#and also you do not understand scourge as a character. or sonic for that matter since a lot of the time the terrible takes overlap

[iratusmus]

[sonicstorybook]

The King's Champion

A SatBK AU where Shadow is the one sent to Camelot and Sonic is the doppelgänger- the one and only King Arthur!

Part: 4/4

Summary: Arthur the Hedgehog pulled the legendary sword Caliburn from the stone, and he became King Arthur, the ruler of Camelot. Shadow the Hedgehog appears in a flash of magic in the middle of his banquet hall, and he becomes Arthur’s problem. As the sun rises over the kingdom, a pre-dawn conversation between both hedgehogs also helps them reach... well, not quite a mutual understanding, but progress is progress!

(Shadow doesn’t know where he is, what’s going on, or why he’s there- but it doesn’t matter. He’s Shadow the Hedgehog, the world’s ultimate life form, and he’s going to play this weird game by his rules.)

Contains: Pre-relationship/platonic Arthadow (Arthur the Hedgehog x Shadow the Hedgehog)! Lamorak (Jet the Hawk) and Percival (Blaze the Cat) are siblings! Gawain (Knuckles the Echidna) and Gareth (Mighty the Armadillo) are siblings! Gawain and Gareth are Yvain’s (Ray the Flying Squirrel) cousins! Kay (Scourge the Hedgehog) is Arthur’s adopted brother!

Rating: G

Word count: 2,252

Note: The close of the first chapter of Shadow’s stay in Camelot! C: Will there be more? Yes, because I have no self-control. C,:

Reminder of characters: Sir Kay is Scourge the Hedgehog! Sir Gareth is Mighty the Armadillo!  Sir Yvain is Ray the (Flying?) Squirrel! Percy is Percival the Squire, aka Blaze the Cat! 

All chatter ends and the courtyard is deathly quiet as everyone collectively holds their breath, certain they must have misheard Shadow just now… but the black hedgehog doubles down.

“You heard me,” Shadow repeats, turning to face Gawain with a challenging arch of his brow, “Lancelot can keep his Queen- I’ll take the King.”

“What!?“ Half a dozen voices cry out at once. Arthur barely manages to contain his own surprise, whipping his head to look at Shadow so quickly he almost flings the circlet off his head. 

Shadow does not flinch under the heavy weight of the stares, cool and determined with a haughty hand on his hip.

“Shadow,” Arthur wishes he had a moment with Shadow alone to explain what the black hedgehog was getting himself into, tenting his hands in front of his face thoughtfully, “Once again, I am asking you to reconsider this request. That is no light commitment or task. Are you sure this is what you truly want?”

“I’m going to prove that I am superior to this Lancelot in every possible way,” Although Shadow says Lancelot’s name, the challenging glare he levels in Arthur’s direction indicates that Camelot’s king is included as well, “By the end of it, all of you will be comparing Lancelot to me.”

“You are completely mad if you think the king will accept such outlandish demands!” Gawain is so worked up he throws his hand out, hitting the unfortunate Sir Yvain in the chest with his barbed knuckles. The yellow squirrel is knocked off his feet and into Sir Gareth behind him, who barely manages to keep them both upright, “Who are you?! What are your designs on our king?! Are you a spy or assassin?!”

“I am Shadow the Hedgehog, the world’s ultimate life form,” Shadow is arrogantly self-assured as he literally turns his nose up at Gawain, “Don’t flatter yourself. I don’t care about you or this kingdom. And if I wanted your King dead, there’s nothing you could do to stop me!”

“You churl-!”

It’s very clear that Shadow and Gawain are about to start slinging hotheaded boasts, vicious insults, and blows again. But before Arthur can try to restore order, aid comes from an unexpected source.

“Hah! You are a saucy one!” Sir Lamorak’s squawk of laughter shatters the tension like ice, pushing past Gawain to stand directly in front of Shadow. 

“Brother!” A small purple cat darts out from the crowd, grabbing onto the hawk’s hand and giving him a stern shake, “Do not be foolish!”

“I know what I’m doing, squire,” Lamorak hisses at her, low enough only those nearby can hear him, shaking himself free and pushing the child behind him, “Watch and learn, Percy!”

‘Percy’ gives a loud, annoyed groan as she stomps her foot irritably, sulkily crossing her arms and watching her brother with an incredibly unimpressed expression. Who was this girl, again? Lamorak had asked if he could bring his sister in as his squire, but that had been only a few days ago and she wouldn’t have been able to make the journey so quickly, could she? She also seemed a little too young to be a squire… 

Lamorak flips his visor up with one hand as he looks down on Shadow with a condescending grin, “Do you have any idea what you are asking for? Do you really think an untried knave without any weapon or armor of his own has a chance?”

Shadow is coolly defiant, eyes boring into Lamorak ferociously, “I don’t need anything but my bare hands to beat you.“

Lamorak’s grin falls immediately, and his hand reaches to the scabbards where his twin swords are sheathed on his back-

“Enough!” Arthur steps in before Shadow manages to make more enemies, putting himself between his combative guest and his strongest knights, “Shadow is new to the realm and not familiar with its customs, and yet you treat him with great hostility! Where is your courtesy? Your patience? This is a most inhospitable way to treat my personal guest!”

Arthur hates having to use his authority like this, he really does, but Shadow is going to wind up as unpopular as Kay at this rate. 

The stunned silence lasts only a moment. 

“Your guest!” Gawain sputters indignantly, gesturing at Shadow like he doesn’t know what else to say, “Your guest!!”

“My lord,” Gareth puts his hand on Gawain’s shoulder, choosing his words carefully, “It is most unusual to have someone enter the kingdom with the visage of one of the round table’s most illustrious and well-regarded knights-”

Kay blows a dismissive raspberry, smiling when the armadillo gives him an annoyed side eye. Gawain leans over his brother’s shoulder to give the green hedgehog a full on glare.

“And it would be imprudent to rush into something like this without considering all potential factors and viewpoints,” Gareth finishes primly, bowing his head respectfully as he meets Shadow’s eyes, “While still giving Sir Shadow the same opportunities we would extend to every other child of Camelot.”

“You cannot be serious!” Gawain turns to his brother incredulously, “He disguised himself as Lancelot!”

“I have no need to disguise myself as anyone!” Shadow’s eyes narrow as he takes a step toward Gawain.

“Enough, enough!” Arthur massages his forehead as he glances up at the sky, knowing that this argument will cost him the rest of the morning. He will be struggling to meet all his daily obligations at this rate, and will likely be working late into the night... “I will hear your arguments in the great hall at the round table- after we break our fast.”

Before anyone can say anything else, Arthur turns to his guest, “Come, Shadow the Hedgehog, bringer of chaos! Before you end up creating blood feuds with the entire round table!”

Shadow doesn’t look the least bit chastised, incredulous and amused as he gives a flippant shrug, “Fine by me.”

“With these jests, it sounds like you’re better suited to the role of court jester!” Lamorak laughs boisterously, arms crossed over his chest as he grins mockingly. His squire stands behind him, less than enthused at her knight’s actions, but doesn’t say anything. She simply grips onto his tail feathers and digs her feet into the ground below, trying to physically keep him out of the range of Shadow’s fists. 

“Have you any more?” Lamorak jeers, obviously trying to get back at Shadow for that earlier insult. (Even though the brash hawk brought it on himself. Again.)

The air around Shadow turns positively murderous, and he flexes the fingers of his right hand as he brings it up mid-chest, “How about a magic trick?

Sparks crackle around his fingertips as he looks at Lamorak over his shoulder, eyes narrowing like he’s honing in on a target.

“I can make you disappear-“ Shadow starts to say, bringing his hand down in a vicious arc-

That Arthur jumps in to stop with his hands. The strange energy spreads through Shadow’s fingers and into his own, leaving behind a tingling sensation that seems to seep into his skin and to his very bones. Arthur lets go quickly, but it travels up the length of his arm and into his shoulder before radiating through his entire body.

“My Lord!” Half a dozen voices cry out at the same time in dismay.

“It’s nothing!” Arthur doesn’t have any time to dwell on any of this, even as his body seems to buzz with the energy. He wants to shake his hand out, but he knows that will just worry his knights, “I said this will wait until after breakfast! Be still, all of you!” 

He grabs Shadow’s hand tightly as he ushers his taciturn companion forward, as if afraid the black hedgehog is going to run off and punch someone else in the face. (Which seems very likely at this point.)

 “Come along!” Arthur’s hand buzzes where it touches Shadow, even through the fabric of his glove. He half expects the dark hedgehog to push him away, and is surprised when Shadow’s hand squeezes him. But painfully so, like this is a challenge he can win while making sure Arthur doesn’t let go. The king glances back as Shadow, curious to see why the prickly hedgehog would touch him without a clear purpose- when it becomes clear this is a calculated power play.

Shadow is staring Gawain down, using this simple gesture to establish himself in the king’s entourage, annoy the echidna and the other knights who regard him with suspicion, and show his clear disregard for hierarchy of the court. For some reason, Arthur is disappointed… but he pushes that feeling aside immediately. Shadow would be a fool if he did not use the king’s political and social position to his advantage.

Arthur pulls Shadow towards the now doorless archway, whispering as he discreetly elbows the black hedgehog, “What are you doing? I don’t know how it works in your world, but you’ll accomplish more with friends in Camelot’s walls rather than enemies!”

“I don’t need friends,” Shadow gives Arthur a flat look, answering loudly as he glowers back at Lamorak, “And if you want to keep yours in one piece, they shouldn’t start what they can’t finish. I don’t like leaving loose ends.”

Arthur rolls his eyes in exasperation as he hurries through the corridor, ear swiveling backwards to pick up on the disgruntled chatter that is naturally amplified by the stone hallways. Shadow’s combative attitude and abrasive demeanor are certainly not doing much to endear him to anyone.

“You don’t seem to like casual conversation or friendly advice either,” Arthur quips back, shaking his head, “And certainly not comfortable beds. What of mead and bread? Do you like that?”

“You're starting to irritate me, hedgehog-” Shadow answers back automatically, annoyed, before blinking rapidly. He gives Arthur that look again, like he’s seeing him in a completely different light, “You are going to drink mead for breakfast?”

Arthur finds Shadow’s baffled confusion amusing, quietly chuckling to himself, “Would my new champion prefer wine instead?”

“Sure, why not,” Shadow lets Arthur open the door to the chamber himself, purposefully ignoring Gawain’s outrage and rubbing it in by refusing to let go of the king’s hand the entire time, making Arthur do it one handed. Arthur can’t remember the last time he’s opened a door for himself, let alone another person. It’s strangely thrilling, “Where does the echidna sit?”

“I sit in the red velvet siege,” Arthur nods at the plush seat with the crown carved into the wood above it, “And ‘Wain sits to my left-”

“Good,” Shadow doesn’t wait for Arthur to finish explaining or sit down, plopping himself in the seat to Arthur’s right like it belongs to him. It belongs to Sir Kay, who seems less than amused- but, in a rare move of self preservation, also doesn’t seem very keen to attract Shadow’s ire on himself directly. Arthur shrugs to his brother apologetically, making motions to an attendant by the door to bring another chair.

In fact, Shadow goes out of his way to make himself look as comfortable as possible, throwing his crossed legs over one arm rest and propping his elbow on the other, resting his chin on his fist. Incredibly bold… Arthur sits down quickly himself, hiding a smile behind a sip of his cup.

“MY KING!” Gawain yanks his chair out from the table so violently the wood cracks under his grip, splinters falling to the floor as he sits in it heavily and unhappily, “THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE!!!”

Shadow stares at Gawain with a bored expression as he filches a piece of cheese from Arthur’s plate, popping it into his mouth as the echidna slams his hands back down on the table. 

Well, this is certainly turning out to be a very different and complicated day! When Arthur first rose this morning, he didn’t think he’d end up having breakfast with Shadow the Hedgehog sitting on his right hand side after causing a feud with almost half the round table. Or to have Gawain, one of his most powerful and influential knights, squabbling with the black hedgehog like a petulant child.

One of the many large and small problems he needs to solve... Arthur nibbles on a roll absentmindedly as he listens to Gareth’s argument from the other side of the table, pretending he doesn’t notice Shadow flick a piece of apple at the side of Gawain’s head.

He needs to nip the budding tension between Lamorak and Shadow before it leads to bloodshed… Lamorak is very pointedly glaring daggers at the hedgehog until his sister kicks him in the shin when he doesn’t pass her the jam quickly enough, and that quickly devolves to the hawk arguing with a literal child. 

Arthur needs to make Shadow’s self-appointed position as his champion palatable to the majority of his knights and advisors, many of whom are regarding Shadow with guarded suspicion over the rim of their mugs. 

He needs to find and check on Lancelot, whose absence in the siege at Gawain’s right is painfully obvious. And Arthur needs to soothe Kay’s wounded pride before his brother does something reckless and foolish that causes them all unnecessary grief. (Especially Kay himself.)

It was exactly as Sir Ector had warned- the secret wish of excitement in his heart had been answered in the most unexpected way. But Arthur has no regrets. 

Despite it all, he is eager to see how this new adventure unfolds.

[setr0spect]

My reclamation about Sonic franchise

I really wish for the old stuff being bought back from SEGA, like, most of the characters from the Archie Comics and characters that Ian Flynn created... but no. They really want a small cast. Why? I will never know, and I like so much Sonic series... who should I curse? Ken Penders? Yeah, it's kind of like his fault too... but at least, in some other reality, SEGA do more good stuff with the characters. I mean, we had Eclipse the Darkling, Shadow's brother! We could have a lot of stuff about him and Shadow... and Infinite? Or the entire Sonic Forces? A awesome plan, with a bad development... the character has the most wasted potential... why? Even Sega Scourge's theory is better than the original, of course, we had the Jackal Squad, something that ClassicMariposAzul (Devianart) used pretty well. But no, I will destroy the world because a overpower hedgehog beat my ass and called me weak, not because he killed my squad which I used to call them family.

About Shadow... he's broken. G.U.N is no longer a thing on the IDW? Why? Also, why would Shadow work for them? He could be like Batman. OH YES! He would work for himself... He had a friend called Hope Robotnik! When you guys read Sonic Universe, I will be like:

Oh c'mon, you got to admit this is cool, right?

Do you guys understand what I am saying?

Oh, Setrospect, we have Sonic Frontiers!

And we had good character development you moron, we had a hole universe about Mobius! Sonic had a girlfriend, Sonic had parents (again), and Shadow wasn't a completely stupid! Even Knuckles had a girlfriend! We had like, an act about 10-30 years later and they have family and that stuff, even Espio and Tails!

But we have-

It doesn't matter, we are not happy with the changes.

I had to take this off from my chest.

[hadesknockedupintheunderworld]

So I got this comment (name cropped out on purpose) about this post. And though I ended up replying in the comments, I've decided to put that reply I made here.

Sure, but the thing about Sonic canon is that

Most characters that aren't main characters appear in one or two games max

Though the games and adaptations aren't great with continuity (understatement I'm aware), they often will have threads from other games to pull from even on a minor level that affect well...why a specific story is like that. Like how certain games/adaptations will reference other ones, or they'll operate under the idea that you understand the origins of characters shown

Now, headcanons, playing with fanon, that's fine and dandy. That's what fanon fun is for.

But when you have characters that appear in like. One game's story mode (Chip, Infinite, Mephiles, etc) or in singular adaptations (Scourge, Eclipse, the variants from sonic prime, various characters from older tv shows (a few of which also do show up in the archie comics), Dr. Starline, Surge)

And people who are fans of these characters or who depict these characters refuse to engage with the source material whatsoever, we get people who base their ideas of those characters off of popular fanon and their character designs and some random shit they heard, popular fanon which was based off of testimonies from people on youtube who ragged on the source material/didn't take it seriously or people who haven't consumed the source material in a while/didn't take any of it seriously when they did consume it. Hence, the long game of telephone example

And on top of that, because these "interpretations" (which often have glaring contradictions if you check the source material) are considered to be accepted canon as far as the fandom is concerned (which means opposing this or pointing out inconsistencies means you don't fit in with the "in" group and are therefore considered "weird" or someone with poor media literacy. In some cases it can be a quick way to get a person who heard half what they know about a cutscene comps, or at the very very least whichever adaptation they claim to be a fan of), just going off of popular fanon (influenced by the long telephone game), or only engaging with any given game or adaptation canon so they can force it all to fit within the fanon they like, just so they can then claim this is all just intended canon.

Are they really even understanding the way the characters "look and should act" in this case?

Hell. I've seen people go on and on about how they refuse to watch the Knuckles series, but they believe whatever the popular fanartist who maybe saw it (or some of it) said is canon, and then use that to influence their rants. I've seen people admit that they haven't read any of Archie Sonic, but if you dare say anything that goes against what they believe is canon and insist is canon about X Archie Sonic original character, then well...

And to this day no matter what happens in recent game or adaptation material, fandom members treat Tails like he's canonically a small baby who needs taken care of by the whole cast and is a little guy who says some smart things sometimes but is ultimately motivated by wanting a big bro to take care of him (which happens even if you put a specific recent game/adaptation in a vaccuum and consider only what was shown, said, and implied within it to be canon)

In the end the problem is not anyone playing fast and loose with canon, it's that people don't consume source material or don't consume source material with any genuine intent of meeting it where it's at, and so they only accept popular fanon as canon, and can get wildly angry at anyone who dares disagree with "the majority". Even in cases where we should be able to converse about differing interpretations

That's what this post is referring to. I just wanted to make my meaning more clear

Every time I consume another Sonic game I become more and more aware of the extent that which the Sonic fandom has played a long game of telephone for canon (or "accepted as canon" for fanon) knowledge with like. Maybe 1% having actually even watched a cutscene comp at least for the thing

[bitter-sweet-coffee]

At the risk of swinging the bat into the hornets nest for you, what is IDW missing that makes Archie the better comic to you?

The fact Sega wasn't breathing down their throat constantly so they could do whatever the hell they wanted no matter how crazy or problematic? The romance plots? The family drama plots?

(Context that Izzy knows but might be important for anyone else seeing this: I like IDW a lot, but I also missed the boat on Archie. Never read it, intimidated by the idea of trying to catch up now, but I know crazy shit went down in it.)

i think the quickest way for me to explain it is that idw just feels very sterile and low stakes for me. the ocs are cute and all but they're concepts to me, not insanely fleshed out or *real* feeling (which has nothing to do with age btw)

i understand why a lot of people hate archie for having too many ocs or for having penders involved but like... that doesn't negate how crazy insane and fun and dark and elaborate the content was. i have so much to work with when i think of archie as a whole because they gave so much for me to fix or modernize or even just fantastic characters (imo) like mina and fiona and their version of the hooligan characters like 💕💕💕

here's the other thing though: i LOVED metal virus. a lot. it gave me espio back, made silver a character again, got as close as it supposedly could when making sonic traumatized, gave amy a fuckton of responsibility and maturity like she deserves, but also added a lot of depth and newfound appeal and appreciation of characters like cream and charmy and the babylon rogues. tangle and whisper naturally weaved themselves into this arc by having touching and angsty moments without blatantly trying to steal panel time or fan appeal from the secondary cast

my main criticism of metal virus? it takes the older dark robotisizing arc mainly known from archie and underground but takes away one significant thing: eggman being a competent and threatening villain. i LOVE evil eggman i think he deserves to be in control of something like the metal virus, but god forbid he have a skillfull bone in his body these days because now he's running from the virus just like the main cast! urgh,,, i think tinker was a fascinating moment but god i just can't stand idw eggman most of the time they make him way too pathetic so starline can make jokes about him and try to escalate things 💀

oh that's another thing, i think there's a lot of hypocrisy about the penders ocs in archie vs all the new idw characters because my initial response included a segment on how i feel like idw forces fans to love and worship every new addition to the cast even when there's little to no character development, but that feels like something everyone says about archie. i'll never forget when the preview of surge and kit came out and the fandom EXPLODED but like... i barely had anything to say? ME? SPEECHLESS BUT JUST OUT OF NEUTRALITY?!? yeah lol surge is mid to me and i can fairly but probably cruelly attribute almost all of her appeal to how everyone hates penders. oh and big pant cool. but her strength as a character is a result of the uproar caused by scourge and archie, not her own inherent value, which isn't fair in general but also not fair to her idk lol it feels like cheating.

anyways, i'd 1000% prefer messy and concerning/nauseating archie and its army of echidna ocs over the "mandate-restricted" idw which basically does the exact same thing as archie but watered down (including the ocs).

oh okay one more thing— the comics are meant to flesh out the secondary cast from the games because surprise! after 06 we don't get ensemble casts or playable characters other that sonic, so this is a compromise. SIKE! idw ocs are gonna hog panel time, and as much as i love characters like lanolin and belle (and obviously team sapphire) i literally gave up on reading idw regularly because there wasn't anything in it for me and if there was i'd hear it on tumblr and pirate the recent issue lol.

OKAY FINALLY, idgaf about comic beef i think people should enjoy whatever they want even if that means anti archie because like,,, i don't blame you. i just think that we've joked so much about "haha archie RANDOM and also PENDERS make archie BAD" but like... just because penders sucks ass it doesn't mean archie or even his work on archie is as bad as he is. archie actually has a lot of good stuff, and even the bad stuff is elaborate and interesting enough to warrant a rewrite or reinterpretation credit.

tldr; i just think idw is mid and peaked with metal arc which still had some fundamental flaws even if i loved it. i miss my funky archie cast tho

[crusherthedoctor]

Can we have some unpopular Sonic opinions?

I tried to cram in a lot, so I hope this satisfies you. :P I tried to stick to the ones that I haven't brought up quite as often, since by this point, we all know that I think IDW's storytelling is dire, SA2's story is overrated, X Eggman is an embarrassing portrayal (at least from season 2 onwards), Blaze shouldn't be handcuffed to Silver, Shadow's backstory had issues with or without the Black Arms, Neo Metal Sonic looks silly, etc. But anyway, here we go:

- Knuckles may be tricky to incorporate into plots that don't relate to Angel Island, but making him obsessed with his duties is no better than having him forget about Angel Island entirely.

- I like Marine, and never found her annoying. Oh, I understood what they were trying to do with her, but I honestly wasn't put off by her, and found her Aussie lingo more endearing if anything. Since her debut was during the period in my life where where I couldn't stand Sonic himself, I instead thought he was irritating (and hypocritical) for getting annoyed with her for doing shit he would often be guilty of.

- Silver is just as guilty of being shoehorned into games and plots as the Deadly Six are. Having more fans than the latter is irrelevant, since we're still talking about a character who constantly has to time travel in order to be present.

- Speaking of Silver, if he has to stick around, please do something different with him. They've pulled the doomed future routine multiple times now, and it's been boring every single time. I wasn't interested when it involved Iblis. I wasn't interested when it involved Knuckles drinking the edgy Kool Aid. I wasn't interested when it involved a council of dumbasses... give it a rest already.

- The Tails Doll can work as a mildly creepy thing, with maybe more to it than meets the eye when it's time for a boss fight or what have you. But the memes about him stealing your soul are just dumb, and I thought it was dumb even back in my teenage youth.

- “Eggman is supposed to be clownish!” Yeah, well he's also meant to be a genuine villain with a 300 IQ. These qualities don't have to be mutually exclusive.

- “Sonic is supposed to have attitude!” Yeah, well that's not the same thing as being an absolute cunt. Sonic was only ever meant to come off as having an edge compared to Mario. He was never meant to be a GTA-tier protagonist.

- Rouge is not a villain, and never was a villain. Literally the whole point of her role in SA2 was to reveal that she was working against Eggman and Shadow the whole time, albeit using sneakier tactics to do so. You'd think all those people who exult SA2's story would remember this, but apparently not. She barely even qualifies as an anti-hero, since aside from stealing the Master Emerald, she rarely does anything morally questionable otherwise. She's got a lot more good in her than people give her credit for.

- Captain Whisker is a better Eggman Nega than the actual Eggman Nega. And as far as robot characters in this franchise go, Johnny's design is pretty underrated.

- I don't like Iblis or Mephiles, but I DO like Solaris, and it annoys me that it was out of focus for most of the story due to all the time spent on its less interesting halves. Had they kept the backstory with the Duke and his experiments, and worked from there, I think they could have provided an interesting contrast with Chaos (since Solaris can also qualify as a monster with a sympathetic backstory) instead of recycling the surface level schtick.

- Black Doom may technically be just as bad as Mephiles, Nega, Scourge, Mimic, etc, since he's yet another villain with one-note characterization and fucked over Eggman. But because he never gained a disproportionate fandom, he doesn't annoy me to the same extent. It's easier to ignore him by comparison, and his Dr. Claw voice and face shaped like a lady's delicate part make him enjoyable to mock.

- Likewise, while Lyric is also on the same level as these other villains, it's easier to dismiss him because I was never invested in the Boom games anyway, and being an obvious alternate universe (compared to Sonic X or IDW, which retain the Modern designs and plot elements), it never had an effect on the main series. I also unironically like his design, and if nothing else, at least this snake didn't start a hypnotism fetish across the internet.

- Sally - and the rest of the Freedom Fighters for that matter - have had their importance in the franchise severely inflated. They may have been lucky to be the face of popular media (SatAM and Archie), but they're not these magnificent entities that the game characters are but a speck of dust in comparison to. Having a “legacy” doesn't make them more entitled to shit than any other character, old or new.

- Conceptually, the treasure hunting gameplay is one of the better alternate gameplay styles IMO. But it was let down in SA2 by its one track minded radar (the levels may have been big, but I don't think that would have been an issue on its own if the radar was better). If they brought it back and made it more like SA1's treasure hunting, I'd be all for it, although it would probably be better suited for a spinoff title.

- This goes for a lot of games, but when it comes to 2D, I prefer sprites over models. Not that the Rush models are bad (though the ones in Chronicles sure as fuck are), but the sprites in Mania and the Advance trilogy are just so charming and full of character.

- I actually like Marble Zone. Yeah, the level design is a bit blocky, but I love the concept of an underground temple prison, mixed with lava elements in a zone that otherwise isn't a traditional volcano level.

- I also like Sandopolis Zone. Again, completely understand why it's not the most popular zone around, but I've been a sucker for the Ancient Egyptian aesthetic since childhood (you can thank Crash 3 for that), and Act 1 is visually stunning.

- I prefer the JP soundtrack for Sonic CD over the US version overall... but I also prefer Sonic Boom over You Can Do Anything.

- SA2's soundtrack isn't bad by any means - I love Rouge's tracks, and The Last Scene is one of my favourite pieces of music - but as far as variety goes, it's a step down from SA1's soundtrack.

- If Sonic X-Treme had been released, it probably would have been unenjoyable and confusing. Whatever your thoughts on SA1, it was probably the better option between the two as far as Sonic's first legitimate translation into 3D goes.

- I have no qualms with Modern Sonic and the other Modern designs and characters, but I also fully acknowledge that changing gears from Adventure onwards - and doing it with a great amount of fanfare - was always going to create one of the biggest divides in the fandom, and fans shouldn't act surprised that this happened. The fact that they felt the need to hype up a new design and direction in the first place (compared to Mario, who has mostly been the same since the beginning, with only the occasional minor change with little fanfare) also indicates that they weren't confident enough in Sonic and his universe being the way it was, which often gets ignored by all the “SEGA have no confidence!!!” complaints you see with their recent games.

- Unleashed did not deserve the incredibly harsh reviews it received back in the day... but it doesn't deserve its current sacred cow status either. It had more effort put into it than '06 to be sure, and I can respect that, but much of it was misguided effort, and even if you like the Werehog, you have to admit that the idea came at the absolute worst time. The intro cutscene may be awesome, as is the Egg Dragoon fight, but 2% doesn't make up the entire game. Chip was also quite annoying, and I wasn't particularly sad when he pressed F in the chat at the end.

- On the other hand, while Colours definitely has its shortcomings, and people have every right to criticse those shortcomings, a lot of its most vocal detractors tend to have a stick up their arse about the game because people actually enjoyed it, and it had a gimmick that people actually liked. Yes, it may have been the first game to have those writers everyone hates, but then SA1 was the first game to give the characters alternate gameplay styles and have other villains upstage Eggman, so...

- Forces is absolutely not on the level of '06. It's nowhere close. A game being flawed does not make it the next '06, clickbait YouTubers. Or should I say, the game they want to retroactively apply '06's reception to, since they've been trying hard to magically retcon '06's own quality...

- To echo @beevean, ALL of the 3D stories have their issues. SA1 is probably the most well-rounded of them on the whole, but even that one isn't perfect.

- To echo another opinion, although I do love SA1, I'm not crazy over the idea of a remake, and would prefer them to just take Sonic's gameplay from SA1 and work from there. Because with a remake, you're stuck in a hard spot: Do you keep it the way it is bar the expected graphical upgrades, and risk accusations of not doing anything to actually improve the experience? Or do you try to address past criticisms, and risk the wrath of the fans who will inevitably go on a #NotMyAdventure crusade about it? What people fail to consider is that the Crash and Spyro remakes were accepted gracefully because their original iterations were still unanimously beloved for the most part, whereas SA1 - and especially SA2 - have always been divisive, and have only gotten moreso over the years.

- People take their preferences for the character's voice actors too seriously. I have my own favourites like anyone else, but I don't make a big deal out of it.

- And with fandom voice actors, they usually focus too much on doing a basic impression of their preferred official voice actor, and not enough on the acting. So you end up getting a lot of fan voices who sound like decent impressions of Ryan Drummond or Jason Griffith on the surface, but they sound utterly empty beyond that impression, because there's no oomph or depth to the actual emotions. They think about the actor rather than the character, when it should really be the other way around.

- The thing with Ian Flynn is that he is capable of telling a decent story, and he can portray some characters well. But he's proven time and time again that everything will go off the rails if he's given too much freedom (ironic, given how quick he is to point the finger at mandates when something goes wrong).

- Ian Flynn and Shiro Maekawa are not the only people in the world who are allowed to write for Sonic. I understand that one should be cautious when seeking out new writing talent, but for all the fandom's accusations of playing it safe, they sure aren't in a rush to experiment outside of their own comfort zone.

- And of course, the big one: You don't fix the franchise's current problems by crawling back to its previous problems. It's much more helpful and constructive to discuss the good and bad alike with each of the games. Less “THIS GOOD, MODERN BAD”, and more “This could work, but maybe without that part...”

[mobius-prime]

260. Sonic the Hedgehog #191

Metal and Mettle (Part 1)

Writer: Ian Flynn Pencils: Tracy Yardley! Colors: Josh Ray

A few days after Scourge and the Suppression Squad have taken control of Freedom HQ, Miles alerts Scourge to an interesting and unexpected visitor - namely, Metal Sonic, through whom Eggman is speaking and watching.

Yeah, don't underestimate a fellow evildoer, Scourge. Meanwhile in New Mobotropolis, Sonic and Knuckles stand before the Council of Acorn to try to get permission to take the base back. Unfortunately for them, the council votes four to two to leave it for the time being, as they don't see Scourge as that big of a threat, and want to focus on taking New Megaopolis from Eggman before going after smaller holdings. Sonic, of course, does not take this well, and tries to talk to Knuckles about it once they exit the building.

Oh, Knuckles. You have to stop angsting about this, my dude. Sonic leaves the city on his own, musing as he races back to Freedom HQ about how despite their recent successes in battle, and many gains against Eggman and his forces, he can't help a strange feeling that overall they're losing ground. He hopes that kicking Scourge out of the base will cheer him up, but is brought up short by the sight of Scourge and Metal Sonic battling it out on the grass outside. Miles stands nearby watching, and not-so-subtly tests Scourge's leadership by asking if he wants help against Metal, as surely the others helping him would only be an insult since he conquered his planet on his own. Sonic, uninterested in any of the politics, merely barrels in to help, offering Scourge a truce to take Metal out, but Scourge angrily refuses, and both he and Metal turn on Sonic to attack. Meanwhile, Julie-Su finds Knuckles brooding on a bench in the park, and when she presses to know what's bothering him he snaps, yelling that he can't trust himself or anyone else, as no matter what he does, someone always ends up hurt, and he can't bear to face the few remaining members of his family. Julie-Su reaches for him, looking at first like she's going to comfort him, but then…

I mean, all things considered, Julie-Su, you make a fantastic point. Your family's loss has been largely glossed over until now - I don't think she was even given a single panel before now to mourn the deaths of her foster parents, despite how delighted she was to rediscover them before - and as you point out, it's not like Knuckles is suffering alone. Back at Freedom HQ, the fight continues, with Eggman telling Metal to hang in there as he's putting the "finishing touches" on some backup. Sonic and Scourge briefly wind up fighting each other without Metal's interference, during which Sonic criticizes Scourge for taking his advice to better himself to a brutal, negative extreme. Scourge merely mocks Sonic's restraint, pointing out how much more powerful he is as a king than as a hero.

Ooh, dramatic parallels to their prior talk! I love it! Metal interrupts before Sonic can respond, and as the fight continues once more we move this time to Angel Island, where Knuckles is having a talk with Archimedes while Charmy sits nearby.

So something that needs to be pointed out is that inexplicably, this is Archimedes' last appearance in the comic, ever. Unlike all the other characters who have disappeared from the comic, there's no reason given - no genocide, no dimensional portal to swallow him up, no deaths or sudden decisions to leave and find himself on another continent, nothing. He just… never shows up again. It's disappointing, as y'all know how much I like Archimedes, but again I really do think this stems from Ian's weird, irritating habit of erasing a lot of Kenders' contributions to this world. I know that he's trying to make the comic's world more like the games, and that in the games, Knuckles is the last echidna and isn't embroiled in all these politics, but dammit, there's nothing wrong with comic Knuckles being so different from game Knuckles! Personality-wise, he's still similar, still recognizable, it's just his circumstances that are different. Then again, maybe I shouldn't be blaming Ian for all of this - for all I know, Sega themselves ordered him to get rid of all of this stuff. I dunno, man, I'm just some random fan with a blog. Speaking of controversial decisions by Ian, though, it's nice to see him doing his best to treat Charmy's brain damage with respect here. He certainly acts more childlike than he once did, but he's doing his best, and isn't a punchline, still actively participating in missions and helping Knuckles sort his own problems out.

Anyway, Knuckles, encouraged by his mentor's words, uses his warp ring to head back to the city, where he and Julie-Su give a curt apology to each other with an agreement to sort things out more fully later, when he's had more time to work through his emotional distress. They consider heading to Freedom HQ to help Sonic, but Knuckles believes that Sonic can most likely handle the situation on his own. Of course, we know better - Sonic might be able to take on Scourge or Metal individually, but both at once is a real challenge. He kicks Metal aside, only to be startled by the sight of another robot coming to join the fray - a robot that looks exactly like Scourge. Wow, Eggman, you really didn't waste any time on that one, huh? How many Metal Sonics do you think he has lying around in his base just ready for a paint job and a new assignment?

Though there's another story in this issue, we won't be covering it. Why? Well, it's the first real installment of "In Another Time, In Another Place"! I've mentioned it before, but it's basically what Ian decided to do when it was clear he couldn't keep putting in half-adaptions of random games anymore, but still needed to do tie-ins for newly-released games. With the pattern we've been taking with these tie-ins lately, you'd think this one would be for Sonic '06, but nope! For whatever reason, Sonic '06 goes completely unacknowledged within the comic verse (at least for now), with the sole exception of Shadow joining up with GUN. However, as I've mentioned before, Ian did state somewhere along the way that Sonic '06 did in fact happen somewhere during the course of the comic's plotline - it's just that due to the very nature of the game's story, the events of the plot are entirely reset and erased from the timeline at the end, meaning an adaption doesn't even have to take place, as technically, even though those events did happen, they also… didn't.

But all that aside, the tie-in in today's issue is actually for the little-remembered DS title, Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, which was an RPG developed by Bioware of all companies (and yes, they did include one of their trademark Bioware romance sidequests, though it's probably of little interest to anyone who doesn't ship Sonamy). While again, we're not covering it due to it being non-canon, it's an important thing to note regardless. For one, these In Another Time, In Another Place installments became pretty commonplace throughout the comic as new games were released, but perhaps more importantly, this was the game that apparently really got under Kenders' skin. The problem is that after all he'd done to develop the world of the echidnas and all the political and military factions thereof, this game's plot ended up heavily centering around a band of echidnas in dark armor emerging from a parallel dimension where time moves more slowly, with an intent to take the Master Emerald and use it to cement their place of power in the real world once more, though one female echidna realizes the error of her people's ways and abandons her army to side with Knuckles against her megalomaniacal and powerful male leader. Gee, sound familiar? While I don't believe that Bioware or Sega actually copied Kenders' ideas outright - the way I've described it makes it sound similar, but there's a ton of differences in the plot and presentation that definitely indicate they're two different ideas by different people - Kenders certainly seems to think it's a rip-off, and this was from what I understand at the core of all his problems with Sega that led to his eventual lawsuit that forced the reboot of the comic. It sucks, too, because even aside from losing all the years of history in the preboot, the plot of Sonic Chronicles was actually quite fascinating and it ended on a cliffhanger, which will never, ever be resolved because Sega doesn't even want to touch that can of worms after everything that happened. I think the game has actually been quietly stricken from canon, too, because the cliffhanger literally involved Eggman having taken over the world while everyone was away, and there's just no way to solve something like that offscreen. Just a bad time all around, folks. As they say in the fandom - thanks, Ken Penders. Still, though, we have quite a ways to go before we hit the preboot's end, so let's forget about the negative stuff and keep trucking on.

[lechevaliermalfet]

Vae Victis! – A Look Back at Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain

It was the mid-1990s.  We were in the fifth generation of video game consoles, and gaming as a medium was eager to prove that it had grown up.

This had been going on before the fifth generation, of course.  The Sega Genesis sold itself on its contrast to the status quo.  “Sega does what Nintendon’t,” and all that.  Sega’s whole image was bound up in being the cool kid, the one who’d outgrown all those pokey “kiddie” games like Super Mario Bros. or Kid Icarus or Mega Man.  Sega fans played games like Mortal Kombat and Eternal Champions.  Even a mascot game like Sonic the Hedgehog had a kind of snide adolescent streak to it; leaner, meaner, and less patient.   Nintendo themselves had to butch up a little, even.  When their bloodless version of the first Mortal Kombat got outsold by Sega’s, which kept all the gore – despite otherwise being technically superior in every measurable way – they relaxed their standards and left all the blood and fatalities intact for the second and third games, and saw a jump in sales accordingly.  

The 90s were in part a decade of cynicism and ironic detachment.  Sincerity tended to be frowned upon as being kind of silly and naive, or else a cover for motives less savory.  Strong skepticism was the default mode, and in fiction, anti-heroes were all the rage.

Which brings us to Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain, described by its developers as a Legend of Zelda “for adults”.

Of course, any self-described adult who can’t bear to play a Legend of Zelda game because they feel it’s not grown-up enough needs to sit down and re-assess their idea of adulthood, and how secure they are in it.  If a tolerance for violence (if not a craving) is all it takes, then I was an adult at about eleven, when I was single-handedly mowing down whole armies of Nazis in Wolfenstein 3D.

But those were the times, and that’s how Blood Omen got pushed.  Which is unfortunate, because it misses the more thoughtful parts of the game’s story that actually did make it material mostly for adults.

“...the first act in my theatre of Grand Guignol!”

We begin in the world of Nosgoth, and if there’s a made-up fantasy word that screams “dark supernatural fantasy” more than that, I haven’t heard it.  Our main character is Kain, a nobleman caught out at night in a town where he can’t find an inn or tavern to stay for the night.  He is cornered by assassins and murdered, whereupon he goes to hell.  Or at least, we can assume it’s hell; I don’t think even a death metal band’s idea of heaven involves being cuffed to twin posts overlooking a literal lake of fire with a sword stuck through you.  Anyway, that’s where Kain is, cursing the fact that he can’t get revenge.  Which seems a little warped, on the surface of things.  You’d think if you were stuck in hell, then getting out, however impossible, might seem more important than getting back at the people who killed you.  But if you’re the kind of person who winds up in hell after being murdered, I suppose it stands to reason that your priorities may not be in order.

While Kain is in hell, lamenting his impotent rage and generally ignoring all the fine mid-90s CG scenery, he is approached by a necromancer named Mortanius.

The necromancer offers him a way back to the world of the living, and thus a chance at revenge.  Eager to oblige his overdeveloped sense of wrath, Kain takes him up on the offer, and fails to consider that there are only a few different ways, traditionally, that a dead person can cross back through the veil.  And none of them really involve returning to life exactly as you were.

Kain rises from his grave as a vampire, stronger than he ever was in life, and only too happy to hack up his assassins when he encounters them not far from the site of his crypt.  However, as he comes down from his vengeance-high, he hears a voice in the back of his mind – Mortanius’s voice, in fact – suggesting that his assassins were “the instruments of your murder, not the cause”.  Mortanius then urges him to seek out the Pillars to find the real reason for his murder, and its true culprits.

We need to rewind a bit.

IN THE BEGINNING, there were the Pillars of Nosgoth (in fact, “Pillars of Nosgoth” was the game’s working title for a while). Rooted who knows how deep in the earth below, and reaching up to the clouds, the Pillars are a structure that should be physically impossible.  They are somehow both integral to the natural order of the world, and also the embodiment of certain elemental principles. There are nine of them, embodying – in no particular order – conflict, energy, states (of being, not political), dimensions, death, nature, time, the mind, and balance.  Each Pillar has its guardian, a human endowed with powers according to the Pillar’s defining principle, and tasked with overseeing that Pillar’s particular province.  

A good while back in the past (how long is not detailed in this game, but probably centuries) there was a genocidal crusade of sorts against vampires, who were evidently a serious scourge of some kind.  In fact, the game opens on a view of a field – practically a forest – of stakes, with a vampire impaled on each.  Vlad Tepes would be proud.  This crusade was ordered by the Circle of Nine (the collective group of Pillar guardians), and carried out by the fanatical religious order known as the Sarafan Brotherhood.

Monsters that they are, the vampires did not take this well.  One of their number, an elder vampire named Vorador, decided to strike back.  Vorador was by this point in his unlife no longer quite human looking, with mottled grey skin (later series installments would make this varying shades of green), odd three-clawed hands, and giant bat-like ears. Blood Omen never elaborates on the reason for this difference.  At any rate, he singlehandedly stormed the citadel of the Pillar guardians while most of the Sarafan brotherhood were away (presumably looking for more vampires to stake), and wound up killing several of them (one of the sequels gives the number as six).  In the process, he even managed to beat down Malek on his way out, perhaps the greatest warrior among the Sarafan, and the one specifically tasked with safeguarding the Circle.

For screwing up his one job, Malek was punished by being made to do that job for eternity.  It might seem inadvisable to take the guy who failed to guard you and then make him your guard forever, but it helps if you rip his soul out of his body and bind it to his armor, thus making him a sleepless, tireless, unfeeling, and ever vigilant warrior fueled by pure wrath.  Which is what they (or rather, Mortanius) ultimately did.  At some point between this time and the present day of Blood Omen, Malek became the guardian of the Pillar of Conflict, so evidently he was fit for his role in the end.

Now we fast-forward a bit, to a point just moments before Kain’s birth. In fact, later games place this at the exact moment of that birth.

Somewhere around thirty years before Kain’s murder outside a nameless tavern in a random town, Ariel, the guardian of the Pillar of Balance, is murdered.  This is bad news for all the usual reasons, and also one or two unusual ones.  It turns out that her lover is the guardian of the Pillar of the Mind, the mentalist Nupraptor.  Her murder drives him insane, and being a telepath (among other things), his insanity infects the guardians of the other Pillars as well. This turns them from their usual purpose of upholding the natural balance, and instead sets them to destroying it.  This in turn corrupts the Pillars, symbiotically connected to their guardians, turning them from pristine white to a pitted and cracking grey.  With both the Pillars and their guardians respectively corrupted and insane, the natural order of things begins to fall apart.  Bad news all around.

Blood Omen is somewhat unusual in that it’s one of the few probably rare instances in fiction where a woman is stuffed into the fridge at the beginning of the story, and in order to drive the villain to extremes of behavior.

So.

Now we have Kain, in the present of our story, given to understand that his death was in some way connected with the Pillars and their corruption.  He makes his way to the Pillars, where he meets Ariel’s restless spirit.  She’s the one who lays out for him part of the business about her murder and Nupraptor’s madness, and the threat posed to the world by it all.  Kain is only interested in a cure for his vampirism (now that he’s had his vengeance, he wants no part of this undeath business), but Ariel persuades him that his best bet is to deal with the corruption of the Pillars.  So Kain storms off to go take care of Nupraptor, and ultimately to cleanse the Pillars by severing their connection to their now-insane guardians, solving the problem of their corruption by reference to his sword.  Go with what you know.

It’s at this point that Kain’s personal arc begins to unfold, as he becomes increasingly alienated from humanity, both the species and the concept.  While initially at odds with his vampirism, Kain spends the story coming to grips with the hypocrisy and corruption of human civilization, all the while becoming more and more comfortable with the seeming monstrosity of his new existence.  This is a matter of some necessity.  He has things he needs to do, he has to stay alive to do them, and so a certain amount of blood-drinking and slaughter seems inevitable.  

In his travels, he comes across Vorador’s manor, situated deep in a swamp teeming with monsters.  Kain seeks his help to destroy Malek.  Vorador, for his part, spends the encounter being lordly and largely dismissive of Kain’s quest.  He advises the fledgling vampire that meddling in mortal affairs is nothing but bad news.  Better to sit back and sate one’s hunger – or thirst, in this case – and let the mortal world turn as it will.  Humans are to be preyed on, not helped or manipulated or otherwise gotten involved with.  Best to stay above such passing concerns.  Nevertheless, he takes a liking to Kain, and gives him his ring to summon him at need.

Say a word often enough, and it starts to lose its sense of meaning.  Actions likewise lose significance with repetition.  They become rote.  And as time wears on, Kain seems to begin making a turn.  There’s a certain honesty in being a monster.  You always know what you are, and you always know how other people see you.  Kain may sneer at Vorador’s decadence when they meet, but at least the elder vampire is never less than one hundred percent honest about what he is.

And as Kain goes on, it begins to seem that Vorador was right.  So much of Kain’s and the world’s difficulties seem to stem from the selfishness, greed, shortsightedness, self-absorption, and general malice of the people he runs up against.  Eventually, he winds up accidentally sparking a second genocidal crusade against his own kind.  This has mostly to do with him traveling back in time to kill a man in the past who would grow to become a tyrant in his current era.  This mistake no doubt has its roots in his not having not grown up in a world with a whole sub-genre of fiction concerned with the merits or otherwise of traveling back in time to kill Hitler.

We will have such fun with time travel as the series goes on, let me tell you.

The game ends by offering the player a choice.  Kain’s efforts to cleanse the Pillars and restore balance to the world have made him the new guardian of the Pillar of Balance.  Yet, like all other Pillar Guardians slain at his hand, he himself is corrupt, and must die to complete the task.  So the player is asked: Will Kain willingly sacrifice himself for the greater good of Nosgoth, or will he refuse the sacrifice and choose to live in an increasingly broken and corrupt world.

The sequels take the second ending as canon, and honestly, it’s hard to argue.  This isn’t a story about hope springing eternal, after all.  The few people in it who are unambiguously good are either killed (Ariel) or largely ineffectual (King Ottmar, who comes to prominence briefly toward the end of the story).  The player may feel differently, but there’s little reason to believe that Kain would.  Proud, haughty, vindictive, wrathful, and growing ever more cynical and mistrustful of the motives of those around him, tired of being used as a tool for other’s schemes...  Why would he choose to sacrifice himself?

And so, canonically, we close on a shot of Kain sitting on a throne at the base of the Pillar of Balance, with it and all the other Pillars lying in a broken ruin around him.  He drinks from a goblet, and muses that Vorador was right after all: “Vampires are gods – dark gods – and it is our duty to thin the herd.”

The End.

“Nothing is free.  Not even revenge.”

So that’s Blood Omen as a story.  What about as a game?

On the balance it’s kind of uneven.  

On a technical level, it’s fairly impressive.  In its time, it stood as a testament to the potential quality of two-dimensional graphics in gaming, even as the entire medium was leaping into the third dimension, ready to ditch and decry anything made in 2D as inferior. The result from a technical standpoint is that Blood Omen has in some ways aged better than a lot of other games of its vintage, including its first sequel.  

But then you actually play the thing, and see where it sort of falls apart.

Let’s get the easy part over with, shall we?  The load times in Blood Omen are godawful, just the worst possible combination of long and frequent. It seems almost like a joke at times: “Really?  We’re loading again?  It was one fucking room!”  Were it not for the fact that it began development as a totally unrelated game, I would strongly suspect that the sequel, Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, used its data-streaming technology to avoid loading times altogether purely as a response to this criticism.  I still think that may be the case.

Once we dig past the issue of loading times, though, the game reveals other issues.

There are good ideas on display here.  Let’s start with that.  The game has a day-and-night cycle, and while you can walk around during the day, you deal less damage (and take more) while the sun is up.  Water is like the touch of acid to a vampire, and any time you’re in it, you’ll take constant damage.  Rain and snow will likewise damage you, and while there are power-ups that are supposed to eliminate this problem, I’m not sure they actually work.  At least, not on the PC version of the game, which is what I’ve mostly played.  

The game also requires that Kain drink blood periodically.  His health naturally drains very slowly, but constantly, so you always have to be on the lookout for a way to top yourself off.  There are some more abstract health restoration items, as well as a consumable item you can use, called the Heart of Darkness (this item will become obscenely important in later installments).  However, the game is structured such that most of Kain’s health restoration will have to come from either enemies or, more often, helpless innocents.  This ties nicely into the game’s theme of alienation from humanity, though the way the game often presents these situations –random strangers chained to walls all over the world, for no apparent reason – seems a little odd at times.  And it has interesting ideas about different creatures having blood that might actually be harmful to Kain, or inflict him with a long-term poison.

In addition to the graphics looking nice (the CG cutscenes are definitely of their time, but the in-game sprite work and lighting effects are quite nice), the game has a great soundtrack, dark and moody and ominous. And the voice work is superb.  All character interactions are handled with voiceover rather than on-screen text, and the cast knocks it out of the park.  Not just “good for the mid-90s video game voice acting”, but great, period.

The puzzle-solving is a little lackluster, though.  For something pitched as a “grown-up Legend of Zelda”, its puzzles largely consist of pulling levers and pushing buttons, and navigating mazes. Which is fine, but again, any game that’s going to self-consciously compare itself to The Legend of Zelda needs to bring its A game, especially with its puzzle-solving.

The game does offer you a lot of tools to use, in the form of different weapons, spells, and magical items.  But a lot of these boil down to more inventive yet questionably practical ways to kill enemies.  And considering that setting up a selection of these items for immediate access involves going back and forth to the inventory menu (requiring a load time both ways), it’s easier to just stick with your weapon and a handful of the most commonly used spells and items and call it a day.

Weapons themselves are another problem.  You’ll find that your iron sword from the very beginning of the game is the most generally useful. The mace will let you stun human enemies to drink their blood after just two hits, but it lacks the crowd-control effect of the sword, and also lacks the stunning effect on the non-human enemies that make up the bulk of your later-game foes.  It’s also useful for knocking down certain stone barriers, but these are few and far between, and necessary for progress only very rarely.  The twin axes let Kain cut down trees barring his path, and also let him cut down enemies by spinning like a saw blade… but this means you’ll frequently kill enemies before you have a chance to drain them.  The flaming sword burns enemies alive and leaves only ashes, preventing you from drinking blood that way.  And then the final weapon, the Soul Reaver (also an item of incalculable importance later in the series), deals massive damage as long as you have magic power to fuel it.  But while thus empowered, it detonates the enemies it kills, making them impossible to drain.  And when not empowered, it’s only as damaging as the iron sword, but slower and more awkward.

Combat in general gets frustrating at times, thanks to the iffy hit detection.  One enemy might walk right through your sword swing, while another you could swear was out of range will register a hit.  It never becomes a total deal-breaker, but it’s a point of frequent irritation as you go.

Let’s have another positive: Kain also gains the ability to transform into various other states as the game goes by.  In his wolf form, he can leap over certain obstacles, but his attack in this form has no combo ability and a long wind-up, making him vulnerable.  He can use his bat form to fast-travel between beacons and certain landmark locations, while his mist form allows him to walk on water without taking damage, as well as cross certain barriers without opening the door.  There are also two disguises he can use.  One transforms him into a peasant, while the other turns him into a human-looking version of himself so that he can pass as a nobleman.  The use of both of these is largely situational, required in a very small number of situations and then mostly pointless outside of them.

But perhaps the thing that stands out the most is its linearity.

This is to some extent mandated by the story.  Unlike The Legend of Zelda, to which this game invites much comparison, Blood Omen’s story is very much at all times front and center.  A Zelda game will leave you with bits of story here and there, and largely leave you to explore or puzzle your way forward or dick around in town or otherwise do your own thing for long stretches of time.  The story in one of those games is the starting point of the experience, a backdrop against which you play out the adventure.  Hyrule is to some extent defined by that openness, with its plains and deserts and vast forests and so on.  

Blood Omen lacks this.  Its story is the entire point and purpose of the game. The path forward is always clear and rarely has room for deviation or discovery.  There may be things hidden off to the side, but these tend ultimately to be cul-de-sacs, connecting to nothing else.  This is even subtly expressed in the game’s environments: lots of indoor areas, caves, narrow trails, canyons, and so on.  There’s little opportunity to go off the beaten path.  Blood Omen’s pathways not only discourage exploration, they often disable it. This is not your experience to own; it is Kain’s story for you to be told.

I feel like in story terms, that’s ultimately the difference.  Legend of Zelda’s story always exists to serve the game that Nintendo crafts.  Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain’s game exists to serve the story.

And just to be clear, none of this is bad at all.  It’s every bit as valid in terms of game design and mechanics as any given Zelda.  But if you’re going to compare your game to The Legend of Zelda and then fail to do the most essentially Zelda things in it – not just do them poorly, but not do them at all, missing the point entirely of what a Zelda game is about – then it’s worth commenting on.  I like Blood Omen, but I had to get used to thinking of it on its own terms.  The Zelda comparisons are easy to make. Even without the developers making them, the look and structure of the game seems to invite them.  

Like a good book, Blood Omen is a (mostly) straight shot from start to finish.  Its linearity is what allows it to control the story, to unfold its plot and explore its themes at a pace of its choosing.  The game to some extent revels in its edginess, but to be honest, it was perfect for me at the time.  I was sixteen when I first played the game.  Sixteen, and a bit of a loner with an odd and private (but intense) interest in vampires.  It was probably the perfect game for me at the time.  And it’s still ultimately enjoyable today, if you take it as what it is.  Not as a Legend of Zelda game for adults, but as a decent action-adventure game with a good story and top-notch presentation.  If you don’t mind the linearity and the relentlessly dark and sometimes disturbing story, it’s just about perfect.

Post-script the First: Likelihood of Re-release, and Current Availability

Eeeehhhhhhhhhh...

Here’s the problem: Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain was originally dreamed up and created by Silicon Knights and published by Crystal Dynamics (who also had a hand in the development, late in the process), with distribution to be handled by Activision.  Crystal Dynamics eventually got full ownership of the Legacy of Kain brand, and used it to make the first sequel to Blood Omen, titled Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver.  Silicon Knights was against this, but had less deep pockets than Crystal Dynamics, so they were ultimately the losers of the resulting court battle over the affair.  The lone bone thrown to them was that Crystal Dynamics had to acknowledge in the game that Soul Reaver was based on characters and ideas created by Silicon Knights.

By the time Soul Reaver rolled around, Crystal Dynamics belonged to Eidos.  Then, in 2005 (not long after the last Legacy of Kain game was published), Eidos was completely bought out by Square Enix, and was mostly refocused on creating western-style games under the Square Enix umbrella.  Crystal Dynamics still exists as a division within Square, where they’ve been making various Tomb Raider games almost exclusively ever since the acquisition.

The problem with any hypothetical remaster or re-release of Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain is that, for several years, it would have required some three-way legal wrangling to determine who really owned the thing, and what they could do with it (if anything), and under what conditions.  

As of about 2014, Silicon Knights ceased to exist (about which more later, because it’s a fun story), but that still leaves the rights an open issue.  Square Enix seems to own the larger Legacy of Kain intellectual property, but there’s the question of ownership regarding Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain specifically, and I’m not sure that question has ever been answered.  Silicon Knights doesn’t exist, but many of its personnel are still around in some capacity, and would presumably have something to say about anything involving it.

Venues like Steam and Good Old Games have released the every other installment in the series digitally (even Blood Omen 2), but nobody’s touched the original game.  Probably CD Projekt Red and Valve don’t have much desire to try unsnarling the ownership and licensing issues themselves, and none of the owners seem all that keen on it, either.

And it will probably stay that way.  The Legacy of Kain series in general has always been pretty solidly in the B tier of video games, from back when there still even was much of a B tier in the first place.  The fanbase for that kind of deliberately overwrought gothic supernatural fantasy was loyal, but never very big, and I’m not sure how much that’s changed.  Moreover, I’m not sure either Square is willing to bank on it having grown in the interim enough to do anything about this first game in the series.  The more time goes by, the less inclination any party has to make anything of the series, especially an early entry whose ownership may be contested. An indirect sequel, and also some kind of MMO, were both in the works at various points.  The MMO vanished after not very long at all on the market, and the indirect sequel never made it out of development.

Legal options for playing Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain are limited.  You can play the original PlayStation version on the PlayStation 1, 2, or 3.  It’s also digitally available on the PS3, although not for the PSP or Vita.  Infuriatingly, it’s one of a small handful of games that can’t even be side-loaded (a process that involves downloading a digital PS1 game onto your PS3, then copying it uninstalled to the Vita).  The PC version, meanwhile, can still be played, though there’s a special program custom-made for it that you’ll have to get in order to install it and run it on modern systems.  And this tends to run a little slow.  Music and sound are fine, it’s just the game actually moves slower than normal.  Or you could install a virtual desktop and play it that way.

Post-script the Second: The Death of Chivalry

So whatever happened with Silicon Knights?  

Well, the story is… not complicated, exactly, but not entirely straightforward, either.

Development of Blood Omen was troubled.  As we would later learn, this was not an especially novel situation for Silicon Knights to be in.  Two of their other big projects later on underwent some turbulence in production.  Blood Omen was originally to be created by Silicon Knights and published by Crystal Dynamics.  Later on, after Crystal Dynamics became part of British publisher Eidos, they were able to somehow leverage this connection to strongarm their way into ownership of the overall Legacy of Kain intellectual property.  They used it to make the first sequel to Blood Omen, titled Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver. This had begun life as a brand-new IP (originally titled Shifter), which helps explain some of the tremendous thematic, aesthetic, and design differences between the two games.  

Silicon Knights later maintained that they’d had their own ideas for a potential Blood Omen sequel, but never got around to it, and after Crystal Dynamics started making their own sequels, Silicon Knights lost interst.  I’m not sure how much of that is real and how much is just so much sour grapes.  Anyway, they went off and did their own thing for a while.  They published the survival horror game Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem for the GameCube, after having signed an exclusivity deal with Nintendo around that time.  It had originally been in development for the N64, but was ultimately moved up to the newer hardware after development delays.  For anyone who’s wondering, Eternal Darkness an excellent game, on the shortlist of must-own GameCube titles, even if you’re not necessarily a fan of survival horror.  It’s not perfect (among other things, you have to beat the game three times to see the true ending), but it does a lot of interesting things.  

They also developed the GameCube remake of Metal Gear Solid (likely under heavy scrutiny and supervision form Konami), dubbed Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes.  Much as I tend to prefer the original version of the game for its restraint (Twin Snakes has a lot of ridiculous high-flying wire-fu maneuvering in its action cutscenes), the remake is worth any Metal Gear fan’s time. Among other things, series creator Hideo Kojima has apparently declared it the canon version of events.  It also saw a re-dubbing of the entire script, since apparently when the original audio was played back at a higher sampling rate, you could hear the traffic in the background, which the ramshackle soundproofing used in the original hadn’t been able to entirely shut out.  The re-dubbed script also has the benefit of having allowing Jennifer Hale and Kim Mai Guest to ditch their put-on accents – Guest’s being particularly irritating, and borderline racist (maybe actually racist; I’m a white dude, and not totally clear on these things).

After this, they moved on to the Xbox 360 with their passion project Too Human, which had been troubled from the beginning.  Its on-again, off-again development cycle spanned a decade and three console generations.  It began development for the original PlayStation, then shifted to the GameCube when the developer did in the early 2000s.  It went quiet for a few years, then resurfaced as an Xbox 360 project that was ultimately delivered in 2008, two years after its projected release on that console.

Too Human was a notorious, news-making flop, and Silicon Knights responded to this failure not simply by pinning the blame on someone else, but by doing that and then actually suing them.  Specifically, they sued Epic Games, from whom they had licensed the Unreal Engine 3 to make the final version of Too Human.  The accusation was that Epic deliberately sabotaged developers who licensed their engine by providing an incomplete product, and that the difficulties stemming from this had caused development delays.  These delays, and the compromises they brought about, were supposedly ultimately responsible for the failure and the financial losses of Too Human.

Epic responded by then counter-suing, which was the beginning of the end for Silicon Knights.

Epic’s counter-suit stated that Unreal Engine 3 was a work in progress, and that they were making it essentially on the fly as they developed the first Gears of War.  The counter-suit further stated that it was readily and openly acknowledged that the engine was unfinished, and that when it was done, it might ultimately not turn out to be useful for the licensees.  Epic’s suit further indicated that these facts were all known and laid out in the licensing contract, and so like all licensees, Silicon Knights knew this when they signed for it.  

But it gets better (which is to say, worse, at least for Silicon Knights). Epic’s counter-suit also included the allegation that Silicon Knights had knowingly and wrongfully copied code wholesale from Unreal Engine 3 and incorporated it into their own engine without permission from Epic.  They had then gone on to use this hybrid engine on other internal projects without the permission of the people they’d cannibalized it from.  

Now, I’m not one to root for a big corporation, even (especially) a game developer.  But Silicon Knights had the misfortune of being run by Denis Dyack, a known con-man, grifter, shady bullshitter, and general ambulatory phallus.  He maybe wasn’t in the same category as a Randy Pitchford or a Bobby Kotick, but that’s less a matter of capacity and more a matter of opportunity.  Given the chance to operate on their scale, I don’t doubt he’d have fit right in with that crowd.  

As far as the court case went, the evidence was overwhelmingly in Epic’s favor. In addition to their own court costs and damages awarded to Epic, Silicon Knights was forced to recall all unsold copies of Too Human and X-Men: Destiny (another game they’d developed with their Unreal Engine 3 hybrid), as well as scrap all projects using the engine, which seems to have been literally everything they had in the works at that point.

So what happened, essentially, is that Silicon Knights sued Epic Games in an effort to offset their losses by making money out of the Too Human debacle somehow, and it backfired so comically that they broke themselves against their opponent.

But their end, one way or another, was probably inevitable in that console generation.  Looking at their release history, there’s really nothing that stands out as a hit or an absolute classic.  Eternal Darkness and Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes were both fine games, this much is true.  But Eternal Darkness was a GameCube exclusive, and the GameCube didn’t sell the way Nintendo hoped.  Meanwhile, The Twin Snakes is certainly nice, but as a remake of a different developer’s game, it has little in the way of originality, and very little of the material can really be said to “belong” to Silicon Knights, since it was someone else’s brainchild right from the start.  

They were never a hugely prolific publisher, with eight games published before they folded, and according to Wikipedia, seven known titles cancelled at various points during their existence.  These cancelled projects included two sequels to Too Human (which had always been planned as a trilogy).  Given the cold reception received by the original, both from critics and consumers alike, that seems questionable.  In for a penny, in for a pound, I guess.  But however you look at it, they didn’t have what you’d call a good ratio of finished to unfinished projects.  And while it’s worth mentioning that many of those unfinished projects were upcoming games they were forced to cancel because they’d been made (or begun) with their illegal Unreal Engine 3 hybrid, the fact is that when your business plan hinges on stealing another developer’s game engine to make your own games, you’re already in a bad place.  

Silicon Knights pretty firmly slotted into the middle tier of video games.  For my money, the middle tier is in some ways the sweet spot.  It’s more high-tech and technically involved than the indie set, yet not so high-budget that developers in it can’t feel free to experiment.  But that middle tier has all but vanished these days. It’s questionable whether Silicon Knights would have hung on long enough to find a spot in it today, even if they hadn’t destroyed themselves going after Epic, just based on the iffy reception of their games.  That’s without considering the general skullduggery it took to keep them going in the first place.  And I also tend to think of X-Men: Destiny as a bad sign.  There’s no shame in work-for-hire; it’s how a lot of major development studios (like Blizzard) started out.  But that’s the key: you start out doing work-for-hire projects to make the money to strike out on your own. Silicon Knights was moving in the opposite direction, and that’s a bad sign.

Vae Victis, indeed.

[sonicstorybook]

The King’s Champion

A SatBK AU where Shadow is the one sent to Camelot and Sonic is the doppelgänger- the one and only King Arthur!

Part: 3/4

Summary: Arthur the Hedgehog pulled the legendary sword Caliburn from the stone, and he became King Arthur, the ruler of Camelot. Shadow the Hedgehog appears in a flash of magic in the middle of his banquet hall, and he becomes Arthur’s problem. As the sun rises over the kingdom, a pre-dawn conversation between both hedgehogs also helps them reach... well, not quite a mutual understanding, but progress is progress!

(Shadow doesn’t know where he is, what’s going on, or why he’s there- but it doesn’t matter. He’s Shadow the Hedgehog, the world’s ultimate life form, and he’s going to play this weird game by his rules.)

Contains: Pre-relationship/platonic Arthadow (Arthur the Hedgehog x Shadow the Hedgehog)!

Rating: G

Word count:   1,820

Note: I figured out the issue! The new post editor. C,: Back at legacy and no word limit- but I’m going to split the last part into another post so I can make another lil chapter header image ahaha.

Also, other characters introduced this part:

Sir Gawain is Knuckles the Echidna! Sir Lamorak is Jet the Hawk! Sir Kay is Scourge the Hedgehog! Sir Gareth is Mighty the Armadillo!

“Sire!” Well, more like broken open, as Gawain’s armored fist tears through the solid wood easily. (Arthur makes a mental note to get the tower and the door repaired.) The knight of the sun runs up to him, a worried frown darkening his face, “Are you well, my lord?!”

“I'm great!” Arthur tries to keep his composure, but he’s still energized from the unexpected adventure. Lamorak, his newest knight, is the first to follow after Gawain, followed by more of his knights. Kay is the very last one through the door, looking bored and unconcerned as he picks at his sharp teeth. Typical. His brother didn’t care about things outside of his area of responsibility, and he knew Arthur could take care of himself. 

Arthur gives his knights a reassuring smile, gesturing at them to lower their weapons, which most do with varying levels of reluctance. Lamorak, notably, does not, but the hawk is too hungry to make a name for himself to ever take a passive role. Most of his other knights seem content to let Gawain take the lead, “Shadow just showed me the most marvelous trick with the wind, ‘Wain! It was like a dream-”

“Is that so?” Gawain glances at Arthur, scanning him quickly for visible injuries, before turning his attention to Shadow. He puts himself between the hedgehogs, standing in front of his king as he eyes Shadow warily, “Where is your cape? Did this churl take it?”

Arthur sighs deeply as Gawain doesn't see him. His knight noticed his symbol of authority was missing, but Gawain didn’t notice the brightness in Arthur’s eyes or the genuine smile on his face. A true warrior and protector, so focused on the potential threat to the crown that he doesn’t realize the crown is fine. Actually, the crown is better than he has been in a long time.

“I’m a hedgehog,” Shadow answers Gawain defiantly with a chilly glower of his own. 

“And what do I want with a rag?” Shadow crosses his arms over his chest, a sign of dismissive self-assurance that has Gawain bristling. Only someone very brave or very foolish would dare face Gawain when the sun is so high in the sky, and Arthur isn’t sure which one Shadow is as he keeps antagonizing the knight of the sun, “Your king is simply careless.”

“How dare you!” Gawain takes an aggressive step forward, slicing the air with his hand in his outrage. Some of his other knights react poorly to the comment, too, making sounds of disagreement as their hands rest on their weapons threateningly. (It’s a pity Guin isn’t there. She’s mastered the art of laughing in her eyes while keeping her expression prim and proper, and she would have undoubtedly agreed with Shadow’s assessment. At least Lamorak, still so new to knighthood and not yet versed in the ways of the court, guffaws as his beak widens in an amused smile that makes Arthur feel like he’s more than just a king.)

“Do not speak to him so familiarly, imposter!” Gawain demands angrily, circling Shadow warily.  In his haste, the knight of the sun did not bring Galatine with him, but his armored fists and legendary strength are formidable enough on their own.

“Imposter?!” Shadow echoes back, offended, baring his teeth in a snarl. He matches Gawain step for step, quills bristling up angrily, “Me?!”

“You may look like Lancelot, but you cannot fool me!” Gawain cracks his knuckles, and stretches his shoulder, telltale signs he’s getting ready to fight, “I will not allow you to try and steal Lancelot’s place! Just like you took the king’s cape, no doubt! You are undoubtedly seeking to replace him as the Queen’s champion!”

“Gawain…” Arthur calls out wearily, knowing that now that he’s worked up, the echidna won’t listen to anyone- not even the king, “He didn’t take my cape, the wind did.”

Gawain, predictably, ignores him since his attention is glued on Shadow.

“You have Lancelot’s face, but nothing else!” Gawain reaches back and lunges forward, fist first. Shadow jumps out of the way, but the force of the wind nearly knocks Kay off of his feet, “You don’t have his skill!”

“Kay-” Arthur starts to call out to his foster brother, but the green hedgehog waves him off irritably as he dusts off the front of his robe.

“His grace!” Gawain roars, throwing another punch Shadow skillfully avoids, although the stone floor isn’t so lucky. Debris flies into the air as several cobblestones burst with the force of the impact.

Shadow doesn’t dodge the next punch so much as he disappears from where it was aimed. “And none of his honor- Huh?!”

Gawain only has a few moments to look confused before Shadow appears behind him in a flash of energy. The hedgehog’s eyebrows are drawn together tightly in a ferocious scowl, and in the blink of an eye, Shadow kicks the knight in the back of the head. 

Gawain’s helmet takes the brunt of the impact, metal meeting metal with a hollow clunk, but the force of it still sends the echidna flying face-first into the ground. It’s deathly silent as everyone seems to hold their breath, surprised and not sure how to react.

Shadow kicked Gawain in the back of the head.

Gawain shakes his head, looking at Shadow over his shoulder with a bewildered expression. The serious hedgehog glowers back at him, half-crouched down like he’s ready to continue the fight. Time has come to a standstill in this long, quiet moment.

It’s not funny that Shadow kicked Sir Gawain of Orkney, knight of the sun and a proud son of Camelot, in the head.

Gawain’s temper and hostility make sense- he’s worried about Lancelot. He sees a stranger with his best friend’s face and immediately assumes it’s Shadow’s doing. Quite a reasonable assumption, given Lancelot’s mixed experiences with magic. Even worse, Shadow is with Camelot’s king now, and is too dangerous an unknown to leave unchallenged. Gawain was simply getting carried away while trying to protect those he loved.

Shadow, for all his stoic indifference, is disoriented and frustrated. He doesn’t understand his new social environment, or realize how his words and actions are seen as provocative and insulting. Well, initially anyway. When Gawain unfavorably compared him to Lancelot, the echidna pushed on the still tender wound of his self doubt. Naturally, Shadow lashed out to protect himself and assert himself as powerful and capable by his own merits.

It’s not funny at all, in fact, it’s serious- Arthur only has moments to think of a suitable solution that keeps Gawain from being embarrassed, mollifies his knights, and somehow protects and restrains Shadow all at the same time. And yet laughter bubbles in his chest because Shadow kicked Gawain in the back of the head for calling him something other than ‘hedgehog.’ Just like he promised he would.

“Arthur?” Kay asks from his side in a moment, although he doesn’t look particularly concerned. His brother has a habit of sniffing out trouble and getting in the midst of it, no matter the collateral damage. Kay’s sharp teeth are pulled into a smile, blue eyes glinting with mean delight, which means he found this just as amusing as Arthur did, “Are you laughing?”

Of course his brother would use this opportunity to try and drag him into this, and make Arthur the object of ridicule instead! Kay’s sense of humor is as sharp and deadly as his green quills, and always pops up at the most inconvenient time.

“Of course not!” Arthur regains his composure quickly, laying a hand against Kay’s shoulder with a strained smile and a subtle glare to convey his annoyance, “I was choking in surprise!”

Kay, as expected, doesn’t look the least bit regretful, shrugging his brother’s hand off with a flippant wave. With a low sigh, Arthur makes his way to where Shadow is standing and Gawain is getting to his feet. He slips back into his royal persona like a glove, “Splendid! I asked you to impress me, Shadow the Hedgehog, and you have not disappointed!”

Arthur claps his hand on Gawain’s back, giving his knight a friendly shake, “Rare are those who can catch Sir Gawain by surprise, and rarer still those who can land a single blow! Particularly when the sun is casting her full blessing on him! You have proven yourself, and I will grant your boon!”

“A test.” Gawain brushes some dust from his pauldron, moving his arm in such a way that his rippling muscles are in full display. The echidna eyes Shadow with distaste, forgetting himself and demanding an answer from Arthur rather than asking, “Boon? What boon?”

Arthur lets it slide with great relief, elated that Gawain readily accepts the explanation without further questioning, “The boon of being given the opportunity to prove his worth in skill of arms, noble deeds, and succor to those in need.”

It’s not an uncommon request, in fact, many of Arthur’s current knights have asked for this same boon. Gareth the Armadillo seems to be particularly moved by this request, likely remembering his own path to knighthood. He exchanges a glance with Gawain, pointedly relaxing his posture as if proving to his older brother that there was no need for hostility. Several other knights follow Gareth’s lead, willing to give Shadow an opportunity to prove himself after his impressive demonstration against Gawain. 

Arthur feels his shoulders begin to relax-

“Strange,” Kay comments airily from the side, buffing his claws against his vest. His eyes are calculating and cold, scrutinizing Shadow in a way that leaves Arthur increasingly nervous. His brother’s voice is cloyingly sweet as he asks, “My King usually extends this boon to every hopeful, young squire who stumbles through the doorway… Not getting stingy, are you, Wart?”

“Sir Kay,” Gareth gives the green hedgehog a disapproving frown, voice cool but calm, “You would do well to remember your place and to hold that sharp tongue of yours.”

His ears twitch as the armadillo smiles in Shadow’s direction, “This fellow does not strike me as patient and forgiving as our king.”

“Hear, hear!” Someone calls from the left, setting off a volley of snickering that has Kay’s quills bristling in annoyance. Arthur does wish his brother would speak a little less loudly and boldly so the target on his back wouldn’t be quite so big. 

“Tch,” Kay sucks air between his teeth dismissively, biting his thumb in Gareth’s direction with a scoff, “Perhaps this Shadow’s request was just as pathetic as yours, Beaumains-”

“Kay!” Gawain comes in defense of his brother, looking over his shoulder at Kay in obvious warning. Much to the armadillo’s chagrin, who felt his ‘big brother’ weighing in on his disputes discredited Gareth’s own deeds and reputation. Gawain would answer back hotly, and this is would devolve into unnecessary family spat- 

“The King’s Champion.”

[mashounen1945]

I may write a longer, better-planned post later, explaining some basic things necessary to better understand the Archie comics (as well as the old Sonic SatAM cartoon from the early '90s, which was largely the basis for those comics but was fairly decent) and to be able to formulate more accurate, more nuanced, informed critiques.

IIRC, you already know "dizzydennis". The last time I checked, he was more fond of the SatAM & Archie continuity (although I'm not sure about his opinions on Scourge & Fiona and the way they were written by Flynn). Maybe you should talk with him, as well as @toaarcan.

Many of the fandom's criticisms of SEGA for "restricting Ian Flynn's freedom via the mandates" are due to SEGA trying to make the Archie comics more like the videogames. This already has its own pros and cons, depending on each person's opinion on the way SEGA has managed the Sonic franchise after... well, the 2006 fiasco, as well as the mess Takashi Iizuka made out of the videogames' continuity more recently; in Archie's case, there's the additional problem that the setting for its canon (the "North-American continuity", probably called "the bastard continuity" by some people, the one that started with SatAM) is very different from the setting for the videogames' canon and many things from the games didn't mix really well with the North-American canon's stuff when they were shoehorned into Archie-Sonic (*). If you liked the SatAM & Archie continuity -either only at a conceptual level (I belong to that group) or exactly the way it was executed by Ian Flynn or any other previous writer-, you'd have seen this as "corporate meddling" and would have demanded SEGA to "just let SatAM/Archie exist"; on the other hand, if you were some sort of "canon purist" and thought SatAM/Archie was fundamentally bad and taints the Sonic series' name and should have never existed in the first place, then you'd have thought SEGA was right and people at Archie needed this "reality check" (**).

(*) To be fair, I think that, no matter how faithful to the source material we are or how much we love and respect the games' continuity and its elements, concepts, internal logic and the dynamics between its versions of the characters, many things from the games would no longer work well if we tried to adapt them into a long-running cartoon/comic with a bit more emphasis on continuity, characters changing and developing over time and protagonists being allowed to have different and/or more visible character flaws. I recommend these three Twitter threads, where I and another Sonic fanfic writer talk about that [warning: this one has 250 tweets and occasionally skips one] [this is the one I wrote] [this was written by the same person who wrote the hyper-long first thread].

(**) Personally, I can get quite purist, but only regarding localizations & translations. Different continuities from tie-in media are okay for me, and sometimes I enjoy them more than the original continuity (or I prefer to use that material instead of the source material for my fanfics, at least). Bad English dubs, such as the Saban/Ocean dubs of Dragon Ball Z and everything made by 4Kids, are where I draw the line.

Unless we're talking about Shadow's portrayal, excusing Ian Flynn's mistakes and blaming SEGA and its mandates instead is no longer acceptable in debates on IDW-Sonic, I agree on that. On the contrary, in Archie-Sonic, not only are the continuity and its setting and characters different from the games, but it's also harder to deduce what was freely decided by Flynn & co., what he was forced to do by Archie's editors, and what was an effect of SEGA's mandates. Rouge's portrayal is one of the main examples since there was apparently a tug-of-war between Flynn and SEGA. In Archie-Sonic before the reboot (which was closely tied to Ken Penders's lawsuits, and happened at issue #247 of the mainline comic and around issue #50 of the Sonic Universe spin-off comic), sometimes Rouge was portrayed as even more selfish, manipulative and "jewel-obsessed" than her counterpart in Sonic Adventure 2, which you can see in the first 20 to 25 issues of Flynn's run (which started at issue #160, by the way); a little bit later, Archie started publishing the spin-off series Sonic Universe, its first arc was a four-part origin story for Team Dark, and Rouge was much better portrayed as an actual heroic character there; apparently, the "early Flynn version" of Rouge was something SEGA demanded, while the later "Sonic Universe version" of Rouge was how Flynn actually wanted to write her in the first place. After the reboot, Archie-Sonic Rouge was consistently portrayed like her pre-reboot Sonic Universe version.

@mashounen2003

The whole thing with Fiona Fox (and Scourge, for that matter) is a mess, indeed. There’s a lot of misinformation, as well as Flynn fans once again not wanting to admit their fav writer fucked it up big time. Long story short: Flynn tried to write an abusive villain (Scourge) and a reference to Joker & Harley Quinn (Scourge & Fiona), but never understood Harley was supposed to be Joker’s victim

Flynn also grew fond of Scourge, who became his pet villain & a Mary-Sue. Scourge’s abuse towards Fiona was shown, wasn’t ambiguous, and unlike Penders, Flynn recognizes emotional abuse as a bad thing. But Flynn didn’t do all the necessary steps to clearly send the message that Scourge was evil, so now everyone thinks Scourge is some anarchist sex-god anti-hero

Also, Fiona was portrayed as massively petty & mean; before Flynn’s run, Fiona was painfully underutilized but had some interesting depth and the potential for an uplifting story. When Flynn turned her into Scourge’s victim– Sorry… “girlfriend”, her personality changed completely. There are clues of Fiona having secretly been manipulated by Scourge since a long time before her “betrayal”, but this all remained at subtext-level

As you probably already know, Flynn has a problem, not with his own ideas on morality, but with how he makes morality work in his stories’ universe. He thought Sonic & the Freedom Fighters would think that traitors like Fiona are worse than genocidals like Eggman or abusers like Scourge. & his stories mirror some of that too. Scourge is undoubtedly a vile monster but is treated a bit better, while Fiona is just misguided and has untreated childhood trauma but is written as an alpha bitch

That’s also why I don’t like when fans wanna make Fiona a good guy again and they give her a “redemption arc” when, TBH, that’s not the way to do it. More of that in this post in my “mashounen2003” blog: post/646874203783577600/a-couple-of-grievances-i-have-with-some-tails-x. I recommend to take a look at what I reblogged from other people about both Fiona & Scourge (use tags “Fiona Fox” & “Scourge the Hedgehog” if necessary).

Admittedly, I’m a bit biased in favour of many concepts from Archie (yeah, I’m a fake fan, I should feel ashamed, yadda yadda yadda), but I like Archie mostly for its potential, not so much for what was actually done with its concepts (minus a few genuinely great stories). I still dislike most of Archie but for its ideas’ execution; its concepts are interesting. I’m willing to pair Tails with Fiona, but only after rewriting this from scratch and doing some “character deconstruction”.

Sorry for the long chain of continues in your ask box. There are many things omitted by both Archie fans (because they skipped every comic issue before Flynn, they’re spellbound by Flynn and can’t admit he did something wrong) & Archie critics (because they just stopped reading after all the genuinely ugly shit, so they didn’t look beyond that)

I’m still a bit conflicted myself. Flynn isn’t like Penders, he’s not an abuse apologist or rape apologist like Penders; Flynn did point out other characters’ emotional abuse & crappy actions during Penders run; & Flynn’s versions of Shadow -& the entire Team Dark- and Knuckles in Archie (not in IDW) are some of the best in the franchise (that’s why fans accuse SEGA of keeping Flynn’s hands tied 24/7 now). But… *sigh*

Flynn has good ideas, but he executes them poorly half of the time, and he’s quite unprofessional. If the audience thinks something is really “cool” or a trend at a given moment, Flynn lets that “cool” or “trending” thing influence his work a lot. “House of Cards” happened largely because Marvel’s “Civil War” event, as infamous as it was, also had record sales. Metal Virus was so stupidly depressing because The Walking Dead was still popular at some extent

And the same happened with Scourge & Fiona, albeit this’d only be evident 10 years later, when the 1st Suicide Squad movie was released. Jared Leto Joker was sanitized as hell, pretty much like Scourge; Harley was just arm candy for Joker while the abuse was never even mentioned (even though anyone who watched DC cartoons or read DC comics knows Harley is a victim and, not a long time later, gets away from Joker & becomes very much a hero), pretty much like Fiona and it was all because that “bad boy & bad girl” thing, devoid of the source material’s context, was popular because there were many teenagers romantizing abuse. In Archie’s case, Flynn fans lacked the context for Scourge’s creation and didn’t know about Fiona’s previous appearances because they never wanted to touch the comics before Flynn’s run (which I can understand, but still… they were still canon; moreover, Flynn outright referenced them time & time again until Archie’s reboot)

I should have written all this on a post on my own blog. Once again, I apologize; I wrote this after being suddenly inspired & I didn’t want that inspiration to go away. I also recommend reading “toaarcan” Tumblr account, maybe asking him about this; he can explain all this better than me, more patiently and in a more concise format, and he’s useful as he has opinions different from the prevailing ones in the Archie-Sonic fandom and in the Sonic fandom in general. 

I had to put your askes like this haha

I appreciate the perspective of someone who has read the entirety of Archie, the good, the bad and the very ugly. I go by hearsay and posts of other people, which is not enough to form a complete analysis

Huh, Flynn turning another female character into an asshole? Apparently he did the same with Rouge (to be fair, such an amateurish mistake was common at the time :\). Also Fiona being treated worse than Scourge? Sheesh…

I would like to see his Team Dark and his Knuckles in Archie, especially his Shadow. I don’t like justifying his mistakes with “mandates”, but with Shadow I can believe that he had to change his personality to follow the current canon one :\

Also yeah, Penders… I’m glad that the dude was pretty much exiled from the franchise and we don’t have to worry about him again, because man, what little I know about him makes my skin crawl.

[firebirdtransam68]

My Thoughts On Fujoshis

What are “fujoshis,” if some of you may ask?  Fujoshis are female fans of anime, manga, and other forms of Asian media, especially ones where there are gay men.  Fujoshis are usually associated with yaoi, which is a slash depicted by female fan media creators.  The male equivalent is the “fudanshi,” where a male is a fan of yaoi.  Fujoshis tend to fantasize gay couples where one is the “male” of the couple (or seme), and the other is the “female” (or uke); there is also seke, in which any character can be top or bottom.  When mpreg is existent, it is unexplained, and the fan child is delivered by anus (which is bizarre and extremely inappropriate).  Also, many of the characters being shipped go out of character, but not all fujoshis do that.

When I was younger, I had a thing with yaoi, until I got older, and I prefer the term, “slash,” but I do not mind yaoi at all, as long as it is not too much.  And since fujoshi is a new term for me, I start to get a clearer understanding on how unrealistic yaoi is, and is usually not very appealing, especially if the characters are OOC without a reason.  I heard that yaoi and yuri is homophobic, and I agree, since not all homosexuals are like that (just like not all heterosexual couples have a more dominant male and a more submissive female).  That said, I may also have a slight fetish for yaoi, but only when it is justified, especially for headcanon.  Here are some examples:

I ship Sonadow where Sonic is more dominant (but is not macho) while Shadow is more submissive (but is really tough).  Being the Ultimate Lifeform created by Professor Gerald Robotnik, Shadow is able to have pups in my headcanon; he could be a male hermaphrodite, or he just so happens to have a working uterus; and Sonic and Shadow mate missionary style (not by “the back door” or even by oral).  I found a few fanfiction stories where Shadow has a third hole, and he gets periods because of that (sometimes, this is not the case); so I get ideas from some of these fanfics.  My fan children for Sonadow are Silver and/or Maria The Hedgehog (of course, I may think about making new fan children for my fanon).  I don’t make Shadow transgender (or even female), unless I am making an AU, or have a perfect explanation for such character change.

With Sonourge (Sonic x Scourge), I do not give them fan children as often, unless I am making an AU or headcanon/headfanon where Sonic (or any hedgehog for that matter) is a hermaphrodite, has a working uterus, or has a drug where males can get pregnant.  Sometimes I write sex scenes, but usually not without consequences (pregnancy in headcanon or AU, STD’s, or getting bored of sex).  I usually write Sonourge or Scouronic where kissing, holding hands, sharing the same bed, or just any fun or caring for one another is allowed, since I am not too keen on sex scenes regardless of sexual orientation.  Of course, a Sonourge couple can adopt if I want to incorporate fan children.

Any human or Mobian character that is shipped are just like most people in real life, unless one is transgender, a hermaphrodite/intersex, or if the male has a uterus and/or the female has sperm, in which pregnancy is allowed.  No mpreg or fempreg is made without a justifyable explanation.

With Transformers, on the other hand, the characters have a non-binary gender, or their biology is reversed or unique in many ways that are not human.  With Earthlings, generally the males impregnate, and the females get pregnant.  There are possible ways for a male Transformer to have sparklings/protoforms/hatchlings/babies, and there are reasons.  One possibility is that since female Transformers are going extinct, male Transformers evolved so they can get pregnant as well as impregnate.  Another possibility is that males get pregnant, while the females impregnate.  Or, there are no female Transformers, or males can be more masculine or feminine; female Transformers are either sterile, or their reproductive systems are radically different from those on Earth.  Sometimes, in certain works, there is no such thing as a sexual orientation for Transformers, just like there is no sexual orientation for my car characters.  I believe Transformers is more flexible in regards to yaoi, slash, yuri, femslash, bara, tachi, homo, bi, het, or any other ships regarding sexual orientations.

That said, I really do not care for fujoshis since most of them have an unrealistic idea and depiction of homosexual couples (including unjustifiable mpreg); but I do allow them to create whatever they want, even if I may not like it.  The whole point of fan media is to be creative, and we learn from experience, and levels of writing or designing.  So, I encourage anyone to design whatever they please, even fan media as well as original media.

While they are at it, I will start writing passages and chapters from my synopses before I start posting any online.  Everyone else, have fun exploring, and do what you like best.

This is FirebirdTransAm68 signing out.

[cutegirlmayra]

I just had a strange idea; what if the third character in sonic forces is a Sonic from the future, however, he's a very bad villain and wants to destroy the world? Can you make a Sonamy Drabble outta this? XD (you've been so hardworking with these prompts and we all really love you and appreciate you

Y-You mean..

CAUSE I’M ALL ABOUT THAT CRAP.

Not so much this crap… just because this certain crap is hard to get a good grasp on in writing. He’s not the twisted Sonic I like to write, but that’s just me.

I usually write evil Sonic as taking all of Sonic’s good qualities, twisting and expounding on them with their opposite, and then taking all his weaknesses and flaws and making them ten times more diabolical and wicked; twisting them to almost seem like strengths for a evil sonic.

Either or, how about I combine the two?

Also, to your comment-

Thank you so much! Sometimes, it’s hard to write. Especially with everything I’m going through, but your words and comments mean everything to me!

So thanks~

Wow, so many pictures, alright, moving on!

Prompt:

Eggman laughed, before the footfalls of someone he’d rather not see.

“Oh… it’s you.” He glared, turning around.

“Why, dear doctor, are you laughing?” The silhouette smirked in the corner, his hands on his hips, looking striking in the shadows contrast.

“Hmph. Can’t you see? I’ve finally stumped your little double ganger! He’s history!” Eggman’s glasses shone in the light of his screen, the only light visible where he was in the dark room.

The silhouette flipped out a comb, and brushed his quills back, walking forward.

“That’s just the thing, Doc. You shouldn’t take me so lightly… Have you ever wondered… why there’s a future me that’s so…” he suddenly clicked the item again, and it was a knife. “Dashingly-”

He slammed it into the gears, as sparks flew off with smoke and the robot about to attack a downed Sonic suddenly malfunctioned and collapsed by the teams working together.

“Charming?”

“Ah!” Eggman stepped back, falling to his knees. “N-no! You… you said you were from an alternate reality!”

“Fools snooze and loose, Egghead.” He pulled the knife out, tossing it up and down horizontally.

“And I’m afraid our little game comes to an end…” he slowly advanced on Eggman, holding the knife down and motioning his arm to the side of him to slash down before-!

“Sonic! We did it!”

The silhouette looked up, his white around his eyes now shining to reveal the green of Sonic’s own eye color.

He turned around as Eggman scooted backwards, kicking his feet out and racing away, terrified.

Future Sonic dropped his knife, and slowly walked to the screen, looking amazed as he watched this world’s Amy Rose jump into his past selves arms.

He slowly rose a hand to the monitor.

“This time…” he whispered, ever so quietly.

He then gripped his hands into tight fists, and slammed them against the monitor.

—————————————————–

After a few battles and revealing himself as the future they were all ‘fighting for’ the teams began to loose hope in Sonic, and he, himself, questioned how he even would turn so dark.

In the mist of this confusion, Sonic tried to fight his future self.

“What happened to you!?”

“One bad day. That’s all it takes!” (direct reference to Scourge, yes. I don’t like that line, but I don’t completely disagree with it either…)

He gritted his teeth before charging up with some dark matter, and black chaos emeralds swarmed him.

“I can’t kill you, dude. But I can open your eyes to the real power your missing!!!”

“Sonic!”

He suddenly stopped, looking over at Amy who ran into the building they were fighting.

She put a hand over her heart before looking to her Sonic.

“A-Amy…” Sonic slowly got up, onto his knees, before swiping the air. “This is my fight! G-get out of here!”

Future Sonic slowly lowered his arms, looking and watching the two, as if seeing this scene through new eyes.

“I can’t just leave you here like this, Sonic! I’m going to fight too!” She turned to Future Sonic, and summoned her hammer.

He seemed almost at war with himself, as Future Sonic looked with pain at that hammer…

“…You could never understand…” he whispered once more.

“…That this future… would have saved you.”

“W-what was that?” Amy couldn’t really hear him.

He shook his head, smiling to her, and cocking his head slightly.

“You tried to fight me like the rest of’em. I would have thought you were smarter than that. Guess ‘true love’ is only when your heart’s as white as snow, huh? Amy Rose?”

She heard the hiss in his voice and stepped back, seeing him lean forward with rage at the very utterance of her name.

“A-…Amy, get back!” Sonic swiped again, getting up and straining to stay upright.

He went super then, and directly charged Future Sonic, who smirked at his hastiness.

“Sonic! Wait-! It’s a-!”

“Ur-HAA!” Future Sonic, anticipating this, had reared his hands back, and sent a huge blast of negative chaos energy directly at him.

The blast blew him sky-high, right out of the building.

Future Sonic grinned widely, before taking a more… gentle look when it came to Amy.

She stepped back, not sure what to do now.

He approached her, with rapid footfalls, as if eager to continue his plans for why he came back to this time-period.

“Now… to make sure my future is everything it needs to be!” he swung an arm back, and charged through the air, flying directly at her. “You’re mine!”

She fought him for only a few seconds before he got the better of her, and grabbed her from behind, flying out and chuckling a moment before taking her where he had set up base…

Eggman later joined up with Sonic, nursing him back to health and offered a truce. It was hard for Sonic to swallow his pride and do, but for his friends and the world’s sake, he had to team up with his enemy.

Amy was flung down on a desert ruin palace, so it looked like, within a rocky cave.

She stumbled up as Future Sonic hadn’t powered down, but adjusted his gloves.

“What do you want with me!? If you aren’t going to stop your past self, then what are you here for!?”

He slowly stopped, and turned around.

“All my friends are dead.”

He shot his arms down and flexed them out a bit. 

“Don’t worry, I didn’t do them the honors.”

She sighed in almost relief at that terrible thought.

“But I’ve come back to get you all. Convert you to negative chaos. And show you that this is the only way…. to victory.” he held up his hands… before clamping them down and having dark chaos energy surround his being.

“Heh, what’s with that fear in your eyes, Amy?” he turned back to her, a wicked, and playful bounce in his voice.

“I thought you might be flattered. Having me bring you here…” he moved around the rocky throne, before playfully leaning out from it and smiling to her. “All alone?” there was something else in his actions too, a darker intent, but she couldn’t quite pick up on it.

He continued to walk around, speaking, as she just remained silent, hoping to learn more…

“If I were to simply take you all back with me though. You may think me insane, deranged, a lunatic and try and reform me… tsk, tsk, tsk.” he gestured with his hands, walking down the steps around her, and then shook his head, holding up a signature, wagging pointer finger.

“But you’re the ones in sore need of reformity.”

“Sonic. I can’t comprehend the pain you must have felt at facing defeat like that.” she was still sitting down, but turned to face him as his expression changed.

He slowly bent his finger down, forming a fist, and his smile shifting to an furious frown that he held together and back.

“But trust me! You can’t destroy to gain! And you can’t steal to love!”

“SHUT UPP!!”

Bending down, he gripped his head, before blasting himself at her, and gripping her neck, breathing hard.

“You’re not going to make this easy, are you?” he tilted his head, smirking a moment before losing it.

“No matter. You also didn’t like my plan before. Why should you suddenly accept it now?” he threw her lightly to the side, as she coughed and turned back to him.

“Sonic!”

“Enough…” he swiped his hands out, but seemed to be losing some of his anger as he fell to the throne, gripping his head.

“Out of them all.. hearing the truth… I swore you would turn to me…” there was so much pain in his eyes, as if tears weren’t able to fulfill the dark sorrow he felt.

  “Not against me!”

He whirled back around, “Well, you can be happy to know I’ve changed my mind about you.” his dark grin sent a shiver down her spine, as she tried to stand up and move away.

He slashed the air and she was thrown back down, landing hard on her back, getting the air knocked out of her a moment, unable to speak as she tried to crawl away.

“Instead of thinking your obsessive tenancies a nuisance and a bore, I’ve actually reconsidered to think it, well.. rather cute.” He stopped a moment in his walk to looked and gesture, before his terrifying smile returned to address her, and then he raced down to slid to stop in front of her, seeing her trying to get away.

His face was directly in front of her, and with a evil longing, he started to turn his head left and right, as if looking for an opening….

“So I’ve decided to reform you first… have you on my side. And with your unique abilities, help me to convince the others of dark chaos’s charms and divinity.”

He crawled forward as she tried to desperately get away, but he overcame her and she fell down, looking up afraid.

He smiled, seeing there was nothing she could do to stop him.

“And now… prepare to enter a world of dark excitement.. Amy… because there’s no going back where I’m taking you.” he shook his head as he pulled hers up, leaning up and on his knees as he pulled her the same.

In shock and terror she did nothing, probably because she couldn’t fathom the thought of her Sonic being so lost in grief and pain that chaos could so easily control him.

“Please…” she begged, feeling great sympathy and love for him. “Don’t do this.” her quiet plea almost made him stop, look away a moment in thought, as if considering what he was doing.

He then looked down, closing his eyes and smiling as more chaos power soared through him.

“It’s too late for that, Rosy.” he spooked her by using her old nickname, throwing her off guard.

His eyes shot open, revealing the glowing white and no eyes anymore, as he narrowed them down. “Maybe you could have helped me… if you were still alive!!!”

He forced himself on her, and as the painful kiss began he pushed his negative chaos into her, and pulled away as she flailed and struggled against the power, feeling it control and even take over her mind.

He slowly got up, a wicked excitement as he watched her cry out and her fur flicker from pink to a dark aura of magenta.

“…All hail the queen…” he grinned, seeing her at last get knocked out from the power that she fought so hard against.

Her eyes opened as she looked over herself, and he slowly bent down to help her up.

“… How do you feel?”

She leaned into him, unable to fully stand at first, as he carefully, lovingly, held her in his arms.

“…I…” she leaned back. “Never knew good being evil felt.”

He smirked.

“Welcome to the dark side, Amy.”

They kissed passionately.

——————————————-

(Geez. I don’t know how to stop myself >x

Sonic rushed in with his friends and teams of forces to recuse Amy and put an end to Dark Sonic.

However,…

“Ah! The cavalries arrived!”

Future Sonic rested upon his throne, looking giddy as Amy sat on his lap to the side, laughing with him as he held up his hand to greet the party.

“So good of you to offer yourselves up to dark chaos. Well advised. Good decision.” he then leaned over and rubbed his muzzle with his nose lightly against Amy’s cheek, as she giggled before glaring down at the others. “You’re just in time.”

“Amy…?” Present Sonic stepped forward, his eyes filled with confusion and betrayal.

Future Sonic smeared a wicked look of pleasure at seeing that expression, knowing full well what he must be feeling and thinking, before moving his head back around Amy and pulling her closer, continuing to be intimate in front of him as Amy’s cries of laughter sent his once hurt expression to a painful rage.

“What’s wrong, hero? Realizing it only takes one of us to satisfy her?”

“What… what have you done to her?” Sonic knew it couldn’t be his Amy, it couldn’t be!

“Amy!”

She looked away, “Oh?” she placed a finger at her mouth, as if truly pushing the knife deeper from his back into his heart.

“She’s not the Amy you once knew anymore, dude.” Future Sonic leaned up, moving her off of him to stand. “And soon, none of your friends will be what you once knew! Haha! Amy!” he turned back, offering her his hand as she took it and he helped her down the throne. “Let’s save all our friends, shall we?”

He rubbed once more his muzzle to her cheek, before grinning as dark chaos spiked both him and her.

“Sonic!” Tails shouted out, as Sonic turned to look at him.

“It’s him! He’s sending negative chaos energy into Amy! He’s controlling her!”

“She willingly yield!” Future Sonic pushed Amy up next to him, “I won’t let you twist my perfect world. You- Or any one of you!!!”

“He’s delusional. And he’s fooling himself in what he’s doing to Amy! We have to break her free of it!” Tails leaned down from his X-Tornado to look to Sonic, who nodded, glad it wasn’t what it looked liked.

“Grrr.. You’ll all thank me when dark chaos saves your lives!!!” Future Sonic slashed his hand out, causing the cave to tunnel in.

After a large battle, Future Sonic found himself loosing, and turned to Dark Amy, as she coughed under a rock.

“I won’t let even one speck of my future pass from me!” he glared down and threw the rock off of her, getting her up.

He gasped in fright as he noticed the negative chaos that he put into her fading, and her own mind being unclouded and growing clearer.

Her fur flickered from magenta to pink again, as she tried to flutter her eyes open, but was too weary to succeed.

“Son…Sonic…”

“Don’t worry, Amy. I wont’ let them take you from me, too!” he held her head up from her cheek, and kissed more dark energy wtihin her, even making his own fur flicker to his normal blue.

He was risking losing too much power, but refused to give her up.

When the power took over her again, he felt her being as tangible and controlled her again, making her say and do what he wanted.

“You alright?” he almost seemed to say that as if he was normal Sonic again, holding her up.

“Always, with you.” she smiled but collapsed.

“No! Stay with me! Smile! Smile like you used too!!!” he shook her, before he heard voices of his former friends and let out an irritated, raspy, almost growl like sound escape him, biting at the air.

He flung Amy over his shoulder and started racing through the debris of the ruins.

Eggman shot out a finishing blow, and suddenly he was blasted from where he was going, and Amy tumbled from his grasps.

“NOO!!” his eyes widened, holding out a hand to her.

His eyes softened as they formed back into eyes, and memory flashed over his being.

“Sonic! Noo..!!”

His Amy… holding out her hand back to him, as she slipped off the falling building and rolled into the fires.

“Not again..” Dark chaos energy swarmed his being again, “NOT AGGGAAAINNN!!!” he burst up from the ruins and started destroying everything in sight.

“I WON’T LOSE MY FRIENDS AGAIN!”

While he was distracted, Knuckles and Shadow raced to Amy, dragging her away from being directly beneath his frenzy, before he looked down to see them pulling her away.

“No… If I can’t have at least one… that’s it.” his eyes widened again. “I can just leap through time again! With Negative Chaos! I can exceed the barrier of time and space itself! My speed is flawless. Unparalleled. I’ll snatch them one by one… starting with her!!!” He charged down, firing blasts of Dark Chaos beams before Super Sonic slammed into him.

“You’re not going anywhere near her!”

“RAAHHH!!!”

Amy’s dark energy was being recalled, but he noticed this out of the corner of his eye.

And as Present Sonic pushed him away with the cometing tackle moments before, he out stretched his arm.

“HELP MEE!!” he cried out, not wanting to lose her.

Amy’s eyes flickered open as dark chaos channeled back into her, forcing her up and shooting into the sky.

“Shoot!” Knuckles couldn’t hold her down in time, as he stepped forward, watching her black aura blast her through the air and up to the two Sonics.

“What?” Super Sonic was slammed into by a mind-controlled Amy, as she used all the same powers Future Sonic had used.

He laughed, “Yes… Yes, she’s mine!”

“She didn’t choose you! Quit bluffing on yourself!” Sonic used his hands to dodge her hits, before grabbing her wrists and pulling them away from him as she struggled, growling and unable to form words from Dark Sonic being too heavily controlling her every move.

“Watch, I bet if I gave her back her freedom, she’d choose the light!”

“Noo…NOOO!!!” Before Future Sonic could do anything, a bright light shone around Sonic, and he gently kissed the flowing chaos energy into Amy, canceling out the dark and giving Amy her soul back.

She flickered her eyes open, before her fur changed back to pink, and then to yellow, as she gripped Sonic and looked down, terrified she was in the air.

“I.. I can’t feel her…” Future Sonic twitched his fingers, looking up at the two. “Why… you were mine… you understood me..” he suddenly leaned his head down as more dark energy formed into his being.

“Why am I flying!?” Amy kicked her legs out, still not fully having her memory back yet.

The whole of the forces saw Future Sonic let out a cry as his entire being shot with dark chaos.

“Stop it! Let it go!” Amy shot down towards him.

“Amy!” Present Sonic watched as she flew down and kissed back all the super chaos energy she had and force it through to cancel out so much of his dark energy.

Future Sonic and her slowly floated to the ground, where he looked knocked out, his fur turning to normal, as Present Sonic also bent down by his side.

As he opened his eyes, he cried softly. “I let darkness… emm.. take over myself. I thought… it was the only way. Pain.. sorrow… pity… rage… it all made me that monster.”

The gang formed around him, as he looked up to Sonic.

“Don’t, not even for an instant, allow your anger to fuel you. In anything you do.”

Present Sonic nodded, looking very serious on that statement.

Future Sonic started to fade, looking at his hands as he noticed his timeline was being erased.

He looked up to Amy, a painful smile on his face before dropping to a frown of regret, holding a fading hand up to her.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

She bent down to cry on his chest.

He disappeared and that was the end of that dark future.

-to cry endless and in great pain and torture because of angsty feels.

[rachelbethhines]

The Antoine and Bunnie Retrospective - 135

“No Where to Run” - Songoose I - Sonic the Hedgehog #153 

We open up with the Freedom Fighters doing some training with General D’Coolette as their coach. Sally’s there too, to oversee things, and she has this chat with Armand while there. 

So several things are going on here. Both Sonic and Antoine are being blamed for the behavior of their evil counterparts. (though honestly, Scourge’s flirting didn’t harm the last mission at all. None of the girls broke out into a fight or anything, and to be frank, the personal relationships of your team mates really aren’t any of your damn business Sally) However, Armand, blames himself for “Antoine’s” sudden change in behavior; thinking that the pressures of war and living in the shadow of a hero might have pushed him over the edge. It’s a poignant and ironic insight, and not just because we all know “Antoine” is really Patch. No it’s ironic because we have seen the real Antoine’s response to war and living in his dad’s shadow. It’s not cold, harsh, and standoffish behavior, rather it was arrogance and fearful cowering. But Armand wouldn’t know this about his son because he was reunited with him after all of his character development. 

It’s also interesting to find out that Armand use to ship Sally and Antoine. Though one has to wonder why. Did Max inform him about the Source of All’s vision? Or was it merely a folly he had when they were both small kids? Like how adults do when they pretend about the life their children will have when they’re grown. Or did he genuinely see something between them and thought they would be good together? It’s telling that he claims that it is Antoine who is not right for Sally. Not that she is wrong for him or that they mutually might not be suited to each other. It kind of implies that it’s Patch he’s really talking about here, and that before the sudden change, he really did believe they would make a good couple. 

However Armand is a stand up guy who, unlike Max, doesn’t threaten or belittle his children into complying to his wishes. Nor does he treat his son’s actual chosen significant other as being beneath him. Armand’s always been supportive of Bunnie and Antoine, no matter what his feelings of Sally may have been. And he even apologizes! He sincerely asks for Sally’s forgiveness for ever unintentionally putting pressure on either her or Antoine, despite the fact that he never ever did such a thing at all. Can Armand just be Sally’s new father now? Please! He’d be so much better then Max. 

Speaking of the devil, Max and Alicia interpret them with a phone call. 

Ok, so both Armand and Max have fallen ill, at the same time, with similar symptoms. And we know it’s not anything contagious because no one else has caught it. And Dr. Quack just thinks it’s some bullshit thing that happened long, long ago from the first war? 

If it was radiation pensioning from like a bomb or a byproduct of chemical warfare then wouldn’t there be others coming down with it? Like Bernie, Chuck, or even Quack himself as they all would have fought in that same war. Probably in the very same battles. Also why would this “poison” only take effect so many many years later? Wouldn't a more recent poisoning be the logical answer here? 

Look I’m not saying everyone should immediately suspect Patch. We the audience know damn well he’s behind this. But of course the characters still believe him to be Antoine, and well Antoine would never harm his father nor betray the crown. But it is rather convenient that nobody even entertains the idea that there might be foul play afoot somewhere and that there isn’t any investigation launched at all. 

But intrigue will have to wait, because Armand soon collapses. 

And of course the only person who suspects anything is wrong is Bunnie. 

I mean you would think something like you’re dad dying might cause a bit of concern from your friends. Especially if you’ve completely emotionally shut down, which is a sign of denial and a stage of grief. But nope, they all decide to go to a concert instead of checking up on “Antoine” personally. 

This leads into the much less interesting main story for this arc. Eggman wants Mina dead for petty reasons and hires Nack to assassinate her. Oh and more dumb relationship drama that should have been done with ages ago. 

But at least Bunnie gets to do something useful and puts out a fire. 

The second story this issue involves yet another AU tale where this time the cast are in a fantasy medieval setting, and really it’s just an excuse to write and draw the characters as their pre-development selves.  It’s a pointless, yet simi-fun throwback, that I personally wouldn’t mind if only one small niggle. 

Rosie is the one narrating this story. 

And she casts Antoine as a jester or the comic relief if you will. Which makes sense from a meta stand point, and if this was a Zone Wars story that would be fine. But here? 

Rosie is Antoine’s adoptive mother. She raised him for ten years after he lost both his parents. She’s basically calling her own son an idiot! 

Does no one working on this damn comic understand Rosie’s character and her relationships with the rest of the Freedom Fighters? 

I’m sorry, but everyone ignoring Rosie’s role and importance with in the comic is something that really bothers me. It’s such a waste of potential that’s never been fully explored even in the reboot. 

Gee, it’s almost like those are legitimate criticisms that’s been thrown at the comic before and instead of learning from them and growing as an artist you gave everybody the middle finger instead just to protect you’re own fragile ego.

No I’m not bitter, why you’d ask? 

[thepuzzledboy]

but why do you hate the new continuity and love the old one if both of them have the same problems. penders is a terrible writer, and so is bollers. most of the old artists were terrible. ian flynn is okay, but if you like flynn he's still the lead writer. the best artists from the book are the ones that stayed. there's more bad in the old continuity that in the new. the bad greatly outnumbers the good. 230 so issues and at least 70% is just plain bad.

You do have a point. Penders and company did cause a lot of problems with the comic’s writing that Flynn had to fix. The only good artists of the comic are the ones still drawing for it or even ones that have come in during the new continuity, as you said. My main problems boil down to two things: first impressions and one simple character…

Sally Acorn.

*sigh* Where to begin?

First off, unlike others, I don’t hate the design on a “design” level. I do think it works, at least in the context of the comic’s more video game-centric style (apart from the head, which is the only design-related problem I have, and I think it probably should’ve had some more time and work done to it). And besides, as long as she’s written fine, I dare even say, stylistically similar to the previous continuity’s (or even SatAM), then I would have absolutely no problems.

Cue issue 256, the full debut of the new Sally, and this…

I’ll give credit where it’s due, this does give some closure to the whole Mecha Sally storyline that the last continuity kinda ended on.

…To an extent. With emphasis on the word “some.”

Now before I continue, I would like to present you this video from the SEGA Scourge, which should help drive my point home in a moment:

Now that you’ve hopefully watched that video, let me take you to issue 234, with what I consider a key event in that story arc and the source of all my issues with the new continuity.

Antoine is basically crippled after receiving an explosion to the face caused by Eggman’s order of Metal Sonic self-destructing. If you’re wondering what that has to do with anything, take a look at this panel a couple pages later:

Mecha Sally was fully aware of this, so you’d think Sally would’ve been aware of this little detail after getting her memories back. After all, Antoine knew fully well of this event when he got his memories back…

…so why wouldn’t Sally? Isn’t she supposed to be concerned for all of the Freedom Fighters, no matter how desperate they once were to get in her… vest? If she wasn’t roboticized, wouldn’t she be rushing to his aide just as much as Sonic was?

If that’s not enough, what about this scene from issue 251, mere moments after Sally’s roboticization…?

Sally just threw the person she loved of of the Death Egg, thousands of feet in the air. And from the way Sonic’s pleading, I’d say this is from before Ian stopped shipping these two, so shouldn’t the part of Sally locked away in a corner of her newly-robotic mind, witnessing all these events like someone chained up in a theatre seat, be even just the tiniest bit concerned over this?

And if the SEGA Scourge’s video is true, wouldn’t Sally’s remaining humanity – or, um, mobianity? – get the better of her in each of these events, and lead to some form of emotional instability? Like… BPD and/or PTSD? Hmm….

Also, take note of this article. While it’s mostly centered around fictional stories released online, the section on mental scarring for main characters is exactly what I’m trying to make a point of here for a mainstream comic based on a popular video game franchise. Because isn’t Sally technically a main character? Hmm again…

Now here’s why my “stylistically similar to the previous continuity or even SatAM” thing comes from. If she had some form of trauma, wouldn’t that make her into a more interesting character and, on top of that, act as a sort of bridge to the previous continuity on more than one level? It would probably be a little dark, maybe even for something made for children, but I would’ve had faith in Ian to make it child-friendly without being too patronizing for older audiences.

And apart from #256, has there been any sign of a different character in Sally after that? Because unless I missed something, there really hasn’t been anything else to her character other than her “strong will”.

Another problem I have with Sally(thankfully a shorter one) is that from the beginning (right back to SatAM), she was meant to serve as a romantic foil to Sonic. With Ian cutting all ties to them on a romantic level (as mentioned before), what exactly is her point in this comic on a storytelling level now?

First impressions are everything to many people, including me. First impressions are why I love and watch Doctor Who. First impressions are why I loathe and can’t watch Sonic Boom. (A lot of the GIFs posted here on Tumblr really don’t help either.) And first impressions are why a character like Sally Acorn can make me no longer want to read Archie Sonic, even if that character has been OOC before, because even if they act out of character for just a few moments, unless that carries on (which it didn't here, unlike the writing in Moffat’s Doctor Who), then I pay no attention to that.

Ironically enough, this comic has actually given me PTSD. I can’t read it without stressing out. I can’t even looking at an issue’s cover without cringing and turning away the second I lay eyes on it. Even as I wrote this, I felt like my heart was going to blast out of my chest. But nonetheless, I hope you all now understand my hatred. For now, I will leave you with this tweet, which has helped me indubitably and should help anyone else in situations like the one I‘ve put myself in while writing this…

[aj-reblogs]

Happy Shameless Romance Day, everybody!

And to celebrate, I’ll be listing off my top ten favorite Sonic ships!

NOTE: This will not really be in any particular order, because I’m lazy like that. Most of these ships are relevant only in the Archie Comics universe. And if you don’t like these ships, then that’s fine! Just my opinion here.  

Sonally (Sonic x Sally)

Yeah, I’m probably gonna get some hate for preferring this over Sonamy. And (speaking from the perspective of the Archie Comics/ Satam), this ship just... works. Sally is the one who keeps Sonic grounded (and her strategies are most likely a main reason why he didn’t kill himself while fighting Robotnik). And in return, Sonic helps her to lighten up and see that life isn’t all about the war. 

Sure, they’ve had their moments (”The Slap”, anyone?). But the reason that happened is explained in two words: Bad Communication. Sally wanted commitment and security. Sonic was a free spirit and didn’t want to be tied down. Neither of them were mature enough to handle a full-time relationship at the moment, and that’s okay. 

But that doesn’t change the fact that they genuinely like each other. They’re each other’s other half, and when they’re together, they make each other happy. And that’s what really solidifies their relationship: they need each other.

Scourgiona (Scourge x Fiona) 

Oh, where to begin with how much I adore this ship...

Say what you want, but I think Scourge actually loves Fiona. Just because he’s a jerk, it doesn’t mean he can’t be sincere about something. Yeah, he’s a prick. And yeah, he might have started going out with Fiona just to piss of Sonic. But there’s no denying that these two have a spark. 

And as for Fiona, she’d do anything for him, even get herself arrested just to help break him out of Zone Prison. Even after he snaps at her, she understands that he’d under a lot of stress. Besides, she knows how to tolerate/ handle his anger management issues. She helps him be better- if only a better criminal.

They may not be the lovey-dovey, hand-holding couple, but there’s no doubt that they love each other.

Khanally (Monkey Khan x Sally)

That awkward moment when you really don’t want to like a ship, but at the same time, you do...

Yeah, I’ve got mixed feelings on this one. On one hand, I want to ship Sally with Sonic and no one else. But on the other... DANG IT, WHY ARE THEY SO SWEET?

ERRGG... KILL MY HEART BEFORE IT FEELS TOO MUCH

But seriously, I think that, while not my favorite Sally pairing, this is a pretty good ship. Similar to Sonally, these two complete each other. They help each other to be better people and to overcome their individual weaknesses. Both understand the stress that comes with being royalty, which would be extremely helpful if they ever got together in the future.

Knuxamy (Knuckles x Amy)

This is something I really only ship in the post-SGW universe.\

AND MAN DO I SHIP IT

The writers probably didn’t mean for this to be shipped, BUT I DON’T CARE IT’S ADORABLE

Rotorcole (Rotor x Nicole)

[Credit to IeshaKeliTulop. Xir art, not mine. It was also the only fan art of these two that I could find.]

I dunno, this ship’s just always appealed to me. 

I know full well that Rotor’s supposedly gay (according to Penders), but I just don’t buy it. And I also am aware that the most popular person to ship Nicole with is Sally, but I honestly see them remaining as best friends and nothing more.

And this just makes sense to me- the guy who lives and breathes technology, paired up with the girl who is literally technology. Both are sweet and kind, and loyal to the Freedom Fighting cause. 

I don’t know how else to describe it, but these two just seem to be right for each other.

Manouge (Manic x Rouge)

Yes, I am aware that these two have never met canonically BUT I DON’T CARE

[My art, sorry for the bad picture quality]

Similar to Rotor and Nicole, this is one of those ships that just feels right. And to prove it, I will dazzle you with my incredible math skills.

1 sneak thief + 1 sneak thief ÷ They’ve never met x BUT THAT DOESN’T MATTER + They would totally go out stealing stuff together which is sweet and super romantic = THIS SHIP

And as you’ve probably figured out by now, I have a D in Math. Doesn't change that I love this ship.

Tailmy (Tails x Amy)

Okay, so the only place I really ship this is in the pre-SGW universe (and kind of in Sonic X...? But not really...?). Here’s my reasoning/ headcanon: Amy’s smart. She knows deep down that, no matter how hard she tries to make him like her, Sonic just isn’t interested. And that hurts. 

But here’s the thing!: Tails knows exactly how that feels, due to his experience with Fiona. They bond over this, becoming closer as friends. Soon that friendship blossoms into romance.

And that, my friends, is how M:25YL should’ve been. Not Mina x Tails. Amy x Tails. No one cares if Mina disappears forever, but Amy should’ve been there and-

I’m getting off track here. 

The point is, I think these two would be happy together. And that’s what matters~

Tailsream (Tails x Cream)

Another Tails ship!

Ooooh, this one’s so sweet it’s giving me cavities...

I love this ship so very much. It’s like one of those things where at first, you don’t know why you like it so much, but then it dawns on you...

THEY’RE PERFECT FOR EACH OTHER

At least in my headcanon, anyway. I kind of think about them in terms of how Kristoff and Anna worked in Frozen (forgive me for saying speaking of the F word). Not really romantic at first glance, but when you look at it harder, it can’t be avoided. Their personalites mix beautifully, and... I don’t know. It’s hard to explain. I love this ship.

Snivina (Snively x Regina)

I have kind of a soft spot for villains who are head over heels for one another and are genuinely loving to their partner (hence why I enjoy Scourgiona so much). These two fall right into that category.

It’s just so... satisfying to watch their love. Regina puts aside that Snively’s an unattractive little squirt and sees him for who he really is: A criminal and scientific mastermind. Through each other, they’ve found love, which is only strengthened as they partner up to conquer Mobius.

Buntoine (Bunnie x Antoine)

Probably the best ship to come out of the entire Sonic franchise. No joke.

Seriously, these two are the poster children for well done canonic pairings. Not only do they depend upon one another and are given equal value to the story, but they help each other grow as characters. They live for the other and would die for them too. 

This, dear readers, is what true love looks like.

Now all that’s left is a few...

HONORABLE MENTIONS!

Boom!Sonamy (Sonic x Amy)

Boom is literally the only place I have ever shipped Sonic and Amy. And that’s because it’s the only place I can ever see it working out.

Scourgirror (Scourge x The Mirror)

Hey, if Scourgey doesn’t end up with Fiona, the only other person good enough for him is himself~♥

Shadally (Shadow x Sally)

While not something I’ll fangirl about, it’s definitely something I support. 

Silvold (Silver x Gold)

Because I prefer her over Blaze. (Blaze just doesn’t seem like the romantic type. Like, at all.)

Knuxsu (Knuckles x Juli-Su)

Yeah, it works, but... come on, did anyone else think at first that Su was a genderbent version of Knuckles from another zone? I know I did.

[mobius-prime]

246. Sonic the Hedgehog #177

Home, New Home

Writer: Ian Flynn Pencils: Tracy Yardley! Colors: Jason Jensen

As the Egg Fleet approaches New Mobotropolis, Nicole erects a forcefield-like shield around the entire city, protecting it from the bombardment that Snively, leading the fleet, begins dropping on it. With the shield protecting everyone, however, a slightly more immediate concern reveals itself - namely, the many criminals that have been teleported here along with the actual residents of Knothole, who see an opportunity to not only break free of the justice system, but take a few of the citizens with them.

Amazing speech on your part there, Mogul. Really, it's a wonder everyone didn't immediately fall at your feet. Sonic and Sally are impressed at Nicole's foresight, only to become concerned when her hologram begins flickering and she appears to show signs of pain in response to more shells hitting the city's shield. She tells them that she has to devote most of the city's power supply to keeping the shield up, and reassures Sally that she'll always be nearby even when they can't see her before disappearing. Sally and Elias address the crowd of rescued civilians, telling them that right now they can trust Nicole to keep them safe while they come up with a plan and that for now everyone should find their new homes. Sally stops Sonic, however, and orders him to go get medical attention before he does anything else, something he's predictably a bit grumpy about.

Okay, so this is where we address one of the most controversial things Ian ever included in the comic. It's controversial for good reason. We've already established that one of the major things Ian has been doing for the comic since taking over as head writer is bringing the world of the comics more in line with that of the games, and this includes the various characters and their attitudes. Vector is no longer as insufferable as he was under Kenders, Knuckles is one of Sonic's closest allies now rather than a distant rival, and so on, but this is where the age discrepancy between Charmy from the games and Charmy from the comics becomes a problem. If you'll recall, Charmy is six in the games but sixteen in the comics, and obviously a sixteen-year-old is going to act pretty different from a six-year-old. So how exactly does one take a fairly mature teenager, who's a prince of a lost kingdom and literally engaged to someone else his age, and make him act like a child? Well, I don't have any particularly good ideas myself, but Ian's highly controversial solution was to give him brain damage. From this point on, Charmy suffers from some substantial memory loss, and generally has a much more childlike personality than he once did. There's many problems with this, and others have gone into this topic much more in depth than I care to, but suffice it to say that while giving a character brain damage simply as part of their character arc isn't inherently a bad thing, and can even be a positive if handled right, giving a character brain damage purely as a plot device to make them act more like a child feels incredibly insensitive and insulting. From what I understand, this isn't totally Ian's fault; Sega was pressuring him to make these changes, and I suppose at the time this was all he could think of for the Charmy problem, but I know he has stated later on that he wishes he'd handled this particular issue better, so at least he's acknowledged how bad this whole thing seems. Furthermore, he does appear to treat Charmy as a character with as much respect as possible in future issues, so there's that at least.

Anyway, Saffron is relieved when Charmy happily confirms that he remembers who she is and hugs her, and Dr. Quack moves on from Charmy to take a look at Sonic. It doesn't take him long to confirm his suspicions that indeed, all the magical ring energy Sonic's been exposed to have given him a high resistance to injury as well as apparently an accelerated rate of healing, something which is quite fascinating and I wish would have been expanded upon in this universe's worldbuilding at some point. As Dr. Quack heads off to find his own family, we take a quick look at the Chaos Chamber on Angel Island, where Finitevus appears to be doing some kind of weird ritual with the Master Emerald, reciting Tikal's prayer. Scourge runs up and informs him that Dimitri has run - err, floated off, presumably to contact Knuckles and warn him of Finitevus' treachery. Finitevus, however, merely tells him that this was part of his plan all along, and he isn't concerned, as he'll bring back Enerjak one way or another. Sounds quite ominous indeed…

Hey man, someone needs to remind Antoine that bravery isn't a lack of fear, it's standing up to danger even when you are afraid. Sally becomes lost in thought for a moment, remembering all the times she led the Freedom Fighters into danger in the past, long before she was ever thrust into the role of acting ruler or forced into a disastrous arranged marriage. She suddenly stands up and reminds Bunnie of her old hairdressing ambitions, and asks her for one more favor before they begin their defense against Eggman's attack… Meanwhile up in the sky, Snively continues to try to break through New Mobotropolis' shield, only to become startled when a single, tiny aircraft begins firing onto his flagship. His robots prepare to return fire, but he suddenly orders them to stand down with a look of shock, and contacts the plane… having recognized it as the plane that Hope built. Hope yells at him through the comm when he opens a channel, furious that she took his advice and went to Station Square, but when she tried to return to Knothole, which she still considered home, it was in ruins. She blames him for all of it, too ashamed to show her face to the Mobians again after leaving, and begins to sob.

I absolutely love the way that these comics continue to humanize Snively more and more. I feel so bad for Hope here, especially knowing that none of the Mobians would blame her for what happened, but as for Snively, it's clear that despite his nature, he does value family, and does care about Hope. He's gone from being the cowardly, sniveling, silly minion of the evil Dr. Robotnik to an actual human with flaws, feelings, and attachments. From inside the city shield, Tails watches the bombardment continue with his parents and Merlin, and Amadeus expresses that though the destruction of Knothole was a tragedy, all in all this may actually be a good thing for the populace, as he believes that such a major event will prepare them for "the shift in thinking" that he plans for them. Merlin, however, warns him not to push ahead with any reforms he has in mind too soon, as the monarchy will also be very tense from all this chaos. Rosemary expresses her belief in her husband, and Tails excitedly says he'll support his father no matter what, but the sentiment is interrupted by Eggman's furious screaming from outside the city walls, banging on the shield with his battle suit and yelling for the Freedom Fighters to come out and face him, infuriated that his perfect victory has been stolen from him. Sonic cheerfully interrupts his tantrum, suddenly standing outside the shield, and Eggman is initially pleased, mocking Sonic for not learning from his initial defeat mere hours ago. However, it turns out that Sonic has learned, and with the knowledge that the battle suit was created to counter Sonic and Sonic alone, he and Sally have come up with the perfect plan while Eggman wasn't looking.

The entire Freedom Fighter and Chaotix force descends on Eggman's battle suit, and they're all able to locate weaknesses that Eggman hadn't anticipated in its construction. They tear it apart piece by piece while Sonic gleefully reminds his nemesis that there are more heroes on this planet than just himself, and that anything he can't handle on his own, the others definitely can. In the end, Eggman is left with barely half a shell of his precious armor, furious and humiliated, which leads into perhaps one of my favorite pages of this entire era - perhaps even the entire comic.

Eggman, still unwilling to let victory slip away despite his situation, orders his fleet to fire directly on their location, meaning either he was somehow unaware that this would kill him too, or he was aware, and was more concerned with killing his foes than surviving. Honestly, my bet is on the latter - it seems like something he'd do if angry enough and feeling sufficiently cornered. However, he's forgotten that Nicole has full control over the nanites in the city, and since everything in the city is made of nanites, she's able to stretch the city's wall out to create a wall between everyone out on the field and the bombardment from the Egg Fleet. She projects her form to Eggman and urges him to reconsider his decision, as frankly, Sally is showing him more mercy than he deserves by a long shot. And honestly, she's right - it would be a much better decision to either kill him right there, or, if they're feeling too honorable and whatnot, at least arrest him and shove him in a cell next to Mammoth Mogul…

Well hello there, old haircut! I will say, I did enjoy Sally's long hair while she had it - I thought it looked good on her. But hey, cutting one's hair as a show of maturation is a common fictional trope, and in a way, it's nice to go back to seeing Sally rocking her old look. I will actually note here that while I've mentioned before that Tracy's pencils have standardized the design of a lot of characters, I actually don't care much for his redesign of Sally as a whole. While I appreciate her proportions becoming more like those of every other Mobian - the human body that a lot of other artists gave her looked kind of weird, to be honest - her facial features have actually been significantly altered by his style. She always had a distinctive slanted-back eye shape and a more gentle slope to her nose, but by making her eye shape closer to than of characters like Bunnie and Tails, I feel she's lost some of her unique visual charm. That isn't to say that I think Sally is lesser as a character for this change - she's still one of my top favorites in the series - nor that I disapprove of Tracy's art style as a whole. And in the end, her hairstyle change here marks the beginning of a new era - one where she begins to act once more like her old self and once again joins the others on missions just like old times. She's worked through a lot of the trauma and self-doubt that she's been plagued with ever since Sonic's return to Mobius, and now we can look forward to new adventures with her, in a new location. I mean that "new era" thing literally, by the way. Congratulations, we've reached the end of the comic's fifth era - many of the eras beyond this one are significantly shorter than the ones we've seen previously, but that also means we'll be moving through distinctive arcs a little more quickly, and furthermore, the next era holds some pretty exciting new surprises! Shall we now - how do they say - do it to it?