#anyway amy and tails being best friends by beloved

[0vergrowngraveyard]

they’re besties your honor

[chasingvelocity]

tumblr might be about to do horrible things to the quality of this, i'm not sure, but the preview does not fill me with confidence. ANYWAY

these were made for the Elysium intro so technically this is out of chronological order of. everything. but also before i start posting comics i want to give a good visual on who these guys are! also hey these are all the guys that were relevant to the askblog (besides Shadow), nice

(oh my god i just realized i didn't actually put Sik in Elysium. i mean he's in the bit in the second half where it's flashing through everybody but i didn't put him in the actual intro with everybody else.. sorry buddy, Double's the more important custom hero i guess lmao)

Sonic the Hedgehog: you know her, you love her, she's transgender now! 19-ish as of Forces, aroace, personality and vibe same as always, nothing gets her down. the big plot twist with her is that she's an artificial life form like Shadow and was engineered with an aptitude for chaos energy, but she does her best to shrug off the implications.

Miles "Tails" Prower: sonic's adopted little brother, 17-ish as of Forces, transgender (this will be a theme), low self-confidence despite his intelligence and his ability to hold his own. a LOT of things happen to him, uh- Colors, Chronicles, and Lost World kinda got slammed together into one story arc, so he got halfway roboticized AND blasted with negative color until he was able to break out of the brainwashing. he hasn't found a way to undo the roboticization yet.

Amy Rose: i love amy so much but i don't know how to accurately capture her vibe. 18-ish as of Forces, she had a crush on sonic but has eased off on it and now they are comfortably friends (even if she can still be a bit much at times), she does tarot, i think the most that got changed is her design tbh

Knuckles the Echidna: straightforward-thinking treasure hunter, dealing with responsibility of guarding the master emerald vs him finally having an opportunity to explore the outside world, 20-ish as of Forces, got tormented a bit in the askblog

Shadow the Hedgehog: nonbinary alien hedgehog clusterfuck my beloved. they/them, actually somewhat chill underneath all the edge, technically Sonic is a knockoff of them, still has a pretty shaky sense of identity, at one point jorb helped me figure out what ShTH story path would be most canon for them but i don't want to find it rn

Daedalus "Double" Perrow: first of many OCs! maned wolf, 17-ish (?) as of Forces, more on him later because a lot of the comics so far involve him lmao. fills in 1/2 of the custom hero role in Forces (did the prison break, teams up directly with modern sonic, has past history with Infinite) and gets nicknamed "Gadget" by sonic. trans of gender

Wayne "Infinite" Bay: whoops i took an oc and accidentally spliced him into being infinite. double's friend, 19-ish as of Forces, got kidnapped and experimented on by eggman. the askblog plotline was building up to double trying to find and save him because they were friends before wayne got corrupted by the phantom ruby, but my energy fizzled out before that could get anywhere

i can't believe sik didn't get a cool image like everybody else. get wrecked lmao

[darkqueenofshadows85]

Sonic Adventure (1998) Story Review

Disclaimer: I will be judging this game by the plot and writing, not the gameplay.

Introduction

Greetings, mortals! For today's review, we'll be looking at the first main series storyline in the (modern) Sonic timeline, Sonic Adventure.

This is a new series of mine, in which I’ll be going into slightly more detail about my thoughts on the main series Sonic game storylines, and why I think they're either well written and engaging, or an absolute trainwreck (or somewhere in-between). I’ll be giving my stance on the character portrayals, visuals, soundtracks, voice actors, and what themes/messages they had to offer. 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!

Anyway, let us begin! ^^

Plot

Sonic and Tails must collect the Chaos Emeralds before Eggman can use them to power an angry water creature known as Chaos. Meanwhile, Knuckles attempts to repair the shattered Master Emerald and Amy must evade capture from an Eggman robot.

Characters

I thought most of the characters were pretty well written here.

Sonic was portrayed quite well. He’s cocky, lives by his own rules and loves adventure, and he has a golden heart and cares about the world and people personally. He might seem like a jerk sometimes but it might be because he's trying to look out for you in what he thinks will work best.

Tails had some great character development, going from a shy sidekick to a confident hero who can take on Eggman all by himself.

Knuckles was portrayed fairly well, although him being tricked for the third time in the franchise at that point felt a bit repetitive. But at least the writers remembered that he's supposed to be the guardian of the Master Emerald (which the Meta Era games, and even the Dark Era games forgot about).

Amy is a great character here as well. Her number one priority is to protect the Flicky, as well as E-102 Gamma later in the story. She wasn't afraid to protect the ones she loves no matter how dangerous things got. In my opinion, the Adventure games were truly the best portrayal of Amy's character.

Big is a simple, yet humble character. He's just concerned about returning to his peaceful life, and being able to live it with his beloved friend.

Gamma's character arc is amazing. His story is heartwarming and emotional, and the ending was really bittersweet.

And Eggman.. well, at least here he wasn't a complete joke like he was in the Meta Era. I'll give him credit for that.

Visuals

The visuals and most of the character models do look pretty good for their time. (I thought Eggman's character model looked a bit weird though), The lip syncing does look a bit off at times, but I can overlook it for the most part. In fact, some of the characters' facial expressions can be unintentionally hilarious at times. This might be an unpopular opinion, but... I actually prefer the character models in the GameCube version of SA1 over the ones in the original Dreamcast version, as they look more polished and closer to the designs of the characters' official artwork. I thought Tails and Amy's models in particular looked adorable. ^w^

Soundtrack

Sonic games have had consistently good soundtracks throughout the franchise, and SA1 is no exception. Some of my favorite tracks include Open Your Heart, It Doesn't Matter (Sonic's theme), Believe In Myself (Tails' theme) Tikal's theme, and Gamma's theme.

Voice Acting

The Adventure Era voice cast, while not my favorite, are still pretty good. Ryan Drummond did a decent job voicing Sonic, and for a child actor, Corey Bringas did a good job voicing Tails. Deem Bristow... Well, he's no Mike Pollock, but he did a decent job voicing Eggman. Michael McGaharn (Knuckles) was okay, but Dan Green is the best Knuckles in my opinion. Some of the other voices I liked include Jennifer Doulliard (Amy), Jon St. John (Big), Elara Distler (Tikal) and Steve Brodie (E-102 Gamma and Pachacamac).

Theme/Message

This story, along with the rest of the Adventure Era, has the theme of the past returning and you have to deal with it.

Case in point: the Echidna Tribe. They wanted the Chaos Emeralds because of their power, and Tikal, the daughter of Pachacamac, the leader of the Echidna Tribe, tried to stop it. However, it was in vain. Pachacamac ordered his soldiers to advance to the Chaos Emeralds, ignoring Tikal and the chaos on the way (and severely injuring them). This caused Chaos' fury, which appeared before Pachacamac and his soldiers, and using the power of the Chaos Emeralds, turned into Perfect Chaos, destroying the Echidna civilization, leaving only its ruins and a few survivors.

This affects the present when Chaos starts destroying the world, due to being filled with anger and sorrow from being sealed inside the Master Emerald for thousands of years. After Super Sonic neutralizes Chaos and turns him back into a peaceful state, he and Tikal then depart back to the afterlife.

Conclusion

Overall, I think SA1 has a good story with great character development, good writing and an engaging plot, as well as contributing greatly to the Sonic lore.

My final score:

4.7/5 (Good)

[mobius-prime]

273. Sonic the Hedgehog #200

Turn About is Fair Play

Writer: Ian Flynn Pencils: Tracy Yardley! Colors: Matt Herms

Welcome to the two-hundredth issue of the Archie Sonic preboot! It's another big milestone issue, but unfortunately, compared to some of the others it's a little… light on content, if you will. Most of it consists of pages and pages of fighting, some of it with very little dialogue other than "Ugh!" and "Oof!" and "Argh!" It honestly reminds me in a way of those old, early-era issues that were mostly just Sonic and Knuckles beating the crap out of each other in various locales with a few pages before and after to explain why they'd decided to get into a tussle this time - only now, the big fight is between Sonic and, of course, Eggman.

Right off the bat, Eggman makes kind of a weird comment, claiming that Sonic has been a thorn in his side for "fifteen years and more." I say it's weird because no matter how you look at the timeline, it doesn’t really seem to match up. It can't be referring to Sonic's age, because Sonic is seventeen here, and he certainly didn't start fighting Eggman when he was two - the coup hadn't even happened at that point. And it can't be referring to how long the war has been going on for similar reasons. Sonic's been actively carrying on the fight against Eggman and his predecessor for about a decade now, assuming that he and the others formed the core Freedom Fighter group when he was around seven, but that still leaves several years unaccounted for. The only thing I can think of to make this comment make sense is that Eggman is specifically thinking about his previous war with the Sonic of his home zone. We know that his history was virtually identical to Sonic Prime's up until the events of Endgame, during which he roboticized himself to avoid losing outright. We can assume the fight went on a couple more years from there, and after his long stint in space as a computer program (anyone ever think about how weird Archie Sonic lore is) Eggman has been waging war anew against the Prime Zone's Freedom Fighters, and we can assume this has gone on for nearly two years at this point as well considering Sonic's year in space. I suppose, considering all that, that it could technically add up to fifteen years, but it's still a weird comment to make. Then again, we know that Eggman has been kind of losing it lately, and Sonic's careless and mocking attitude certainly doesn't help.

As their battle begins, Sonic smugly begins checking off the list of every way Eggman has failed to keep his empire in order - how "a group of kids with no real training" have continuously thwarted him in every way, how his failures always translate directly into wins for the heroes, and how even in the times he has won, such as at Knothole, it's been temporary at best, with the heroes coming out even stronger on the other side. Eggman sputters in a fury as Sonic continues to list off his failures, how he doesn't even control nearly as much of the world as he claims and that even in the places he does control the people hate him and want him gone, and how in the end, Sonic is confident he can beat him again just like always. What follows is what I mentioned before, just pages and pages of fighting as Sonic continues to trash the Egg Spider and Eggman grows more and more apoplectic and incoherent until he's reduced to screaming about how much he hates Sonic. After a good bit of bashing and spindashing, the Egg Spider is finally reduced to scrap, and Sonic, feeling quite pleased with the way their final battle has gone, strikes a nice victory pose.

And then… this happens.

Yikes. We knew that Eggman was slowly losing his grip on reality, but this is just downright disturbing. Sally tries to report to Sonic on the team's success and the Legion's retreat, but finds herself distracted by Eggman's gibbering tantrum, asking Sonic what the hell he did to him. Sonic is equally at a loss to explain what's going on, but Snively's voice interrupts the both of them, grimly informing them that this final defeat has completely broken his uncle's mind in half.

I'll admit, the first time I read this I did not see this coming despite the lead-up - it almost seemed like too much, like something of this caliber wouldn't make it into a comic for kids (well, more like teens at this point - I feel like the storylines have long since gone beyond being for young children). And yet in the end, I feel like that's exactly why Ian is so beloved as the head writer - he was willing to take things seriously, include real stakes for the characters and write in plot developments like this that would completely change the status quo. Eggman has been consistently losing his way through every Sonic game, comic, anime, and every other piece of media for decades now, and at some point, in some canon, it was liable to break him entirely. Just, no one ever expected it to be this dramatic.

Everyone else bursts into the room, and they begin to celebrate wildly as they realize the war is over, though Sonic stands amid the chaos with a look of blank disappointment on his face. Sally recovers fairly quickly and begins crying from happiness, using Nicole's handheld to broadcast the message of their victory to the entirety of New Mobotropolis, where the citizens are celebrating wildly in the streets. As they make their way back out of the Eggdome, Tails and Amy excitedly get Sonic to recount the battle to them, but he's less than enthusiastic, missing his usual dramatic flair. When questioned on his attitude, or lack thereof, he frowns and claims that he's merely tired after the fight, which they accept without question.

I'm not surprised Sonic doesn't feel right about all this. I'm sure he thought the finale to the big showdown was going to be, well, epic, with Eggman angrily sputtering about how he'll get him next time only to have his ego taken down a notch by Sally's end-of-the-war speech. It can't feel at all good to beat your enemy so hard that he literally goes insane, even if he is a genocidal maniac. After all, Sonic isn't cruel - he doesn't fight for the express purpose of torturing Eggman, he fights to protect the people and the world he loves. Causing such extreme mental anguish just isn't something he's interested in, and yet his actions have led to it anyway, causing some serious emotional conflict for him. But hey, he's Sonic, and in the end he's able to pick up and carry on, satisfied that in the long run he's done the right thing. And hey, it is the end of the war! Time to enjoy, for the second time, a new era of peace and prosperity with no more dire threats to the world and his family and friends' safety! Right? R…right?

Of course not! Where would we be if there was no more conflict in this comic?! I mean, granted, there was an entire era in the past dealing with precisely that - how child soldiers deal with trying to live an ordinary life after fighting an adults' war - but it'd be kinda weird to try to just rehash all that a second time over. Plus, Sonic has grown up since then - I feel like if the story truly did end here and there were no more villains to face, Sonic would ultimately be able to adjust and live a happy and fulfilling life without all the constant hero work to keep him busy. But as it is, there is another situation brewing - don't tell me you forgot about Snively's little online romance! After securing Eggman in a straightjacket and padded cell within the Eggdome, Snively makes his way to the landing pad on top of the Eggdome, ordering all the Legion's members to meet him up there. He's ready to introduce them all to their new leader, who will be taking over the running of the Eggman Empire now that its namesake is, ahem, indisposed. And this new ruler just so happens to be…

T-the Iron Queen? You mean that one-off character from waaayyy back in StH#60? Yeah, see, I did hint at this back in my review of that issue. I think I've mentioned it before, but Ian is very fond of bringing back old, forgotten characters and concepts from the earliest days of the comic and breathing new life into them, finding ways to weave them back into the story to become much more interesting than they had been before. The Iron Queen, here, is a technomancer, and quite power-hungry (and apparently has a thing for tiny gremlin men, despite being married to a gigantic Mobian bull). I will admit that she's not my favorite villain of the series, but she's not a bad one at all, and indeed it's her arrival that catapults us out of the sixth era and into the seventh, as we get ready to face down the menace of her Iron Dominion! Man, so much for peace. Sonic never does get a break, does he?