#and when i played it eggman said what was literally on everyone's mind

[generic-sonic-fan]

Happy pride! Here's some headcanons.

In-depth explanations beneath the cut (please keep in mind that these are personal and that I actually don't really stand by any that strongly! This is just for fun.)

Sonic: okay do I really need to explain this one?

Knuckles: What can I say, his gender contains multitudes. He's definitely a member of the "I don't care" camp for both gender and sexuality. He is what he is, loves who he loves, and doesn't give two rips about what other people might say. I like to imagine he plays around with both genders of clothing from echidna culture.

Amy: oh Amy, my sweet summer child. It's so autistic and queer of you to relentlessly declare your love for someone of the opposite sex because it's what is expected of you. I did the same in third grade before I realized that the other girls meant what they were saying about their target boy. Heteronormativity is a bitch, get well soon <3

Rouge: I think she fucked around with being she/they for a while before settling back on she/her. And bi icon, of course.

Blaze: okay do I really need to explain this one?

Silver: That is one nonbinary hedgehog if I ever saw one! He's a he/him by convenience alone. He hasn't had the chance to explore his sexuality yet unfortunately.

Big: He's good with he/him and that's all he cares about. Not a super strong connection to his assigned gender at birth but he likes being a boy well enough. As for his sexuality, he never figured out what everyone was going on about when it came to sex, and only recently figured out it was because he was literally missing that 'sexual attraction' thing.

Shadow: is nonbinary as fuck and has no idea. Honey, seeing masculinity as a burden you have to bear is not normal!!! He's also demi-ace. It takes a very close relationship with someone to even consider sexual attraction.

Cream: happy being a girl! Hasn't really thought about crushing on anyone yet.

Tails: Internalized homophobia + transphobia from being bullied go brrrrrr. Besides, Sonic doesn't spend much time thinking about these things, so why should he? (Tails. Tails listen to me. Sonic's aro and knew he was trans at an unusually young age. he's a statistical outlier with how early he figured it out PLEASE consider that and don't base your self-discovery journey on him. . .)

Metal: You all know my headcanons for this one. Metal was assigned male by Eggman from its earliest iterations and gender dysphoria is literally 98% of all of its problems. Please get this robot some estrogen. As for sexuality, full romantic attraction is definitely on the table but jesus christ this robot needs to do some work on itself before that. Please read Complex Inquiries if you want me to elaborate that's like my master's thesis on this subject

Vector: Gave his gender a really good thinking before shrugging and sticking with his assigned gender at birth. Also pan as hell, definitely dated some femboys in high school I think.

Espio: Currently in the process of speculating if he's nonbinary. Keeps very quiet about it though. But he knows he likes dudes, so there's that.

Charmy: He's bit-sexual. Whatever he needs to be for the punchline of the joke to land, frankly.

Omega: For narrative parallel reasons to Metal Sonic, I love to headcanon that Omega wasn't programmed with a gender, but then discovered that masculinity is traditionally associated with aggression and violence and went ham. Doesn't mind getting she/her'd, doesn't exactly like they/them, but it/its is of the highest offense. He will kill you for that. As for his sexuality, (I know he's a robot but PLEASE hear me out) he's demi-aro! He'd have no idea that any sort of feelings on his part are happening until it was too late. He'd hate himself for it and promptly bury said feelings beneath so many layers.

[randomthefox]

okay im split on the whole thing with idw stuff

"sonic paincking that much furing the metal virus arc is ooc" kinda? i mean yeah he would have his concerns and he not immune to doubt but he wouldn't take him THAT long to get back on his feet

"Sonic is this flase god" whlie that's clearly bs and that whole "write sonic like a superhero" nonsense its mostly coming from characters who don't understand him

surge has spent most her life (at least the life she can remember) with everyone saying sonic is either the best there ever was or low as dirt and when surge see's a problem she thinks with rage and only uses logic when she's asked to justify her anger

starline is can only see sonic as stain on Eggman's career and not a person

most characters who say that dont see sonic as person

Okay look, I can't speak for anyone else, but my problem with this panel is that it's too much fucking words. Like, bro, shut the fuck up and go DO STUFF. ("But he's not even talking it's thought bubbles" don't be such a disingenuous shithead you know what I mean).

Sonic is not this deep thinker who is wracked with internal conflict over his moral choices. Sonic is not a thinker, he is a do-er. He operates on close to pure instinct. He is prone to leaping before he looks, and sometimes it comes back to bite him in the ass. But even when he doesn't know what's going on, he knows what he's going to do.

Seriously fucking look at this shit: "which is 'right'"??? SONIC DOESN'T CARE ABOUT WHAT IS WRONG AND WHAT IS RIGHT! THAT'S LITERALLY THE WORDS OF HIS FUCKING THEME SONG. SONIC DOES WHATEVER HE FEELS LIKE DOING BECAUSE IT'S WHAT HE WANTS TO DO, IT DOESN'T MATTER WHO IS WRONG AND WHO IS RIGHT!

Personally I just do not view Sonic as being the kind of person who has a multilayered and nuanced inner monologue. Frankly I imagine that if we zoomed into Sonic's mind palace, it would just be a kaleidoscope of tropical beach imagery with the Wii Sports title theme playing on an endless loop.

Tails could have this thought bubble of "what should I do? Should I do this? What would happen if I did that? Maybe it's not the right thing to do? Should I do this instead? What if that doesn't work either? What should I do?" and it'd be reasonable for him. It is not reasonable for Sonic. Sonic is a man of action.

And the argument that Surge is "supposed" to be wrong about the inhabitants of Sonic's world argument doesn't really hold up when the Zeti said the same thing, and were not challenged. Zik said the exact same thing as an explanation for why they were not facing any opposition in their attack, and the comic presents this explanation as correct and it is never refuted or disproven.

You can't really convincingly argue that Surge is being written as a flawed character with a warped and incorrect view of the world, when the comic writes OTHER CHARACTERS unrelated to Surge as sharing that same view and the comic NEVER DEMONSTRATES THAT THAT VIEW IS INCORRECT. This isn't Surge voicing the lie she believes to be the truth. This is Ian Flynn making commentary on how he believes the world of Sonic functions using Surge's mouth.

This is what Ian Flynn believes to be true about the world of Sonic. And you are simply interpreting it as Surge being written as a flawed character with a warped world view because it is so provably demonstrably false that the sane and rational mind rejects the argument. But you as the audience are not SUPPOSED to think Surge is wrong when she says this. YOU are supposed to agree with her about it. Because Ian Flynn genuinely and sincerely thinks this is how the world of Sonic functions.

He thinks he's making biting meta commentary on the status quo of "the Sonic cycle" with nobody in the comic ever saying "uhh, no? That's wrong and stupid?"

[cyanocoraxx]

sickness (main fic: damage)

"Are you going to let me out of here, you monster?"

"Doubtful."

"Come on, Metal. I-If you let me go, we can forget about all of this, can't we?"

Neo turned his head to look at the doctor. He was cowering in his prison cell, hands white-knuckled around the bars. A common sight for the past few days. This kind of grovelling made the machine sick. His optics narrowed in disgust.

Eggman had already tried everything. Reason, conversation, even sneaking up on the robot when he was close to the bars to try literally anything on him. But nothing seemed to work, and the robot wouldn't budge on this.

"We cannot."

Eggman sat back on the floor and folded his arms. "Can you at least tell me why I'm locked up in here like some animal? It's inhumane!"

Neo gave him a long, suspicious look. The doctor had a bucket. That was enough for a human. He was sure of it. So, he didn't afford the doctor a response, only looking away.

"Humans need air, water, food- the blasted bathroom, for God's sake! Depriving me won't make you-"

Neo hissed and sharply stood up, frame rigid and claws tense. His engine revved as if to throw himself right at the doctor.

(I won't hurt you, but I need you to see me.)

"Say it. Say it, doctor. I know what you want to say."

Eggman gritted his teeth with uncertainty. This was the most "present" the robot had been in a few days, and he wasn't sure how to speak to keep it that way. "It won't… make you…"

"It won't what? Make me the hedgehog? Stop reading my mind." Neo spat, taking a few steps towards him. "You are broadcasting my thoughts to everyone so that they know to tell me I'm not Sonic. You have to stop. I order you to stop as your overlord."

"Metal- you're insane. You've truly lost your mind," Eggman warned him carefully, trying a more forward approach, "a-and you haven't slept for weeks. Why don't you just go and sleep? You might feel better."

Neo moved to stand right in front of him. "I feel fine. I feel on top of this worthless world, doctor. I see everything clearly- I see what you're doing to me. You can't hurt me when you are in there. You can't stop me in there. You can't broadcast my thoughts in there- no, you can't get your cameras to watch me in there. So, I cannot let you go."

Eggman considered playing into his beliefs. "W-what if I turn my cameras off, Metal?"

"You will not. You lie." Neo growled in response. He turned and walked away to the other side of the room, back to where he came from.

Eggman was quiet for a moment. "If you feel so fine as you say, why do you keep destroying yourself? Metal, your arms are shredded. You've painted the same crap on your face twelve times since I've been in here. You talk so much nonsense- you don't make sense. You're..."

"Crazy. Say it, doctor." Neo cut him off, fists clenched hard at his sides. He lucidly noted that it took more force to fully ball his hands now as the tips of his claws were blunt from overuse. They would need to be sharpened later. Sharp meant powerful. Powerful meant he would show everyone. Everyone would know what this world was doing to him. Whilst losing himself in thought, his head subtly twitched a couple of times, out of his conscious control.

The overlord never said it, but the loss of control was terrifying. He hated it to his very core. To have no control over his movements, his words, his own thoughts, was maddening and frightening and he didn't know what to do with it. The only other defense was to disconnect and pretend it wasn't happening - so, he did, and he tried desperately to detach his mind from his situation.

This display of unhinged behaviour finally led the doctor to snap. There was apparently no getting through to him. So, Eggman gave in to his anger at being imprisoned and betrayed. His patience with the robot was running thin. If reason wouldn't work, all he had left was rage. He stood and threw his hands around the bars with a bang, now leaning forward with a growl, accentuating his next words by pointing an accusatory finger at the machine.

"No. I was going to say monster. You're a monster, Metal. I never thought I'd say it, but I hope that blue pincushion and his friends defeat you! A-and you hardly even qualify as Metal Sonic at this point! I might rename you to Metal Madness if you keep this up!"

Neo hardly registered what the doctor said to him. In fact, it didn't register as any language at all. He sat down in the corner quietly, occasionally looking around. His auditory sensors tuned themselves in and out several times as he tried to understand what he could hear - music? It was faint, and he had to strain to listen, and the doctor's murmuring in the background was distracting. What was it saying? What? He tilted his head to one side, then the other, trying again and again to make sense of it.

The words he spoke soothed him a little, as if defending him from the words of the doctor in the cell.

"I don't care what you're thinking… what I have… enough…"

Eggman banged a fist on the bars to grab his attention. "Metal! I'm still here. I'm still asking you to let me out of here! Whatever you're doing, it's not going to make me feel sorry for you!"

Neo could feel the electricity on his armour plating. The itch was suddenly infuriating. He scratched and scratched and scratched with blunt claw tips.

Eggman sighed loudly and deeply. "Metal. Stop it. Pay attention when I speak to you."

"I cannot." Neo replied flatly. He put his head in his hands and tried to calm himself amidst the stuttering of his engine. His systems would struggle to keep up with him.

"Metal! Let. Me. Go! You have no right to keep me here whilst you walk around in circles talking crazy to yourself! I am your creator, your master, your-"

Neo lifted his head out of trembling hands. "Father. Father, please do not speak to me that way, I cannot... I cannot handle this alone..."

(Don't give up on me, please. I need you to understand that I'm scared.)

"Let me go. Let me go, let me go, let me go, let me go. Let me go, Metal. I'll keep saying it until you do. Let me go!"

Something in him snapped at the overstimulation. Neo grabbed onto those words and repeated them as if his life depended on it.

"LET ME GO. LET ME GO."

The robot screamed and wailed from somewhere deep within its soul. He slammed himself into the wall repeatedly, dislodging his shoulder joint in the process - but that didn't stop him, and he wouldn't stop, and he would never stop until that electric feeling left him alone. It whispered that he wasn't Sonic under his very plating. In his wiring. It wouldn't stop. It tormented him and left him with nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide.

Eggman scrambled to the back of his cell. His back pressed against the cold metal wall. His heart thudded in his chest as every sense in his body told him to run. There was nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide. Watching his own creation, one he almost considered his son, unravel in such a brutal and raw way right before him was borderline traumatic.

He was terrified of his son and his son was terrified of him. They were both terrified of different imaginary monsters. Eggman, the monster he deemed his son, who was no such thing. Neo, the monster ravaging his mind without mercy.

It took minutes for Neo to register that he was being restrained by a pair of strong, unwavering arms from behind. The reverberating sound of metal-on-metal continued to ring in his ears like static long after he had stopped ramming into the wall. Slowly, Neo recalibrated his auditory sensors and made out a voice against his ear.

(Unknown to Neo, Mecha Sonic had already entered quietly behind him, delivered a serving of food and water to the doctor, and apologized to him for any inconvenience.)

"Lord Neo. My Lord. This is an inefficient use of your energy and time." Mecha stated factually and calmly.

Energy… time? How long had it been? His internal clock was unreadable. The numbers didn't make sense. The voice beside him might have been fake, too. Mecha was used to this and unfazed. The silence likely meant that Neo was unsure of his presence. So, Mecha did what she had done before and squeezed her arms around him tighter, triggering his pressure sensors. It forced Neo's CPU to process new sensory information in a way that brought him out of his haze a little.

"Lord Neo. You need not display such fear. I have scanned the surrounding area in infrared and sent out a ping for mechanical signals, and there is nothing of note that would warrant this state."

That's right. Mecha didn't lie. She was almost incapable. Mecha could be trusted. If Neo couldn't trust his scanners, he could trust his brother's. Gradually, Neo relaxed back into Mecha, allowing Mecha to hold him back.

Nobody else could touch him this way.

"You must attempt to relax, brother. Accompany me so that we might improve your chances." Mecha told him quietly. He carefully released one hand from around his sibling to take one of Neo's hands, preventing him from damaging himself further.

Neo nodded but said nothing. He trusted that Mecha had good intentions. So, he followed Mecha out of the prison block and onto the deck of their ship.

"Are you capable of flight today." Mecha asked, pausing for a moment. She had to allow him ample time to respond, she noted, as his response times were growing longer with each day.

Neo tested his engine. It came to life with a quiet whirr.

"... Yes."

"Good. Come with me."

Mecha took off with a bang of his own engine as it quickly came to life. He rocketed up to the towers of their flying fortress with precision. Neo took off after him, focusing as best as he could manage on Mecha's flight trajectory.

High above everyone and everything else, the siblings landed side-by-side.

The brothers stood atop the tallest tower of the Final Fortress. From here, the world was minuscule, cloaked in heavy black-grey clouds that separated them from the living world. As Neo calmed further, the skies did too. He lifted his head and watched as the clouds turned from heavy charcoal to lighter slate. A very real ability like this didn't exactly help with his delusions, and Mecha had to redirect his attention. This choice of location was purposeful, however. Here, Neo was away from the other beings down below, for his own safety as well as theirs. Mecha didn't deem his sibling dangerous, but their reputation needed to remain strong to keep order amongst the ranks. The change of scenery would hopefully ease Neo's distress, too.

"We are but small beings in this world," Mecha began, looking calmly out across the stretch of the fortress, "but our troops, our fellow machines, look to us for guidance. They require your presence. Your wellbeing. I do ask that you endeavour to take better care of yourself."

"I am a monster. Father deems me so," Neo said flatly, "so my wellbeing is of… little conse- consequence."

Mecha shook his head. "Negative. A monster is defined as a large, ugly, frightening imaginary creature. You do not fit these characteristics."

Large, ugly, and frightening. That was exactly what he would become in a few days. But, for now, he was small, afraid, and suffering an internal battle that nobody else could comprehend.

Neo looked down, surveying his future kingdom with refreshed lucidity. He reached out with one hand as if to touch the world below. A world behind a pane of imaginary glass, frosted from time to time - separating him from sense. In truth, Neo had always been a child looking out of a window thinking that one day he would touch this world with his hands and make it his own (make it less frightening). Even if it burned. Even if it hurt. Even if some things had to bend and break. Even if he had to become a monster to do it.

"Do you hear the song, Mecha?" Neo asked softly. His optics dimmed a little - with what emotion, he wasn't sure.

Mecha remained still and poised. "Negative. I cannot detect any audio input out of the ordinary. What is it that you detect."

Neo murmured the words he could hear aloud. "Resist it over time... it's too much to take... you sneak up from behind..."

Mecha listened silently, wanting to understand. This wasn't an uncommon thing. He noted, though, that the words Neo said seemed to relate to his emotional state. This time, it seemed that Neo was struggling to resist whatever was happening inside his head. The paranoia was becoming too much. That was just speculation on Mecha's part, though, and she couldn't pretend to understand it.

"I do not detect those words at this time. However, if they are detectable by you, they must be important in some regard." Mecha responded kindly.

Neo felt numb, now. A curious feeling. His attention to the world around him faded and something hummed within him. Voices would try to brush up against him and his ears would fill with the muffled sounds of water. He focused on the humming in his head. He was inside his CPU, a little mechanical cave, and within, he would curl up inside. Below, his frame stood unattached. Mecha quietly took his brother's hand in his and held it with gentle solidarity.

Mecha would never understand nor comprehend the disconnect within his sibling, but that didn't mean that he wouldn't stand beside him and try.

[crusherthedoctor]

Get a Load of Traits - PART 2: Dr. Eggman

It's that time again, folks. Time for another analysis you didn't ask for.

I explained how the setup goes with my previous installment revolving around Sonic, but to recap: for the sake of not dragging things out too much, I’ve decided to keep it all thematically consistent by sticking with 9 main points per character, in terms of what I personally consider the highest priorities for each of them. These will usually not be listed in any particular order of importance or relevance unless stated otherwise, and while there may be other major traits that might not get mentioned (in which case, feel free to bring them up yourself if you see fit), this keeps things simple and focuses on the points that have the most flexibility with how much of the character they encapsulate.

It should also be noted that these posts are made with the game portrayals in mind, because the games mark the core of the franchise, and as such, they objectively contain the purest essence of the cast. Adaptations generally like to play by their own rules, some more gratuitously and inexcusably than others, and this will inevitably crop up with certain entries. All that being said however, I’ll attempt to stay focused rather than devolve into another rant about this adaptation or that adaptation, only directly referring to them if I feel it’s necessary for the point being made.

Anyhow, for today’s installment, the spotlight shines on everyone's favourite villain that they pretend isn't a villain: Dr. Eggman.

He's larger than life.

Where could he be???

He's shaped like an egg. He laughs and bellows like it's going out of fashion. He proudly announces when he's in the room for no other reason than to inform everyone that he's in the room. He takes sadistic glee when you don't have enough memory in the memory card. Why would you want to sawdust away this side of him? What are you, a Hollywood writer?

Just as Sonic is a fun hero, it's integral that Eggman is a fun villain. He's all about the colour, the spectacle, the raw energy. This is non-negotiable. If you approach this character and think he needs to be made grounded because he has a silly name or something, then you are going about this the completely wrong way. Villains like Eggman get praised all the time for being vibrant and wacky, so frankly, there is no excuse to write him off for it.

He is genuinely smart.

"Oh yeah? Well if you played nice, I wouldn't need to transform you into a tedious gameplay mechanic that appeals to furries and is guaranteed to give this game negative reviews from IGN. Haha, gottem."

Look at the screencap above. He was able to turn the tables against Super Sonic right when it looked as though he was thoroughly cornered. How was he able to achieve this? By planning.

*leans closer to the mic*

P L A N N I N G.

Yes, he is not literally omniscient. Yes, he can be prone to the occasional oversight. Yes, unexpected events can transpire that would be difficult if not impossible for him to account for. But all that aside, Eggman is a genius. He does have an IQ of 300. He talks a big game, but with all the amazing tech he's created over the years, and with all the ways he's pulled a fast one over the heroes, he has proven that he can play the big game. Need I remind you that this is a human, and his arch-nemesis is the fastest thing alive, not some dude on the street. He would need to be on his A-game in order to last.

And yes, it is indeed him who does all that brainstorming. Ever since day 1, he's always been very hands-on with his operations, not needing to steal the credit from another scientist or force a hostage to do it all for him. His plans? His weapons? They're all him. Would a mere bumbler be able to subdue the Time Eater?

He is genuinely evil.

"What's this shite I'm hearing about a Mr. Tinker...?"

We've got the Triforce of Funny Man. We've got the Triforce of Real Intelligence. Now here comes the hardest pill to swallow: the Triforce of Actually Malevolent.

For reasons that can be pinned on certain portrayals that are coincidentally more commonly found in adaptations, fans are all too willing to remove agency from Eggman's villainy. When they're not claiming an amnesiac personality that peaced out as quickly as it arrived is his true self, they're claiming he has all these heated gamer moments for the purpose of avenging his Wasted™ grandfather, Professor Gerald Robotnik. Or they claim he's not as bad as other villains in the franchise because he "only" wants to conquer the world, rather than destroy it.

Now how can I put this gently...

No, I am not just saying this because I personally happen to favor Eggmen with proper villainous balls to their name rather than glorified frenemies with Sonic at best. Even when exorcising myself of all potential bias, the Eggman we see in the games is still a very different fellow from what a concerning number of fans say with a straight face he is.

He stuffs animals inside robots on a regular basis. He lies, cheats, and backstabs on a regular basis. He fired a laser at the planet with the intent to fracture it, with no consideration for destruction or fatalities. He conquered other planets just to reduce them to self-indulgent attractions for his theme park. He drove a friendly robot to insanity after they were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. He wanted to destroy Station Square right out the gate, with the only difference come the end of his rope being that he changed tactics to more suicidal means out of desperation. When the Deadly Six were defeated, and the world remained in a dire state, his only reaction was to express relief that there was still something for him to lord over. And although Forces may have glossed over much of his rule, it's clear that it wasn't pleasant for anyone other than himself. Throughout all of this, he rarely brings up Gerald in a consistent manner outside of SA2 and ShtH, and in fact, even in those games, it's pretty clear that he only cares about Gerald's scientific legacy and how that makes him special in the process due to being his grandson. He's never been shown to give a damn about the rest of Gerald as a person, including the philanthropist he was at heart prior to his last days.

Not wanting to destroy the world is not an act of kindness. It's simple logic: he can't conquer something that's not there. And is treating the population to a lifetime of slavery really that softer than a quick and (relatively) painless death? I'm sure TV Tropes would say yes, but what do you think?

He's a self-made man.

Egg Jameson confirmed.

Our horizontally enlightened fiend did not start with a kingdom of his own. He was not a test tube baby who could shoot lasers out of his hands from day one. He was not born a demon, nor did he hail from a bloodline of gods. When he began his path in life of being a furry shamer, he had only his gadgets and tools to work with. Yet, he has managed to carve himself a bountiful list of pro gamer moves over the years despite his mortal human status, including harnessing the Time Eater as mentioned, bringing his dream Eggmanland to life in all its glory, and the engineering marvel that is Metal Sonic... and almost never suffering from financial troubles despite the frequent destruction of his machines at Sonic's hands. (Keep Sonic 4's name out your fuckin' mouth.)

And speaking of that last part, there has been evidence across the series that he has more than one way of ensuring the moolah keeps rolling in. We've seen him set up casinos, carnivals, Extreme Gear companies, newspaper factories, and other facilities to extend his reach. We've seen his robots mine for resources all over the world, and occasionally other worlds. We've seen him own a literal ocean of oil. We've even seen him sell his stripped down robots to chumps who don't know any better. For all his childish ways and penchant for plagiarizing the Death Star, he's surprisingly good at money management.

Then there's his specific approach to scheming and beating Sonic. Winning on its own is never enough for him: he wants to win on his terms, by doing things his way. So he might steal a shiny gem, but he'll use it to power the tech that he made. He might wake up a sleeping beast, but he'll have an Egg Carrier operating alongside it. The doc is always pulling his weight no matter the game, because if he didn't, how could he back up his self-admired intellect without it ringing hollow? You know he wouldn't be having that.

All of this goes a long way to explaining how he grew a knack for being so pro-active as a villain in the present day of the games proper. Instead of having it easy by being born an almighty superbeing, he had to work his way up using nothing but his brain. Because Dr. Eggman is a man with quite a few admirable qualities. Just a shame that morality is not one of them, no matter how much I've been gaslit by fans into believing otherwise.

His ego is his motive.

Don't say it.

As we discussed, for all his manufactured admiration of his late grandad's genius, he doesn't mention him as often across the franchise as fans would lead you to believe. But you know which moustached gentleman he does mention a lot throughout the franchise...?

An overfilled sense of pride is to be expected for a pure villain. Regardless of their motive and their means to fulfill said motives, they're expected to think highly of themselves to some degree. But Eggman is not your everyday egotist: he IS the ego. Many villains have made statues of themselves, but how many do you know who have defaced historical monuments and plastered their visage on them? How many villains do you know who call half of their machines Egg Something? How many villains do you know who make up every single boss in more than one installment?

That's because Eggman's ego isn't just part of his character: it's the source of his drive. Everything he does, everything he wants to do, is fueled by how much he loves himself, and how displeased he is that the rest of the world does not feel the same way. He wants everyone to bow down to his excellence, he wants to conquer the world to satisfy his lust, and even that wouldn't keep him satiated forever, since evidence has shown that he would just make a grab for the whole universe if he got bored. He cannot picture a world where anyone else matters, because they're not him. Over the span of three decades, his inflated self-worth at the cost of everyone else's agency and wellbeing has not diminished one iota, and unless SEGA decides to pander hard to the Eggdad standom, this is not likely to change anytime soon.

Which leads me to my next point...

The consequences are irrelevant to him.

Quote by Billy Mitchell.

Part of the recurring problem with Eggman being woefully mischaracterized as not such a bad guy when you get to know him is because people like to suggest that since he rarely shows outright sadism while committing his evil deeds (except this is also not true; see Tails' story in SA1, or the sheer ecstasy in his tone when he betrayed Emerl's trust in Battle), that means the results that spring from them are more excusable than the likes of Mephiles, Starline, Disney, etc.

Putting aside the fact that he's still willingly committing these deeds to begin with - with no regret at that - let's assume they mean in reference to ordinary citizens and the like. Now maybe it's true that he's not known to dedicate much of his career to making things personal with random nobodies. But let me ask you something: when he declared his intent to destroy Station Square with Chaos so he could build ROBOTNIKLAND THE ULTIMATE CITY WHERE I WILL RULE IT AAAALLLL COME ON CHAOS LET'S FIND ANOTHER EMERALD SHALL WE Eggmanland over its remains... did he say anything about letting the residents evacuate? Did he provide a means to help them evacuate?

What you need to keep in mind is that Eggman showing little interest goes both ways. He doesn't give any thought to these folk period. If his giant mech killed people who were in his way, or he fired a cannon at Whocaresville and the people living there didn't have time to get out of dodge, he's not going to shed a tear and call for a moment of silence. Because, as we've already established, the only person that matters is him. So long as he gets what he wants, and so long as there are still other people out there to worship him, what's the big deal if some kid is now without a parent or a home?

He is not a good master.

"Also, I did create a vaccine. That's what you get for listening to our loving fans who hate us."

Well, at least he shows a more caring side to his creations, right? Sure... if you don't pay any attention to how it plays out onscreen.

My dude is certainly willing to shower his creations with high praise, but what advocates of Good Guy Eggman fail to note is that he praises them because he made them. An achievement for them is an achievement for him, because how would they be so brilliant and competent if it weren't for who built them that way? And you know what else? That praise conveniently only manifests when the creation is doing their job: the moment they fall short of his lofty standards, he flips like a switch. Can it truly be considered sincere and from the heart if he's that willing to turn on them that easily?

Of his many robotic stooges over the years, two that he held in high esteem were the E-Series and Metal Sonic. He made a show of tasking the former with an important mission, and the latter has been recognized repeatedly as one of his crowning masterpieces. And yet, all of the E-Series bar Gamma were discarded and essentially left to fend for themself in an unfamiliar world, with Beta being forcibly modified without a second thought. Gamma was only spared because, you guessed it, he was the one with a victory to his name. As for Metal Sonic, for all his longevity and special treatment, he too is not immune to punishment in the event of failure or disobedience.

And Infinite? His prized right-hand man during his six month conquest? Whisked away without a word after one bruh moment too many, followed by making a point to show off his own mastery over the (real) Phantom Ruby.

Needless to say, this is a stark contrast from the goofy dad you often see in fanart.

His will is equal to Sonic's.

"I'm gonna have to reset, that was a practice run."

Being a regular human does not serve as a limitation for Eggman's status and capabilities, unless you're a hack writer who believes superficial power levels are the instant-win key to a good antagonist, or a well-crafted story in general. On paper, a hedgehog with Sonic's level of power should have dealt with this silly old man once and then never again. That happened with aliens. It happened with gods. It happened with talking ballsacks. Yet Eggman is still around. Despite being subjected to a wide selection of situations that should have Big Oof'd him, with Sonic normally not considering saving him from said perils a high priority, Eggman keeps surviving, and he keeps trucking on.

Why? Because main villain immunity, yes, but compared to Bowser the fire-breathing turtle, and Ganon the occasional boar-shaped demigod, a human scientist managing to persist for as long as he has is still impressive even without the out-of-universe justification. This detail of his character is even incorporated into his boss fights: the Egg Viper battle ends with a kamikaze attack. The Mega Death Egg Robot had a second machine stored inside it, keeping up where the fight left off as the first one conks out. S3&K in its entirety was practically dedicated to his absolute refusal to call it quits.

He doesn't give up. He never gives up. And he's not the type to piss his pants either. When the odds are stacked against him, he will either give it his all with much gnashing of teeth, or he'll retreat because it's the tactically sound thing to do. What he doesn't do is show fear and plead for his life. (Unleashed doesn't count, that was a Wily ploy.)

He hates Sonic.

Or else he wouldn't have made this.

You would think this would go without saying. You have not spent enough time in the Sonic community. I wish I was you. (Then again, I met my friends through it...)

There are many people - many, many, many people - who will vehemently drill into your head with the trustworthy assurance of a SonicTuber that Dr. Eggman, arch-nemesis of Sonic the Hedgehog, world's longest Attempted Sonic Murderer champion, secretly likes the guy deep down, and would never wish for the Blue Blur to actually kick the bucket for good. They claim that when push comes to shove, the old doctor would never fully commit to world domination, because he simply enjoys his bouts with Sonic too much.

For X!Eggman? Probably.

Boom Eggman? Definitely.

Game Eggman? The Eggman? No.

Eggman hates Sonic. Eggman loathes Sonic, and he loathes the rest of his multicolored accomplices just as fiercely. The amount of times he has tried to bust a cap in Sonic's ass is plausibly in the triple digits. He has subjected Sonic to all kinds of threatening, terrifying situations with the explicit purpose of either killing him or hitting him where it hurts. He shows happiness when Sonic is in pain, or has appeared to have been vanquished by his efforts. What about any of this suggests that he likes him? Because of respect?

Now yes, that much is true. It's evident that Eggman respects Sonic as an opponent who can keep up with him, and it's true that he enjoys their battles to an extent. That's not the same thing as actually liking the guy on a personal level. For all the respect he may wield, he would still gladly rid himself of the hedgehog the first chance he gets. Remember the big moment in SA2 in which he launched Sonic into space? He bid his farewell, in a semi-mocking tone, then went right back to business like it was nothing. And what about Forces? What did he plan on doing with Sonic once he got bored of waving his victory in his enemy's face? That's right, he planned on slamming the red button on him. Sorry you had to find out this way, that's what happens when you don't Play The Game.

Ivo Robotnik is a jovial man, but his goals are dead serious. He wants his empire more than anything else in the world, and he will get it. For whatever thrills their encounters may provide, he would piss on Sonic's grave without a moment's hesitation in order to make progress with his ambitions. If he wasn't serious about taking over the world... why the fuck would he do all that he does? Do you really think he spends all that time researching ancient tablets because he wants to be Sonic's friend? Do you think he enslaves alien races because it's not like he likes Sonic or anything baka kawaii desu (please don't unfollow me, I won't do it again)? I don't think so, chum. There'd be no game, and no franchise, if Eggman wasn't coming up with ways to put him in an early grave. And then probably vandalize the grave after.

---

If you understand all of these points, and if you can take to them, then I believe you should have what it takes to write a good, or even great, portrayal of Dr. Ivo "EDP445" Robotnik. No portrayal is going to be one-and-one with that of another, there'll always be subtle distinctions depending on the writer, but you'll be fine as long as he's not a softie or a fool who only exists to be replaced with a gay platypus.

Oh and, one last thing...

Heroes manual lied to you. Sorry, English fandom.

[beevean]

Sorry if this is a bad time.

If you've read sonic idw issues 56 or 55 what do you think of Surge now?

Not much has changed? I was left very disappointed by how Kit simply... takes Surge and leaves, after an angsty but deserved "you suck" speech. Again. The exact same thing happened in #53. This is the conclusion of this arc? What exactly was concluded, that the Dynamo Cage broke and Surge failed again? Well, I suppose that now Sonic knows about their past, but considering that he's still a major asshole and I am glad that Surge electrocuted him simply for this line...

... I don't trust neither Flynn or Stanley to write a decent, actually compassionate Sonic - not holier-than-thou, a Sonic that actually cares about other people and not just about his Principles.

"wah wah all my enemies became my friends eventually :) I'm sure you will too :)" would you mind treating Surge like an actual person with agency, you piece of shit? Actually, now it's even worse, because now he knows that she is programmed to want him dead, on an even deeper level than Shadow! And he's still like "oh, you'll be my friend :)". What an arrogant pustule!

Sorry, I hate IDW!Sonic too much. As for Surge... well, I liked this line:

I have shilled Let Go a couple of times, if you forgive my arrogance, but this, this is the one thing that I find interesting about Surge. She cannot simply "forgive" Sonic, it's baked in her being. Her problem is not easily fixable, not with a pep talk, nor with a beating. She herself has to find the strength to reforge her own identity, but that's easier said than done. Can she even find peace? It is an intriguing conflict.

I do, however, heavily disagree with this narrative that Surge and Kit's existence is Sonic's fault. I hate that the dilemma that the story is presenting, and that the fans are buying, is that their suffering is due to Sonic not killing Mr. Tinker way back then - which lead to Starline restoring Eggman's memories, which lead to Starline growing disillusioned with Eggman*, which lead to him playing God with two children.

What the fuck? No! Sonic's huge mistake was being, again, an arrogant little shit with Metal and letting him free in #12! No I will not let that down! Sonic never told anyone what he did and he dismissed Tails when he brought it back in #50 (because he's a terrible person), but that was the huge thing he should have tried to fix! Not Mr. Tinker! I hate that everyone keeps shitting on Sonic for not killing a man with brain damage, and now I'm supposed to think "oh, but because of that, Surge and Kit now exist and are in pain :(" shut up!

Same with Starline, "oh Sonic let Starline go" bitch where? Literally where. Tell me where. I re-read the Chao Race Arc for Let Go just to make sure, and Sonic just left Starline to die under an avalanche and forgot about him. I hate IDW!Sonic and I hope he has a mental breakdown for all the shit he did, but not for this! Not for this! Blame him for what he actually did!

Anyway. This arc was mainly useless, and the only things I remember are that 1) Sonic is still a piece of shit, best seen in the callous way he treated Kit in #53, and 2) Surge got defeated by a bucket on her head, so much for being Best Rival. So yeah, peak writing, as usual. But as wasted and overhyped Surge feels, I cannot completely hate her. There is a good concept there.

I think she will kill herself at the end of her character arc, like this. But I suspect that Flynn and Stanley will keep her around for a while because she's too popular.

*also the fact that Eggman in #23 was severely OOC just to facilitate Starline's disillusionment doesn't help matters. Surge and Kit are not Sonic's fault: they are the fault of shitty writing.

[the-2nd-random-kid]

Oh my god shadow is such a fucking simp

[neutral-emerald]

SILVER THE COSMIC TIME-JANITOR (or: dude, what's with all the alternate futures)

silver the hedgehog has a very simple backstory. he's a kindhearted, sorta-naive but altogether very driven psychic hedgehog here to save the world by time-traveling to the past (also known as present-day) to prevent the apocalyptic future he was born into from coming to pass!

[ID: A screenshot of Silver from Sonic 06. He’s glowing with cyan energy as he flies over a dark, post-apocalyptic city.]

...wait, if he's time traveling 200 years into the past to completely change the shape of the timeline, how do the stars manage to align such that he manages to be born at the exact same point in the new timeline with the exact same genetics? how are his parents born? does silver have parents?? and how does he do this no less than THREE SEPARATE TIMES??!

hey everyone, i'm tumblr user neutral-emerald here to make good on the idea i vaguely gestured at yesterday and point out silver's wildly inconsistent backstory(s) and then explain to you how this isn't just sega playing hopscotch with the concept of time travel, but actually TOTALLY EXPLAINABLE if you don't mind a whole lot of conjecture and "fuck dude i just think it'd be cool."

LET'S GO.

before i get started, a few things to establish.

first, this is about… half serious, tops. it’s less of a theory and more of an observation of something that’s weird and then throwing some possible explanations at it because i am a massive sucker for time-based nonsense. if you wanna take my observations and build your own conclusions, go for it. i’m not your boss.

second, i'm basing my conclusions off of both the games and the idw comics. the conclusions i draw are applicable to either continuity, but the logic does rest a decent amount on the comics, so just a heads-up in case you were expecting pure game canon from this.

and third, i'm working off like half a brain and very intermittent checks of the wiki and cutscene compilations, so there's probably many things i'm missing! if you notice something i said was wildly off-base, go ahead and correct me in the replies and i'll either edit the post or explain to you just how that detail doesn't actually matter, depending on whether it. y'know. matters.

with that out of the way, let's get into the first topic of discussion!

part 1: the future is inconsistent, y'all

now, i'm not sure if you've heard, but in the year 2006 sonic team released this little indie game creatively entitled Sonic the Hedgehog. it was a smash hit, won countless awards, and for some reason went down in history as a messy, incomplete bugfest. but that's not what matters. what matters is that it introduced Silver the Hedgehog.

silver hails from 200 years in the future. the world is a bleak, fiery place, and has been since the monster iblis was unleashed after princess elise's death. silver was born into this world, which we know since it's literally the first thing he says in his story.

[ID: A cropped line from Silver's story in Sonic 06. "This world was devastated before I was born."]

i'm not going to drag you through a beat-by-beat summary of the entire plot of sonic 06, you should know it already. silver meets mephiles, gets lied to about who caused the apocalypse, mephiles yeets him and blaze into the past, he tries to murder Sonic the Hedgehog™, and so on. eventually he helps kill god, and then sonic and elise travel further back in time to kill god even deader so that none of the game ever happened, and the bad future into which silver was born never happened, thus thoroughly scrubbing silver's existence from the timeline!

...until.

sonic rivals.

i'm not going to speak much on sonic rivals, mostly because i'm not super familiar with it. but what matters is that silver is back! he's still from the future, he's still here to change the past, and most importantly he wasn't deleted from existence by the destruction of solaris, unlike everything else from sonic 06 including everyone's memories of it. and obviously, whatever state his future is in, it's not the same as it was in sonic 06.

now, i don't have a single clue what is going on in rivals 2, so do inform me if there's some big information i'm missing from that one. all i know is he's fixing yet another possible apocalyptic future, like always. correct me if i’m wrong, i don’t have the patience to trawl through it myself.

then we've got sonic colors, in which silver is again from the future. notably, he’s definitely not from an apocalypse!

[ID: Some screenshots from the DS version of Sonic Colors, again cropped to just the text. Tails and Silver are talking to each other.

Tails: What's the future you came from like, Silver? Silver: A lot brighter than this. Silver: The sky is blue, and everybody's got a smile.]

sonic generations doesn't add much. again, correct me if i'm wrong, but i don't think we learn anything about what kind of future silver is from, and he's definitely not here to fix it this time. that's sonic's job! he's just hanging out like everyone else.

now, up until this point the future has been reasonably consistent, setting aside my somewhat abstract understanding of the rivals games. there's nothing to say that silver's not coming back in time from the same point in a single timeline, which is the one and only version of the future ever since the destruction of sonic 06.

UNTIL.

[ID: Two panels from the comic Sonic Forces: Stress Test. In the first panel, Silver looks worried as he lands in front of Knuckles, who looks skeptical.

Silver: We've got big trouble! Eggman— Knuckles: How can you be here? I thought you returned to the future?

In the second panel, Knuckles looks away with a self-assured grin, while Silver looks more panicked.

Knuckles: Oh wait— I must be dreaming! Silver: What? No! I've come back with a dire warning from the future!]

i have a lot of issues with sonic forces, especially with how its story is written. something i do NOT take issue with is the supplemental comics, mainly because they are WONDERFUL evidence for my crackpot time travel theory.

like i said, up until this point we don't really know whether silver has been experiencing separate instances of the future, or simply traveling back in time to prevent an also-time-traveling eggman nega from messing things up in the past. but here, we get some very juicy information:

[ID: Knuckles and Silver again. Knuckles has his arms crossed and is looking at Silver, who has a nervous look on his face as he slams a fist on the palm of his other hand.

Knuckles: Come again? Silver: Something happens that brings the world to ruin! But the historical records are sparse or make no sense. I came back to hopefully head off whatever's about to happen and save the future.]

silver travels back in time to prevent a terrible apocalypse. this is not the beautiful future silver came from in sonic colors— but this is the same silver. everyone recognizes him. he recognizes everyone. and yet, the future he came from is different.

part 2: silver is a walking paradox

allow me to remind you of what i pointed out when i was talking about sonic 06. silver was born into the iblis-apocalypse. considering no elaborate timeline nonsense happened to him before the events of the game (by his reckoning) i think we can safely assume he was born like a regular person with parents.

in the first post-06 timeline, silver was probably also born. let's be charitable, acknowledge that sonic team doesn't overthink the butterfly effect like i do, and say that silver was born to the same parents, because the universe likes to keep things nice and simple and contrive itself to make this particular character exist in this time period.

so, it's entirely fair that silver comes to exist in a post-06 timeline at the equivalent point in time, aka 200 years in the future. it's also fair that he travels back in time to prevent some kind of apocalypse, because that's his narrative role! it's what he does. when it's time for him to exist in the story, that's what he's there to do.

what isn't fair is the fact that it keeps happening.

[ID: A panel from the IDW comics. Sonic is stretching his legs while looking faintly exasperated at Silver, who is nervously holding his arm.

Silver: Er… No. I came back because defeating Eggman didn't save the future. Sonic: Couldn't even play along. Had to bring the mood down. Sonic: *sigh* Okay, what happened this time?]

[ID: The following panel, cropped to just Silver's text bubbles narrating over a starry sky.

Silver: When I left, my time had been conquered by the Eggman Empire. Everyone lived in fear, choking on polluted air. Silver: When I went back, the Eggman Empire was gone— but so was everyone else. Silver: There was nothing left. No people, no animals, no machinery. Only water and sparse, metallic plant life.]

allow me to summarize my understanding of all this: silver is from the future. normally, the future is good. sometimes it isn't. when it isn't good, he goes back in time and fixes things, then returns to the future to check if that fixed things.

the least conjecture-y interpretation i can come up with is that sometimes silver will go into the past, then go back to the future but end up in a Bad Timeline and thus go into the past again to fix things. there's no weird warping directly between bad timelines, he only gets there by way of the past.

but that's boring, so here's my PREFERRED interpretation.

silver hails from a good future, but sometimes it just changes. he's unstuck from time— if something weird happens in the past, he's the only one to know that the passage of fate was changed, because he went to bed in one timeline and woke up somewhere categorically worse, and the only way he can fix it is by figuring out just what caused this and going back in time to fix it.

or, to say it in a meme:

[ID: A picture of someone lying in a hospital bed with a nurse standing next to them, edited so that Silver is in the bed.

nurse: sir… you've been asleep for 2 hours silver: oh boy i can't wait to wake up in the same timeline i went to sleep in]

part 3: how did this happen?

it's one thing to point out that silver doesn't experience time like a normal hedgehog, and another thing to explain how and why this happens.

fyi, this is the part where i go wildly off the rails and start saying whatever i want. there's a ton of explanations one could come up with, most probably stemming back to sonic 06. i'm just going to go with my own, and probably not come up with a whole lot of concrete evidence because i'm just spitballing. this is me having a fun time. going "heeheehoohoo time traveling hedgehog go brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr"

so. something i haven't touched upon is that in all games after sonic 06, silver can time travel. we never see him do it, it's never explained how he does it. all we know is that he's doing it under his own power.

which is kinda odd, don't you think? should he be able to do that?

in sonic 06, we see three mechanisms for time travel. first is the chaos emeralds. if two people perform Chaos Control with a chaos emerald apiece, they open up a swirling rift in the air which can send them to different points in time and space. silver can't be doing that, for obvious reasons— he's only one hedgehog, and he's not exactly running around with a chaos emerald at all times. that can't be how he does it.

second is a time machine eggman built. that obviously can't be it; the machine doesn't exist at all after the timeline gets wiped, and again, silver is doing this on his own. he's actively antagonistic towards eggman, even. absolutely not this one.

third and finally is mephiles, who can make big purple orbs to take himself and passengers to different points in time. this obviously can't be it either, for similar reasons to number 2, right? after all, mephiles is one half of solaris, who was destroyed before he could be split off. he doesn't exist to be silver's time-traveling uber driver.

...right?

well, obviously. i'm not going to try and tell you that mephiles is secretly alive and shepherding silver back and forth between timelines for no reason. that's ridiculous. no, i'm going to try and tell you that silver is mephiles.

or rather, he's solaris. or RATHER, he's the new solaris, sorta-ascended to the role of Time God after the old one got blown out like a birthday candle.

like i said, i'm going wildly off the rails and as such don't have any concrete evidence to explain why it's this instead of something else, but hear me out. after elise blew out the flame of hope, the universe was left in an interesting situation. someone needs to be in charge of the flow of time, but the previous time-god was just unceremoniously destroyed. but all the power and energy of a time-god has to go somewhere, in some form, in some time.

with nothing else to go off of, the role of time-god starts flipping through every notable being it had interacted with. they're all solidly accounted for in the timeline, except for one. silver the hedgehog was born into a timeline that cannot exist. silver the hedgehog does not, and cannot exist. silver the hedgehog interacted quite a bit with both sides of solaris— he spent a substantial amount of time fighting back iblis, and associated with mephiles, even being one of the few people to directly experience his time travel abilities. silver the hedgehog tried and failed to absorb iblis into himself.

here's my theory: after sonic 06, the universe reasserted itself such that silver was the new Solaris. silver is not consciously aware that this is what he is, but he knows that he can time travel. sometimes the timeline will rearrange itself around silver. he is unaffected by this because he is a higher being unaffected by such petty trifles as "an origin" or "paradoxes".

silver the hedgehog probably doesn't have parents. he sprang into existence one day and everyone just kind of went with it, himself included.

oh also something i thought was neat but couldn't think of where to put:

[ID: More cropped dialogue, this time from Team Sonic Racing.

Silver: I'm fine. It's just, something bad is gonna happen. I can't explain it. I just feel it. Blaze: Have your travels through time given you precognition? Silver: I don't know. Maybe they have. Or maybe I'm just thinking too much.]

silver might be becoming psychic in a future-vision kinda way. that, or he’s riddled with anxiety. possibly both.

TL;DR

silver hails from no less than three separate timelines, his existence is a tangled web of who-knows-how-many grandfather paradoxes, and i choose to believe that he's god.

if anyone who cares more about evidence wants to gather up like, little one-off clues that support or conflict with my conclusions, go right ahead. or just throw your own arbitrary headcanons for what's going on with this at me. or incorporate these ideas into an au or something! i just want more people thinking about what the Fuck is up with silver post-06, because by god there is a WHOLE lot of potential packed in there

anyway thanks for reading make sure to like comment and subscribe—

[sally-mun]

Unsurprisingly on my mind due to TKP's blog going through it, I've been meaning to ask (if just to clarify) about if any details from the "Enerjak Reborn" saga ever slip into your universe, even if clearly can't happen due to the characters' relationships. A part of me assumes that the idea you mentioned of Locke becoming the threat he prophesized sounded like the most likely direct replacement for that, but I wonder if any other ideas end up still mimicking it?

First of all, I fucking love your username and as far as I’m concerned you DID decide on a good one.

Anyway, this is an interesting bit of the storyline because it’s in that nebulous place where my partner and I agree that it happened, but we’ve never actually hammered out exactly what happened. For the most part, the bullet points of Finitevus tricking Knuckles into getting hexed and Locke sacrificing himself to release him are agreed to have been in the RP’s backstory, but given the version of Locke that I wrote for the Brotherhood, I’m sure the tone of the situation was very different. I can only imagine what the situation looked like through Locke’s eyes, honestly. In some ways you could argue that Knuckles becoming Enerjak IS the realization of everything Locke worked for, so that begs the question of whether or not he would see that as his premonition coming true. It’s hard to say given that there’s so many other events that have happened leading up to this point that would’ve also gone differently based on the new circumstances, and some that probably didn’t happen all together.

However, here’s my immediate hunch:

1) The events of S3&K definitely happened in the RP’s backstory, although again I’m sure several events played out in different ways. The great point to this is that, as WE all know, this was the fulfillment of the mural that Locke saw on the wall in Hidden Palace, which unknowingly inspired his recurring dream. Locke, however, would’ve taken the arrival of Eggman and the Death Egg with a lot more confusion. Obviously this is the level of threat his premonition insisted upon, but Knuckles wasn’t the one to ultimately defeat it! Some ground-dwelling heathen actually took care of it!!! So no matter how much the situation would seem to fulfill the slot of the Great Evil, it obviously can’t be because Knuckles did not ascend to become the Savior in order to stop it.

2) It’s probably safe to say this cycle happened a few others times, because let’s face it, Angel Island has seen some shit. I don’t think the others probably ever compared to S3&K arc, though, both in terms of the impact it made on the situation (and Locke’s psyche) and the fact that the enemy just plain looks like the figure in Locke’s dreams.

3) This would probably mean that an already paranoid Locke is getting jumpier and jumpier every time a new threat arises, because by now there’ve been so many BIG bad events that he’s probably constantly worrying, “Is this the Great Evil?? IS THIS THE GREAT EVIL??” and his already frayed nerves are probably completely shot.

4) So imagine, then, when Knuckles -- Locke’s only pride and joy, for whom he sacrificed absolutely everything in his life and has been banking on saving everyone’s lives -- seems to have become the Great Evil himself. It’s not enough that he’s powerful on an otherworldly scale and seems to have gone mad with said power; the bigger shock is that Knuckles does, indeed, seem to be fulfilling the criteria of his premonitions. He’s not just terrorizing the rest of the world (which, let’s be honest, Locke probably doesn’t even care about), he’s also terrorizing echidnas. He left Echidnaopolis in ruins by forcibly removing the entire population, and he’s destroying a lot of lives by changing their bodies against their will. The entire echidna species is terrified of what he has become, and what else he might do. Maybe the fact that the Great Evil was enormous in Locke’s dream wasn’t about literal physical scale, but rather, a representation of the enormity of the threat that’s posed.

5) In a perfect world, I’d really like to imagine that this finally, FINALLY, brings Locke a desperately needed moment of clarity. Locke got to the state he ends up in because he’s so afraid of some ambiguous and unidentifiable threat, so maybe the fact that he now CAN identify the threat could be enough to raise that fog. Maybe seeing Knuckles as the evil they need to be protected from will finally be enough to jolt Locke back to reality, and allow him to see just how bad his decisions have been and how Knuckles’ state is, honestly, a very logical conclusion to the chain of events that came before it. Knuckles becoming the Great Evil was always a possibility all along, but Locke was so convinced of the contrary that he just literally couldn’t see it. Now he can see it. Now he can grasp how, no matter how well-intentioned he was, he absolutely, 100%, undeniably caused his son to become the one thing he’s feared all along.

6) If Locke is able to have that moment, and think completely clearly again for even a brief time, then I have no doubt whatsoever that Locke would make that sacrifice to save him. No attempts to find an alternative, no hemming and hawing, no attempts to get everyone to kill Knuckles like in the comic, NONE of that shit. If Locke, the REAL Locke that’s been lost inside the madness all this time is able to wake up for just a few moments, emerges again and learns that the only way to save his boy from the fate he himself unwittingly doomed him to is for someone to give up their own life, Locke would make that sacrifice in a heartbeat. He said back on the day he activated the chaos bath that he wished he could take Knuckles’ burdens away and put himself in his place. This would be one way to do exactly that, to give Knuckles a shot at a real, normal life again, and to atone for the enormous mistakes he made that caused this tragedy.

I think if the situation arose under those sorts of circumstances, it would just make Locke’s sacrifice all the more meaningful. Allowing him to not only realize that he’s the one that ultimately caused all this, but to fully admit to it AND take responsibility without being harangued into doing so completely changes the tone of what he does. It’s not a situation where Locke sees sacrificing himself as something that has to be done, but something that should be done, to atone for his wrongdoings and save the one person he loves more than anyone or anything else in this world.

I don’t see the Locke of the comics as someone who would die for his child without the slightest hesitation, even after more skillful writers get a hold of him; I don’t see the fact that he does so unrealistic, but I honestly think the only reason he does it is because he can’t think of a way out of it. I mean, for fuck’s sake, shortly before doing so he was campaigning TO HAVE KNUCKLES KILLED. I think canon!Locke loves Knuckles in his own weird way, but I think his love for Knuckles comes second to his love for himself, and it always has. Canon!Locke is just simply too arrogant to think of someone else first, even his own child.

Locke the way I write him, however, was always ready to die so that Knuckles could live. It used to be because he felt Knuckles was too important to their people and needed to live to save them, but when all that baggage is lifted, Locke would still die for him simply because he loves him. He would die for him to make his life better, to free him from the prisons he’s been confined to both physically and mentally, to allow him to fully live. He’d die to save his son because he wants him to finally have the life he deserves -- that he always deserved. If the price of Knuckles being happy, healthy, and free is Locke giving up his life, there’d be no force on Mobius that could’ve kept him away from the Master Emerald to do it.

I don’t know if this is quite the sort of answer you were looking for, but again, this was the first impulse that came into my brain. It feels right to me, and probably would be worth exploring in a story sometime. Maybe someone could commission me for it or something, who knows. In the meantime, I hope this paints the picture as well as I’m seeing in my head.

[egalitarian-tomboy]

Well fuck IDW rip my heart out

Cream’s traumatized but she’s still trying her best to help the restoration. Her eyes are dead. She lost her mom and Cheese. She’s literally running on pure determination and nothing else. She’s 6. FUCKING 6 YEARS OLD. 

Amy is about to collapse. She’s doing her best to keep all the remaining members of the restoration from becoming zombots but she’s running out of energy. You can see the bags under her eyes and the exhaustion in her face. Sonic has been running nonstop trying to keep his own virus under control but Amy’s just as exhausted trying to be the leader of the remaining population. She’s running out of time. She’ll either fall to the virus or she’ll fall into a coma by the end of the arc. 

Sonic is starting to lose the battle. We’ve tried to be ignorantly bliss about it but now we can’t deny reality anymore. Sonic’s speed has been able to keep him from turning into a zombot but his stamina is running on empty. If he doesn’t find a cure fast, he might be a part of the zombot army. Remember when SEGA made those mandates for Archie? About how Sonic can never lose but only be brought down? Well so far in this arc Sonic has been doing nothing but losing. He’s unable to save everyone from the infection, let alone help Amy out with the restoration. He’s unable to comfort anyone emotionally due to his own dwindling stamina and mental state of mind. He’s lost so many people to the virus that it’s hard to think he’ll pull through all this with a smile. 

Whisper lost her friends. Her teammates. Her family for a 2nd time with Tangle’s fall to the virus. She lost another part of her family to Eggman. Her raw emotion just tore my heart out because this girl is ready to kill Eggman. Her lunge against Amy wasn’t out of hatred for HER but for EGGMAN. She’s already dealing with some heavy PTSD, this virus war isn’t doing her any favors. 

This whole arc is exactly what I’d expect out of a mainline Sonic game and you know what? You have SEGA to thank for that. 

SEGA is actively involved in this comic book series. I’ve said it so many times that it feels like a “No shit Sherlock” statement but I feel like I need to restate it. Ian Flynn told the fans in a interview how SEGA was involved in everything. They have the final say in what the characters look like, the scripts, the story, and how the team handles their property. This isn’t Archie. SEGA will never allow another shit show like they pulled in their lawsuit battle with Ken Penders over content. No. Even if this new series isn’t a game, it’s still 100% a SEGA product. It’s about as canon as any of the video games are even if you’re not playing it on a screen. The reason why everything is developing as good as they are? SEGA’s involvement. They call out what is in and not in character for their characters to do. So all those mandates that SEGA put out for Archie? I believe none of them apply to the IDW series due to their new relationship with SEGA. Those guidelines were SPECIFICALLY FOR ARCHIE after they rebooted the entire series. 

As far as I’m concerned, the IDW series is 100% a continuation of Sonic’s story after the events of Sonic Forces. 

We’re seeing Sonic pushed to his limits and he’s showcasing reactions that would absolutely see him as “weak” or “vulnerable”. This is war. This is war and we’re beginning to reach the tipping point where our heroes start to devise a plan to cure the virus once and for all. My guess? The Chaos Emeralds and Master Emerald will play a part. Wonder why Knuckles hasn’t shown up yet? He’s probably gonna be the one to help the retrieval of the emeralds and the cure for the virus. Calling it right now. 

[naivesilver]

Vecpio Week - Day 3: Vacation

"Do you think we ought to tell him to stay away from the water?"

Vector cracks an eye open. "What?"

Honestly, he hopes that the matter at hand doesn't require too much of his brain power. He was about to doze off, lulled by the sound of the waves crashing and by the warmth of the sand he's lying on; he's having a hard time even processing Espio's question, half asleep as he already is.

Espio doesn't repeat himself, though. He just raises both eyebrows and inclines his head towards the sea, so Vector has no choice to push himself to a sitting position, groaning, and look at whatever is going on.

The beach they're in is almost empty, with only a couple other people and their kids wandering around. To call it a beach is perhaps an exaggeration, to be honest - in truth it's more of a glorified stretch of dirty sand, stones and pebbles overlooking the sea, where the tide doesn't bring in seashells but rubbish and the occasional piece of algae. No one in their right mind would choose it over the prettier, more expensive beaches further down the coast, except someone as penniless as the Chaotix are.

No one would walk down to it now, especially, not when the war has been over for such a short time. Everyone is still rebuilding and counting their losses, and the three of them aren't any different in that regard. If anything, between rallying survivors for the Resistance, proper fighting and cleaning up the mess afterwards, they've been busier than most people, with barely a moment of respite.

The need for a break is, actually, the main reason why they're on the beach now, even if said break is nothing more than a couple hours spent at the seaside. Surely no one can begrudge them that, not with all the hard work they've been putting in. Besides, though it's not summer yet and therefore no one's wading through the water, the sun is shining bright, and he and Espio are cold-blooded reptiles; they surely need to soak in the sunlight to keep their health up, or at least, that's the official excuse they're planning to use if they meet anyone of their friends.

Charmy is not roasting under the sun beside them, though, and that's what Espio directed his attention towards. Instead, Charmy is...Vector isn't even sure how to call it. Not swimming, because the kid never gets more than knee-deep in the water; rather, he waits for the small waves to crash lazily at his feet, and then he darts back towards dry land, shrieking with laughter. The cycle repeats endlessly, with Charmy returning to dip his feet in the sea only to run away again, as if the tide were a monster he has to escape from, seemingly never tiring of doing the same thing on a loop.

It's a perplexing enough game, but so are most of the the kid's games. Espio's comment seems even less reasonable now that Vector has seen what it referred to. "Nah" he replies after a moment. " Why should we? He's not even causing us trouble, for once."

Espio snorts, but the frown doesn't leave his face. "Have you taught him how to swim? Because I haven't, and I don't remember anyone else bothering."

Ah, so that’s what it is. It's his mother hen instinct coming out swinging. "He's not even swimming! Look, the sea's basically flat. Even if he falls in, I've got plenty of time to get him out before he drowns. I'm a great swimmer, if you'd forgotten."

"As you say." Espio doesn't push the matter further, opting instead for laying down on his belly, his head resting on his arms.

Even so, though, he's facing the sea, and his eyes never leave Charmy, watching the kid like a hawk.

Vector watches him instead, frowning all the while. He's pretty sure he's missing something here, but he doesn't know what it could possibly be, casting a shadow on such a nice afternoon.

It's true that the war has taken a toll on all of them. Even if they've defeated Eggman, it's hard to get used to such a threat looming over their heads. The sea itself is likely still full of ash and debris, and perhaps that's why Charmy's staying out of it, freezing temperature of the water aside. Traces of the fighting mar every corner of the city, after all, be them fallen buildings or handmade posters calling for lost relatives to be found.

They were lucky, on that sense, though. He and Espio both know that, and Charmy as well, though he's too young to realize the extent of it. They've been hurt and scarred more than once, but at the end of the day they always came back to the cramped storage-room-turned-emergency-bedroom in the Resistance base, with its even more cramped bed and the cot that Charmy kept ignoring in favor of crawling in between them. Even their house is still standing, aside from a hole in a wall they'll fix once they're done rebuilding other people's homes. They made it. They’re alive.

There were a few close calls, of course, more than they’d have liked, but there always are, when one gets involved in saving the world as often as they do. Considering it was a bloody war and not the usual skirmish with a robot that takes Sonic five minutes to solve, it’s a miracle they’re still more or less hale and whole. It could have been any of them razed to the ground by that guy with the mask, or trampled by Eggman’s robots, or locked up and tortured as it’s rumored Sonic was.

If after surviving all of that they were to lose Charmy by drowning, it would be...well, a very dark joke on life’s part. Also a damn magic trick, since it’s literally impossible for it to happen. The kid is only a couple feet from them, to the point that he keeps splashing them with damp sand as he runs back and forth. If he so wanted, Vector could reach out and snatch him away before he goes any deeper than the inch or so of water he’s currently kicking around in.

So either Vector’s really missing something, like a tsunami warning on the morning weather forecast, or Espio’s been thinking too much again, and that’s never a good sign.

Espio is a worrier, that’s a given. Vector will begrudgingly grant him some useful idea now and then, but mostly, what he does is nitpicking perfectly good plans and think about things that might never actually happen. Sometimes it’s funny, because there’s nothing more hilarious - more endearing than watching him  fuss and get worked up over nothing, but there are times where Espio gets stuck in his own brain, going in circles around stuff that no one else would deign of a second thought.

If that’s the case, and he’s still thinking about the war, ruminating about what sort of bad stuff could happen to Charmy, then Vector’s duty is to help him. That’s his role, usually, as boss, as partner, as a sensible person who has no intention to spend his life brooding: he gets Espio out of his own head, even if he has to drag him out kicking and screaming.

Most people would probably try to use words right now, to comfort and reassure, but Vector has always been one for more proactive solutions, so he takes off his shoes, drops them next to Charmy’s, and then gets up with a grunt that draws Espio’s attention.

The chameleon looks at him with a puzzled look on his face. “Where are you going?”

Vector gives him a wide grin. “To keep the brat from drowning. You coming?”

Espio stares at him for a moment, wide eyed. Then he smiles, small and barely there, but genuine, which is exactly what Vector wanted. “Go ahead. I’ll be there in a minute.”

Vector nods, starting off towards Charmy. If Espio prefers to stay behind and watch, then so be it, as long as what he sees doesn’t remind him of the war, or work, or whatever impending doom he might be picturing. Vector himself is, after all, devilishly handsome to watch, even as he’s wading through wet sand to play with a little kid.

Besides, it’s not as if there were another war coming for them, right? They’re safe. They’re gonna be okay, all three of them.

As long as Charmy stops long enough to tell him just exactly what kind of game they’re playing, that is.

[mobius-prime]

285. Sonic Universe #12

Knuckles: The Return (Part 4 of 4): Echoes of the Past (Part Four)

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

Things are certainly dire, as both teams of heroes (minus Julie-Su and Ray, still up on Angel Island) have been captured by Finitevus and the local Dark Egg Legion chapter. Finitevus gloats about how well his plan has gone, that he found the Legion when he was investigating the very same ruins that had Knuckles so confused, and from there orchestrated an alliance between himself and them, so they could capture Angel Island for Eggman/the Iron Queen's regime and Finitevus could study the Master Emerald at his leisure. After monologuing a bit at the furious Knuckles, he takes his leave to go oversee Angel Island being reeled back into the Great Crater, something which… really should be more stunning to everyone involved, if you ask me. I mean, literally the past several centuries of echidna history have been irrevocably shaped by exactly this concept, returning the island to the planet's surface. Dimitri did his whole godhood insanity thing entirely because people didn't agree with his plan to set this in motion, and perhaps even more importantly, his plan was shown to have failed in an alternate timeline, causing the island to crash into the earth and kill everyone on it. Apparently, this entire time they shoulda just been using regular ol' chains to do the job! Imagine after so many hundreds of years of this being an issue, Finitevus really did just accomplish the task with some random chains. But anyway, Finitevus leaves the prisoners to the overwatch of Bill, who so far hasn't said a word during Finitevus' speech despite his former friends being among the imprisoned.

Oh no! Whatever horrible tortures are about to befall our heroes? The torture of having their shackles fall off harmlessly, as it turns out. Yeah, of course Bill didn't just turn evil for no reason! Though he does appear to have some beef with Vector, remarking angrily that he'd have preferred if Vector stayed chained up. Man, what in the world did Vector do in the past that pissed off so many people? Barby demands an explanation, with her dialogue vaguely hinting that she and Bill were possibly involved romantically, so Bill explains that several months ago when Eggman began pushing in this region, the other platypuses decided they wanted a little taste of that power and began demanding to join up. Bill couldn't talk them down, so instead, he went to Eggman and voluntarily joined his cause, becoming outfitted with cybernetics along with the other platypuses, hoping to manage the situation from within. Apparently he never found a chance to tell his former teammates that he wasn't actually evil after all, but he's been doing his best to mismanage the campaign in Downunda without seeming too suspicious. Everyone is pleased and relieved, and he urges them to quickly make their escape so he can play it off as having been overpowered while separated from his backup. Thrash happily obliges, and reveals his own special power - yelling so loudly that it can break down doors. The fight against the Legion in the crater quickly commences, but Walt encourages Knuckles to head back to his island while they carry on the fight here on the ground. Vector can't see a way to get back up without their warp ring, but Mighty apparently has an idea of his own.

I just need everyone here to remember that according to canon measurements, this island floats forty-three miles (69 km) in the sky. Yes, I realize that's only the case because Penders didn't create his units of measurements with sanity in mind. No, that does not mean I'm ever letting this fact go. It's also worth noting that this entire arc portrays the crater as not looking much bigger than like, a mile across at the most, but the island is forty-seven miles (75 km) across at its narrowest. I mean, we already knew that no one pays attention to matters of scale in these comics, but still, I notice, and it bugs me to no end. Consistency, people!

Anyway, Mighty tosses Knuckles alllll the way up to the island, as the fight continues to rage on the ground, and he hops up over the edge just as Finitevus is about to put his grubby hands on the Master Emerald. No sign of Julie-Su or Ray anywhere, huh? Knuckles is immediately ready for a fight, but Finitevus tries to talk him down, actually apologizing for forcing him into the role of Enerjak before. Knuckles still isn't buying it, but then Finitevus hits him with the bug guns - Dimitri actually wasn't the first Enerjak. Finitevus claims to know everything about the echidnas' history, the fact that Enerjak goes back much further in their history, the true history of Albion, the origins of the mysterious ruins in the desert, even some secret about Aurora and how she may not even be a real goddess. Knuckles is clearly torn for a split second, because damn are those some juicy-sounding secrets, but he's shaken back to reality when Finitevus tries to pull the "We're two of a kind, you and I" trick and promises, if he joins him, to give him "anything he wants." And what does Knuckles want?

Finitevus is not amused by Knuckles' defiance, and turns the fight around on him while mocking his childish desires. Hilariously, he actually does the cool-guy thing of catching Knuckles' punch in his own hand, which seems badass until you realize we're talking about the guy with spikes on his fists. I can only assume Ian forgot this little detail, or else the rest of this issue would just be Finitevus yelling in agony at the two brand-new holes that had been punched into the palm of his hand. Knuckles powers up with the energy of the nearby Master Emerald, while Finitevus summons his… I dunno, dark black evil-guy energy or whatever, and they go head to head, Knuckles reciting Tikal's prayer for strength, while Finitevus puts a new twist on the same chant.

I actually don't get Ian's fascination with Tikal's prayer at all. It's always recited verbatim from the version of it in Sonic Adventure, but personally, I always felt like it was strangely translated in that game, not really making a ton of grammatical sense, or any real sense at all, really. I mean, the chant was originally just supposed to describe the relationship between the Master Emerald and the Chaos Emeralds, but that's not relevant at all in this universe given the vastly different origins of both - the Master Emerald in the comics isn't a direct counter to the Chaos Emeralds like in the games, but one giant Chaos Emerald itself. I dunno, maybe this is just a nitpick, but it still confuses me.

Finitevus is impressed by Knuckles' display of raw power, but decides to end the fight quickly, and pulls out one of his warp rings, encircling it around Knuckles midsection and happily threatening to close it while Knuckles is still only halfway through. However, at that moment Julie-Su finally makes her entrance and shoots Finitevus in the shoulder, distracting him long enough for Knuckles to grab him and make good on his promise to throw him off his island. That doesn't seem like a proper solution to this threat at all, but eh, whatever, Knux is happy with it I guess. He, Julie-Su, and Ray all head back down to the crater, where the Downunda Freedom Fighters have finished running the Legion off for now, and say their goodbyes. Barby makes a remark that her father would have been proud of Vector, hinting at yet more unexplored history between him and the others, but he still refuses to explain further when Ray tries to pry. Thrash leaves through a warp ring of his own, making some odd comments about how it would be such a shame if the rest of the echidnas were to be wiped out - this guy really doesn't like echidnas for whatever reason - and with the threat settled, Knuckles and his friends finally head back onto Angel Island for some peaceful rest.

Yeah, gee Vector, I wonder why no one found a body? I mean, it's not like Finitevus has demonstrated that he can warp himself to safety mid-fall during literally the previous big battle against him or anything. Of course, he's safe and sound, and heads back to the crater once it's clear to watch the island's departure and muse to himself how his plans aren't through yet and he's ready to kill Knuckles when he next gets the chance - anything to put him closer to the Master Emerald. Let us know how your quest to off one of the comic's most popular characters goes, buddy!

[another-sonic-blog]

Because you are light...

ShadAmy

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.

.

In the middle of the vast land of Central City, our tragedy evolves. The falling snow was covering houses and buildings. It was hard to walk but Shadow made it a priority to see her.

He had a rough week and had no inspiration whatsoever and it was weird even for him to be in such state

"Look at that scar, no wonder he is always in a bad mood...He knows he is going to end up alone."

"And those horrible red eyes! He is the son of the devil!

"He is just...so ugly!"

Shadow really tried not to let those things get to him. He would try and own his defects. His scar that marked his face permanently and his red eyes that were frown upon by everyone.

And he accepted the fact that no person would ever fall in love with him.

"Hey, Shadow!"

His inspiration came back to him as soon as he saw her.

How beautiful she looks under the moonlight. She was the fairest of the fairest. Her graceful self moved along the rhythm of the falling snow and-

"Shadow, are you alright?"

Oh, shoot! He let his mind wander off.

"Yes, I am alright. How are you?"

"I am ok but I've been hearing some rumors that a war may break out soon...it's kinda been on my mind."

Shadow walked alongside Amy. Never touching her, he didn't want her to be disgusted by him.

"Don't worry about it, as long as I am with G.U.N., nothing like that will happen." He reassured her. Shadow was currently working for G.U.N for some time now. Shadow would get out of work at 7:00 PM. While Amy closed her coffee shop at 8:00 PM. Shadow walked every day ah hour so he could walk with Amy home. Of course, he could make it in a few minutes with his speed, but he preferred to walk by the flower shop and send some flowers to Amy anonymously.

"You are Shadow the Hedgehog, even if you weren't working for G.U.N., you would stop any war that's coming out way." Amy smiled at him and Shadow tried to hide his evident blush by covering himself with his scarf.

"Also, I heard rumors that G.U.N. called Sonic to the headquarters and well I was wondering if you-"

"Sonic's whereabouts is classified, only top agents know about that," Shadow said a bit disappointed that Amy wanted to talk about Sonic.

"Yes, that's why I am asking you since you are G.U.N's top agent..." Amy blinked cutely and smiled at him. "...Please?"

Shadow sighed, he just couldn't say no to her. "All I can say is that he will be arriving any minute now."

"Thank you, Shadow!" Amy added, "But, you said that there was nothing to worry about. That there would be no war...so why call Sonic?"

"G.U.N.'s protocol requires to take precaution. It's just in case anything happens but a way happening is very unlikely."

Shadow noticed that Amy's expression had changed. Her eyes looked down to the ground as she walked next to him. She was clearly worried,

"I promise you that even if there's a war, I'll stop it," Shadow said as he tried to cheer her up.

"That's not the thing...I am scared that you or Sonic...I am scared that something may happen to you both. Last time, you got that scar because of-"

"What happened that day wasn't your fault, it was mine...so don't feel bad."

The snow kept falling around them, getting heavier and heavier. The street bulbs were their only source of light. However, that was enough for Shadow to appreciate Amy's beauty.

"It's just...that I wouldn't know what to do if you were gone."

And that sentence was enough for Shadow to appreciate her soul.

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.

.

Shadow had finally arrived at his luxury apartment, the lights turned on by himself as he walked into the living room. The jumped into his large black coach as he appreciated the view of the city under him.

His apartment felt cold, and Shadow called for his intelligence system instinctively.

"Hey, Soogle, higher the temperature by 5 degrees,"

"Yes, Mr.asshole."

That's when Shadow knew, he wasn't alone.

"Alright Sonic, come out," Shadow sighed.

"Oh well, I tried," Sonic said as he came out of the kitchen, taking off the white blanket he had on to pretend to be a ghost. "I will scare you one of these days, I promise."

"Don't even bother...Anyways, shouldn't you be with Tails?" Shadow said as he turned on the TV, immediately the news channel popped up. Shadow's mug shot came out on the TV, the news anchor praising him on his past successful mission.

"I don't want to wake him up at this hour, so I decided to bother you instead?" Sonic jumped into the other side of the sofa, making himself comfortable as well. "Seemed like you been busy yourself." He added as he watched the news.

"The usual." Shadow simply said."You have been active as well as I can see."

The news now showed a vide of Sonic, coming out of Eggman's Headquarters, destroying everything.

"...The usual,"

A few seconds passed before Sonic proceeded, "So...How's Amy?"

"How would I know?"

Shadow lied, of course, he knew how Amy. But Shadow didn't want for Sonic to know that he had a soft spot for the pink one.

"I asked you to keep an eye on her remember?" Sonic said a bit annoyed. Before he left two years ago, he asked Shadow to watch over Amy and he was hoping he kept his promise.

"Oh yeah...She is fine. She's doing good at her cafe, walks home alone as far as I know."

"At this hour?" Sonic gave it a small thought. "I know this is too much to ask but... would be ok if you could walk her home once in a while?"

"If you worry about her so much, why don't you do it yourself?" Shadow asked.

"I am...shy."

"Really, Sonic?"

"Look, I really like her, alright?... But I am scared that I will say something stupid and mess everything up."

"Then, why don't you write to her? Maybe a poem? That would suit her better." Shadow said as he changed channels from the TV. Trying to play it cool.

"Shadow, I didn't go to school. I barely know how to read and write. Amy would never accept me if she knew I was that stupid...She's so smart."

"It doesn't have something "literally" smart. Just express what you feel." Shadow then sat down properly and picked up a notebook and a pen from his table. "Look, maybe you can start by complimenting her looks."

Sonic got closer to Shadow, wanting to see the things Shadow was about to write. "Complimenting her looks?"

"Yes, like how her eyes shine when she makes coffee, or how her hair glows with the sunlight," Shadow said without thinking.

"Oh yes! I like um...I like how loud she laughs! She sounds like a bird" Sonic said as he smiled at the thought.

"Oh, yes! She sounds like one of those singing birds," Shadow thought for a little. " We can write that as...your laugh is like the tweeting of birds, that I am happy to hear every day as I wake up."

Shadow finished writing that down as he nodded, happy at his work "Now, what do you feel when you see her?"

"I...feel really happy...and I feel um...cheerful?"

Sonic struggled to find the right words and this is were Shadow came in.

"Ok let's see...Your existence brights up my life...Although I live in darkness, you are the light that guides me through the night..." Shadow was actually liking what he was writing and without asking for any other opinions, he kept going, "Even when I know that my fantasizes could never become true, I will stay at a timeless state of bliss as long as I get to hear your laugh, to see your blinding smile...Because you are light...and I am your eternal shadow. "

Shadow finished writing, letting his feelings take the best of him. He realized that Sonic was at awed and played it cool. "Or you can write something else."

"I think that what you wrote fits my situation perfectly! I'll give it to her tomorrow...I hope she likes it."

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.

.

Shadow greeted Amy as he received his cup of black coffee. Amy was the owner of the most popular coffee place in the city. "Momo Cafe" in honor of her famous black coffee with peach flavor.

"Hey, Shadow, I love that you come every day to buy coffee from me but...don't you think you are having too much coffee?" Amy asked over the counter.

"I am fine, I don't get addicted to things." That was true, but the real truth was the Shadow hated coffee. But he loved to see her. Eventually, he grew to like the black substance. "And besides, you always give me discounts"

"As if you need any of them," Amy smiled. She knew that Shadow was living his best life. Young and millionaire.

"Also, today I received a love letter!," Amy added as she took her apron off and walked with Shadow to a small table and sat down in front of him.

"Really? Well, that seems a bit weird coming from So-"

"I know right! But I got to admit that this persons' words really flatter me..." Amy made a pause. "The way he writes...I feel I like I know him like we know each other...I know it seems weird but his transparency has really gotten my attention."

A friendly reminder to self: Kill Sonic next time I see him.

"So, you have no idea who wrote that letter?" Shadow asked he took a big gulp of his coffee.

"No, but I feel like it might be someone I know...may be someone from work? A past friend maybe?"

Amy then gasped in realization. "Shadow...it's you!"

Shadow immediately spilled his coffee and Amy laughed.

"Haha, I am kidding! You should have seen your face!" Amy was able to get air to her lungs after laughing so much. "But hey, it wouldn't be so bad if you were to express your feelings for a girl through a letter."

"I don't have time for such things," Shadow said a bit offended and annoyed.

" Come on Shadow! I am sure there's someone who you like...maybe someone from work?" She noticed that he sounded different, but decided to proceed anyway, it was Shadow after all and being angry was his thing.

"No and honestly even if I was interested in someone, they would never look my way."

"What do you mean by that?"

"You perfectly know what I am talking about."

Amy, of course, knew. However, she wanted to prove a point. "No Shadow, I don't know what you are talking about, so please do tell me what's wrong with you?"

"My goddamn eyes are red Amy! We perfectly know that only the devil has them! But maybe that shouldn't be much of an issue if it wasn't for this damn scar that I got when-"

Shadow stopped himself. He was about to cross a line he didn't want to with Amy. But he was tired that Amy pretended that Shadow was fine. He hated that she didn't acknowledge the truth. He was horrendous.

"When you what?" Amy's voice got louder. She wanted Shadow to say everything that he was feeling, even if he screams and gets angry at her. "Tell me Shadow!"

Shadow stood up from his seat and looked down at Amy. "Would pay attention to me if I were to tell you I have feelings for you?"

Amy stood quiet, not expecting that reaction nor questions from Shadow.

"That's what I thought."

Shadow grabbed his jacket and left the cafe.

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.

.

"Please, Shadow!"

"No."

"Please! I promise that I will tell Amy how I feel but please I just need you to keep writing more letters for me...please!"

Shadow had finally made it back to his apartment after a terrible day. He had never fought with Amy before like that and to be honest, he wasn't angry at her. He was angry at himself for letting himself get like that. It wasn't Amy's fault that he looked the way he did. The sad look on his face when he left her would not leave his mind. And now, Sonic was asking him the impossible from him.

"You didn't even sign the letter," Shadow added.

"Because I wanted to make sure that she liked it first! Now that I know she likes it, I can get her heart just by sending letters and when I am sure she is totally in love, I tell her it's me the one who wrote them!" Sonic got closer to Shadow, "Please, Shadow...I am only asking this of you."

Shadow gave it a thought. Maybe his request wasn't so bad. He knew for a fact that he would never be able to confess his love for Amy. And even if he could, Amy would just reject him and he preferred to keep his heart away from that. If giving Amy letters was the only way to keep his feelings at bay then so be it. Besides, Sonic was a good guy, if Amy falls for him, then Shadow would be more than happy than to see her with him. Even if it pained him.

"Fine, I'll write you letters for her," Shadow said as he sighed. "Besides, what's the worst thing that could happen?"

"It's a deal then! And don't worry, I'll help you out too!", Sonic said enthusiastically.

"Help me? With what?"

"In today's meeting at G.U.N...I saw you talk too much with Rouge...You like her, don't you?" Sonic winked at him.

"She's my partner, I need to talk to her."

"Yeah, but not that much."

Shadow grabbed his glass of wine as he sighed. Honestly, he just had too many things going on today and conversing with Sonic wasn't on his favorite things-to-do list.

"Yeah, whatever you say," He said as he took a sip of his wine.

"I knew it!"

And with that, Sonic began to formulate his plan. A plan that will leave them to their downfall.

And with this, our tragic love story begins.

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A/n: This story will be based on the famous literary french story: Cyrano of Bergerac. If you know the story or the ending, please don't spoil it for the rest. If I see enough support, I'll continue to write :) Thank you!

[vedj-f-bekuesu]

2019 in Retrospect

2019 has been fairly quiet, so I decided to start off this year by looking back on it. I’ll be dividing it by main fandoms/characters/ships because this year there were actually some new ones. That hasn’t been the case since, like, 2013. 

Sonic the Hedgehog

It was an...alright year for Sonic. TSR was fine but too light on content, Mario and Sonic Tokyo felt like a step down from Mario and Sonic Rio but was still alright, and I have not played SEGA Heroes (and haven’t bothered with the Chao in Space short). Lowest spot for me was the IDW comic; the Zombot arc has had one interesting story so far, but the rest has had either bad writing (primarily aimed at Shadow’s turn) or it’s just been wallowing in its bleakness in a way even Shadow the Game didn’t. Then again, I find zombie stories uninteresting to begin with, so no duh I’m not interested in a Sonic take on it. 

Chaotix kind of mirror that. Vector’s managed to get a good showing in, batting 3 for 3 on the game front, and having a key role in two of them. And like I said before, the Chaotix have genuinely had the most interesting stories within the Zombot arc, although with Vector and Charmy turned this may become more limited. Speaking of though, Espio and Charmy have had weaker presences. Espio managed to get into all three games in some form but to a lesser extent (one just by name), and Charmy was really left behind. 

As for Vecpio, it’s been pretty bare for canon material stuff. Espio got mentioned in TSR as contributing the report that reveals Dodon Pa’s true role (with him and Vector being the key to making everyone shut up about him being suspicious, proving they’re best as a team). And Mario and Sonic Tokyo has something if you headcanon some stuff; when Vector talks about the medals, Espio is the first person you’re directed to. Nothing is said by Vector about Espio in text, but you can implicate that Espio was chosen first because of his strong link to Vector, being the first one Vector would trust to compete at a gold level. Other than that? Dry. And with no announcements for Sonic games in 2020, this may just continue. 

Crash Bandicoot

On the reverse side, we have Crash Bandicoot having a really strong year. CTR:NF came out (which is a remake of my favourite Crash game) and has been doing gangbusters. On top of this, it has been going out of its way to revive pretty much every dead character in the franchise, to the point that we have RIlla Roo back in the fold (something I genuinely didn’t think would happen 19 years beforehand). 

Skipping straight to the shipping for this, I wouldn’t have imagined it for Crash ever, but there’s actually some in-game material for me to latch onto for DingodileXKomodo Joe! Dingodile has been pushed into a more jovial character since N-Sane Trilogy, being even more doubled down on in CTR:NF. However, for the past 20 years Komodo Joe has managed to avoid being given traits closer to Espio. This game finally catches up to him, and does it hard. Seriously, his character took a hard turn for the stoic badass Espio did after Heroes, and when did Joe ever use Martial Arts magic ever? Aside from making that dynamic naturally more matching, Slide Coliseum joins in the fun with the visual upgrade. It has holographic projections of a trophy girl repping a couple of racers dancing each, and guess who the devs felt could be paired up for how they go together rhythmically? That’s right, my reptile boys. Man. 

Super Mario Bros

What a weak year for Mario for me. What Mario got for new games this year were Luigi’s Mansion 3 (which I’ve not played), Mario Maker 2 (which isn’t new story content and doesn’t interest me in the slightest), Yoshi’s Crafted World (which I forgot was a thing) and Mario Kart Tour/Dr Mario World (which...um). 

Because of this set-up, Bowser hardly got anything to do so he’s really been on the backburner. Considering how he’s been pushed in the rest of the decade that’s saying something. In fact, the most character stuff he got was in Mario and Sonic Tokyo, and even that was mostly just alright (I think Bowser Jr got the best deal out of that).

Spyro the Dragon

Spyro was alright, but this one’s more understandable. With 2018 being the big year for Spyro’s return, 2019 was a rest for the little guy. That being said it wasn’t completely quiet; Spyro Reignited Trilogy finally got its port on the Switch, and to tie in with that Spyro got an appearance in CTR:NF. 

Because of the latter point, Gnasty Gnorc got a surprisingly strong year. Not only having more people learn about his glow-up in SRT, but bringing over that petty and angry character to CTR:NF. Seriously, his bit in the grand prix intro video is great, and he has more lines in his racing quips than any other game. 

OK KO

I don’t think I made a post about OK KO on Tumblr (or maybe I did one, I can’t remember). But I did manage to get into this just before it got cancelled so there’s that. 

I maintain that the Sonic crossover (aka the first thing I really knew about OK KO) didn’t give me a good impression of the show.It just seemed like “here’s the Sonic and Eggman dynamic but with more cartoon shenanigans*” and it spent more time making endless Sonic references. While some were deeper cuts which actually were impressive, most were references I could see in pretty much any Sonic-referencing material. It wasn’t until I decided to look up more info on Lord Boxman sometime after because I wanted to check if N.Gin was an influence that I found out the plot of the actual show (crossover notwithstanding) was pretty nuts and way more up my alley. 

Speaking of, there’s Voxman. Whereas other ships on here I have to dig through material to construct nuggets from them, this was literally in the text. And why not, they have a good dynamic and are usually the most fun to watch bounce off each other. And I still like the fact that if KO and Lord Boxman were the Sonic and Eggman parallel, the story ends with Eggman becoming Sonic’s stepfather. Let’s see IDW tell a story like that, it’d be better than the Zombot stuff. 

*I think that was the point but still. 

LEGO

Man I wouldn’t have thought they would have remade LEGO Racers but the one they made this year was gre--

Okay no, this year basically reignited another flame that I thought was snuffed out like 16 years ago. For a brief history of me and LEGO, when I was six I had a freestyle box which I used to make an elemental superhero persona. I played with this until I was 11. Before then, my sister got some LEGO Harry Potter sets (which we still have in the loft), I played LEGO Racers a lot (and wasn’t very good at it), and I owned two random other LEGO sets (the trike from Life on Mars and Lava from RoboRIders). 

After that, I only dabbled in LEGO when there was a Sonic set done for LEGO Dimensions. I did try to play more into it, but it was really prone to crashing in certain worlds so I eventually got frustrated enough to stop playing it. Sometime in the interim though my sister started enjoying LEGO films without me knowing, so when February came around I was dragged to see LEGO Movie 2 when all I wanted to see in 2019 was Toy Story 4. Dad insisted on it since we rarely have family outings. In retrospect; 

LEGO Movie 2 hit me in a way a piece of media hasn’t for years, or even decades. It’s shot up to be my third-favourite film of all time. And it’s revealed to me that LEGO is shockingly good at making endearing characters. So much so that breaking it down (pun not intended) has to be done by theme.

LEGO Movie: Part of the reason why I didn’t get into LEGO earlier was because I did see LEGO Movie back in 2014 when my sister was given it on DVD (she wasn’t into LEGO then) and I wasn’t impressed with it. In retrospect, I can appreciate what it did more, and I bring it up because it’s what makes Unikitty, Benny and Metalbeard so endearing when combined with what happened in TLM2. Lucy’s okay (moreso in the sequel), Emmet’s cute, President Business is fun but the MVP is definitely Rex Dangervest, who’s this feral monster but with Emmet buried away deep inside ready to flesh him out. When I make LEGO stories, I just have Rex change his mind on rescuing himself after getting the dinosaurs, and instead wreaking havoc in the present. This kills Emmet off in any story I do but it’s a worthy sacrifice. 

LEGO City Undercover: As a video game person I’m kicking myself for not getting into this before. Frank Honey is the best; he’s adorable and weird yet still feeling very much human and basically the Emmet of his city. Rex Fury has grown on me lots since my initial assessment of him,it’s infectious how much fun he has with being a criminal (while Vinnie is more fun when not doing criminal stuff and Chan seems to be more focused on doing criminal stuff as a job. I also think his calmer side is criminally (no pun intended again) overlooked). Also Ellie is underrated, she is the best straight man you could ask for. 

LEGO City Adventures: As I’ve said before, pretty much everyone in LCA is adorable, especially Duke and Harl. Still hoping for more Daisy time in the second season, she could be a riot if played properly and not just a Fendrich stooge. 

Ninjago: Coming in with the hot take here; I prefer the movie version of Ninjago to the series. I think the problem with the series is that it has so much baggage from before the series started to iron out some of its issues and cliches that it’s kinda hard to get into as a new person, whereas movie Ninjago is a lot more approachable and written better off the bat (although I do see why it wouldn’t go down well with existing Ninjago fans). This all just makes me think of that moment in series 11 where Nya sees her worst fear of being normal in an artefact and it shows her movie self, almost as a take that. It just makes me think the show writers are salty about movie Nya kicking show Nya’s ass in being a better character. Also shout outs to Kai, Cole, Zane and Lloyd for being great characters as well (Jay is cute in the movie, his show self can be punted off a cliff for all I care). And I am with the movement to have Cole come out as gay (or at least bi if they want to keep Tournament of Elements I guess). 

Nexo Knights: This show is regarded as another Ninjago wannabe, but it feels very different to Ninjago to me. So much so, there’s not a single one of the heroes I don’t like and they all need to be cherished. Macy gets props for being the best female character to me, Aaron is probably my favourite now and this is a house of Clance for future reference. 

So, with all that being said, what do I think of the prospects for 2020? I think it’s going to be quieter than 2019 to be honest, since there’s a lot winding down, and on the game side there’s been zero announcements. Crash and Spyro having a rest is understandable, Sonic’s going to have to get past the movie before gearing up for 2021 probably (for the record I have no interest in the movie) and Mario just needs to try harder. And with OK KO dead, only LCA is holding the fort for guaranteed new content I want to engage in right now. 

You know what would be fun though? Series 20 of the minifigures theme is due at the end of this year. Wouldn’t it be awesome to use the occasion to give some phsical minifigures to characters who never got them before? LIke, Rex Fury somehow still has enough demand to be a persistent feature in the customs market, give him an official figure (especially since he’s the only character from LCU that’s not Chase that’s even appeared in merch outside the game). Or let Sky Lane get her LEGO Universe look in physical form to go with her LIXS look. Or heck, finally give Rocket Racer his original look, that’s how I discovered the minifigure world in the first place!

[crusherthedoctor]

Sonic Villains: Sweet or Shite? - Part 7: METAL SONIC

It's been a while, but it's time for another Crusher review and analysis.

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

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

Anyhow, for today's installment, we'll be putting the Stardust Speedway saxophones aside for a moment to discuss Dr. Eggman's notorious robotic copycat, who desperately wants to show us what he's made of: Metal Sonic.

NOTE: While I will be taking several of Metal Sonic's non-game portrayals into account, this will NOT include his Sonic the Comic incarnation, as I feel that Fleetway's Metal - or Metallix, as he's called - is so vastly different in so many ways that I feel there's no point, whereas his other portrayals in non-game media are considerably more consistent for the most part.

The Gist: Being a criminal mastermind slash world conquerer in the making has its shortcomings, and for Dr. Eggman/Dr. Robotnik/The Bad Guy, that shortcoming came in the form of a plush-sized hedgehog who frequently wrecked his machines, foiled his plans, and - worst of all - talked back at him. This literal thorn on his side made the good doctor a very unhappy camper, but one day, his brilliant brain brought a brilliant breakthrough: Why not pit Sonic against himself?

During his then-new scheme to use the Time Stones of the Little Planet to conquer the world through time, Eggman worked tirelessly on his new idea to ensure it was just right. It couldn't be too slow. It couldn't be too bulky. It couldn't be too un-Sonic-like, for he vowed to assert his technological dominance by making a better Sonic than the real one. He wanted this to be his greatest creation yet, and he wasn't going to half-ass that objective.

The result was Metal Sonic, a marvel of industrial automation who established himself as fast as Sonic, as deadly as Sonic, and... not talkative, unlike Sonic. No wonder Eggman declared him the superior of the two.

Eggman loves his creation so much that he’s willing to let him die if this goes wrong. That’s how you know he’s his favourite.

Sure enough, Eggman's efforts were not entirely in vain, as the blue droid was more than a match for Sonic in the speed department, as well as the "What's the best way to make it clear to Amy Rose that I'm not interested?" department via snatching up Sonic's pink hedgehog acquaintance, leaving her as the doctor's captive. Unfortunately however, despite giving Sonic the race of his life, Metal was not yet as quick in his reflexes as the genuine article was, meaning his initial reign of terror came to an abrupt end when he flew head-first into a wall, George of the Jungle-style. Eggman was devastated, except he wasn't, because he knew he could just rebuild and upgrade him. Which he did. Constantly.

He also rebuilt these guys for some reason.

Since his debut in Sonic CD, Metal has went on to appear in a sizable number of games throughout the years, and he's made some personal appearances in a few other continuities as well. Most of these appearances simply have him show up, attack Sonic and other heroes for a bit, then get his ass handed to him. Some of those ass-kickings even came with a tasty amount of hue hues. But every now and then, they'll have him do something more, the most famous example being Sonic Heroes, in which he took over Eggman's army by force and went on his own little crusade to gain everyone's data and become Metal GodJesus, all the while proving himself the real Sonic the Hedgehog... by doing a lot of things the real Sonic the Hedgehog would never do. (This general concept would reappear in the IDW comics, though he did not betray Eggman that time around.)

Overall though, Metal is generally considered to be a welcome face whenever he makes an appearance... when he’s not dreaded for being the biggest roadblock in Fighters.

“Well that’s the end of the playthrough, make sure to like, comment, subscribe.”

The Design: What is there to say about Metal Sonic’s design? It’s cool, it’s ominous, it’s sleek, it’s stylish, and it holds a palpable aura of dangerous badassitude while still fitting perfectly with the design philosophy of this franchise. Truly, Metal’s design alone makes him one of the all-time greats of the Eggman repertoire, and it's easy to see why the scientist is particularly proud of this one.

He’s the robot your robot could crash into a wall like.

He’s had a few transformations over the years though. In Knuckles Chaotix, he turned into a ginormous monstrosity commonly referred to by fans as Metal Sonic Kai, who terrified many juniors back in the day due to making the inexcusable error of not being blue. The bad ending might have also affected them.

E for Everyone.

Luckily, Classic Metal got the right idea two decades later, and kept his blue colour scheme when the Phantom Ruby brought the form back in Sonic Mania Plus. As for Modern Metal, he had a brief life (or lives, if you count IDW) as Neo Metal Sonic, who - despite being made with the intention to be a darker, cooler, more serious iteration of the character - went the complete opposite direction by looking less like a frightening metal monarch, and more like a shonen anime’s midnight seizure.

Look at this fucking thing.

Elf shoes. Ripped skirt. Starfish haircut. Vaguely phallic strap in the appropriate area. Regular Metal may have a semi-cutesy look even in his more dangerous iterations, but at least he doesn't come off as a compensating son who doesn't quite know how to come out to his judgemental father, which is more than I can say for whatever the hell this is supposed to be. Is this really meant to be a more intimidating design? A more badass design...?

Then, as if this wasn’t ridiculous enough for Metal already, they had him transform even further into MechaGodzilla Metal Overlord, a goliath made from the remains of the Egg Fleet, with a side order of spikes and artist’s regret.

"Sonic, I was created for the sole purpose of destroying you... but I can never seem to defeat you... That is why I purchased Freddie Mercury's wardrobe with my own hands!"

Said form also returned in the IDW comic, rechristened Master Overlord, who traded the clawed wings and the flamethrower in exchange for symmetrical hands and a more simplistic body structure, at the expense of looking even more like a children’s toy.

Needless to say, Metal's had some... interesting transformations over the years. But his original look will always remain iconic, and rightly so.

The Personality: Metal Sonic's personality is harder to specify compared to other characters in the series, because his kill-first ask-later demeanour in tandem with his usual muteness means we see him most of the time as little more than a Sonic-shaped extension of Eggman's will. That said however, there have been deeper glimpses here and there into what makes his mechanical mind tick.

The most obvious thing to note is that Metal holds the very un-Sonic trait of not having time for nonsense. Sure, he might not be above taunting his organic counterpart in a likeminded way occasionally, but that aside, he's generally a pretty serious and humorless individual, a stark contrast to his creator and master that nonetheless works in the latter's favor, as the realisation that the goofy manchild Eggman of all people made this thing helps shoot down the myth that the rotund madman is all talk.

"He's behind you!" "Shut it wee man, this is a serious play."

Then there's his insanity, by means of identity crisis. It's not known if this was something that was there from the beginning, or if it's somethng that developed and worsened with each defeat, but at some point in his life, Metal convinced himself that despite literally being made with the intention of exterminating the actual Sonic, he himself was in fact the actual Sonic, and that the actual actual Sonic that already existed prior to his inception was in fact the actual Not-Sonic (or a faker, as would be used to describe a certain other lookalike). This belief has caused him to do a bunch of crazy stuff of dubious logic, and don't try to question him on his reasoning, lest you want him to cut you open like a Terry's Chocolate Orange.

His relationship with Eggman is something of an enigma. While his teenage phase betrayal in Heroes is probably the most mainstream evidence of how he feels about his master, it's easy to forget that this was the exception, not the rule. In nearly every other appearance before and since then, Metal has shown nothing but stone cold loyalty towards the doctor and his cause. Even in IDW, when he regained his Neo form and basically did everything he could to remind everyone that Heroes was a thing that existed, he did it that time around for the purpose of finding his master, and helping to restore his empire. A far cry from Neo's first attempt, when he was ranting and raving about how he should have the empire.

Thus, I can only conclude that while his Sonic-esque AI may cause him to get a little reckless, he remains genuinely devoted to his creator outside of his brief cocaine rush in Heroes... and Free Riders, but I don't think anyone knew what was going on in that one. I don't think he knew what was going on in that one.

But perhaps most surprisingly of all - according to the OVA at least - despite all his black-hearted ways, he is still capable of good, as evidenced when he saved the President and the legendary Old Man Owl from dying a fiery death. Whether it's an inherent part of his own nature, or whether it's a side-effect of his Sonic programming, isn't fully clear... but either way, he might want to make sure Eggman doesn't find out about it.

The Execution: Metal Sonic's execution is a complicated case, because there's a dissonance between when he's merely an obstacle for the good guys, and when they've tried to make him more than that.

When he's merely Eggman's instrument of evildoing, he does the job nicely. Sometimes his appearances can be underwhelming depending on the game (read: Sonic 4), but he usually provides a memorable scuffle when it's time for him to put up his dukes. Even if half of those are actually races.

When he aims for bigger, on the other hand? Well...

I've already joked about Neo Metal Sonic's design, but don't be fooled, for his ridiculous fashion sense is merely one part of my beef with the overall concept of Neo. Simply put, everything about Neo Metal Sonic goes against everything that makes this particular character work.

Ranting, monologuing, and running his mouth off does not work for Metal Sonic.

Gathering everyone's data with the intention of becoming Metal Everyone does not work for Metal Sonic.

Transforming into a goddamn dragon does not work for Metal Sonic. (I can let Metal Sonic Kai slide since despite being bigger and more monstrous, you can still recognise it as Metal Sonic specifically. Colour scheme aside, Metal Overlord/Master Overlord might as well be a random monster entirely.)

These ideas aren't necessarily bad on their own. They could work for another villain, or another Eggman minion. But for Metal Sonic specifically? It just doesn't work at all, and while some may be willing to handwave it as the result of Metal's insanity, I firmly believe it's more than possible to establish and delve into his inner madness in ways that DON'T contradict almost everything about him. A character being insane is not an excuse for turning them into a completely different character altogether, nor is it an excuse for just plain handling them in a shitty manner. By all means, I'm all for giving Metal a bigger role, and I'm all for expanding his character and his dynamic... just not like this.

Metal doesn't need to do all that in order to be effective and leave an impression. His portrayal in the OVA confirms that. OVA Metal was everything that Metal was known for at the time: straightforward, loyal, and silent, bar one line towards the end. And he still managed to be a very intriguing antagonist who served as a believably major threat, and who gave Sonic the fight of his life, and thus earned the hedgehog's disgruntled ire and his begrudging respect. That is the Metal that writers should aspire to. That is the essence of what makes that character.

So, despite everything, I still highly enjoy Metal Sonic when he's Metal Sonic, and not Something Vaguely Shaped Like Metal Sonic. He's stumbled a bit over the years, but when he's done right, he's always an eventful burst of fun, and ultimately, my fondness for those portrayals overrides my disgust towards elf shoes. And I'd love to see them expand on his dynamic with Eggman, which a certain well-liked series of shorts has thankfully given us a small taste of. Here's hoping the future will follow up on it...

“Now, if you may be so generous, hand over the Emerald slowly, or else I'm afraid your little friend will face the consequen-ooooowwwww my FUCKING wrist.”

Crusher Gives Metal Sonic a: Thumbs Up! (and Neo Metal Sonic a: Thumbs Down!)

[sage-nebula]

Thanks! So they've mentioned a war and Sonic being imprisoned for awhile? Also curious about Shadow's history, as it was alluded he was a villain in the past. And in one of the panels where Sonic was thinking about his infection, it showed outlines in the background suggesting comparable things had happened to him in the past. One seemed to be him turning into a monster, maybe?

So they’ve mentioned a war and Sonic being imprisoned for awhile?

That’s the plot of Sonic Forces. The long and short of it is that the game opens up with Eggman successfully taking over the world and, with the assistance of a jackal named Infinite who had the power of the Phantom Ruby (a gem which allowed him to warp reality), capturing Sonic (though many believed Sonic had died). Sonic was imprisoned and tortured for six months until he managed to escape, and during that time a Resistance was led by Knuckles and Amy against Eggman’s empire. As you can expect, the game ends with Eggman being overthrown (and Infinite being killed, we think).

Also curious about Shadow’s history, as it was alluded he was a villain in the past.

Shadow’s history is … complicated, to say the least, but I will explain it as best I can, haha.

So, fifty years ago, Eggman’s cousin, Maria Robotnik, was suffering from some kind of terminal illness. I think they said it was something along the lines of a degenerating immune system (neuro-immune system?), but the specifics aren’t really gone into very much. As a result of this, their grandfather Dr. Gerald Robotnik, started work on what was known as Project Shadow, a.k.a. the Ultimate Lifeform project. The goal was to create the Ultimate Lifeform, who was immune to all diseases, and then use that DNA to create a cure for Maria’s illness, which otherwise had no cure. Throughout the course of this project, two beings were created: the Biolizard, and the hedgehog we know as Shadow.

Now, I can’t remember if very much was said about the Biolizard’s DNA, only that at the end of Sonic Adventure 2 (the game where Shadow was introduced) it was kinda-sorta believed that the Biolizard may have been the true Ultimate Lifeform. Regardless, Shadow was created with the DNA from an alien known as Black Doom, who as it happens is also evil. But regardless of that, being created from Black Doom’s DNA is, I believe, what makes Shadow the Ultimate Lifeform. Although he has been alive for fifty years (in stasis for most of those years, to be fair), he is only sixteen years old. He’s not immortal (in the sense that he can be killed), but he doesn’t exactly age, either. He is immune to most diseases, and he can use Chaos Control, which allows him to teleport various places. The bracelets he wears on his wrists are inhibitor rings, which keep his power in check, but if he removes those he can also unleash a very powerful Chaos Blast. It takes a lot out of him, though.

Anyway, back when Shadow was created fifty years ago, he formed a very close friendship with Maria. It could be said, truthfully, that she was both his first friend and his only friend at that time. However—and my memory on this is a bit shaky since I haven’t played Sonic Adventure 2 in a long time, so bear with me—during the course of Gerald Robotnik’s research, I believe Project Shadow was defunded by the government, or something along those lines. Gerald was furious, because this of course meant that he wouldn’t be able to create a cure for Maria. So instead he set to work on creating the Eclipse Cannon on Space Colony ARK, which would allow him to decimate planet Earth as revenge, because of course that is the logical next step.

Unfortunately for him (and Maria, and Shadow), his hopes for revenge were in vain. The government found out about his plan and had their military force, G.U.N., storm Space Colony ARK, killing everyone on board … except Shadow, who was sent to safety by Maria, but including Maria herself. Shadow, trapped in an escape pod, could only watch as Maria was shot down by G.U.N. (and keep in mind, Maria was only about 12 - 14 herself, and had absolutely nothing to do with her grandfather’s plans). Right before this happened, Maria told Shadow was that her final wish was for him to protect the people of Earth—to give them a chance to be happy. Then she died, and Shadow was sent off in the capsule, though presumably at some point accosted by G.U.N. and put into stasis.

In any event, the trauma of seeing his first and only and best friend brutally murdered for literally no reason affected Shadow pretty deeply, including warping his memories of that event. As a result, Shadow remembered the promise he made to Maria being one of revenge, which incidentally is the exact opposite of what she actually wanted, but … he was a traumatized teenager who was then thrown into stasis by those very same soldiers, so you can’t really hold that against him too much. Anyway, fifty years after that event, Eggman (i.e. Gerald’s grandson, Dr. Ivo “Eggman” Robotnik) busted Shadow out of containment because he’d heard tell of the “Ultimate Lifeform” and wanted to see that himself. Shadow, seeing Eggman as a useful ally in terms of getting his revenge, agreed to help Eggman so long as Eggman could make it to the Space Colony ARK (I think that was the deal, anyway). Shadow himself went and procured a Chaos Emerald, framing Sonic for the deed along the way (since apparently G.U.N. is so incompetent they cannot tell Sonic or Shadow apart—but then again, neither can Amy later in the game, so), and eventually Shadow and Eggman strike a deal to work together officially. The deal, it should be said, is to gather all seven Chaos Emeralds to power the Eclipse Cannon, which they will then use to explode the planet. (Well, Eggman wants to rule the planet; he doesn’t realize that Shadow wants to explode it when they make the deal.) Unfortunately for them, they were spied on by Rouge the Bat, who followed Eggman to the Space Colony ARK after he tried to steal the Master Emerald (and failed because Knuckles shattered it to prevent it being stolen—mind you, Rouge had been in the process of trying to steal it herself). Rouge pretends to be a simple jewel thief to get in on the action, but in reality she’s a G.U.N. agent investigating the Ultimate Lifeform, a.k.a. Shadow. Neither of them realize it at the time.

All that said, the neat thing about Sonic Adventure 2 is that it initially has two story paths you can play: Hero Path, which lets you play as Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles; and Dark Path, which lets you play as Shadow, Eggman, and Rouge. The ending seems different on each, with Dark Path making it seem as though Shadow and Eggman’s plan will succeed, and Hero Path indicating the opposite. But if you beat both paths, a third path—True Path—opens, which shows you the true ending. The Biolizard is revealed, the plan to explode the planet (and the fact that this is now going to be accomplished by the Biolizard crashing Space Colony ARK into it) is revealed, and more importantly, during a time of quiet, Amy gets a chance to talk to Shadow. She inadvertently reminds him of what Maria truly wanted by talking about how everyone on Earth has different goals, but that ultimately they just want to be happy and deserve that chance. As I said, this unlocks the real memory of what happened that tragic night for Shadow, and he rushes off to go help the others stop the impending disaster so that he can do what Maria wanted. He kicks the Biolizard’s ass (which is his way of proving to himself which of them is truly the Ultimate LIfeform), but when the Biolizard transforms into the Final Hazard and starts to forcibly drag the Space Colony ARK toward Earth, he and Sonic use the Chaos Emeralds to activate their Super Forms to fight it in space. This battle results in Shadow sacrificing himself to finally defeat the Final Hazard once and for all, but also falling all the way to Earth from space in the process, his last thoughts being directed at Maria, telling her that he kept his promise to her. Sonic brings one of Shadow’s inhibitor bracelets back to the ARK and gives it to Rouge, and when everyone else has already left, stays in the room a moment long to deliver one final, “Sayonara, Shadow the Hedgehog.” (Yes, he says “sayonara” in the English version as well, just as Maria did; this is not me being a weeb lol.)

Anyway, Shadow was originally going to be Killed Off For Real there, but because of his immense popularity was revealed to have survived the fall to Earth, albeit he had amnesia as a result. Eggman also created some clones or robots of him as well, and that’s all explained in Sonic Heroes … but it’s not really relevant to the comics right now, lol. The important thing is, Shadow was an antagonist bent on the destruction of the world (and several brutal fights with Sonic, including at least one being intended to the death) in Sonic Adventure 2, but he realized the error of his ways at the end and sacrificed himself (everyone thought permanently) to help protect it. This leads to Sonic saying, in response to Rouge asking if Sonic thought Shadow really was the Ultimate Lifeform, “He was what he was—a brave and heroic hedgehog.” Which is part of why Sonic making his quip about how he didn’t think Shadow cared about innocent people in the most recent comic pretty ehhhh, even if it was a joke.

But yeah, those are the most important deals about Shadow. Note that Maria is still a very sensitive spot for him, to the point where, in a Twitter Takeover where the characters were voiced by their current voice actors in the games, Eggman refused to read a question asking Shadow how Maria was doing, and when Sonic started to read it, his response was, “Dear Shadow, how’s Mariauhhh, oh, oh yikes.”  It’s really not a good idea to invoke her name carelessly around him.

And in one of the panels where Sonic was thinking about his infection, it showed outlines in the background suggesting comparable things had happened to him in the past. One seemed to be him turning into a monster, maybe?

That would be the game Sonic Unleashed, where Sonic was turned into a “werehog” at night due to a … curse? Infection? I can’t exactly say for sure since I didn’t play that one, haha, but essentially throughout the game Sonic was himself during the day, and then was a werehog at night, though this was cured / reversed by the end of the game, obviously. I don’t think knowing too much about that particular adventure will be necessary going forward; that was more just a little allusion to game fans to let them know that the events of Unleashed are canon in the comic.

Let me know if there’s anything more you’d like clarified!

[cutegirlmayra]

MAYRA I JUST HAD A HEADCANON have you seen this Spider-Man movie where Gwen was played by Emma Stone? I don't want to spoil you if you haven't but it would be so great for a sonamy moment

The one where she dies? (Watch Scene Clip) Ahh… well, I hope you don’t mind, I have an alternative idea that will still touch on this, but maybe more of a happy and dramatic ending ^^

(x)

Sonic Forces concept writing

Prompt:

Shadow held the spent Amy by her throat, doing as he was told by Infinite. Over a large, carved like an earthquakes crevice drop that would surely be the end of it.

“NOO!!” Sonic powered up, his super form sparking to life as he sped forward, leaving the sides of both Gadget (Custom Chara) and Classic Sonic.

Infinitely lightly chuckled a mock, looking down as he saw the yellow stream blazing through the dark reds emanating from the crevices where his cubes power were already in effect upon the dimensions of the world.

Not only were the dark, murky colors of the dirt and steely, collapsing buildings around them proof enough of Eggman’s horrible rein, but only more so reflecting the world Infinite would create… If not stopped…

Eggman was nothing more than a puppet show! A fraud for Infinite’s real purposes.

A fake napoleon.

Eggman, on his knees, hands out to support him, lowered his head at seeing the scene.

Sure, he wanted to kill Sonic… but not… not like this.

He quickly got up, gripping and struggling to get a Chaos Emerald out of Chaos’s hands.

“You stupid, waterballoon!” He kept struggling, getting tossed back and forth as he did so, before Chaos whacked him away, and he fell back; turning to land on his belly and arms.

He heaved in heavy breaths, before getting up, his face swarmed with guilt. “I didn’t want any of this… I wanted an Eggman empire… not the deaths of my only… GRAH!” he smashed his fist against the ground and got up again. “Sonic may not be able to keep his super form for long without that emerald. And I’ll be DARNED if I let some other fool take over my dream!” he strode back to Chaos, before stopping… and slamming a fist into the side of his face.

“I’ll take down a God… if that means I can take over the world another day. I won’t be erased from all time and space! Dimensions mean nothing to me if I’m dead!”

While that was happening, Infinite shook his head, “You could have been the greatest puppet of all, Sonic… this dimension… their dimensions… All could have been one under my perfect order…” He opened out his arms, looking up to the clouds that pierced a red sunlight.

The cubes… formed around him, before starting to glow as he narrowed his one eye, not shifting off of Sonic’s approaching figure.

                                                 “…Drop her…”

“SHADOW!!!” Sonic’s eyes widened, making it up there before a wall of cubes spiraled towards him, forming a wall and then shifting into a monster, smashing him against itself and then swiping him away with an unearthly cry.

“AH!” Sonic was flung back, already weakened without the other Emeralds.

“Sha…Shadow…” Sonic’s head fidgeted as he raised it, one eye closed and the other half open. He cringed at the pain, his friends already useless in being able to help him… everyone doing what they could… but this was his fight…

Classic stepped forward, realizing…

He may not save the girl.

In a split-moment of panic, Classic raced forward, breaking sound barriers as he curved his step and ran along the side of the crevices.

He wouldn’t let that happen.

No friend was being lost.

Or left behind.

Shadow’s red stripes glowed, the same color as the cubes.

He loosened his grip.

Infinite lowered his head.

Amy started to twitch, waking up…. just barely…

“SHADOW!” Sonic gripped the ground, before yanking his head forward.

                                           “SHE’S MY MARIA!!!”

Shadow’s eyes widened as his hand was fully released from Amy’s throat..

She started to fall, as his eyes shook at that name.

He gripped his head, suddenly in great pain, as he wobbled side to side, gritting his teeth in the intesnity of the pain… the memory…

“What… what is this..?!!?!!? AHHHH!!!” He threw back his arms and cried out in pain, as a cube… slowly was being tugged and pushed out of his chest…

Infinite, realizing his control was loosening, turned back in a sharp movement, his eye scanning for understanding…

How…

How was he freeing himself!?

The painful cry was met with a relief of breath, as Shadow’s shoulders fell forward along with his head, swaying as the cube was taken out of him through sheer will power… and then he turned to the edge.

He jumped to try and catch her, but her hand just barely slipped from his grasp.

Sonic’s power overwhelmed the area, as his yellow glow burst forth as he charged infinite.

Classic arched himself and jumped back, having moved too far passed Amy and grabbed her, trying to race up while having both arms on just one of hers.

Her head fell before she flinched in pain, and looked up, wearily.

Struggling to run backwards on a rocky terrain that kept crumbling under him, and the steepness of the edge’s wall to boot… he was slipping…

In that moment, he lost his grip, and Amy started to fall.

Classic jumped for her, straining to reach her…

There was a crash, a whiplash… as suddenly a flash of light caught the recoiled bounce.

Shadow had watched Sonic fighting Infinite and his many creations with the cubes that were once controlling him, and looked to see Eggman struggling with Chaos, having a cube in him as well, glowing red…

He glared, and bite down as he skated over at light speeds, and literally dashed through chaos, pulling the emerald and cube out of him before flashing away, grabbing Classic under his arm.

Gadget, seeing Chaos grow weak, gripped the shard of the Master Emerald in his hand and raced up, sliding to then jam the shard into Chaos.

Chaos let out a piercing ring, before being absorbed back into it, and Gadget pushing his two hands against the shard, holding him in with force until he could fully be sealed into the reformed Master Emerald.

Shadow held up the Chaos Emerald, using Chaos Control to bring them both to safety, before realizing something…

Super Sonic let out a huge blast, “I’ll never let you take over this dimension… or any other one… this world… is meant to be free! And I’ll keep it that way… forever!” he spread his arms out after charging up, and with Gadget placing the last piece into Knuckles’s Master Emerald… him having held his arms up to complete the transformation…

The true power of Chaos swarmed into Sonic without measure, as the blast was engulfed the area, denigrating the cubes completely, like an atomic bomb, only destroying that which was close by, leaving a crater.

“GAAAHHH!!!” Infinite’s eye was the last to go… (I’m skipping the epic boss battle, as you can see. lol)

Sonic, coming back with his arms resting down at his sides, suddenly bolted up to stop the rift in dimensions, pulling it back together with Classic’s help, who had turned super but… his face…

Sonic hadn’t noticed.

The teams cheered when they saw the giant, glowing rift in the sky suddenly pulled back together, and Sonic gave a weary fist to Classic, waiting for a victory fist bump.

“A well deserved victory, little buddy. Thanks for taking care of Amy for me.”

Classic turned his head.

“…Buddy..?” Sonic tilted his head, trying to see Classic’s face.

Seeing the profound frown,… then his head and eyes dipping down…

He panicked, leaning back and looking down where Shadow and some of his friends were starting to gather…

up against a building, seeming to have been crashed into previously… Amy lay motionless..

Shadow went to check the pulse, as Tails quickly ran ahead of everyone, and looked down by her side.

Super Sonic dipped down, before pulling back, “No…” His hand shook, as his eyes widened in horror.

Shadow removed his hand… looking to Tails, he shook his head and lowered it in respects.

Tails stepped back… before looking to Amy, and then dropping to his knees.

Eggman and Knuckles, holding the newly made Master Emerald, made their way over with Gadget, who’s face scanned the scene, and then frowned while his shoulders bounced in grief.

Sonic slowly drifted down, before moving over to replace Shadow, and touching her face.

His head moved down to her and then back to her face, as if still in denial. “Amy… Amy you gotta hold on.”

Tails turned his head away, not going to say anything against the words.

The team all began to mourn, as Rouge held a hand over her mouth, realizing…

Blaze turned away, her fists shaking, as Silver held a hand over his face and lowered it.

Shadow… turned around….

“Come on, Ames… we won! We won, dang it!” He shouted out, his head fully ducked, as Classic flew down on the opposite side, looking over Amy again, before lowering his ear to her chest.

“Amy… you said… you said you wanted to tell me something…”

Classic looked up, his eyes glossy…

Sonic’s eyes were covered in darkness, but his mouth trembled.

“I… had something to tell you too.”

Eggman lowered one side of the Master Emerald.

“Don’t you even start, Eggman…” Knuckles warned with vicious reality… “Not now.. not ever again.”

“You don’t understand.” Eggman knelt down and then put a hand to the Master Emerald.

“If Chaos can return..”

Shadow shifted himself, “What nonsense are you trying again!?”

“Listen to me! I don’t want her to die as much as you! Summon Chaos!”

“He can only destroy, what good could-”

But Tails, in his tears and anguish, was cut off from scolding Eggman when Chaos did emerged from the Master Emerald, walking out, and heading towards the scene.

In an absolute, regal manner… he made his way over to Amy, and lightly touched Sonic’s shoulder.

Still not speaking, Sonic moved for him, and Classic watched as Chaos knelt down, and slowly began to place his clawed hand to her forehead.

He slowly gestured it down…

A glow of green light started to fly around in little balls..

The balls started to make their way out, and everywhere the bubbles touched, life began, and the city was made new, like ripples in water.

“I.. I don’t understand…” stumbling as he turned around, Silver watched in amazement as the entire war-torn landscape was replaced with a beautiful nature panorama.

“If Chaos can destroy…” Blaze suddenly spoke up, also in awe, as she then gently lowered her eyes to the Sonics and the laying Amy…

“Maybe… he can even destroy destruction itself.”

Eggman sighed in tension, his voice wavering on the breath as he rubbed and squeezed his hands together.

Sonic leaned forward, looking squarely at Amy before closing his eyes and touching his forehead to hers…

The lights continued, as Tikal’s voice suddenly rose the Master Emerald, as it glowed in a beautiful light.

“Even Chaos.. the God of Destruction himself.. can destroy it’s very self and creations… all of them… including death.”

The bubbles suddenly rushed into Amy, all at once, as Chaos stood up, and moved back.

The world was beautiful, fixed, giving new life…

And that’s when Sonic waited the longest he’d ever held still in his life…

Under his forehead… he felt a shift and a rush of a air, as Amy sucked in a fresh breath of life.

Fin~

Roll credits!

Lol nah, I’m playing~

The shift sent everyone’s eyes to Amy, smiles returning, as anxious bodies gathered and started to excitedly move and jitter around her.

She slowly moved her head, before blinking her beautiful, weakened eyes open.

“…Sonic..?”

Classic smiled, before she shifted her gaze to Sonic, still glowing…

Her vision was blurry, as she squinted, and then started to cry.

“You were right.” she admitted, pulling an arm over her eyes as she leaned her head back against the side of the building’s wall.

“I couldn’t save everyone.”

She started to softly cry before Sonic moved her arm.

“No, Amy… I was wrong.”

She blinked, seeming to maybe be aware she had died, but no one was sure…

“We couldn’t have stopped him… not fully… if I didn’t lose you.” His voice cracked in a lost moment of pain, his eyes glossed before he pulled himself down and tightly embraced her.

“I will never let you suffer for my mistakes again… I promise.”

He looked up then, “All of you!” He scanned his friends, as Gadget breathed a heavy breath.

“I won’t let his happen again, not now-” He picked Amy up, holding her close as he seriously spoke with intensity and sincerity in his eyes. 

“Not ever.”

Tails was the first to break out in joy.

Then the rest starting cheering.

Classic sighed in relief, before getting up and floating over to Amy, looking down at her happily and then hugging her forehead before ‘thumbs up’ing Sonic, and then taking off into the small piece of light that was still rifted through the skies.

He waved to his friends, and then happily curled up to spin into it; having it close behind him, once he was fully within.

Sonic looked up, before back down in all the cheering to Amy, and happily held her close to his face, smiling.

She put her cheek up to the side of his face and smiled too, before looking over his shoulder.

He thought that odd and followed the action, looking to her… and then Shadow.

Shadow… was departing.

He looked down at a burnt cube… somehow having survived… and glared.

He crushed it under his foot, before walking on as the ash took it’s place.

Amy and Sonic watched in silence through the cheering, before Amy turned to Sonic, still watching.

“Would you have become like him..?”

He relaxed his eyes, giving it some thought.

“Yes.” he lightly spoke, and turned back to her. “If I really did lose you.. I would have done everything in my power… just like he did…”

She stared into his eyes, seeing no joking or mocking of any kind.

“Sonic..” her voice almost broke through the love emoted in speaking his name, shaking her head but never losing sight of him.

They touched foreheads again, before Eggman cleared his throat, and Sonic’s eyes flashed open, before slowly rolling them to Eggman, glaring so intensely he actually stepped back a moment.

He rubbed his hands together, smiling sheepishly.

“So… hehe, now that the world’s all good again and what not from Chaos’s magical ‘cancellation’ powers,… ehem. Think we could put our differences behind us?” He held out his hand, a truce?

Sonic stared at the hand, then back up to him.

He nervously started sweating, “Eh-heh… Oh, come on, Sonic! You and your little friends saved the universe! Dimensions are praising your name right now and what? You’re too cool to let me admit I’m being man enough to let bygones be bygones? A-Amy.. You tell him. You’re with me right? Forgiven and all that jazz?” The second he motioned his case to Amy, Sonic’s glare intensified and her head ducked down to hide a bit as he suddenly rose up in the air, and dropped kicked him.

Freaking out, Eggman shrieked a moment and ran off, zig-zagging like a idiot before shaking his fist.

“I’ll win next time, Sonic! You’ll see! and this time, the only casualty will be your death! Hehe!… instead of my pri-i-i-ideeee!!!” he whined, racing off.

Sonic huffed through his nose, “And good riddance. We’ll see about that, Egghead!”

Amy giggled, before Sonic turned back with a pleasant smile, closing his eyes for a moment before walking back to the gang.

*As camera is moving away*

“Um…Sonic? Not that I mind or anything but… y-you can let me go now.”

“Not a chance.”

“O-Oh?” Amy, in statement, blushed at how he said it.

“I’m never letting you slip out of my arms again. Sorry, Amy. But you’ll just have to kick back here for a while.”

Amy smiled, lowering her eyelids, completely swooning, but also perhaps, understanding why he was saying this.

“I don’t mind in the slightest… Sonic… My hero~” she lowered her head to his shoulder, as he looked down a moment in fondness before speaking to everyone, some wanting to really check on Amy and make sure she was actually still alive and alright.

The world… was never the same again.

(it’s a concept in some of the ideas for story. I highly doubt it will happen, but I manipulated the idea to one of the many concepts I’ve had for the game :) hope you enjoy! Stole some of Eggman’s actions from Hades too at the end there, lol! From Disney’s Hercules xP)