#also the black arms from shadow the hedgehog

[emeraldhub225]

What I unpicked is that Shadow can 'die' - being stuck in stasis - but he is stuck in a limbo, and can be reawakened at any time.

Something like Shadow should genuinely be harder to create than destroy. If Gerald and Black doom worked together, they may have a chance of killing him. Since he is artificial, he won't have a chance of going into the afterlife (there is a canon afterlife, Shadow himself stated), but on the other hand, Black Doom gave him life. His army may have gone to hell, it isn't exactly confirmed. What is confirmed that the black arms are living organisms, and can die. It doesn't necessarily mean Shadow can too, since he likely has the base of his body made into a hedgehog (confirmed by Maria), and the spirit that Black Doom gave him, (made of somebody with a kind heart, because that is what Gerald would order, instead of a destructive heart which Black Doom would've wanted).

It leaves his spirit open for chemistry as Black Doom altered with it many times, I believe in SA2 he was actually remotely controlled by Black Doom rather than Gerald to take revenge for Maria. In the Shadow manga, Maria wasn't exactly killed by a GUN soldier, she was indirectly killed by Black Doom to provoke Shadow into destroying the world 50 years later, which adds onto the point that Black Doom manipulates him.

Black Doom is dead, but with things like the time eater, he is brought back. Mephiles stated that in the future, Shadow's power is feared, hitting at a slight possibility that by one way or the other, Black Doom came back. The point is if he could die, he would end up in hell if he had a possessed spirit, and he would end up in heaven if he got to choose his own path.

A way do disband Shadow completely is by wiping him out of time like Solaris. Solaris was wiped out by blowing a flame, while Shadow doesn't have something like a lone flame. He isn't a diety of sorts, but deities were messed around with in Sonic 06, so if somebody as smart as Gerald or Egggman, or have the powers of Black Doom, they could find one and create something similar to a flame to abolish Shadow from the past, present, and the future. He wouldn't he in hell or heaven, he would have no life to die from, and he would have no birth to live from. No limbo, no stasis, just completely gone.

This would be the similar to travelling back in time by inducing a chaos control (in my AU, Gerald created a realititve mirror which he could use to make it function like there are two people if he is the only male hedgehog left. In my terms, he could find a scientist that could create it) to travel back to where Gerald was thinking about Project Shadow, and do something to wipe himself out.

This also messes with Shadow's reasoning for ending his life. He isn't the type of person to end himself, although circumstances could change and again, he could get manipulated.

Stated somewhere where I don't remember, or it's a theory, Shadow wouldn't time travel to save Maria. In Sxsg, Shadow wanted to tell Maria about what was going to happen at the ARK, but didn't, as Gerald told him not to and for the fact that rewriting the past causes many complications. What if Shadow was at such a low, he didn't care about complications? He didn't care about the timeline being all wibbily wobboly, even if that wasn't what Maria wanted. Compromising his thoughts to Maria only wanting the Earth and humanity to be safe, he travels back in time to save his loved ones? He could also be turned back on this opportunity, since it could do more harm to him than not.

(In Sonic generations and Forces, Sonic regularly hung out with classic Sonic, I wonder how he doesn't worry about the complications of visiting the past and his past self. He's the type of person to never consider the long run, but when has the long run ever failed because of him in this situation?)

Either way, his loved ones are all mortals, and he would have to lose them one way or the other. He could bring them back by time travel over and over again to live his life forever with the same people, but lifetime over lifetime he doesn't keep repeating history because he knew what happened before, and to prevent it from happening again he does something different. For example, if Shadow went on a picnic on Jan 2nd 2025, the next time he revisits Jan 2nd 2025, he will go on a hiking trip.

But this doesn't mean Shadow is dead, it means Shadow doesn't want to be dead.

What if there was a being transcending Shadow completely, that it was capable of killing him (taking his spirit out of his body) using not strength, but magic? What if this being could creage a gateway between reality and afterlife, which Shadow could use? This would mean, as a being so powerful, Shadow could be awaken back into reality. On the other hand, this also means that every other mortal can be brought back to life.

Anyways, another method of killing him would probably be to shred him into a gazillion pieces, melted into a soup, then ejaculated into the other side of the universe so nobody could put it back together. If somebody did happen to rebuild him, he wouldn't be the same person, unless the person that rebuilds him are his creators, Gerald (brought back by Black Doom's ability to toy with time) and Black Doom. For him to be ejaculated into the 88494847371694938726 corners of the universe, his memory would be a part of those pieces. If Shadow has a brain, it will be in it, or if his memory part is artificial he would have a chip. His creators could regather the pieces and glue him together. This brings the question to where his spirit went - it cannot be shredded just like his body. Without the spirit to power the memory, the memory would be useless. So for the spirit that is still living on somewhere, Black Doom can bring it back and resummon life to Shadow. I believe that if they do this perfectly, it will be the same Shadow the hedgehog from before. (Ignore that humans and someone like Black Doom that was defeated by Shadow can have many anomalies in their work.)

The chaos emeralds brought Sonic back to life in Sonic 06. He wasn't fully dead, and his spirit was still felt by Elise. This is the same as when Shadow was 'dead', after SA2, after the meterex saga, etc. The 7 chaos emeralds could've brought Shadow back too. If negative chaos emeralds existed with the same power, they could banish Shadow's spirit instead of bringing it back into his body. At the same time, the negative chaos emeralds do not need to exist. The chaos emeralds adjust to the person using it, if they have a good heart, the emeralds will be used for a good purpose, stated in Sonic X. If the person has a bad heart, the chaos emeralds will be used for a bad purpose.

All 7 chaos emeralds have only worked for a good purpose when with Shadow. When Sonic 'died', everybody there when reviving him had good intentions. If Shadow was 'dead', it brings the question to whether it is the people around him that will make the emeralds act in a negative way, or Shadow himself will prevent the negative causes just by being there. Eggman doesn't have a pure heart, and he was there while reviving Sonic, and Sonic came back to life. It was 8 against 1, though, and he wanted Sonic to be back.

It could be said that Elise was the one handling the emeralds. It could also be said that the emeralds had a good cause because of Sonic and Elise's connection. If a villain with bad intentions collected the 7 emeralds to kill Shadow in stasis, with Shadow's good relation to chaos, the effect could be cancelled out.

Last point, in Sonic X, Shadow said the best part of his life was being 'dead'. He may enjoy being in stasis. 😆

Shadow can’t die, not really.

He’s immortal, an experiment he was built from the ground up. He was made to be a cure, to outlive everything and everyone. To be invulnerable.

He can’t die 

When all is gone thousand of years into the future, what will happen? He’ll have nothing left, everything will be gone but him. Maybe a way to die would be to undo everything. 

Take apart his body and mind, unmake him by the atoms, unmake what was made. Separate the consciousness from the body, separate what made him alive. But where would you put what you unmade? He would still be there, because you broke something doesn’t make it gone. you still have the parts that made it together, that held him up and made him a being. He would still be there, a lingering sense of what he used to be, who he used to be. 

Or maybe not, maybe he is gone, separating them you might be killing him, stripping him of what made him himself. But he’s still there, or maybe not, after all you might’ve taken him apart but if you put it back together, is it the same?

He’s not the same mobian that met Maria,

He’s not the same mobian who fought with Sonic,

He’s not the same mobian that fought black doom,

That fought to choose for himself, and not what others told him was him,

Choose to make something of himself,

Chose to be, 

Chose to live.

May be the same pieces but they were still pulled apart, they were still undone, they were put back together yes. But that doesn’t change the fact they are not where they used to be, they don’t have the same connection or maybe even the same place. 

That may look like shadow, and think like him, have the same memories as him, but is it him? 

Or maybe it is, after all it is the same pieces when you pull him apart it’s still the same guy, that’s still him, he didn’t pass, he has the same parts same consciousness.

He still, there. He’s unmade, not dealing with what was, he’s gone but that’s not mercy, that’s not death. He’s gone, but not really. He still didn’t pass.

If there is an afterlife he wouldn’t join it, he can’t, he didn’t pass, he was unmade, torn apart by the seams, he was unbuilt, separated, but he didn’t die. 

Maybe the closest thing would be stasis but that’s not death either, that’s more like a sleep, a deep sleep. He’s not conscious but he is awake, that’s not death, time is moving, he is not, but he’s not DEAD.

In all of these versions he would still be awake, and after that he would be alone, he would never have what he used to have, he would never have the life he fought for, the friends he fought for. He would be alive but not really he wouldn’t be living, maybe he would just be awake, a consciousness of what he was, can be, an is. But he’s still alone.

Maybe that’s how he was always meant to be, 

Alone.

Awake.

[thecoolertails]

sega has no idea that sonic the hedgehog is about colonization

[izuizzy]

realized I never posted this one but here!

*throws ultimate lifespawn shadow at you*

[donelywell]

Club Ruby (Team Dark) members in the Road Trip AU! (they're under the cut, I just don't want to take up too much of your space)

I have shown off Shadow before because Fearless: Year of Shadow was announced, but I have the rest of the family done too!

The clothes drawn on them are just an outfit, they change clothes all the time (like regular people), so don't be surprised if I draw them wearing something different from what was drawn here.

[luuxxart]

db anon cont. sorry if that last ask sounded weird i just love dragon ball so much. honestly the way you draw children especially kind of reminds me of the og dragon ball artstyle like kid goku and krillin and etc, which is very charming to me. i hope you're enjoying it!

UWAUAAU THANK YOU! I’m not sure if you mean the way I draw persona kids or the sonic fankids bc I can confirm I have sonic fankids that are based 100% on gohan, trunks, and goten,,,

[fosermi]

what's it like for Sonic and Shadow, in the first weeks after becoming parents?

Oh its definitely very hectic that's for sure.

the first day, neither Sonic nor Shadow wanted to touch the twins, mostly because Sonic has no experience with babies and Shadow is too scared to hold them, fearing that he might accidentally hurt them. They end up calling Amy who comes quickly (it was like at 3 in the morning lmao) ready to help as much as she can but she also has 0 experience with kids. When tails woke up he began doing as much research as he could about baby care. Both Sonic and Shadow agreed that they're not ready for kids. Totally not ready for kids. Agreed that they would put them up for adoption. That is a lie, they got attached within the next day.

For the rest of the first week, Sonic and Shadow try their best to take care of the twins but its harder than they thought. While Shadow seems to be taking to the role of parent almost naturally, Sonic is struggling a lot. (so is Shadow but there's only one room in this relationship for a panicking parent) Its only when Knuckles came over and pointed out that they could ask Vanilla for advice did they start getting their act together. They still struggled to get used to this new adjustment to their lifestyle though.

[hall0wedwyrm]

saying it now, before i forget:

If 'I Am All of Me' is NOT in Sonic 3... i am going to riot.

its SHADOWS SONG. and if they pull out some bs like 'All Hail Shadow' i will also be causing a fist fight.

Also extra bonus points if they somehow:

a. get Crush 40 to come back and cover it for the movie (they did the live tour thing and even covered it there so why wouldnt they do it again??)

b. get literally any emo or rock bad to cover it. My top and unrealistic pick is Fall Out Boy or MCR, but like I'll settle for them bringing back Kellin Quinn to do it. Please it would be really cool and also you guys did it 4 times for Frontiers please please PLEASE

i WILL NOT accept some dumbass rap song with some rapper ive never heard of. Thats not the vibe i think anyone wants. and its not Shadow's vibe, and this is the chance to get the younger audience into Shadow's character and story

that is all have a good day

[mephiles-the-jester]

sonic and shadow can have one more baby as a treat,but its gonna look kinda like black doom and its name is gonna imply that hes gonna kill king arthur who is sonic,,just how it goes cant change this

do not worry tho,take this drawing of him and his siblings,,so happy

[randomheros]

Ok, for this train of thought, lets say Silver is Shadow's son. and let's also say Silver eventually marries Blaze and has a child.

The family tree of that child is absolutely wild. Silver and his child are Eggman's cousins. Silver is Black Dooms grandchild, and Eclipses nephew. Silver's child is Black Dooms great grandchild. Shadow's daughter in law is now Blaze, and his grandchild is the princess/prince of an entire other planet.

[penxil]

shadow my friend shadow. he's my friend and his name is shadow btw

[infizero]

oh sonic doesnt know what humans are...... thats. interesting. i have many questions now

[thankskenpenders]

Thoughts on Sonic 3!

On December 10th, 2018, I was on the last day of a trip to Milwaukee. The night before, I'd attended the wedding of one of my best friends, Jake, who I've known since high school. Even though half of us were sick the whole trip, it was a great time. Derek had asked the wedding DJ to play "One Week" as the first request of the night, and proceeded to lip sync the entire song on the dance floor. On that cold winter morning in a hotel room hundreds of miles from home, Derek and I groggily checked Twitter on our phones and saw the shocking news: Paramount had teased the design for Sonic from their upcoming live action film. Even in silhouette, the shape of his face and the realistic curvature of his limbs made him look like a grotesque little homunculus. This movie was going to suck.

Six years later, I've now seen the third entry in what's become a hugely successful Sonic film franchise. It features Keanu Reeves as the voice of Shadow the Hedgehog in a fairly faithful adaptation of his story from Sonic Adventure 2. At the time of writing, it currently sits at a whopping 86% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes, vying for the title of the best-reviewed theatrically released video game movie of all time. Critics are saying nice things about the emotional journey of Shadow the Hedgehog. Never in a million years did I think I'd see this day.

I, too, have now seen this movie, and... yeah, it's pretty good.

I'm gonna get deep into spoilers here, so I'll just say up front that I liked the movie. It feels like just about the best possible execution of this version of Sonic. But that's also damning it with faint praise, depending on who you ask.

If you're a fan of the games who didn't like the second movie, you probably won't get much out of this one, either, unless you just really love Shadow so much that nothing else in the movie matters to you. It doesn't reinvent the wheel for this film series. It's still got a heaping helping of broad comedy, cheap pop culture references, bad one-liners, and characterization that diverges greatly from the source material. This is not high art, nor is it a direct adaptation of Sonic Adventure 2. If you're the kind of person who hates this portrayal of Sonic and Eggman, or a lore nerd who'll hate that they let Shadow do Chaos Control without an Emerald, then just don't bother with this.

On the other hand, if you did enjoy the last movie, then you'll probably have a fun time here, too. Shadow is very cool. The action is the best it's ever been. There's a bit more focus on characters from the games, and less on human characters invented for the movies—with the exception of Agent Stone, who's in this a lot because everyone likes him. There's a lot of SA2 fanservice. They even play "Live and Learn." It's a fun time! Be sure to stick around through the end credits.

And now, to dig deeper, let's get into the spoilers! I'm gonna jump around a lot and talk about different aspects of the movie, spoiling everything along the way.

Shadow and his reams of lore

Here's the main thing you came for: Shadow is great in this! They really did him justice. Keanu Reeves is extremely solid in the role. He can be a bit flat as an actor sometimes, but I think he did well here. He can be tough and menacing, but he can also be earnest and emotionally vulnerable. Good casting call. Excited at the prospect of seeing more of him in the future.

Really, as a Sonic Lore Nerd I'm most interested in discussing the changes they made to Shadow's backstory. I'm sure there will be many fans upset with the changes, but for the sake of streamlining a complicated backstory that was subject to a bunch of retcons and multiple layers of amnesia and fitting it into a 110-minute movie, I think they generally made smart choices.

For one, Gerald didn't create Shadow using Black Arms DNA, because Gerald didn't create Shadow at all! Instead, Shadow arrived on Earth inside a meteor, and Gerald was merely the prominent GUN scientist who studied him after he was captured. (That meteor does have very strong Black Arms vibes, though, so I wouldn't rule out the possibility of them exploring that stuff in the future.) This simplifies things a lot and allows Shadow to be a direct foil for Sonic, kind of a version of our hero who was treated as a lab rat and lost the only human he considered family instead of finding happiness like Sonic has. Then later Shadow hurts Tom and Sonic wants revenge, and it mirrors Shadow's feelings about Maria, and after they fight they can empathize with each other over this, Shadow sees the error of his ways and helps save the world, yada yada yada. You get it. People predicted 95% of this movie's plot from the trailers, but it's effective.

Likewise, all of the stuff about creating Shadow as the ultimate life form who's immune to all disease to cure Maria's illness is completely cut out. Shadow's still called the ultimate life form, but he's treated as more of an energy source than a genetic research project here, playing off of the stuff about Eggman wanting to harness Sonic's natural Chaos Energy in the movies. The original intent behind the ultimate life form project was always hard to explain in the games and doesn't even come up that much, so I don't blame them for cutting it.

Because Gerald isn't doing genetic experiments and creating artificial life, the Biolizard also doesn't exist. It does, however, appear in an old monster movie Shadow and Maria watch in a montage, with Shadow later commenting that he worries he's a monster like the one he saw in the movie. That's a clever way to include it, I think.

The ARK sort of exists. There was no space colony back in the '70s, all of the events of Shadow's flashbacks just took place at a secret GUN base on Earth. Fair enough for a version of the story ostensibly set in the real world. The big space laser in the third act of the film is obviously supposed to evoke the ARK, but it's referred to as simply the Eclipse Cannon. It's still not a full-blown space colony, just a weapon of mass destruction Gerald designed for GUN in exchange for his release (while also secretly planning to use it to blow up the planet in an act of revenge). I am, however, pleased to report that the Eclipse Cannon still has a giant Eggman face on it.

And as for Maria: I like her in this! She's obviously not going to get a ton of screentime, and she's always going to be a very straightforward character, but she's more playful and lively here. She teases Shadow for being grumpy and plays with him a lot. She feels less like this perfect embodiment of everything good and pure in the world and more like an actual kid. She's still not a complex character, but it works.

And the most important question: do they show a child getting shot and killed by the military? The answer is almost. In the flashback, GUN soldiers chase Maria, Shadow, and Gerald and ready their guns, but the young Commander Walters (who's in his 20s rather than being a kid) grabs them and tries to stop them from firing on a child. In the chaos, a soldier fires, missing Maria but hitting a generator that then blows up and kills Maria. So, y'know, close enough I suppose.

So, yes, many of the details change here, but they captured the gist of Shadow's story from SA2. The emotional core is there. I will say, though, I almost feel like Shadow isn't in this movie as much as I thought he'd be? I think he's used effectively in all of his scenes, and they make room for his backstory, and BOY does he get to kick ass in his fights, but for much of the middle part of the movie he's overshadowed by Ivo and Gerald. Though this might be a compromise to leave more screentime for...

Tails and Knuckles

I'm relieved to report that Tails and Knuckles both get a good amount of cool stuff to do in this! They don't feel like an afterthought.

I was worried that Tails in particular would completely fall by the wayside, since even his debut movie didn't entirely know what to do with him. But he's good here. He pretty much just feels like the Tails from the games at this point, especially since they dropped that fawning admiration he had for Sonic with that running gag of him going "Only Sonic the Hedgehog could do that!" He often chimes in as the one who wants Team Sonic to stick together when Sonic and Knuckles bicker. He particularly gets to shine in the Mission Impossible-inspired heist sequence at the GUN headquarters in London that serves as the climax of the second act, which feels like it was tailor made to let him shine as the tech guy of the team. He also gets several opportunities to swoop in and catch someone for a save in an action scene. He's good in this!

Knuckles is... fine. He's definitely fallen into the role of the comic relief dumb bruiser since joining the good guys, but he's at least a little better than he was in his own streaming show. The jokes lean more into him just being really brash about his strength and skill, rather than him being this archaic warrior who doesn't understand anything about the modern world. He also gets a few more serious bits in the back third of the movie where he gets to shine a little more, so overall it evens out to him being fine. They could've done way worse.

As for the relevance of the Knuckles show: Knuckles is now said to be the guardian of the Master Emerald, like in the games, though with no Angel Island this amounts to him hiding it somewhere for safekeeping. It's eventually revealed that he just gave it to Wade, who gets exactly one scene (sorry, Wade-heads) for a joke about him using the Master Emerald as a hockey puck. So, the miniseries explained why Knuckles has a connection with Wade. That's it! Also I think Knuckles might use the Flames of Disaster a bit in fights, but they never called the technique out by name, so I never really thought about it. So, yeah, the six-episode streaming miniseries about Wade bowling has zero meaningful relevance to the Shadow movie. Who could have seen this coming?

Miscellaneous humans

For that matter, the human supporting cast is MASSIVELY downplayed in this one. Tom and Maddie are there for two key sequences (the beginning of the movie and the GUN HQ heist), but otherwise they disappear for long stretches of the movie. They don't go to Japan in act I, nor do they go to space in act III, and there's no subplot for them during those periods, either. There's nothing like the wedding subplot in Sonic 2 where they'd constantly cut back to Hawaii for comic relief with the humans and only reveal why this was relevant to the plot near the end. (There's also no random dance battle in Siberia.) If a human character is here, it's because they have something to contribute to the plot right away. Most people will probably consider this an improvement, and I'd certainly say it makes for a much tighter script, though I have to remind everyone that I thought the wedding being a GUN sting operation was such a funny twist that I'm a defender of the Hawaii subplot.

On the subject of Tom, something funny I've noticed is that they've just completely downplayed the fact that Tom and Wade are cops. Tom being a cop never comes up once. Wade being a cop only gets referenced via the fact that he's practicing hockey on the roof of the police station in his one scene, but he's not in uniform or anything. They clearly got the memo that we don't want Sonic to hang out with cops.

Here's something else funny: Rachel and Randall got character posters, but they're actually not in the movie! Not technically, anyway. During the heist sequence at GUN HQ, Tom and Maddie use some gadgets Tails invented to holographically disguise themselves as those other characters. But the real Rachel and Randall never show up in the flesh. It's a very odd way to shoehorn the actors into the movie. (Jojo is also absent. They did not give her Amy's role of being the girl who reminds Shadow of Maria. Instead they just let Sonic have the big heart to heart with Shadow that makes him switch sides.)

You know who IS in this movie? Krysten Ritter. Not as the voice of Rouge, as the fandom once hoped, but as a director for GUN. She gets like three scenes and she feels completely checked out the whole time. Can't say I blame her! She's not really a character, just a plot necessity. Commander Walters dies in Japan but gives Sonic one of two keycards needed to activate the Eclipse Cannon, and then Ritter's character assumes Sonic stole it and labels him a bad guy. So that's why they have to break into GUN HQ in the second act instead of just talking things out with them. Still, I am at least relieved that Sonic doesn't work with GUN for most of the movie.

I gotta be honest: when Walters pulled a credit card-shaped object out of his pocket, I thought he was about to give Sonic another Olive Garden gift card as his final act before dying. Part of me wishes that happened.

The supporting human character in this who really gets to shine is Agent Stone, which I'm sure most fans will agree was the correct choice. There's a LOT of Agent Stone in this. He's good. I don't have much to say about him, but he's fun as usual.

But, of course, the ones who steal the show are Jim Carrey, and his costar Jim Carrey.

The Robotniks

I've gone back and forth on whether or not I can actually see movie Robotnik as Robotnik. I think with this third and final entry in the Jim Carrey Robotnik Trilogy, I've landed on... yeah, that's just Jim Carrey playing a Jim Carrey character. He's absolutely having fun with the role, and I enjoyed watching him, but I think a lot of that comes down to the fact that I'm a millennial who grew up watching Jim Carrey movies. If you didn't like him before, this movie will probably be nails on a chalkboard to you, because now there are two of him.

Ivo's arc here leans very heavily into the fact that he grew up as an orphan and never knew his family, a thing offhandedly mentioned in the first movie that's never been a thing for any other version of the character. Here, he learns that he has a living grandfather who's also a mad scientist, and it feels like a hole in his heart has been filled. It certainly makes sense for a place to take this version of the character, and it fits with the movie's themes of finding and losing family, but the cartoonish, childlike affection Ivo feels towards Gerald and all the scenes of them frolicking and dancing together have basically nothing to do with the characters from the games. He's a fun villain for this movie, but he's overwhelmingly used as comic relief this time rather than as a serious threat. He doesn't particularly feel like Sega's Dr. Ivo Robotnik, the arch nemesis of Sonic the Hedgehog who'd take over the world with an army of robots and a fleet of airships in the span of a day if Sonic wasn't around to stop him. He's a guy who lives in a big crab robot and has some drones. He has more in common with Carrey's depictions of the Grinch or the Riddler or Count Olaf than Dr. Eggman. Though he does, at least, finally get his outfit from the games by the end of the movie. So that's something. And also he's in a fat suit now. They only make jokes at the expense of his weight a little. Hooray...?

Gerald, meanwhile, is... largely the same character as movie Eggman, but older, so they can make jokes about him having saggy flesh and smelling funny and needing dentures. (Also, his voice kind of sounds like Homer Simpson sometimes?) To his credit, Carrey absolutely nails the handful of more serious scenes Gerald gets, whether it's Maria's death or his sinister turn when he reveals that he actually wants to destroy the Earth. But then it's right back to goofs about there being two of the same guy. Even the final battle features a lot of slapstick shenanigans with the two Robotniks fighting each other. I was able to enjoy the absurdity of it all, but if the humor doesn't land for you the dual Jim Carrey schtick is a hell of a lot of the movie. I wouldn't be surprised if there was more Gerald than Shadow in the movie, when you go and tally up their screentime. I was able to enjoy the sheer absurdity of it, but your mileage will vary.

I will, however, say that the split screen stuff they do with the two Carreys is EXTREMELY impressive, from a filmmaking perspective. They were absolutely flexing with their ability to pull the effect off. They don't rely on cheap tricks like cutting a lot, or having shot/reverse shot scenes where you're looking at the back of a body double's head. Instead they have a lot of long takes where the two Robotniks are talking to each other, you can see both of their faces, and they'll even hug and touch each other a lot, and the whole time the conversation maintains a natural pace like it really is two actors playing off of each other. It's really well done. It's an incredibly silly idea, but boy did they commit to it.

Sonic

I've hardly said anything about Sonic himself in all of this. It's his movie, isn't it! Well... I don't know, he's fine.

I feel like movie Sonic is a known quantity at this point, and either you like this take on the character or you don't. There was some speculation early on that this was supposed to be a younger Sonic who would grow into being the character we know from the games and comics, the one who's still got lots of quips but is also kind of aloof and cool, a free spirit who goes where the wind takes him, a figure the other characters look up to. And... no, that didn't happen. Once again he gets more serious as the stakes are raised, and he's totally badass when he goes Super, but the rest of the time he's still a little goober with tons of generic one-liners who learns schmaltzy lessons about the importance of family. He's still constantly going to undercut the tension of most scenes by cracking a pop culture reference that will make the average American parent go "haha I've heard of that." I don't think they're ever gonna change that. I think this just what the writers think Sonic is like.

And, again, for what it is, it's fine. He's a little annoying. You already know how you feel about movie Sonic. This third entry won't change that. But they do, at least, have him say "Talk about low budget flights, no food or movies... I'm outta here!" before jumping out of a helicopter. As my thoughts on the climax will show, I am not immune to fanservice.

The climax

God, the climax is SOOOOO fucking good. It's fantastic. Easily the best action these movies have ever done.

Rather than saving Super Shadow for the team-up with Sonic at the end, they have both of them go Super to fight each other first, and they just go full DBZ with it, fighting across the entire planet. It absolutely rules. I think this is the new coolest fight the two of them have had in anything ever. And then they have to stop the Eclipse Cannon together, and sure, there's no Biolizard. But Gerald DOES release a swarm of GUN Hunter robots, and the ensuing space battle turns into some Gundam shit. It's good! It's so good!!! The movie's flaws kind of melt away for me here when I'm watching Super Shadow take out an army of robots with Chaos Spears on the big screen. What a timeline we're living in.

And yes, they play "Live and Learn." They had to. They knew the assignment. They actually play a slight remix, but it's still got the original vocals, so it's perfectly recognizable. Actually, the tune of the song is used as a leitmotif for Shadow throughout the movie, first introduced via an acoustic guitar version played by Maria, and I really love that. I've been begging these movies to use more music from the games the whole time, and I'm glad they finally did so here. (They also use the traditional level clear jingle early in the film, and Eggman's theme from SA2 is very briefly used as a ringtone.)

... Anyway, uh, meanwhile Eggman, Tails, and Knuckles straight up just kill Gerald to save the world? They unceremoniously knock him into an energy field at the end of their slapstick fight aboard the Eclipse Cannon and he disintegrates like he hit a bugzapper. It's over in an instant. It's not graphic or anything, but it's, like... I didn't expect them to show it, or for it to be such a casual murder! Eggman has one quip about it and then immediately moves on.

Shortly after this, Eggman and Shadow sacrifice themselves to stop the Eclipse Cannon. Shadow's sacrifice doesn't stick, obviously (he's revealed to be alive by the end of the second stinger—pretend to be shocked), but Eggman's probably dead dead. I seriously doubt Jim Carrey's gonna come out of retirement for these movies again. His final moments before the big explosion are also SO dragged out and belabored. He has a dramatic final line like ten times in a row. It really just feels like the series saying goodbye to Carrey. And, again, it feels like a fitting enough end for this Eggman's arc, but it's an odd adaptation of the character from the games.

And so, that's what we're left with. This is far from Sonic Adventure 2: The Movie. It's not that, though there are many, many references made to that game in particular. It's a sequel to the film Sonic the Hedgehog 2 that has a similar tone and style, but Shadow and Gerald are in it, and Shadow gets some really cool fights, and there's a liiiiiittle more focus on stuff from the games than last time, and the script's a little tighter. If that sounds fun to you, you will have fun with this. I know I did. If it doesn't, you're probably better off waiting for them to inevitably do an animated reboot whenever this live action series runs out of steam.

It hasn't quite run out of steam yet, though...

The post-credits scenes, and the future

One of the big questions going into this was: what's next? How do they top a Shadow movie with heavy Sonic Adventure 2 overtones, in terms of hype for the fans? How do you fill Eggman's shoes after Carrey retires, for real this time? There are still more fan favorite rival characters to get through, but how many movies in a row can they introduce a furry foe for Sonic who inevitably turns good and helps him stop a larger threat by the end? And when the hell are we gonna see the girls?

Well, we now have our answer, and it's one I'm cautiously excited for: a whole army of Metal Sonics, and Amy!

Yes, Amy! Finally!! It's an absolute crime that we've gone three whole movies and a streaming miniseries without including the female lead of the series. I've complained about this ad nauseum (and also the fact that they cut Rouge from the story). But at least now they're finally doing something about it.

But now the question is, how will they characterize Amy? Sega's struggled with her for years, and there's a million different directions you can take her. Her one scene here has her smashing a bunch of Metal Sonics and wearing a cloak for the sake of a dramatic reveal, which gives her the vibes of a mysterious, badass action girl. This is, of course, completely different from how Sonic and Amy met in the games. What will her personality be like? She doesn't speak here, so who will they get to play her? Where did she come from? Will she even have a crush on Sonic? All of these have yet to be determined. So, like, I'm hyped to finally see Amy, a character who should've been in the movies from the start, but they could so easily end up playing it safe with an incredibly boring girlboss version of Amy who's no fun at all. We'll have to wait and see.

(My prediction: they're going to try to cast either Zendaya or Ariana as Amy.)

Metal Sonic, likewise, is very exciting, and he looks perfect. He looks just like the design from the games. But the question is: what will they do with this army of Metals? Will they be lead by one main Metal Sonic, perhaps Neo Metal Sonic, who gets to be a proper bad guy? Will they take some cues from Sonic CD, Heroes, and the OVA, or do something completely original? Where did they come from? Were they activated as a failsafe after Eggman died? Did they and Amy come from some sort of bad future, riffing on Sonic CD's time travel? Will they explore the fact that Metal wants to be the one and only Sonic? Or will they just be an army of disposable robot grunts for Sonic and friends to mow down like it's a Dynasty Warriors game, while some other villain takes center stage?

It could go so many different ways, and some prospects are more exciting than others. I mean, the Knuckles show had endless possibilities for what it could do with him, and none of the options on my bingo card were "Pachacamac's ghost tells him to help Wade win a bowling tournament." And while I'm a sicko who thinks it's funny that the Knuckles show is what it is, forgive me for keeping my hype about Amy and Metal Sonic in check here until we learn more.

Regardless of what they do, it'll still be hard to top the hype of Shadow, and it'll be hard to fill Jim Carrey's shoes for general audiences. So despite this clear statement of intent, I have no idea what the future of this film franchise holds. But regardless of what they do, I can say one thing for certain: the kids in my theater were hyped as hell for it. They popped off over Metal Sonic, and they were screaming their heads off with excitement over Amy. I heard a teenage girl on the opposite end of my row of seats say "finally!" over Amy's reveal, verbalizing my exact thoughts. She also said that this movie was "peak," though it diverged from the games, and she hoped they'd do a movie with Silver and Blaze someday.

The kids are gonna be okay.

[sonic-fankid-showdown]

Sfs 2: The FINAL.

About Maria: (by @6larosie9) Maria was a lab baby made by Eggman as a way to collect and protect the chaos emeralds. He used Sonic and Shadow's DNA so she would be extremely strong and fast, and a very difficult challenge to anyone who tries to get in her way. Maria, Sonic, and Shadow are unaware they're related for the time being. She's a very determined hedgehog, competitive and cocky, and quite loyal to anyone she deems friends or family. Also, she secretly adores the outdoors and nature, but she'd never tell Eggman that.

About Silhouette: (by @kingprinceleo) From my [Leo's] 1000YB au. Shes a bioengineering project that Shadow wants to discard, a combination of his DNA and DNA he scientifically determined was most compatible with his own, a harvest mouse. Though surrounded by love from other sources, she starts to become bitter and act out at the lack of fatherly love she receives from Shadow. He Created her. why doesnt he want her. why doesnt he love her. Very cute baby tho :] She also has some black arms DNA that causes some of her fingers and toe claws to be larger than others

[hugsandchaos]

Continuation of a Sonadow post talking about how Sonic knows Shadow isn’t a normal hedgehog, has no idea what he really is, but loves him despite it and maybe even loves him more for it.

At some point, Shadow realizes that Sonic knows he’s not exactly a hedgehog and still loves him, so he lets him in on a little bit about his Black Arms side. He doesn’t tell him it’s his alien half, but he does start to show any features from that half a little more when it’s just them.

For example; his tail. Shadow can make his tail grow much longer and use it to grab things, like Sonic’s hand. When they’re cuddling, Shadow likes to try to wrap his tail around Sonic in any way he can.

Another example are his wings. Sonic thinks he really looks like an angel with them, neverminding that they don’t have feathers. He also saw how painful it can be for Shadow when he uses them, so he sometimes randomly starts rubbing his back while they’re cuddling to help Shadow relax.

Also, Sonic once “knocked” on Shadow’s wings when he was having a bad moment and hiding in his wings and asked if he could come in because he wanted to offer some food. It was the first time he’d heard Shadow laugh, and now he does it more often. It works every time.

[galaxygermdraws]

Finally designing the Sonic cast. or. at least. Some of them. There are too many characters in this franchise these are just the ones I think about the most often. So uh. Ya. I will leave any notes under the cut since I have a lot, although not every character will have notes because we haven't explored every character (and share them with @shadesofvermillionvoid)

(reblogs with tags/comments are appreciated. Thankyu)

Sonic

Sonic's earring is Chip's bracelet. I don't think Sonic particularly likes having anything on his wrists, and Sonic Forces made that worse

The regulators are based directly on Sonic Prime, as I love the regulators in that show and think the idea of giving Sonic something similar to Shadow's Inhibitor Rings makes a lot of sense

He got those little markings due to accidentally absorbing some of Chaos' DNA

Tails

Tails has goggles like in Sonic Boom, because I like Boom Tails' design

He still has his robotic bits from Sonic Lost World, he still managed to keep his free will, but what happened was Zavok used his ability to control robots to force Tails to fight Sonic. Since then, Tails has updated his cybernetics so he can filter out any suspicious frequencies that could take his free will.

The cannon arm from Lost World is now basically like the guns from Mario and Rabbids, where you hold it in your hand and it like covers your arm. It's like that

Tails is a skeptic. This is the funniest bit but also thanks to Boom (the bad luck episode) it has some precedence

Knuckles

Knuckles in our lore is deeply spiritual (we are developing Mobian belief systems because we are Insane) , and the first time he saw Sonic he noticed he looked similar to the murals in Hidden Palace. So when Sonic turned out to be good, that made sense to him, as Sonic was common in a lot of prophetic murals around the island.

Knux actually thought Sonic was a god at first. Then he saw him choke on a Chili Dog.

He put beads around his spines after the events of Sonic Forces, since the war was over and he could relax for the first time in months.

Amy

Amy, like Knuckles, actually has a deep connection to her belief systems. We haven't figured out everything exactly, but she and Knuckles quickly bond over this aspect of their lives

I styled her quills differently because I kind of like giving her something that makes it obvious she is a hedgehog

Similarly, I gave her a back spine, and the hedgehog nose, since I had never realized she has the same kind of nose as Tails or Cream

Shadow

Shadow wears eye makeup. He puts it on every morning. For a while he had to have help with it (from both Rouge and Amy), but eventually figured out how to do it himself

He has yellow sclera due to the Black Arms blood. Similarly, he has a longer tail than most Mobian hedgehogs, and he cannot retract his fangs. His blood is green

He has some less favorable urges. Mostly related to the whole "Black Arms feed on living creatures" things, but they don't crop up often

He and Rouge have matching earrings

Rouge

I based her design off of Sonic Prime because I honestly prefer that design more. One because she looks like an actual spy, and two because it's based on her Sonic Heroes design. Similarly, she has Prim's hair tuft

Gave her the bat nose a lot of people do because I like the way it looks

I don't have a lot of thoughts about Rouge as of right now I am so sorry.

She and Shadow have matching earrings

Silver

Silver has a lot more scrapes and burns from his future, even though it's been fixed several times

He is displaced from time. He doesn't feel connected to his current future, especially since in our lore he is one of the few people to remember Sonic 06 (it's because in our lore, Timeline B Silver got his powers from Mephiles, in the sense that those time powers had to go SOMEWHERE after the timeline reset.)

I am going to be designing a weird messed up form for Silver (like Werehog or Doom Morph for Sonic and Shadow) based probably on Mephiles to some extent

Blaze

Like Silver, she has remnants of powers from the previous timeline. She already had fire powers in Timeline A, but she has much stronger ones now, as she still has Iblis inside of her, although the powers are no longer destructive, as they were never provoked

Her dimension is actually a result of Solaris ceasing to exist. That power still existed and had to go somewhere, so it ended up resulting in the Sol Dimension.

[multifandom-pleasures]

shadow x reader

A/N: this is just a ramble of shadow and nightmares because i like the idea of him having terrors of his past and such. there is no coherency.

he woke with a start, jerking up in his bed with the blanket kicked down to the foot of the mattress and his fur raised in different ways from his fitful tossing and turning. he didn’t need sleep as much as others did, but it didn’t mean he didn’t need it at all; he still had to sleep on occasion.

he dreamt of his life back in the ark, of maria. of how he had failed to keep her safe and witnessed her death firsthand; the life draining from her youthful eyes and her body fall limp before he was sent hurtling to earth in his chamber. of being awoken after 50 years stasis into a world he had only heard about, full of people being too loud, too greedy, too oblivious. of his burning hatred for these fleshy creatures that were the byproduct of those who rid him of the only place he had ever known as home.

he also dreamt of how he hurtled down to earth a second time, after rescuing the planet alongside the blue hedgehog he so despised. how even in his weakened state, he felt the burning of heat as he crashed through the earth’s atmosphere. of the black arms; of black doom, who of which he was made of; like eve from adam’s rib. he was just as cursed as she.

nightmares, you had called them, when he had woken one night with a cry of maria’s name and woken you as well. you knew all he had gone through, and even in his refusal of your comfort, you helped him to understand; and sat beside him as his adrenaline wore down, helped him count as he took staggered inhales and exhales. his legs swung from the side of his mattress and he made his way to the door, exiting his room to find yours.

you were still sleeping when he cracked open the door, watching for a moment as your chest rose and fell with your slow and steady breaths. his feet still moved before his mind could deny him, climbing onto the mattress carefully; he didn’t want to wake you. he knew why he had craved your comfort, why his heart and mind craved to be near you. he had come up with his own nightmare tonight.

he had lost you. his mind finally conjured up it’s own fear and you were the reason. you wormed your way into his chest and found a home beside his beating heart, cocooned in the hollow of his ribs. your touches were burned into his skin, feeling the ghost of your ministrations even long after you had gone. your laughter and voice echoed in his mind, your sweet words a broken record as he replayed them over and over to himself. as proof that he was as good as you made him out to be.

he feared losing that; of losing you. the one person after so long that he could turn to and feel safe being vulnerable with. you had never judged him. you welcomed him with open arms and comforted him even when he berated your sympathy; insulted your kindness. he didn’t understand how one could show such emotions without an ulterior motive.

he admired your sleeping form, so tempted to reach out and stroke your cheek, brush your hair from your face or to kiss at the expanse of skin before him. why could he not be more like you? when you were ever woken by a nightmare, you never hesitated to seek his comfort. albeit, his comfort was simply raising his blankets and allowing you to clamber on beside him, curling into his side and finding your own comfort by him.

he found he didn’t get nightmares those nights you slept beside him.

he instead carefully wrapped his arms around your torso, easing you to his chest; making sure your stirring was not you waking. he tucked his head into the crook of your neck and curled around you, feeling your breaths and faint heartbeat against his chest. he mimicked you, his own breaths settling into your rhythm.


he would be gone before you woke up; he still was too prideful of himself to allow you to see him after he had sought you out in the night. that he was just as simple as every other mortal creature; who in the desperation of fear, desperately crave and seek comfort. but for now, even if he no longer fell back asleep, he would hold you tightly. assure himself you were living and breathing and his nightmare was exactly what it was - a nightmare.

he would allow the swell of selfish protectiveness in his chest fester that of course you would be fine with him around. he was the ultimate life form, of course, no one would dare cross your paths; or even think to place a singular scratch on your beloved skin. and as the sun would rise and the golden glow would stretch in the expanse of your frame, he would press a kiss to your temple and slip out of your room, to pretend as if nothing happened in the night.

he could only hope one day, his nightmares would cease; and he could search for your touch without the shame of weakness holding him back. and you would be waiting patiently for that day.