#but… but starline experimenting on tails and the kit being saved by sonic…..

[0vergrowngraveyard]

what if i made another au for funsies?

what then?

[autisticshadowthehedgehog]

"Why Would You Bother With Me?" - An Analysis of Kitsunami, 09/07/2024

tw: major discussions of abuse, the cycle of abuse, re-traumatizing situations, toxic and abusive relationships (non-romantic)

so like when I first read this panel my reaction was just to joke with Cori that this is a "get out of my school" moment (iykyk) but I've been thinking about it a lot recently because I... couldn't remember any specific beef Kit had with Tails?

Last we saw of them interacting one-on-one, Tails was talking Kit down from fighting, and Kit's beef with the squad later was more with Sonic than him. Tails didn't take down Surge in #56 or even affect the fight in any way, and Sonic was the one who told Kit that Surge was dead beforehand. At least that I could remember, so I went back to those comics. Indeed, in #56 he shows no animosity towards Tails specifically, nor when he talks to Surge in #55.

Then I went back to #54.

See, he does seem to blame Sonic entirely for the Surge death fakeout, and he thinks that Sonic is literally trying to kill her when he walks in. But he does have one (1) reaction to Tails, right at the end of the interaction.

In the previous issue, after Sonic and Tails saved his life, Kit immediately switched on his subservient personality and was desperate for any kind of validation from the hedgehog. We only see it for a few panels before he is told about Surge and sinks into a depressive state, but it's made very obvious.

And when he leaves to help?

Kit's conditioning under Starline means that he is excessively codependent on Surge– and if Surge isn't around, on anyone who is nice to him. The hypnotic repetition shown to us was "You live to support Surge. You'll do anything for her." Kit's sole purpose in life is to be a Support party member.

Kit's conditioning was to be the new Tails.

Starline wanted Surge and Kit to replace Sonic and Tails– that much was obvious from the get-go. But what was also obvious was his fundamental misunderstanding of Sonic and Tails's dynamic and how that negatively impacts Surge and Kit's relationship.

Starline completely misses the strong sibling bond that Sonic and Tails have. To him, Tails is just there to support Sonic, to provide the brains and tech that Sonic lacks, and so Kit needs to be there to support Surge in the same way. He sees it only as a business partnership, and not a mutual relationship built on trust, love, and shared experiences. Starline only saw other people as tools, so obviously he projected that onto Surge and Kit, hoping that they would immediately take up the closeness that Sonic and Tails did because, well, they served the same purpose to each other, right?

Except Surge and Kit don't have that relationship. These two children were forced into the same proximity and made to work together. They're coworkers at best, being told to act like a family.

Obviously their dynamic is super toxic, with Surge clearly holding a lot of power over Kit, but it's also clear that this isn't because Surge wants to beat on the kid. She was made to be Sonic, and so she has his arrogance (and possibly Shadow's, considering IS1 showed his image when Starline was talking about stealing abilities), but, as Boom!Sonic says, "Without any of the awesomeness to back it up." Okay, wrong, she's plenty awesome, the correct phrase is "Without the experience" and, most importantly, "without the altruism that makes Sonic Sonic." Surge wasn't programmed to like the people she saves, because that would conflict with Starline's goal to take over the world. So she's only made to be competitive and to want to best Sonic, anyone inbetween them be damned. This clashes with Kit's programming to not only be liked, but to be liked by Surge. Surge was also programmed to believe fully in herself in order to enhance the arrogant trait, and Kit was made to give her the help that she doesn't want.

To Surge, Kit represents everything holding her back. And she's not built to view him as a person, because Starline doesn't view him or her as people. Obviously this doesn't absolve her of her treatment of him, and later issues showing her getting more and more aware as she becomes more social is definitely going to impact the way she views him– or, if it doesn't make her reconsider Kit's personhood, it'll serve to make her more antagonistic for the viewer.

But the point is, Sonic trusts Tails because he knows and respects him as a person. It isn't just because Tails can help him, but because he knows Tails will. Surge, at this point in the comic, not only doesn't view Kit as a friend, she doesn't even care what he thinks or feels.

And despite the brainwashing, I don't think Kit is oblivious to this. He knows how bad their situation is, but he is so conditioned to accept it that he can't escape it whatsoever. In both fights with Tails, Tails talks him down easily because Kit doesn't want to hurt anyone. Kit only reacts violently when Surge is brought up, because he's meant to do anything she wants.

Like he said to Belle, he was made for Surge. And what he says directly after– "Sonic can use me, too." Kit doesn't even view himself as a person, only a tool– that's how far Starline's brainwashing went. It's clearly even affecting Surge, who realized in the latest issue, #72, how fast she and Kit fell into their abusive patterns again once Clutch took over– they were conditioned to be tools. Clutch claimed to want to help them, but really he was just using them for his own ends, just like Starline. So they went back to the familiar.

And speaking of familiar– pain is familiar to Kit, specifically pain in service to others. In his breakdown in #50, he says that Starline made him happy he'd been hurt. And in Imposter Syndrome #3 and #4, we see that him and Surge hate Starline and want to usurp him... but also are still trapped in the patterns he implanted in them. Surge still wants to kill Sonic and outperform everyone else. Kit still can't do anything but what she wants, to the point he becomes near catatonic when he believes she's dead.

Another pattern Kit is still trapped in is the idea that he has to be okay with his own suffering.

The only sense of home or family Surge and Kit have is in each other, but they fundamentally can't work together, at least as they are currently. Kit is expected to take Surge's anger, and Surge isn't expected to treat him like his own person.

And this, I think, is Kit's problem with Tails.

He was made to be Tails, and he knows this, but he can never have what Tails has. He can never live up to Tails and do what Tails can do, despite that being his entire life's purpose.

He doesn't hate Tails because he was programmed to– as he says to Surge, he only wants to destroy Sonic because she wants to. When he first encounters Tails, he refers to him as his target- a simple, unemotional term. He doesn't have the deep ingrained hatred for him that Surge does for Sonic.

Instead, he hates Tails because of what he sees in him. He sees Sonic and Tails interact, he sees how much Sonic trusts and relies on Tails, and he sees how he also loves and respects him. He sees how Tails has his own motivations and opinions, and he's experienced Tails's genuine compassion that was in part fostered by the hedgehog that raised him. In turn, Tails is loyal to Sonic, but not because he has to be– because he, in turn, loves Sonic and wants to be with him.

Kit only wants to be with Surge because he was forced to. Starline wanted to use Surge and Kit to stop Sonic and Eggman's cycle, but he made a whole new one instead. Kit is trapped in a cycle of pain, knows he's trapped in it, and is helpless to escape it.

Tails isn't, and Kit sees that in Tails. Subconsciously, he sees Tails and only sees how he fails to live up to his life's mission, and how he'll never have what Tails has.

After all, why would anyone bother with him? They already have Tails.

Is he a target? I like it here now.

[therummesoccupied]

IDW'S SONIC THE HEDGEHOG, 2024 ANNUAL - THOUGHTS

I wanted to cover this one earlier, I really did, but the Sonic X Shadow Generations hype took me over, and for the past couple weeks I have been incapable of thinking about anything else. If you haven't played that yet, by the way, I highly recommend doing so as soon as possible. It's truly one of the most astoundingly high-quality pieces of Sonic media ever produced. Maybe I'll do a post on it, who knows. But for now, we have an annual special to cover.

This is the first one of these annuals I've discussed on here, but I really appreciate their presence in the story. Both they and the various mini-series have done a great job of sort of filling the void Sonic Universe left behind when Archie Sonic ended. It's nice getting to peek into what the supporting cast is up to and what's happening outside of the main plot.

This one is also a unique little experience since, while most Annuals have had either five or six short stories included within them, this one includes only three stories - with one of them being a full twenty pages. That's as long as a regular issue! So I'll move through the stories one at a time, and give a few thoughts on each.

I wanna start by talking about the cover, though, because this one's kind of interesting to me. In the past, the "A" Covers have always done a bit to give you at least some idea of what to expect from the stories inside. The 2019 and 2020 covers both featured somewhat generic art featuring characters making appearances from stories within. The 2022 cover showed Blaze in a sundress spending time with Cream at the beach - an allusion to the "Guardians" story that kicked off the 2022 Annual and its ending with Blaze taking a vacation in Sonic's world.

This one, though, features a nice little art piece featuring Sonic and Tails rushing through a snowy mountainscape, which... does not happen in the Annual. None of the stories in this one center around Sonic or Tails, and none of them take place in any sort of wintry tundra.

Just an odd detail I noticed. Nothing here gives us any sort of glimpse into the stories we're about to see or the characters we're about to follow. Still nice art, though.

With that bit of business out of the way, we'll move on to the real meat and potatoes of the Annual:

The Stories

Story #1: Hero's Calling

We kick things off with a good old-fashioned Ian Flynn story about Surge and Kit continuing to pursue a life of heroism following the events of the Extreme Competition and Phantom Riders arcs, and finding it more difficult than they had anticipated to live up to the reputation of a hero.

The pencils here are handled by Thomas Rothlisberger with Rik Mack tackling Inks and Colors. Rothlisberger's style is often employed for the series' lower-stakes stories, relying a lot on exaggerated expressiveness and cramming every panel as full of action and detail as possible. They're perfect for slapstick-y stories, and while that fits the bill a bit here, it doesn't fit perfectly for me since, as this story continues, it takes a turn for the quieter and more introspective toward its second half.

After "saving" a runaway trolley in the city of Westopolis (from 2005's Shadow the Hedgehog - neat to see that city show up again), Surge finds herself contemplating a difficult question. As she chases the life of a hero, she takes it upon herself to save others. But she wonders: Why do they even need saving? With this world being subject to one crisis after another, shouldn't its denizens have learned to handle this sort of thing by now? She wonders if maybe, by always being there to save the day, if Sonic and friends have made this world a little soft. Maybe the Sonic Cycle really is keeping the world from moving forward.

Maybe...

I love Kit's reaction to this. Kit has always been quick to support Surge, no matter what, but when she suggests that Dr. Starline, the man who stole their lives, used and tortured them, and destroyed everything they were, may have been right all along... For the first time, we see the tiniest hint of anger toward her flash across his face. Kit. Truly Hates. Dr. Starline.

As she talks things over with Kit, Surge... never really settles on a course of action. The only thing she knows for sure is that she believes Sonic is the problem here, and that she hopes to one day remove him from the equation once and for all.

Kit, on the other hand, arrives at a much more dangerous conclusion.

Kit sees Surge's frustration at the world's ability to solve its own problems, but he also sees the fulfillment she gets from solving those problems. And so, he resolves to continue making sure there are problems for her to solve, even if she is able take out what she perceives as their roots.

This... will not go well. I can already see it. Surge is going to keep solving whatever issues Kit constructs for her to overcome, feeling like she's truly making a difference, only for it all to come crashing down when she realizes she was never changing anything. This will, in turn, create a rift between her and Kit, and since Kit has become heavily dedicated to and dependent on her, it is going to destroy this poor child. Mark my words. These two are in for some sad times.

Overall, Rothlisberger does do a pretty good job at capturing this story's subtler moments, but at times the exaggerated, cartoony style and Mack's very bright, stark colors can take me a little bit out of some of the moodier moments of this story. Still, a solid bit a storytelling dedicated to these two characters who really seem to be going somewhere in the grand scheme of things.

Story #2: For My Destiny

Our second story is a chill, little character check-in on Knuckles the Echidna as he spends his days peacefully guarding the Master Emerald on Angel Island. This one boasts a script and colors by Iasmin Omar Ata, and pencils by Adam Bryce Thomas.

This is yet another case of an artist being used in an odd way, since ABT's art really shines when he gets to do big, shonen-style action scenes. But here, we just get a quick introspective of Knuckles contemplating his relationship with the Master Emerald and all of the events and people it's brought into his life.

Not much else really happens here, and the first time through, I thought this story was a bit of a waste of time. Like, we already kind of get this sort of look at Knuckles in Sonic Frontiers, why keep harping on it here? But then I read it a second time with Frontiers in mind, specifically the Prologue: Divergence animated short. I thought of how this story would be told if it could be animated, with music and performance to really nail down the vibe it's going for, and I... kind of love it now? It's dramatic in a very understated way, and I'm honestly glad its here.

Story #3: Shattered Diamonds

This one. This right here is the real showstopper of the 2024 Annual.

Here, we get a script from Gigi Dutreix, Pencils from Dutreix and Mauro Fonseca, Inks from Matt Froese, and Colors by Leonardo Ito and Valentina Pinto. Everyone here brings their A-game for... a backstory comic about Mimic the Octopus. This is nuts to me. A comic-original side-villain, getting his own full-issue length story exploring his background, and it's... so good.

Dutreix has explained on their social media that they put a lot of work into researching real-life sociopaths, and the commonalities in their worldview when determining how to handle Mimic's backstory. We learn that he was once an actor (hey! I'm one of those!) and that his time in the fiercely competitive industry quickly taught him not to trust anyone. He learned to use whatever means necessary to achieve his goals, even going so far as to stab others in the back to get what he wants.

Then the Eggman War we see in Sonic Forces happens, and Mimic's ugly worldview seems to be proven true, and the means he uses to survive appear justified for a while, further strengthening this idea he has to that no one but him is honest with themselves, and that one mustn't trust or dedicate themselves to anyone else if they hope to survive.

Then. Something happens.

Mimic meets a group of people who seem.. genuine. People who care for each other. Care for him.

And he panics.

He convinces himself that they must be fakes. That they wouldn't care about him if they really knew him. All they have to do is see him for who he really is, and they'll stab him in the back just as he's done to so many others before.

He starts to view the Diamond Cutters as a means to an end. And he fears becoming attached to those means, fears letting those means change him.

So... he disposes of them. Or tries to. From there, we all know how it goes. But now, we have a far more thorough understanding of why someone who claims to be pragmatic and driven by self-preservation continues to engage in this dogged pursuit of revenge against Whisper. He views her as the last remaining evidence of a memory that almost changed who he is. And he worries that he will never be comfortable being himself again until she is gone.

The story ends with a quick little scene of Mimic stalking the New Diamond Cutters as they make their way toward the Eggperial City at the beginning of the Urban Warfare arc, and there's one little bit of weirdness here.

See, in this story, the Diamond Cutters are waiting to meet up with Sonic and Tails before proceeding to the City, but when they storm the city together in Issue 57... Tails isn't there. Tails isn't part of the Urban Warfare arc until Issue 58, after Sonic has reached out to Jewel and asked her to send backup. After that point, Tails arrives with Amy, Silver, and Blaze to lend Sonic a hand. So why is he here with Sonic before he and the Diamond Cutters even make their way to the city?

I actually got a chance to ask Dutreix about this directly, and they provided a fairly similar answer to the conclusion I was already considering: Tails had simply accompanied Sonic to rendezvous with the Diamond Cutters before splitting off to go do something else on his own, returning to regroup with Sonic after Jewel put out the call for reinforcements.

Continuity weirdness aside, though, I loved this story. It was explorative and complex, dark and moody, and it all had such a clear sense of direction. This is the kind of quality storytelling I would never, in a million years, expect to be devoted to a character like Mimic. And that fact just makes it all the better.

Wow.

Massive props to Dutreix and crew for putting together one of the most compelling Sonic stories I've had the pleasure to read.

It might be easy to complain about the smaller amount of stories in this Annual, or about how many of the stories are connected to events that have not yet happened in the comic, but I tell ya, the quality and care put into the stories we got makes it all worth it. This is exactly what these Annuals are for.

Anyway, I think Issue 74 dropped about a half hour ago, so I'mma go read that, and get a review written sometime in the distant future, for sure.

Thanks for reading!

[molinaskies]

Sonic Broke. What's Next? (IDW)

For those who might know, quite some time ago I wrote about Sonic’s next emotional arc in the IDW comics, where he won’t be so immediately trusting of new faces after what happened to Mr. Tinker. I analyzed how this new dynamic is characterized through his interactions with Belle and was justified by the events of the metal virus arc and, more specifically, the way in which everyone piles onto Sonic for his decision to keep Mr. Tinker alive.

Espio’s done it. Shadow’s done it. Zavok’s done it. Metal Sonic’s done it. Starline’s done it. Eggman’s done it. Sonic’s done it. So many people have put Sonic down for this one decision; this one decision has backfired in so many ways, but Sonic, ultimately, never lost faith, never lost hope, never lost his optimism for a better world where everyone has even a little bit of good in them. This optimism is one of Sonic’s key defining characteristics that shines through every single continuity of this franchise and every single iteration of this character.

But this is it. This. Is. It. Chekhov’s gun has fired, and Sonic has fucking broke.

This collapse hits Sonic in two waves, the first one being his first confrontation with Surge.

Surge says everything the others have said regarding Sonic’s “moral code,” but her specific language illustrates the key difference between her and everyone else—and why it hits Sonic so hard. Everyone else in Sonic’s life is adjacent to Eggman’s terrorism, but Surge is a victim of it. And what makes matters worse is that she’s only brought in this mess through a chain of command.

If Sonic ended Eggman, Starline wouldn’t have been able to bring Eggman back, nor experience the apprenticeship that turned him against Eggman and sent him on the path of creating enforcer cyborgs—which means that Kit and Surge would not exist in the state they do now, and they would be able to live happy lives. Even if after ending Eggman, Starline would have still surfaced on a track of “Eggman Avengement,” the same argument could be made, because Sonic would have directly spared Starline, too, and he knows it. If only for a second, something clicks.

The collapse finishes in one fell swoop in his third confrontation with Surge, where she spells it out for him further, and where a technical fault on Eggman’s Device, of all things, saves his life by almost surging hers.

Sonic has now, for the first clear and objective time, seen the true consequences of his decision, and for the first clear and objective time, he cannot fix it.

This isn’t the same as Metal Sonic, who, as a (sentient) robot, serves a purpose outside of replicating Sonic (he’s a protector, an attack robot, and a companion to Dr. Eggman). Surge once had a life of her own, one she no longer remembers because, through a sick and twisted train of events, Sonic has deprived her of those memories, that freedom. Surge isn’t a robot. Surge isn’t an android. Surge is a real, tangible person that Sonic’s decision has thoroughly fucked up, and Surge has just framed him—not his choices, HIM—as the key reason she’ll never be free. She will either kill him or die trying, and either way, Sonic cannot win.

In the first second he can breathe, let alone process everything that just happened, Sonic… can’t. He has nothing to say—not in front of Tails, at least, but maybe nothing, at all. Until this point, Sonic has wondered if he, specifically, was to blame for Eggman’s actions because he was the one to let Mr. Tinker go. However, this is the first time where Sonic seems to question whether he should have let Mr. Tinker go, at all.

When Eggman emerges from the rubble, Sonic isn’t smug. He’s not amused. He’s not even bemused. Sonic is gutted and disgusted by the fact that Eggman’s still alive. He might even feel guilty that he’s still alive.

Eggman doesn’t know sympathy, doesn’t know remorse—not in Sonic’s eyes, not anymore, and it shows, because when Eggman has the audacity to ask for another truce—

—Sonic could fucking kill him for it.

Sonic’s always hated Eggman, but he’s also always had faith in his ability to be good. However, what Sonic has learned from all this—what Sonic finally believes down to his core—is that Dr. Eggman is lower than the scum of the earth. Sonic finally understands why Eggman helped stop the arc, why Eggman worked with him to fight the Deadly Six, and why Eggman helped eradicate the metal virus. Sonic finally understands that he mistook Eggman’s ever-cunning, manipulative mind for a shred of benevolence.

Now, what does this mean?

Now that we’ve witnessed the breaking point, I think it will take a fair bit of effort to pull Sonic back from the brink of rage. He’s not going to give up on Surge—not at all—because if he did, he might truly fucking lose it, but there is no way that Sonic will be entirely unchanged by this. In the future, when he’s placed in another complicated situation and given a difficult choice to make—especially if it has to do with Eggman—we might not see even a shred of lenience.

I thoroughly believe that the primary narrative purpose of the IDW comics, as they currently stand, is to investigate Sonic’s tenant optimism and push it far beyond its limits. This story’s purpose is to interrogate and observe Sonic’s declining psychological state until it shatters. This story’s purpose is to stand by one of this franchise’s biggest arguments: Sonic’s big, big emotions cause problems, and his inability to cope with those emotions makes problems worse.

When Sonic’s happy, he’s ecstatic, when he’s confident, he’s cocky, when he’s sad, he’s depressed, and when he’s angry, he’s livid. And all of these emotions, without balance, can come crashing down around him.

We’re seeing this fact so prevalent in the movies, Sonic Frontiers and especially Sonic Prime (which takes the direction that the movies do and turns it up to eleven). However, in the same ways they weaken him, Sonic’s emotions give him strength. Without his optimism, Sonic would have fallen, long ago. Without his optimism, Surge will never have a chance to see a better future for herself. It’s all counterbalanced by how big his heart is and how much he evidently wants to be better and do right by others.

And if there’s anything he’d die trying to do, it’s that.

[sadsnek]

sonic and cooking head canons

sonic. no way he knows a lot of modern home cooking if any home cooking when he knows he can just buy it or have dinner with tails / amy, BUT he should know basic foraging and gathering by now and has plenty experience cooking on a camp fire.

tails. is better at meal prep then cooking or at least he thinks he is why spend so much time making 2 to 3 meals a day every day when he can just make 3 meals and increase the ingredients by 700% and save the rest for the other days of the week but he will cook somthing fresh when he has guest over, if you can consider boiled hot dogs fresh that is.

amy. she is a great home cook and will cook with cream vanilla and big from time to time, the problem is when she wants to get fancy and trys to make a new recipe and has full confidence when she is in reality way over her head, and it dosent matter what she is making she will say "and now the secret ingredient" its love the secret ingredient is love and its not much of a secret if its the secret ingredient in every thing she cooks.

knuckles. similar to sonic but has the benefit of being on the same island all the time, he doesnt have a oven or any electric equipment but he does have some primitive stuff like a mortar and pestle, plus knuckles should have a garden some where on the island yeah its over grown and poorly kept but its still a place where he can get some snacks.

cream and vanilla. these two are the best cooks in town even better than amy any thats ok because they are happy to invite people over for dinner and if you cook with them you will probably learn some thing new, also the serving sizes are pretty big as vanilla is most defiantly the tallest person in town.

eggman. in thought he is a master chief but in action he has not cooked in years think about it the food he eats is more than good enough to keep up his large shape despite all the mechanics work he does and he had to program or train his robots to cook at some point, so he know how to work a kitchen but he is so busy and he has robots that can do it for him so he probably never cooks more than once a month or even less.

shadow. he is a picky eater with a nostalgic taste in food so he knows how to cook food but nothing passed the 60s, and despite not making any thing trendy or popular he at least knows he will make some thing he will eat.

rouge. its fair to say she likes to eats high class how she gets the money for these lavish meals is well not all ways moral, but she is willing to eat some thing simple when at social gatherings most defiantly if she does not have to pay for it.

omega. I dont know if it is said or not if they have a animal powering them but if they do that bird is getting ripped(its probably a flicky) we are talking protein powder steroids fresh salad, it does not matter if its weird and maybe traumatic to feed them chicken and rice but thats what professional marshal artist eat so thats what omegas power source eats too!

charmy. he makes peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the mourning for school days/work days and is proud of them.

espio. he is well known at the asian market and knows how to cook but does not get to learn any thing expensive or fancy ether for price and schedule issues.

vector. boy he has been trough the rough of it he knows how to feed 3 people on 400$ a month, and thats by hanging out at vanillas house.

team hooligan. bark and fang probably know some recipes but bean is a chemical fanatic one minute there making muffins and the next minute there pulling out a whole tray of crystal meth.

silver. i dont think he has a steady supply of food is most apocalyptic futures so he just likes to eat a pound of dry cement for breakfast.

surge and kit. they use to get fresh meals when starline was around, but now they got use to the effort of MREs if it takes more effort than poring water in a thermal bag then its worth the effort to just mug some one for some diner cash.

[badnikbreaker]

issue #56 thoughts and meta, headcanons, character examination, etc —

i’ve said in the past that, given time and more battle experience, surge would be on thoroughly even footing with sonic; it’s fun to see her getting better at kicking ass.  from being handily beaten by sonic to holding off metal and sonic both with comparative ease.  obviously the dynamo cage is lending her power, but it’s actively degrading her mind — her successfully tricking eggman / sonic / metal, for example, is entirely her, and working at a disadvantage.  she’s always had raw strength.  now she’s getting to where she can strategize!  and she almost wins!  they grow up so fast.

the moment with kit and tails makes me miserable because he’s so much more reachable than surge is; he’s steadier than her.  despite how bombastic surge is, she’s fully ruled by fear and anger, incapable of being rational or gentle.  tails appealing to kit’s sense of morality reminds me of him asking surge if it’s okay for them to betray starline; he really does seem to have a moral center that surge either lacks or ignores.

but — beyond all that, it’s just so, so obvious to me that kit doesn’t want to be doing this.  the very moment someone shows him kindness, slows down and offers him an out, he always takes it.  he doesn’t want to kill or fight or any of this.  he keeps suggesting running away; all he wants to do is rest, live with surge, be peaceful, ignore sonic and the world.  he was willing to sit out this fight, not protect surge during it, if that’s what it took to ‘save’ surge.  you could argue that he was playing the long game, trusting that surge could win, but i don’t think that’s what he expected.

his priority is always going to be surge.  it’s not lost on me that tails has to remind kit that surge is “hurting herself” before kit can back down.  if sonic can beat surge and somehow stop what’s become a long - winded self - harm / suicide attempt, he’ll let him — but he’s not going to let anyone TAKE HER or her freedom ever again.  we’ll get back to this.

i can’t get over this expression.  it may very well be the softest we’ve ever seen her; it’s longing, it’s WISHING.  her body and mind are literally being broken down by her mad quest to achieve BEING - REAL by killing sonic, and sonic reminds her that SHE’S FREE, SHE COULD BE FREE, and for a moment the anger gives way to — this.  god, she wishes that was true.  she wishes she could stop being this scared and this angry and this anxious and this self - hating and this violent, but she can’t.  she can’t.

because she’s right.  it’s in her blood, her veins, her brain.  she is very literally built to kill sonic.  she is so incredibly puppeteered by her trauma and her programming, which are the same thing, and she’s aware of that, but it just doesn’t matter.  for all her power, she’s just — a tool.  she’s not strong enough to overcome herself, even with starline gone.  still in her head.

“i know who you are.  that’s all i know.”  sonic — and killing sonic — is all she knows.  it’s like an itch in her blood.  she needs to kill sonic the way you and i need to eat or breathe.  it’s a biological impulse.

her dialogue makes me insane, partially because i’m written similar dialogue (  my surge understanding?  thru the roof  ) but mostly because it’s such a good callout to what sonic gets wrong about surge, especially in their earlier meetings.  he DOESN’T get it.  IT’S NOT THAT SIMPLE.  sonic has been through a lot, but he hasn’t been through this.  he doesn’t get this — and he couldn’t, but it does mean that again and again he’s speaking from his own experiences, where freedom is easy and natural, and can’t connect to someone for whom it isn’t.

kit rescues her, and sonic thanks him, and kit reaffirms that he’s not doing this for him, and i love that.  obviously this hasn’t been sonic’s intention, but it matters — especially to someone like kit — that sonic and he only allied because sonic needed kit’s power.  as far as kit knows, if kit couldn’t or wouldn’t have helped him, sonic would have left him to die with metal.  he wouldn’t, obviously, but for a kid who’s only EVER been a thing to use — of course that’s the assumption he’s going to make.  and of course he assumes that even if sonic saved surge, he’d just use her, too.

and kit got his wish.  the dynamo cage isn’t frying surge’s brain anymore, she’s safe(r), and he’s never, ever going to let anyone use surge again.  and he’s not even WRONG, in his little monologue — sonic does want them changed, does want them different.  obviously it’s a much more benign version of what starline and eggman did / want to do to them, but it doesn’t change the fact that absolutely no one has ever just needed or cared for surge and kit as they are — which makes sense, but also...

the villain breaks you because you’re worthless as you are, and then the hero says —— that you need to change to be worth saving.  to be worth leaving alive.

(  obviously that’s not quite what sonic says, but they’re both very mentally ill and the fact remains — he still wants to alter them.  )

i’ve talked before about how it’s important to surge that she knows what happened to her, knows about their pasts — she wants it all.  she doesn’t want to forget anything, even the heinous shit starline put them through.  meanwhile, kit does want to forget, wants it all gone.  this gets echoed here; kit’s delight at the idea of burying this part of their past is so obvious.

an aside but eggman i need u 2 get a job and leave surge alone.