#at least the roller skate dance wasn't too bad

[aquillis-main]

... Hmm.

Am not sure how I feel about Sonic 3, to be honest.

On the one hand, they manage to make Shadow and Maria's relationship feel authentic in a way I wasn't expecting - scenes I felt would have totally been in line with the games with how they bond. Roller skating through the halls of the facility, Maria playing guitar and teaching Shadow to dance, watching a cruddy movie, before turning towards the beauty of nature and showcasing a lot of why Shadow felt the way he does towards people in general...

Then, you get the stupid scenes of Gerald and Eggman being 'Jim Carrey as played by Jim Carrey'. As in Jim Carrey, he made himself silly for the sake of being silly, rather than do some nuance with Eggman and Gerald like he would have in previous movies. Biggest offender goes to the lampshade scene where both Robotnicks declare them being played by the same actor. And I thought making Eggman fat for the LOLs was the most offending thing before I went into the movie.

Also, they made Knuckles extremely dumb during the infiltration scene of GUN headquarters (which is in London for some reason? I thought GUN was a Sonic American Military thing, ala SHIELD. But ok) with the whole 'break glass in case of emergency' thing. Also, somehow, Knuckles survives fine from shattering the random shield when Sonic's little thing kept on getting sliced by it? So was it a bad thing or not for it to be up?

Tails and Knuckles were there to be punched like punching bags to Shadow, and to yell at Sonic for screwing up. It feels like they took away traits from Sonic AGAIN in order to make Sonic out to be in the wrong to learn a lesson, when in fact he already learnt that lesson long ago.

Some movie spoilers under the read more:

I'm also not a fan of making Eggman redeem himself by staying on the Eclipse Cannon (Oh? So the ARK was too fantastical, but the Eclipse Cannon wasn't? Seriously, movies, I don't understand your logic at times), but it was obvious that with this movie, Jim Carrey was just phoning in his acting skills at this point, and was getting tired of being in these movies.

Ben Schwartz still can't voice act. He now has a partner in Keeanu Reeves, who surprisingly used his inability to voice act to his full advantage - his inability to emote came across more with Shadow being depressed and too full of rage over Keeanu having no ability to voice act. Kudos, Keeanu, I'm surprised you actually learnt to act in these years. There are some scenes I still find ehh, like the flashback to when Shadow was talking to Maria about his existence, but otherwise he was pretty okay. At least in comparison to Sonic Schwartz.

Like I stated earlier, Tails and Knuckles felt more like side kicks more than actual characters. Not helped that they have this dumb family dynamic they didn't have in the games at all. The only time they were interesting was when Sonic decided to try going Super Sonic on his lonesome, butting heads with Knuckles for the location of the Emeralds.

Tom should have died. There really should have been consequences for Sonic to deal with outside of his beef with Shadow, and I'm annoyed that Tom lived because - besides changing into the former commander (who does die at the start of the movie) - Tom doesn't really do a whole lot besides have another 'black woman, ammiright?' joke at Racheal's expense with Maddie, and it feels very off for me. On top of this, it'd make thematic sense for the movie, with it's whole message of 'just because someone is gone, doesn't mean they're not still with you' if Tom died.

GUN felt useless throughout this whole movie. They got dropped in Act 2 when the Eclipse Cannon came out of the River Thames and had a half-assed plot about targeting Sonic for no reason. If they went with the idea of Sonic being mistaken for Shadow here like the games do, it'd make more thematic sense here - since, unlike the games, Sonic is less well known on the planet. Why make a 'Detective Pikachu' reference if Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles were well known?

The multiple copies of Metal Sonic at the end weren't required, and I felt like I did a much better job with Metal Sonic in Misery Tastes. XD but in all honesty, Metal Sonic having his design from the games when Sonic doesn't feels strange, and I do not like how they randomly decided to make it clear they were doing Sonic CD AFTER Sonic Adventure 2. It didn't make sense for Shadow to stop when Sonic stopped trying to kill him. Dude would have pulverized Sonic regardless.

... Why the fuck is Maria on the military base? Why does Gerald care about her so much, that he wants to wreck the world here? If they had a throwaway line about Maria's illness and Gerald getting desperate to cure her, it'd give a good showcase as to why Maria is at the base to begin with. But there's this big question mark on this literal kid being at a top secret military base, but nothing about, not even a good throwaway line ('Gerald doting on Maria' does not count as a 'good' throwaway line) exists as to why she's there with Gerald. Her being killed as Gerald got the cure would have made thematic sense to this plot.

Maddie feels like a shoe horn at this point.

[bestfrownsforever]

Heartache Arcade

Sorry for not having a proper cover again...hopefully these will do.

Also 1. my friend CLG is my co-editor now! Per's a master at finding grammar mistakes even I miss (ex. if you want the re-edited Dawn of a New Era then it's on Amino) so per'll be helping me from now on!

And 2. I'm hoping to keep a consistent schedule so expect a new Best Frowns Forever story every Tueaday! Starting with this story...

After having some brief fun as a Frown Lord, Puppycorn already hit a massive roadblock.

"Anyone else think this job doesn't make a whole lot of sense?" he asked while meeting with his co-workers around his bedroom table, "I mean yeah, it's fun to hurt people and stuff, but if we're so good at our jobs, then won't everyone be too scared to go outside anymore? Or maybe they'll leave the kingdom!? And if they do, should we want them to because it'd be bad if they did!? What should we DO!?!?"

Unikitty wrapped an arm around him from across the table. "Calm down, little bro," she assured him, "They're not going anywhere when the rest of the world sucks too."

"The solution's easy," Grandmaster Frown added, "Try luring them in with something fun and cutesy and make them almost want to suffer!"

"Oh come on," Hawkodile objected, "Something big pops up in the kingdom out of nowhere with us openly running it? They'll know it's a trap."

"Unless they're so desperate for a break that they'll take anything that looks happy and shiny," Dr. Fox suggested, "And Master Pain was the king of cringe before Frown's birthday."

"Hey!"

"I'm saying that as a compliment! You probably still like all that kiddie junk the citizens miss anyway, so why are you complaining about no ideas?"

Unikitty flew over to her brother. "I think she's trying to say that instead of using the things you like to try being cool, you can use them to actually prove your coolness as a Frown Lord!"

"Okay," Puppycorn considered, "But I already did accident-prone skateboards and roller skates...and that spiky ballpit."

"You mean I did them and you STOLE MY CREDIT!?" Dr. Fox reminded him before Brock pushed her away.

"Okay, someone needs a timeout...and if it helps, I've had the idea for a haunted arcade for a while now. But you're not wrong about the whole obvious trap thing, so from one gamer to another; how would you make it work?"

Puppycorn thought long and hard about the possibility until it hit him like his past self running into a brick wall.

"WAIT, I've been thinking into this job too hard! Grandmaster Frown did all this to be himself again, right? So maybe instead of haunted, the games can just be really hard to beat!?"

Everyone seemed interested except for the pouting Dr. Fox.

"But if they manage to win those games, wouldn't that be the best feeling ever?"

Puppycorn hummed until he lit up again like the lightbulb popping out of his head.

"They'll only get a few tickets and we'll make the prizes super expensive!!"

"Good enough."

Grandmaster Frown rose. "Then let's get to work, people! These games will need some Frown Lord-flare, and they sure aren't gonna make themselves!"

Puppycorn and Brock were the first to follow him to Dr. Fox's lab, dedicate many long days to porting the most difficult games they could find, and even more to making their own until after countless attempts at giving up, Puppycorn finally saw all his hard work pay off and open for business.

No one saw exactly when the new building appeared in the middle of town. It was just another rainy afternoon with nothing going on until people looked at their windows to see a massive, pale gray block of an exterior with a burgandy arching roof and neon colors everywhere from behind the windows. A tall sign next to it read "Heartache Arcade" with "& Casino" under it in smaller letters, both in some of the same bright neon colors.

Most closeby citizens came to the conclusion that their tyrants set it up, but some of them approached the arcade anyway, as if to say "How are they gonna break us this time?"

When they stepped in, they were greeted by giant rooms with arcade machines, gambling tables, and brighter lights everywhere, with a large prize counter and shelves for toys and other kinds of trinkets in one corner. They couldn't believe how everything seemed so...innocent.

They split up, each walking over to a different game or observing more of the retrospective dream around them, while Frown and Puppycorn spied on them from behind an "Employees Only" door.

"C'mon..." Puppycorn whispered, "Just play the games already!"

"Give 'em a bit more time," Grandmaster Frown replied, "They'll rip themselves in half before you know it."

Puppycorn turned to the nearest citizen, Theodore, stepping up to a slot machine, which hated having them there, but the others convinced him that gambling would make things all the more entertaining to watch.

"Supreme Slots, huh?" Theodore wondered before shrugging, "Well, guess it's worth a shot."

Puppycorn wasn't too surprised when Theodore bet the little money he had and won on his first try, only to get too cocky and lose it all too fast. Grandmaster Frown had a good laugh while Puppycorn looked the other way to spot Bim-Bom wrapping a hand around the joystick for the game he was most proud of; Furious Fetch.

Bim-Bom seemed happy at first, but just when Puppycorn worried even more, she got a a little confused as to what she was playing. Did she get to the lava pits yet?, he thought, Or the bugs? She's gotta know how hard running and jumping is by now though, right?

Then he heard the Game Over music.

"What!? There's no more lives!?"

Finally, a good reaction. Puppycorn was already holding back laughs and wagging his tail watching Bim-Bom pull out another token to play again. And then another. And another until she almost reached the end of the first level.

"WAIT, jumping on them doesn't kill them either!? What gives!?"

"That's the point!" Puppycorn snickered. She clearly wanted to give up but pulled out another out coin anyway. Maybe even keep going until she didn't have any left. But as if his silent prayers were answered, Bim-Bom slipped the token into the slot and lost almost as soon as the level started that time. Screaming, she stormed off to try something else as Puppycorn lost it.

"Cut it out!" Grandmaster Frown ordered, covering a hand over Puppycorn's mouth, "The evil laughing can wait, just don't blow this for us."

Puppycorn nodded, prompting his boss let go. They continued to look around, realizing more and more citizens were getting frustrated over what they were playing. And switching to other games or slots didn't help, it only strengthened the chorus of the most mixed reactions they'd ever heard in their lives.

"These games SUCK!"

"This was all the money I haaaaaaad!!"

"I can do this, I just need ONE more coin...anyone got some?"

"At least this isn't the other stuff we've had to put up with, calm down guys!"

"Are you nuts!? This is WAY WORSE!"

Puppycorn was too proud of himself to keep the door open. He shut it to chant and dance without a care until Grandmaster Frown laid a hand where his shoulder would be.

"Huh?"

"Not bad, Pain. Consider this your first

independent accomplishment."

"Really!? Aweso-"

They jumped at the sound of a sudden crash from the back room.

"Yeah," Frown ordered, "now take care of this place before the ragequitters can."

Puppycorn proudly nodded and saluted. "I'll do my best, boss sir!"