t develop whatsoever. He hasn’t learned a thing and won’t ever develop if he keeps thinking that he wasn’t done anything wrong. Mistakes are good because you learn from them but at this point it seems that Sonic is so self-absorbed that he just won’t admit that he made a mistake. Because he is a hero, he always makes the rights decisions. There is just no way that he can be wrong.

Sonic is self-centered and self-absorb. Those are character flaws which would have been fine, the thing is that we have already gone through this and it seems like he didn’t improve at all. Or he is not even trying to improve.

Some may argue that Sonic is just good like that. That his character is made to see the good in everyone. Be good at all costs and accept people for who they are and of course that this fiction and the way the world interacts is different from our world. However, what makes a good character is how they react to different circumstances. You are trying to write a character that is relatable to us, but you can’t do that unless that character shows different sides. A character needs to make mistakes and overcome them, to be vulnerable.

Alright that’s it. This was all over the place lol. Anyways, it’s not terrible writing and like I said this is not to talk bad about IDW. I am just pointing out some of the things that I dislike. I really hope that on the next upcoming issues, Sonic at least develops a little. Maybe he starts to be a little bit insecure about himself or just doesn’t trust anyone that easily. Any type of improvement would suffice. I won’t stop reading IDW because at the end of the day I think the story is good. The characters are decently written and the story plot is pretty entertaining. I like how Flynn has done the other characters.

This is a pretty long post but I hope this the type of answer you wanted? Like I said I don’t like to give an opinion unless I have evidence to prove it. Anyways, thank you for asking! This was fun to write.

For my other followers who wanted a Silver Character analysis and writing tips, that would be up soon enough as well. Thank you!

[timeagainreviews]

My Series 10 Rewatch: The Pilot

Hello friends! If you caught my last update, you'll know I took the last couple weeks off to study for my Life in the UK test. My test was on Saturday and I am happy to report that I passed! I think it took me longer to go through security than to take the actual test. After two weeks of studying, I am very much ready to get back into the groove of talking about Doctor Who. We now continue with my series ten rewatch!

The title "The Pilot," is an interesting choice for the first official episode of series ten. While it references the plot of the episode, there is also an implication that this story is a bit of a reset to a new beginning. It acts as a pilot to the Doctor and Bill show. Not only had Clara been the companion for basically three seasons at this point, there was also a year of hiatus between "The Husbands of River Song," and "The Return of Doctor Mysterio." It is a weird placement for a final season for a showrunner and lead actor. It's also a weird place to drop a brand new companion.

This new version of Doctor Who opens with the Doctor as a university professor teaching possibly the worst class on campus, that everyone seems to love. His star pupil is a girl named Bill, who isn't actually a student but loves his lectures. Speaking of star pupils, there is also a love interest for Bill in the form of a girl named Heather, but more on that later. The Doctor's office at the university is peppered with references to the past. On his desk sits a jar with the sonic screwdrivers of previous Doctors, like an assortment of pens. There are also portraits of River and Susan. And tucked away in the corner of the room sits the TARDIS, with an "out of order," sign hanging from its doors.

The first time I watched this episode I started to groan at the fact that the TARDIS was out of commission. Not because it should never happen, but more that I expected this to be incredibly tedious. After several years of Steven Moffat's plot arks leading to disappointment, I was bracing to be underwhelmed. As it turns out, the TARDIS works as good as it ever did. But the Doctor and Nardole are grounded regardless. This is due to the fact that there is some sort of door or safe they've been tasked with guarding, which brings us back to the whole bracing for mediocrity thing. I remember immediately thinking "Missy is in there." Spoiler alert- she absolutely is.

Dumb safes and meaningless promises meant to build up empty intrigue aside, the real reason to get excited for series ten is Bill. I was immediately interested in the concept of a black gay companion with a gender fucky name. I remember when the pictures circulated of her wearing a vintage Prince jumper and everyone was speculating whether she was from the '80s or '90s. This only added to my excitement for her character. As many of you know, I am a big fan of the idea of companions in modern Doctor Who that aren't from modern-day earth. Sadly, as it turns out, she's not a hip '80s lesbian, she's once again from modern-day England. Oh well, at least Nardole is from the future. Though I don't understand why he is suddenly a cyborg that makes whirring noises and drops lug nuts. There was none of that in Doctor Mysterio.

The Doctor calls Bill into his office where he confronts her about attending his classes. He wants to take her on as her personal tutor, despite her not being a student. He mentions that he noticed she smiles when she's confused, which is a good indication that she is openminded and naturally curious. It's even implied that he sees a little bit of Susan in her. I liked that little nod to Susan, though it begs the question why the new series has never had her return. While looking at the pictures, Bill indicates that she has no pictures of her mother before she died.

The Doctor uses this as an opportunity to do a kindness for his new friend Bill. Using his ability to time travel, the Doctor goes back in time to take a shoebox worth of photos of Bill's mother. Nevermind that doing this might change the trajectory of her mother's life, thus undoing any chance that she might meet Bill's father. It's a sweet moment for Bill, but it's undercut by Moffat's shitty writing. Bill notices the Doctor's reflection in one of the photos, but never brings it up. She doesn't even thank him. It doesn't really go anywhere other than to inform the audience that the TARDIS does, in fact, still work.

It's this kind of gay people need tragic backstories for no reason mentality that frames a lot of this episode. While I applaud Moffat's inclusion of a gay companion, it comes off as a middle-aged man's depiction of a young gay woman. There is diversity on the screen, but none in the writing room. This is made all the more apparent by Bill's horrible chips anecdote. Bill has a crush on a student who comes into the cafeteria where she works. So she gives her extra chips every day until it starts making the girl fat. The Doctor asks her why she is telling him this story and she replies with "I was hoping it would go somewhere." As did Steven Moffat, but it didn't. It just hangs there like a fart saying "Did I mention I was gay?"

The next few scenes take place over a montage. We see Bill and the Doctor in their respective student and tutor roles. And we also see Bill having a bit of a social life. Bill catches the starry-eyed glances of Heather at a club and they both stand there on the dance floor staring at each other. There's an implication that the two of them are into each other, but we never actually see anything to show why they would actually like one another other than raw animal attraction. In fact, their few interactions are actually rather awkward and cold. There's about as much chemistry between the two of them as there was between Clara and Danny. Which if you remember was zero.

There isn't really a whole lot of focus on anything other than characters for this episode. Moffat usually writes in one of two ways- heavy on character and light on plot, or so heavy on plot that it sits weird against his characters. This would be the former, as the plot is nearly non-existent. Bill begins to notice Heather around and tries to chat her up. Heather shows Bill a puddle that doesn't make sense considering it hadn't rained in days. I kind of love Bill's reasoning that the puddle is piss from the men on campus. That was genuinely funny. Well done, Moffat. But there is more to this puddle in that it also shows your reflection wrong. Heather notices this because the reflection of the star in her eye isn't where it should be.

Let's talk about Heather for a moment. She's a very odd character. Firstly, there is her eye, which has a defect that gives her iris a star shape. Bill asks the Doctor what kind of defect would do this, but neither the Doctor or the show has an answer. Much like Moffat's running gag from "The Curse of the Fatal Death," said- I'll explain later. But later never comes. Other than her eye, Heather's other two biggest traits are that she's most likely a lesbian and that she wants to leave. Her personality isn't really all that important other than to act as the thrust for the plot, which is sadly from another episode of Doctor Who altogether.

Doctor Who is a very old show. It’s bound to repeat itself. Chris Chibnall ripped off "The Silurians," wholesale with "The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood." I get that this was necessary as a means to re-establish the Silurians and why they've remained underground. But on other occasions, Doctor Who seems to repeat itself out of sheer laziness. Remember when the library in "Forest of the Dead," saves everyone at their time of death? Or when Missy plucks people out of their timeline at their time of death? Or when the Testimony records people in history at their time of death? Or when the Thijarians comfort people at their time of death? Because I do. So it's not surprising that when Moffat wants to steal from another episode, he steals from one from his own stint as showrunner.

The episode I'm talking about is "The Lodger," written by transphobic Brexiteer shitlord- Gareth Roberts. In it, a spaceship disguised as a top story flat lures people to their demise while searching for a pilot to take it into space. The ship's main criteria for a pilot is that the candidate be someone with wanderlust. Does any of this sound familiar? That's the exact same M.O. of the mysterious puddle. It latches onto Heather because it senses her desire to travel and extrapolates that into consent to take over her body and use her to pilot it around the universe. However, another part of Heather's psyche has kept it earthbound- a desire to be with Bill. If you remember correctly, this is very similar to how "The Lodger," ended. Craig and Sophie's desire to stay together is what kept them from being reduced to ash by a machine too stupid to realise it was killing its host.

Now, I understand that it sounds like I'm ripping on Moffat quite a bit, but I actually do like him as a writer. "Heaven Sent," is one of the best episodes in the entire history of Doctor Who. This one, however, is not great. After the puddle overtakes Heather's body, it begins to follow Bill everywhere. At first, Bill thinks the puddle is Heather, but her creepy Midnight-esque repetition of everything Bill says is enough to raise suspicion. Bill begins to run to the safety of the Doctor, where she finds him and Nardole fussing with the giant safe. The room in which the safe is located only lets friends inside, which is either telling or worrying as the puddle is able to simply wash into the room under the door. As I watched the water flow down the stairs I found myself feeling forgiving toward the effects department from "The Horror of Fang Rock." Green blobs beat slow-mo water any day.

For no reason other than it needed to be more spooky, the puddle screams like a wraith every time we see it. I loved the little addition of Heather's wet mascara adding to her ghostly appearance. The Doctor, Nardole, and Bill take a trip around space and time to see if they can shake the puddle. But no matter where they go, the puddle is never far behind. For a creature made of water, it certainly is thirsty. And trust me, that's far better a pun than the one I was considering. The WAP references were just too low of a fruit.

For reasons I can't exactly pinpoint, the Doctor decides to take the chase right in the middle of a battle between the Daleks and the Movellans. While I love the return of the Movellans in all of their Rick James majesty, it's a very weird scene. As far as I can devise, the Doctor is merely trying to see if the puddle can withstand the blast of a Dalek. It almost feels like Moffat needed to wake the audience up with a jolt of Dalek action. Up to this point, there has been very little tension. What I can't figure out is what Nardole is doing with the Fourth Doctor's sonic screwdriver the whole time. From what I can tell, he's shutting doors, closing off the corridors and locking Daleks out. Maybe? I really don't understand.

The Puddle takes the form of a Dalek just long enough to make us worry that maybe Nardole didn't get them all. Watching the Dalek disintegrate into a puddle of water was genuinely cool. I was reminded of things like the clear Dalek from "Revelation of the Daleks," or the visible innards of the teleporting Dalek in "Remembrance of the Daleks." I like it when the show does weird visual stuff with the Daleks. It's part of why I love Davros so much. The puddle reforms as Heather, holding out her hand for Bill to take, which the Doctor warns her not to take.

Part of the tragedy of the Doctor's character is how oblivious he is to human emotion. It's part of why he needs human companions in the first place. He couldn't possibly conceive of a situation where Heather's own yearning for Bill might be the cause for all of their problems. But Bill sees this. She sees the human desire underneath all of the scary and so she too reaches out, grasping hands with Heather. What I don't understand is why Heather needed to leave and see the universe without Bill. Why they needed to say goodbye at all is more of that "gays can't have nice things," bullshit I mentioned earlier. Let's walk through the logic a bit.

Toward the beginning of the episode, the Doctor explains that the acronym for TARDIS- Time and relative dimension in space, means life. If you think about this, it's him saying that life is basically you in a point of time and a point of space, relative to you. Thus it explains the very essence of being alive and experiencing the universe from your unique perspective. But toward the end of the episode, he changes this position to mean that TARDIS means "What the hell?" As in, just go ahead and live life how you choose. This comes after the Doctor trying to wipe Bill's mind and deciding he can't. This leads to the Doctor allowing himself to travel, despite the promise he made about the safe nobody cares about. Basically, Heather doesn't get to join in on the Doctor and Bill's travels because Moffat still had to do a thing.

A lot of this episode is neutered by this need to adhere to the season ark. Which I now realise is a major contributing factor as to why I so often forget Nardole is a companion. Nardole is forced to become the Doctor's babysitter, forcing him to hide his travels with Bill. Because of this, we see Nardole as more of an authority figure than a companion. He's the strict schoolmaster the Doctor and Bill are forced to sneak past on their way to adventure. What this does, sadly, is cut Nardole out of a lot of the adventures. The same thing happened to Danny Pink, whose opposition to the Doctor often times left him out of the fun. Also like Danny Pink, it's an arrangement that worked best with Rory Williams and has been imitated to hell and back since.

While I can't consider this episode a total success, I also can't write it off outright. It would be easy to damn it in a "Simpsons did it," fashion for taking its plot from a previous episode. It would be easy to write it off for being plot light queer bait where nothing really happens. I could rail on the inclusion of the Daleks for the sake of Daleks. But I have to ask myself- what is the function of this episode? The answer to this question brings me back to its title. This episode is a pilot for a new iteration of the series. We're in a new place with some new faces, and some familiar ones. The pieces on the board have changed location and strategy. If the function of this episode was to hit reset, I would say it succeeds.

Bill is a very likeable character. You immediately want to see more of her. Her introduction is both charming and endearing. The roundabout way she took to arrive at saying "it's bigger on the inside," seemed less thick than quirky, which is right on the money. You want to see more of her. You want to hear more of her questions. You want to experience the universe through the filter of her perception. We needed a companion who was different from the previous one. It was important that the audience is able to move forward with the new cast. We're not comparing Bill to Clara as many did with Martha and Rose. We're not being asked to forget the past any more than we are being asked to cling to it. This is exactly the right tone and in that way, I find it to be wholly successful.

[bltngames]

Review: Lloyd the Monkey 2

Back before TSSZ News imploded, I would often do write-ups for many of the games at the Sonic Amateur Games Expo (SAGE). SAGE is an annual online expo that I started all the way back in September of 2000. I personally ran SAGE for over a year, and remained deeply hands on for at least another two years as it continued to grow. The main focus of SAGE was primarily to showcase fangames, in particular Sonic fangames, but the event never limited itself to any one type of game. It's never been uncommon to see original games appear in the lineup -- especially now, given the modern indie scene. 

One such original game was Lloyd the Monkey, a bit of a strange game, written in Javascript of all things and run through a webpage. That by itself was notable enough to stand out from most of the games at SAGE, but Lloyd was also a completely original product created by someone who possibly seemed to be young and new to game development. Making games is no easy feat, especially when they’re written in Javascript and you’re doing tons of original artwork yourself. Taken as that whole, the game impressed me, even if it was more than a little rough around the edges.

Now we have Lloyd the Monkey 2, written in Unity. The developer, Noah Meyer, sent me a Steam key in order to review the game. Up top, I just want to say how I think it’s kind of brave to go all the way in putting the game on Steam and everything. It felt like just a few years ago, newer indie developers sort of had to work up to releasing their game on Steam, usually getting a few releases under their belt first. People view games differently when they’re asked to pay for them, and critics may not be so willing to let circumstances influence their review. It can be a harsh world out there for a beginner.

Lloyd 2 is a much bigger, more ambitious game than the first. Whereas the original Lloyd didn’t even have sound effects, Lloyd 2 introduces voiced cutscenes, some of which are full-on animated cinematics. Quality is about what you would expect -- I would assume the developer sought out friends and acquaintances to voice characters in Lloyd 2, leading to wildly varying audio quality due to differences in recording hardware. Lloyd himself sounds fine, but some of the other characters are a bit quiet, while others have clear background noise. Nothing I heard was unlistenable, however. 

The story is also a little hard to follow. Not much is done to refresh our memories as to who anyone is or what’s going on, we’re just kind of thrown into the middle of things and turned loose. On one hand, it’s nice that the story doesn’t slow the pace of the gameplay down too much. On the other, you’re given a map screen with different objectives to clear but there’s very little context as to what you’re doing or why. At one point I made my way to the end of a Power Plant level only to confront what appeared to be an evil monkey. Despite a whole cutscene involving a conversation between four or five different people, this evil monkey never seemed to say a single word. He just stood there in total silence with a sinister smile. Then I killed him.

I suppose maybe I missed something, however. With greater ambitions comes a number of unfortunate bugs in Lloyd 2, one of which happened not long after our monkey and his crew landed on planet Grecia. I entered what appeared to be a castle to talk to the Queen, but I think the game expected me to take a lower route, where I was apparently meant to overhear the Queen making secret preparations before my arrival. Instead, I took the direct route straight to her chambers, and triggered the cutscene with Lloyd standing in front of her while ominous music played, even though the camera was still clearly focused on the next floor down. I apparently still had some amount of control, because midway through her dialog I touched a teleporter that sent me to the game’s map screen before she was done talking. If that cutscene was meant to give context to what I was doing, I didn’t get a chance to see it.

That was one of the more harmless bugs in my time spent playing Lloyd 2. Harder to ignore was the fact that, within the first 30 seconds of getting control, I soft locked the game. Lloyd 2 opens with a short prologue section where you play as a man with black hair. If you decide to ignore the obvious and go left instead of right, you quickly run out of solid level tiles and begin falling indefinitely. Later areas feature invisible walls presumably to prevent this exact scenario, but for whatever reason they weren’t implemented in the prologue. 

For the most part, Lloyd 2 seems to be a co-op game. Many levels see Lloyd teamed up with an alien princess named Lura, with gameplay vaguely reminiscent of Mega Man X crossed with the tag mechanic from Sonic Mania’s Encore Mode. At the touch of a button, you can switch between the Swordsman Lloyd and the more projectile-based Lura… assuming your partner is still alive, I guess. While playing alone, your partner is controlled by artificial intelligence, but it’s incredibly basic and prone to accidentally committing suicide. That wouldn’t be such a big deal (considering Tails in Sonic 2 never acted in self-preservation either), but once your partner dies, they stay dead. Your only option to bring them back is to either restart the stage or hope another cutscene triggers, since they’ll magically spring back to life in order to say their dialog (though, again, usually only seconds before they fall back into the next death pit). 

This might not be much of a problem, depending on your viewpoint. There’s not much incentive to switch between Lloyd and Lura, so once you pick whoever you think works the best, chances are, you’ll just stick with them. You do unlock special team-up attacks after beating each boss, but this just reinforces the idea that Lloyd the Monkey 2 is meant to be experienced with another person holding a second controller, as most of the team-up attacks require both characters to do something specific that the single player artificial intelligence usually can’t interpret. Regardless, the team-up attacks never seem strictly necessary to progress, so they can be safely ignored if you’re playing solo.

I understand this is a pretty negative review I’ve written here. Lloyd the Monkey 2 aims high and tries to the best of its ability to get there. I assume it was a struggle to get even this far. Making games is hard work, and like any skill, takes practice to get good at. Just because this is Lloyd the Monkey 2 doesn’t mean Noah Meyer, its developer, is automatically an expert. I'm sure he's doing his best, and, quality aside, this game has a lot of heart put into it. This isn’t something cheap, quick, or lazy. It’s really, genuinely trying, and that matters. 

I’ve said a few times here and there that I see pieces of myself in the releases of Lloyd the Monkey, and I still see them here. I remember, for an early SAGE event, I was working on a fangame project of mine called The Fated Hour. I was probably already a year or two or maybe even three deep in the game by now, and after a lot of hyping up the community, this was their first chance to play the game. I spent months and months coding this iteration of my engine, and by my standards back then, it seemed like bleeding edge technology. I felt like I was going to blow everyone's minds. 

It was a mess. Few were impressed. Even worse, the game straight up didn’t even run correctly for some people. What followed was multiple patches, and even rebuilding some entire areas from scratch. My ambitions got the better of me and I unintentionally cut corners -- not because I was trying to cheap out on doing proper development, but just because I simply didn’t know any better. I may have done the best I knew how to do, but I was running faster than my body could keep up with and I stumbled.

When I see things like the missing invisible walls in the prologue, or how easily partner characters commit suicide by accident, I think back to that demo for The Fated Hour, and how I've been in this exact place myself. There’s even a side quest in Lloyd 2 where you have to track a floating girl as she drifts through a level -- there was a nearly identical set piece in The Fated Hour, where you were chasing a robot. It’s a very strange feeling to see something like that and think, “I’ve been here before.” Like looking through a window at a younger version of yourself.

It’s true that I stumbled, but I didn’t let that stop me. I learned by doing. I kept going. Three years later, a game of mine was featured on TV, leading to more than a million downloads. The mistakes of past projects did not weigh me down and I soldiered onwards, newfound knowledge in hand. 

So where does that leave us with Lloyd the Monkey 2, then. Well, it's not exactly a game to compete with Super Mario Odyssey, but given the circumstances in which it was created, I don't think that's necessarily the point. As a learning experience clearly made for the fun of its own creation, I think it's a success. And who knows what awaits in the years to come?

[llatimeria]

god the whole swsh thing is really frustrating bc this whole time i’ve been thinking that like, yeah, swsh is gonna be flawed. the dexit thing is dumb, gigantamaxing is dumb. Every Pokemon Game That Exists Has Dumb Parts, This Should Not Be As Big of A Deal People Are Making It Out To Be. It’s Physically Impossible for a pokemon game to be bad. gamefreak has way too many resources, and this franchise is just too big and lucrative, they would not let the game be bad. Every pokemon game up to this point has been a good, fun game, even if it’s had some dumber parts. They’ve all been High Quality and A Good Time.

but the more information that comes out abt swsh makes it look, uh. like a bad game. Just, bad! Not “Bad for pokemon”, just .. straight up bad! not fun to play, not fun to look at, and there’s little-to-no reward for playing it (no postgame or national dex...). it’s not just Not Living Up To The Potential Of Pokemon As A Franchise (which has been... kinda true of most games since like, gen5), it just... doesn’t look like it’s living up to the basic standards of console games. 

I don’t think this will be the End Of Pokemon. SWSH is still probly gonna make a profit and Despite Everything I Still Love Pokemon and I think that will be true for a lot of fans (Sonic still has a huge fandom, despite Sonic 06 being a total flop, and most of the sonic games since have been uhhhhhhh mediocre at best), so nobody’s gonna kill Pokemon completely. that would be a dumb move and terrible for all involved.

but if SWSH at least performs worse than they expected, someone high up enough might take notice and make the changes necessary to make the next games really good. hiring new people/maybe just taking it out of gamefreak’s hands entirely and giving it to a new team so Gamefreak can actually work on projects they feel passionate about, or making pokemon’s release schedule much slower so the devs can take their time to animate the Hundreds of creatures/characters AND make the plot + world cool and compelling without having to trade one or the other (Or in swsh’s case, PROBABLY NEITHER).

[crusherthedoctor]

Sonic Villains: Sweet or Shite? - Part 6: KING ARTHUR & MERLINA

There are some villains I like. And there are some villains I don’t like. But why do I feel about them the way I do? That’s where this comes in.

This is a new mini-series of mine, in which I’ll be going into slightly more detail about my thoughts on the villains in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, and why I think they either work well, or fall flat (or somewhere in-between). I’ll be giving my stance on their designs, their personalities, and what they had to show for themselves in the game(s) they featured in. Keep in mind that these are just my own personal thoughts. Whether you agree or disagree, feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions! I don’t bite. :>

Anyhow, for today’s installment, we’ll be fighting the knight while living life as we discuss the dark spirit of Sonic and the Black Knight, as well as the schemer behind the scenes: King Arthur & Merlina.

The Gist: Once upon a time, in a faraway land, a peaceful kingdom was threatened by the rule of a corrupted king. A young wizard named Merlina valiantly defied this monarch, the famous King Arthur, and attempted to escape the clutches of his evil army, but alas, she was cornered like a poor little lamb. In desperation, she called upon a brave and noble hero to help save her kingdom.

She got a blue hedgehog instead.

He did it guys, he did the thing, we can all go home now.

Eager to fight the villain of the week, Sonic was instead put aside by Merlina, who explained to him that as long as King Arthur had the scabbard of Excalibur in his possession, he was basically Jesus and couldn't be wounded in any meaningful way. She also explained that the king was once a noble soul, until the Lady of the Lake, Nimue, lended Excalibur to him, presumably under the belief that granting an ambitious ruler immortality and the power to pluck monsters from the underworld couldn't possibly be a terrible idea.

It was.

Luckily for Sonic, Merlina guided him to a forest where a poorly guarded sword was held, the one weapon capable of dealing some real damage to the evil king. Sonic even got a chance to make it count when Arthur himself showed up right after, but since this was still early on in the game, he fucked up so badly that Arthur and the sword itself - yes, the sword itself - were both laughing at him for his incompetence.

By the way, I hope you like desaturated cutscenes.

Nonetheless, the sword - who went by the name of Caliburn - decided to give the cocky teenager a chance in spite of his own reservations, and granted him the honorable title of Knave the Hedgehog. Sonic took issue with this title, because he didn't want to be mistaken for a fancharacter (probably). As they discussed their next course of action, Merlina waxed nihilistic poetry about flowers for some strange reason.

Because that's how nature works, silly girl.

So after a trip to the Blacksmith to get Caliburn in tip-top shape for regicide, Sonic went off to seek out Nimue in order to get an idea of what to actually do. Upon visiting her, he was asked to locate and gather the sacred swords, though he was forced to detract from his mission for the sake of saving some helpless townspeople from a cruel dragon, because that's just the kind of guy that Sonic the Hedgehog is... Just as well then that it was part of Nimue's test all along! (Just as well also that King Arthur was presumably patient enough to wait for Sonic to pass his tests instead of using that time to destroy the kingdom.)

All the while, he confronted the Knights of the Round Table, who - being the king's most trusted and most capable soldiers - did nothing other than get their asses handed to them.

Pictured: Useless twats.

Until at last, when everything that had to be done was done, Sonic and Caliburn went to the Faraway Avalon, where King Arthur himself dwelled. The battle was intense to say the least, but with a little help from the sacred swords, the Blue Blur prevailed, and the corrupted monarch who plagued the kingdom... dissipated? Like the Knights of the Underworld before him...? Well at least they got Excalibur back.

Seeking to get to the bottom of this mystery, Sonic brought it to Merlina's attention, who revealed that the King Arthur the hedgehog slayed was a fake, and that there never was a true King Arthur to begin with, as he was an illusion created by Merlina's grandfather, the great Merlin himself.

She also revealed the slightly more important fact that she's an evil bitch who used Sonic for her own gain, and proceeded to use Excalibur to give the hero a very bad time.

Holding a sword like that with her hair so close? Bitch is mad.

After some reassurance that all was not in vain, Sonic convinced the Knights of the Round Table to stop kissing the now-deceased Arthur's feet and help him save the kingdom for real. Using their sacred swords, the Knights formed a powerful barrier around the kingdom's castle, and then immediately proceeded to go right back to being useless.

Just kidding. The barrier wasn't even strong enough to amount to much. That puts the Knights' usefulness points right back to zero.

“Why do people call this our last hurrah again...?”

When Sonic finally confronted Merlina in her domain, with the understandable query of why she was such a manipulative witch, she revealed that her motives are less “cackling rapscallion” and more “morally grey”. You see, with the supposed rift between Sir Lancelot and Sir Gawain, and the eventual downfall of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table in general, the kingdom was doomed to suffer an undesirable fate no matter what. Seeking to fix her late grandfather's mistakes, she wanted nothing more than to create a world that would never end, for ultimate peace and prosperity... as far as she knew.

Sonic had none of it and promptly called her out on her selfish desire, but the wizard proved too much for him to handle, as evidenced by the surprisingly savage beatdown that he received immediately after. Caliburn got broke in half for his troubles, and the Knights commanded the hedgehog to get the hell out of there, but Sonic remained stubborn, as he never backs down no matter the opponent. This eventually paid off for him, as his heroic nature inexplicably summoned the power that granted him a new form: the knight in shiny gold armor, Excalibur Sonic. This was fortunately just the right amount of power necessary to defeat Merlina's final form of King Arthur 2: This Time It's Personal.

Beaten, but not outright killed, the depowered Merlina was left a broken woman. But Sonic wasn't afraid to show a bit of compassion to the wizard, as he gave her the advice that while the world may not last forever, we must live our lives to the fullest, and make the time that we do have count.

"Well yeah, that’s easy for an iconic mascot like you to say. As soon as this game is over, my career is finished. Eat shit, rodent.”

Also, Sonic turns out to be the real King Arthur. Because self-inserts are canon. Credits!

The Design: King Arthur's design is a bit on the generic side for Sonic standards, but it's decent enough for the type of villain that he is. Though you do have to wonder how he can stand upright with those gigantic shoulder pads of his.

This photo was taken moments before his kneecaps crumbled into dust.

Meanwhile, Merlina heavily resembles Shahra from Black Knight’s predecessor, as befitting of her initial role as Shahra's replacement for Black Knight, as well as making her true role all the more surprising.

“Shahra? No. I'm my own original character... Backstabbhra.”

When the latter becomes the Dark Queen, she initially settles for turning purple and gaining some fashionable feathers, before unleashing her final form which basically amounts to a collection of blue and black tentacles.

Typical angsty teenage phase.

Arthur and Merlina's designs overall are... okay. Just okay.

The Personality: As someone who is more a force of nature than an actual character, King Arthur's personality amounts to saying a bunch of evil things and not much else. That's alright though, since Merlina is the true villain of this particular story, so it’s her personality that counts here.

But here's the problem... Merlina doesn't have much personality either. She spends the first half of the story taking the role of the typical assistant, and the second half whinging about how her kingdom will be ruined unless she does something about it. That is all you get with her. Yes, there is clearly meant to be more to her, as evidenced with her misguided beliefs and her relationship with her grandfather, but very little is actually done with those aspects beyond giving Sonic more things to lecture her and shout at her for.

The Execution: On paper, Merlina is a character who should be among the greatest of Sonic villains.

On paper.

But you see, while she is unique in the sense of being the rarity of a female villain AND an anti-villain in a Sonic game... there really isn't anything else going for her. Once you get past those two initial brownie points, you don't have much of real interest left. You may get a cool moment like the aforementioned beatdown of Sonic come the endgame, but you're given no reason to actually care about the person doing the deed, despite the game wanting you to do so.

“I've not been given any particular reason to do so, so no.”

There's a lot of telling with Merlina, rather than showing. She's presented as a well-intentioned extremist, but we're given no reason whatsoever to actually bother trying to see things her way, even if we would still ultimately acknowledge that what she's doing is wrong. Even Sonic himself doesn't bother considering her side of the story for a second, and while that is certainly in-character for the Blue Blur, it makes Merlina's anti-villain status - one of the very aspects that makes her unique among Sonic villains - fall flat all the more. Likewise, the only information we get about why the kingdom is destined to be doomed comes straight from Merlina's mouth, and that's it. We're never shown an example of what exactly she wants to prevent aside from vaguely alluded ruination, therefore we're given less reason to express actual interest in her motivation and goals.

Also, it must be stated: There wasn't nearly enough foreshadowing with her true intentions. Of course you don’t want to beat the player over the head to the point where they can see the twist coming from a mile away, but you still need a decent amount of build up to make a twist work, otherwise it practically comes out of nowhere. And since you don’t even need to count the hints with one hand in Merlina’s case, it does feel out of nowhere.

Overall, Merlina - and King Arthur, for that matter - are just kind of forgettable at the end of the day. Not terrible. Not outright bad. Just forgettable. And it's a huge shame, because Merlina COULD have been amazing. She had all the ingredients to stand out and be in the same tier as the likes of Eggman and Erazor. But she simply can't live up to the likes of them because there wasn't enough sufficient effort to make her truly blossom as the type of antagonist she was intended to be. There was something good going on with her, I can acknowledge and appreciate that there was something good going on with her... it just wasn't enough.

Which is kind of how I feel about Sonic and the Black Knight in general. It doesn’t do an awful lot with the things that it gets praised for. And the story as a whole - while serving as a great character analysis for Sonic himself - is just kind of boring for an actual narrative in a Sonic the Hedgehog game.

My favourite Sonic game is the one where Sonic made fun of attempted suicide.

Crusher Gives King Arthur & Merlina a: Thumbs Sideways!

[greed-the-dorkalicious]

What I assume Yugioh is about based on having seen like less than 20 episodes of it

Because I used to do this every time I started reading a new Jojo part, just to see how much I got right and how much I got wrong. I don’t think anything will ever top “Rohan Kishibe is a high schooler who draws Chris Hart-esque anime art and thinks he’s a pro mangaka and his stand, Killer Queens, is made of bees, but maybe this will at least be slightly amusing. (Also I know it’s kinda late for this but listen, they still haven’t even gotten to Yami’s backstory, I still have genuinely no fucking clue what the actual overall plot of Yugioh is)

Anyway so here are the characters

Yuugi Mutotutotototuto

No for real tho is it Moto or Mutou someone explain this to me please

Looks like he’s 10 but is actually 15 and very short, which is relatable

Sunshine goth

MY SON NOW.

So fucking nice and good and loves his friends

I think uh... I think he’s like mixed race and that’s why his hair is like that? Not that that makes literally any sense whatsoever but I feel like I remember someone saying something like that

I think he’s like the reincarnation of an ancient pharaoh, or maybe just his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-whatever-grandson

Was able to solve the Millennium Puzzle because of this and also probably because he’s good at games idk

The pure-hearted chosen one who can win every battle even if he’s at a disadvantage because he Believes in the Heart of the Cards. Still don’t know what the fuck that even means but I support him so much

Just a perfect boy

I’m willing to bet a large portion of the fandom thinks he’s a boring protagonist. I say this entirely based on the fact that he is a genuinely nice and optimistic person and god knows fandoms can’t handle characters who aren’t assholes

If you talk shit about Yugi I will show up at your house and eat all of your Yugioh cards. This is non-negotiable

Yami Yugi

The ghost of a pharaoh who was just Really Good At Games and maybe some sort of god or something idk. But I guess maybe he has amnesia?

His real name is Atem but nobody calls him that

Also my son now I love him so much I would die for him thanks

Anyway he lives in the Millennium Puzzle and occasionally possesses Yugi’s body and SOMEHOW this completely changes Yugi’s eye shape, makes his hair even MORE complicated and also makes him taller.

A fucking sadistic bitch

But like a good one though. Like I think he’s a good guy, he just needs to learn to Chill The Fuck Out For Once In His Goddamn Life. It’s ok though Yugi will teach him about the power of friendship and then it’ll be fine

Apparently kills people in the manga, which I guess would make him my legally allotted one (1) irredeemable murderboy I’m allowed to stan

Died tragically and violently after he... uh... he uh... he got framed for cheating at go? Anyway so that’s why his ghost lives in the Millennium Puzzle because I guess maybe he wants revenge or something??

In the most bizarre anti-bullying aesop I have EVER seen, whenever someone wrongs Yuugi or his friends Yami will show up and completely fucking eviscerate them

Just loves games so much, doesn’t matter what game it is or who he’s playing with or why, he will play any game anywhere anytime and will probably send someone into a coma in the process

In conclusion I’d die for him thanks for coming to my TED talk

Seto Kaiba

The antagonist, I guess

Had green hair but then they took it away. Why did they do that

Very mean, I do not like him. I guess he probably has a tragic backstory and Is Actually A Nice Guy Deep Down™ but I still don’t like him

Like a bazillionaire because he owns Kaibacorp. I have no idea what they do. Maybe they manufacture duel disks? Which are like these things you wear on your arm so you can put cards on it. Like a little table for your arm. I don’t know why this is necessary or special but everyone has one

Obsessed with Yami because he is So Good At Games that Kaiba thinks he’s his true rival or some shit idek

Technically could be compared to Akira Touya but I don’t want to because Akira is a very nice and good boy and Kaiba is at best an Ochi

Joey Jounouchi

Yugi’s bff and for some reason the only one of the Crewgi I ever hear anything about so I’m just going to assume this means he is plot relevant somehow

He is the delinquent who picks up stray kittens in the rain

Looks like an asshole but actually a decent dude

Has the exact same fucking backstory as Dio Brando, but like, isn’t an absolute garbage boy, unlike Dio

Was in a gang when he was a kid, a gang with yo-yos. Except in the manga it wasn’t yo-yos, I forgot what it was. Knives? Or maybe hockey sticks? Maybe hockey sticks with knives taped to them??

Trying his best

Chadhotep

That isn’t his real name. I forgot what his real name is. I tried really hard to remember it but I couldn’t so now his name is Chadhotep

An Egyptian priest, not sure if he’s somebody’s reincarnation or immortal or a time traveler or just a regular guy who has Been Doing This For Generations

Has the Millennium Key, which presumably goes to the Millennium Lock and grants the user the power of fucking Shugo Chara whatever

Not really sure who’s side he’s on tbh

I feel like... he’s what Avdol could have been if Araki had gone more for the “badass pyromancer Egyptian fortune teller” thing like he had in chapter 1 instead of him being a constantly distressed mom friend. Not that this is a criticism of Avdol!! I love Avdol so much, he’s perfect, however I feel like Chadhotep could be like... an alternate Avdol I guess

I think he’s like Knuckles but instead of guarding the Master Emerald he guards the Millennium Items?

Haven’t actually seen him in like 10 episodes since Yami like... fuckin... imprisoned him in his mind palace for all eternity or some shit, is he ok?

Mokona Modoki

Kaiba’s little brother?????????

How

I guess he has like an Emporio Alniño thing going on?

Why is he here. He’s a child. Tell him to go home

I bet he’s supposed to be like 5 and speaks like a 15 year old because nobody knows how to write kids. That or he only looks like he’s 5 and is actually like 14

I don’t know anything about him but Kaiba is a bad role model

Thief King Bakura

I don’t actually know much about this guy because he hasn’t showed up yet but I think he’s the other antagonist?

Presumably the ghost of Yami’s ancient political rival, lives in the... what even is that. The fucking like. The Millennium Tambourine I guess

You know in Death Note when it’s revealed that there’s a whole orphanage full of L clones training to become the next Batman or whatever? He looks like he escaped from there

Presumably wants to steal all the Millennium Items so he can summon Shenron or vore god or some shit. I don’t actually know what all the others are but I’m going to assume there are 7 in total because that’s how magic item sets in anime work

Ok I know I made a Knuckles joke already but this dude legit looks more like a Sonic character than absolutely anyone else so far

And that’s everything I know about Yugioh, thanks. In case it isn’t obvious I took benadryl today and I haven’t been more than 60% awake since then

[undertheinfluencerd]

https://ift.tt/38EEydD #

Warning: SPOILERS ahead for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.

The Shang-Chi of the MCU, while great, is vastly different from the one in the comics. The film, which opens this weekend, has generated incredibly positive reviews from critics and the first wave of fans who have seen it; currently, it holds a 93% critics score and an even higher 98% from audiences. Much of that is thanks to the incredible fight choreography and action sequences, as well as the touching story of a broken family at its core.

However, that story wouldn’t be possible without the stellar cast of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. It’s comprised of a mix of martial arts and movie veterans like Tony Leung (Wenwu/the Mandarin), Michelle Yeoh (Ying Nan), and Benedict Wong (Wong), scene-stealers like Meng’er Zhang (Xialing) and Fala Chen (Jian Li), and rising stars like Awkwafina (Katy) and Florian Munteanu (Razor Fist). Of course, it’s Simu Liu’s movie to lead as the titular Shang-Chi and he’s more than up to the task, with his carefree, jovial Shang-Chi just figuring out who he is and his place in the world.

Related: Shang-Chi Cast & Character Guide: All New & Returning MCU Actors

Marvel comic book readers, however, will notice his portrayal in the MCU is a far cry from how he is in the comics. Over the years, the MCU has modified a number of characters in looks and personality from the comics to the big screen, or it’s gone the other way and the depiction of the character on the screen has influenced changes in the comics. Rarely, though, has Marvel made such a change from the comics to a main character, though it’s understandable why it was done that way. Here’s how Simu Liu’s Shang-Chi departs from the comics.

Initially, in the comics, Shang-Chi never had superpowers. Yet, he was the “Master of Kung Fu,” with the skilled fighter being able to channel the energy of chi (or qi) to the point that it seemed as though he was superhuman, thanks to having been trained by his father, Fu Manchu, and his tutors from infancy in martial arts. Even without superpowers, Shang-Chi is so skilled that he’s been able to go toe-to-toe with and beat numerous superhuman opponents, with Ares even once acknowledging that Shang-Chi is one of the few mortals who can hold their own against actual gods without resorting to magic. Widely respected and recognized as being one of the greatest fighters in the Marvel universe, training such other impressive fighters as Captain America and Wolverine. He even trained Spider-Man in a new style of fighting they invented, named Way of the Spider/Spider-fu, when the wallcrawler temporarily lost his spider-sense.

However, Shang-Chi has been granted powers at various times in the comics (though it could be argued that permanent honed ability to sense and manipulate chi functions as a superpower in and of itself). For example, he once briefly gained the same powers as Spider-Man during the Spider-Island event; another time he used Pym Particles to grow in size. Following exposure to radiation, Shang-Chi gained the ability in recent years to create duplicate copies of himself that had all his martial arts skills and still possessed the same knowledge he did. In a different continuity (read: reality), Shang-Chi was able to master all but one of the 10 techniques of the Ten Rings school, but thus far, he’s had yet to keep any of the superpowers he gained, at least in the main canon.

The MCU took quite a few liberties with Simu Liu’s version of Shang-Chi, though that’s not necessarily a bad thing. While a number of things about his family and backstory were changed, two changes were the most significant. One, Shang-Chi’s father was changed from Fu Manchu to the Mandarin for the movie. This change killed two birds with one stone: One, it addressed the problematic racial stereotype of Fu Manchu by cutting him from the movie. Two, it helped rehabilitate the character of the Mandarin, which has been a sore spot since Iron Man 3‘s Mandarin/Trevor Slattery fakeout in 2013.

Related: Trevor Slattery’s MCU Future After Shang-Chi

The second significant change is that Shang-Chi grows up knowing exactly the villain his father is and the organization he runs. In the comics, Shang-Chi grew up believing his father to be a humanitarian and that any target his father put a hit on was evil and that killing them was a noble act. However, after he completes his first assassination for his father in New York City, Shang-Chi comes across an enemy of Fu Manchu who tells him the truth, which is confirmed by his mother, at that time also living in NYC. Obviously, this is a much different dynamic than Shang-Chi in the movie, who has no illusions about his father’s motivations.

Interestingly, however, the Shang-Chi of the MCU is much more lighthearted and some might argue immature than the Shang-Chi of the comics. The Shang-Chi of the comics is extremely serious and not prone to joking around, but also calm and extremely level-headed. The few times he’s allowed anger to get the better of him, even killed, have brought great shame to Shang-Chi and, despite being a master fighter, he deeply dislikes being immersed in violence, preferring tranquility. These moments have usually resulted in him retreating from the world to solitude in order to find inner peace again.

In many ways, Shang-Chi’s powers and abilities are the things that remain closest to the comic books. On his own, Shang-Chi doesn’t have any superpowers; in fact, it’s not even clear that he yet has the mastery of chi that his comic book counterpart does. Yet, Shang-Chi receiving the Ten Rings by the end of the movie hints that the MCU may be adapting and combining a few elements from the comics for Shang-Chi’s future.

As noted above, at one point in the Battleworld continuity in the comics, Shang-Chi mastered nine of the Ten Rings school’s 10 techniques. Those techniques were themselves modeled on the individual powers of the Mandarin’s Ten Rings in the mainstream continuity. If Marvel does indeed go this route and give MCU Shang-Chi the powers of the Mandarin’s Ten Rings from the comics, he could end up being one of the MCU’s most powerful heroes. Those powers could include

Ice Blast/”Zero” (left pinky) – Can create waves of cold and ice or freeze an opponent to death

Black Light/”Nightbringer” (right pinky) – Can create an area of absolute darkness that absorbs all light

Mento-Intensifier/”The Liar” (left ring finger) – Can increase his psionic energy, enabling him to mind-control people & create illusions

Disintegration Beam/”Spectral” (right ring finger) – Creates a beam that can destroy any matter it touches, though it requires 20 minutes to recharge

Electro-Blast/”Lightning” (left middle finger) – Can emit electricity blast, though its upper limit is not known

Vortex Beam/”Spin” (right middle finger) – Can create a vortex capable of levitating and throwing objects or helping the wearer to fly

Flame Blast/”Incandescence” (left index finger) – Can generate an infrared heat beam or blast that can cause explosions or set things on fire

Impact Beam/”Influence” (right index finger) – Can project different types of energy to send out concussive waves, create sonic vibrations, or magnetically attract or repel objects

White Light/”Daimonic” (left thumb) – Can project different forms of energy along the electromagnetic spectrum, including increasing the gravity in an area enough to crush someone into the earth

Matter Rearranger/”Remaker” (right thumb) – Can rearrange atoms and molecules to completely transform objects or transmute their state

Related: How The Ten Rings’ Powers Work In The MCU & Marvel Comics

Granted, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings wasn’t very clear about what exactly the rings can do. Some of the things Mandarin was shown doing in the movie while wearing the Ten Rings were akin to their powers in the comics, including sending out concussive waves, energy blasts, being fired as projectiles that return to him, increasing his strength, and so forth. However, it’s unclear if each ring has a different power in the MCU or if they all function as one unit with many powers to unlock.

The reason for a number of the changes in the live-action version of Shang-Chi was simply cultural necessity. Shang-Chi may have been modeled on kung fu legend Bruce Lee and meant as a tribute to martial arts, but he was created in the ’70s, when offensive cultural and racial stereotypes were still rife in comics. Key to this was his father being Fu Manchu, an infamously problematic character, the epitome of the “yellow peril” racial stereotype that has long plagued Western culture by depicting most Asian characters, particularly from China or Japan, as evil villains out to destroy the West. To put it into context, when Sax Rohmer created Fu Manchu in the early 1900s, he claimed he asked his Ouija board what would make him money and the board spelled out “C-H-I-N-A-M-A-N.” So it was necessary to change significant parts of Shang-Chi’s backstory to modernize it for our current times.

But there’s likely also a reason that Marvel changed Shang-Chi’s personality and powers, as well. For starters, the live-action version is a Shang-Chi who is earlier in his journey than most of the stories from the comics. Likewise, he’s grown up knowing exactly who his father is ever since his mother died, so he doesn’t have to grapple with the brutal betrayal of his father or of realizing his entire life had been a lie like the Shang-Chi in the comics. The MCU version may not be as serious or as laser-focused on his quest to wipe out his father’s evil, but that just gives him more flexibility to join different teams or embark on different missions.

As far as his powers go, there are a few important reasons to change those from the comics, as well. For better or for worse, superpowered heroes have always been seen as the upper tier of the MCU, while non-powered individuals have been lower tier. Though Black Widow and Hawkeye were both equally members of the Avengers as their teammates with superpowers, they’ve always been treated as second-class citizens, with their storylines largely being sidelined or fans overlooking them. Half the time, they’re not even included in official Avengers merchandise, even when it’s from Marvel itself. Having the MCU’s first Asian superhero be a normal, nonpowered human would not have been a good look, considering the precedent Marvel has set to this point.

Related: Shang-Chi’s China Backlash Explained: Why Marvel Can’t Release The Movie (Yet)

Not all of Shang-Chi’s changes are necessarily good or bad as they’re minor. But certain ones are quite good for the MCU. Of course, there’s the issue of modernizing the MCU representation of Shang-Chi to get rid of racial stereotypes and the remnants of orientalism that have clung to him in the comics. With those changes to Shang-Chi, he’s a character that offers true inclusion and representation for the Asian and Asian-American community.

Giving the Ten Rings to Shang-Chi is a great thing for the future of the MCU, as well. It’s almost a narrative necessity for the MCU’s Shang-Chi to have superpowers. MCU Phase 4 has shown a good number of its characters already leveling up enormously in powers, especially the magic-casters like Scarlet Witch, Loki, Doctor Strange, and the multiverse has been ripped wide open. At this point, throwing a non-powered rookie superhero into the mix and expecting them to make an impact or even be able to hold their own is somewhat absurd. The power disparity was already an issue back in Phases 2 and 3 but was somewhat mitigated by the fact the magic users were nerfed and Captain Marvel wasn’t introduced until just a few years ago. But now, any heroes stepping into the proverbial ring for the first time have to enter at a level far greater than the original Avengers to make a difference. With the events Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings sets up, the next Avengers lineup will be vastly more powerful than the one that came before, which they will need if they’re to face the growing multiverse threats coming their way.

Next: Shang-Chi Ending Explained: 6 Biggest Questions, Answered

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