#i don't think it's a good idea to tag a post “sonic” and “furry fandom” and “Transformers”

[premise29]

anthropomorphic bicycle in taur format? it has been done.

Superbike from Fairly Odd Parents (Season 2, Episode 7: "Super Bike")

originally aired in 2002

What do you all think would be the most structurally unsound species to turn into a furry taur.

[mashounen1945]

Oooh, constructive Shadow the Hedgehog discourse! I hope I'm not late for this. But I'll do this in parts.

Preserving tags:

#Shadow isn't an edgelord damnit

2) I've recently started to watch anime and play videogames with their original Japanese voice-acting, and I've noticed that Shadow originally didn't even sound or feel like the Sonic series' version of Vegeta. On the contrary, Shadow felt a lot more like Piccolo and Knuckles always was the one who felt much more like Vegeta, not only because of the voice-acting but personality-wise as well; coincidentally, that open rivalry SEGA currently say there is between Sonic and Shadow would feel more natural for me if it was between Sonic and Knuckles instead.

3) On the other hand, I can see why even people who are more familiar with the early 2000s era of Sonic would see Shadow as a bit of an edgelord. Many (if not all) branches of the story for the Shadow spin-off game lean hard into his behaviour's more stereotypically "edgy" elements. He can get pretty cocky sometimes, too; in SA2, it's hard to see because of how the models for the characters' muzzles were made, but Shadow smirks... so much! All the time! Of course, it's all superficial, none of these things defines him and he can still be heroic and caring, but we can't deny it: a bit of edgelord blood has always run through Shadow's veins.

4) SEGA certainly don't understand most of the Sonic series' support cast anymore, but I'm not sure if Shadow's portrayal by Shirō Maekawa shortly after SA2 was really the best either. Both SEGA (when turning Shadow into Furry Vegeta) and Maekawa (when keeping Shadow as one of the heroes and someone ultimately caring) seem to think this character can be good only if he stays in some sort of vicious cycle of emotional trauma, constantly reminding himself of Maria's wish and his memories of her; Maekawa also made Shadow amnesiac again after SA2, starting the whole "What even was Maria's wish?" thing all over again, and the Shadow Android subplot @caliginouscalico mentioned was also there (admittedly, Maekawa did have at least some plans for Shadow after Sonic 06, which sound really nice [https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/sonic/images/3/39/MaekawaIntENG.png/revision/latest?cb=20191121102243] [https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/sonic/images/5/56/MaekawaIntJP.png/revision/latest?cb=20191121102243], and @kingprinceleo had a great idea for a story with Shadow and Silver in Silver's good future, which would fit into those plans [https://kingprinceleo.tumblr.com/post/661338620545875968/for-yall-who-keep-asking-about-silver-their]). Also, probably the videogame lore surrounding Shadow was always kind of a mess because he was supposed to stay dead after SA2 and only came back because he was so popular (yes, there was a time when people thought Shadow was cool, the world was indeed a very different place 20 years ago). The only place where Shadow demonstrably survives, retains his memories, actually overcomes Maria's loss and goes on with his life while remaining a genuine hero is the Archie comics... Yeah, we're not gonna see Best Shadow ever again, are we? We all know both the fandom's and SEGA's opinions on the comics (okay, to be fair, the fandom largely admits Shadow was one of the very few things Archie did right; meanwhile, SEGA are the ones who don't care about any kind of "Western material" whatsoever).

5) By the way, Maria's disease is called NIDS only in the comics. It's not very complicated or an allegory or anything too deep, though: whoever was the writer back then (Karl Bollers, most likely, since he wrote the 1st attempt at an SA2 adaptation) saw Maria's disease and gave it a name.

5) After what @caliginouscalico mentioned about Shadow's family tree and him having canonically killed one of his dads, I can't help but think about similarities between Shadow and Samus Aran from Metroid, especially when we include the plot of the recently released Metroid Dread. @beevean, feel free to add this to the list of similarities between Sonic and Metroid.

6) The Shadow spin-off's story and all those ramifications are ultimately inconsequential for the videogame lore as a whole, but they might be useful as deconstructions and studies of Shadow's character from different angles. @beevean wrote extensively about it on these posts [https://beevean.tumblr.com/post/673575035098873856/could-you-make-a-masterpost-with-your-shadow-2005]. That game is also starting to be appreciated once again because it did some stuff most big videogame companies wouldn't dare to try today, as @shuttershocky explained here [https://shuttershocky.tumblr.com/post/676329048893472768/why-do-we-need-more-edgy-heroes-a-preteen-would].

7) I think we all know this here: no matter how much creative freedom the Sonic 3 live-action movie's writers have, they'll never do with Shadow anything remotely similar to what we have in the games.

wait i just saw an edgy post about shadow the hedgehog and they mentioned something about his back story?? what is this man’s backstory?? /gen