#i just need a good kick in the ass

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The Yiling Band Tour!

[seventeendeer]

my lifelong special interest in sonic the hedgehog has both a very sincere side (those little animal characters are so cute! these games are fun! yay bright colors and the power of friendship!) and a side I can only describe as "morbid fascination with all the ways a long-running franchise can try to do a million different things and none of them are good or right or nourishing to the human spirit"

today, I would like to take you all on a special journey through the latter !

did you know that, at a conservative estimate, there have been attempts to create a recurring love interest for the blue man himself no less than FIVE SEPARATE TIMES. MORE IF YOU COUNT THE ONES THAT WERE NOT SUPPOSED TO LAST

below is Madonna (left) and Breezie (right). Madonna was a damsel in distress type character Sonic would've been saving in an early draft of the OG 1991 game. Breezie was a temporary love interest in the 90's cartoon, Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, who seems to be inspired by the scrapped Madonna concept.

another scrapped love interest was Tiara Boobowski, who was at one point in development going to be a playable character in Sonic X-treme, a game intended for release in the 90's, though it never materialized. it seems her story went through a few different iterations before development ceased. she has the dubious honor of being the first "princess" character created for the purpose of being Sonic's love interest, which would be revisited at least two more times in other contexts.

the first love interest to stick around for a while was Princess Sally Acorn, developed from the squirrel critter design in the early games into a major supporting character in the 90's cartoon Sonic SatAM (left), then kept around in various iterations in the comic book spin-off series published by Archie Comics (middle + right) until the series' end in the mid-10's. she was in an on-and-off relationship with Sonic over those decades, for better or for worse, and they had by far the longest running romance arc out of all of Sonic's love interests to date. after suffering every romantic melodrama plotline imaginable, she was unceremoniously booted from the franchise when the rights to Sonic comic books were moved over to IDW Publishing. rest in peace, Sally, you didn't deserve any of that. at the very least for five minutes towards the end, she stopped dating Sonic and it was implied she started dating her long-time gal pal, Nicole, so she had that going for her for a little bit. counting our blessings

speaking of romantic melodrama, the Archie comics also gave Sonic a temporary love interest in Mina Mongoose because they wanted to write in a love triangle. there was a "main characters all grown up and starting nuclear families" future story at one point where they married Mina off to Tails instead, which somehow felt deeply cruel to both Mina and Tails. "hand-me-down love interest" is a bad, bad vibe for everyone involved

a few years on, in the mid 00's, the games were having their own weird little time giving Sonic a short-lived romance arc with new addition to the cast, Princess Elise the Third, who only showed up in the game Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) and managed to lay one singular smooch on Sonic's corpse to bring him back from the dead, disney style, before she was banished from the franchise due to a monumental amount of backlash (against both her character and the game as a whole). I'm beaming hostile psychic waves into sega's headquarters until they bring her back with better writing and none of that stupid shit. they did it with Silver, they have no excuse

and of course we finally have the one. the only. the most persistent girly of all time who's been trying to marry Sonic since 1993 and is still truckin' on in the year of our lord 2025 even though he's slippery as an eel and he "don't wanna" and there's kind of an uncomfortable age difference and reciprocated romance has over time become more or less outlawed by Sega because it never really pans out for them for some inexplicable mysterious reason. everybody's favorite hyper violent child psychic AMY ROSE !!!!

great character!! has always had so much potential to do her own cool thing if only they'd let her!! if they don't drop the stupid "kinda love interest, kinda not" aspect of her character soon, I'm going to start CRYING BLOOD!! FREE HER <3

anyway honorary mention also goes to Blaze the Cat (left, game continuity, still active), Bunnie Rabbot (center, Sonic SatAM + Archie comics, goners with the Archie series cancellation) and Fiona Fox (right, Archie comics, also goners, same deal), who, while not introduced as love interests, have all been put into some kind of romantic context with Sonic at one point or another just because

(and also while not really relevant to the topic at hand, I would be remiss not to give a special shout-out to the multitude of male characters who were most likely never intended to have any romantic connection to Sonic, but because this series is shonen anime inspired and the rivalries get crazy, our boy still has to hear shit like this on the regular)

and like, you know I've probably forgotten some more girlies out there, too. Sonic the Hedgehog has been pelted with potential romance arcs since the day he was created, and I'm sure there are more out there lost to time/my shoddy memory.

and it's just ... so profoundly morbidly funny to me. unstoppable force (heteronormativity) VS immovable object (misogyny). countless futile attempts to convince kids across the world that a cool guy like Sonic TOTALLY GETS GIRLS, DAMN IT, HE IS FULFILLING HIS HETEROSEXUALITY QUOTA, WE PROMISE, combined with this utter disinterest in sufficiently developing female characters who can effectively fill that role. even Sally Acorn, who was put through hell in the spin-off comics for DECADES serving as the designated narrative romantic punching bag, would eventually go gentle into that good night without fanfare because porting her into a new continuity would just be so much worrrrrk ughhh she's not even Sonic's girlfriend anymore so whateverrrrr

though as much as a massive L as this is for women, at the very least these poor girls are taking the obligatory main character romantic subplot down with them. taking one for the team here. Sonic is so fast and so smooth, those cringey romance plots just slide right off the wind screen of his character and I at least love that part. I love that it never works out and our protagonist remains utterly unpairable. and I hope nothing ever sticks. and I hope the current staff continue to get better at writing female characters just for the sake of having some cool girls around who are interesting in their own right. and may a thousand more cynical, sexist, half-assed attempts to awkwardly shoehorn romance into stories where it doesn't belong wither and die just as spectacularly, booyah

[an--artistic--autistic]

made some new ones 👀

[flintbian]

There's a disabled angel in good omens 🥺

[loopyn3]

Great God Grove spoilers/character discussion ahead!

And some spoiler-y doodles

About Hector because of course it’s about him.

His entire arc is just so melancholic and tragic,

If I may, I’ve been taking a sort of deeper look into his mental goop so-to-speak, and I feel like his jealousy/anger surrounding King can be read in a lot of different contexts. It almost seems like it didn’t stop at simply King being the hot new thing and him being nervous he’d lose his place, but more so the idea that King didn’t have to change all that much about herself to be as deified as she seems. From what we know she’s very confident with herself, her God form even being pretty faithful to how she looks as a human(mentioned in the art book which you should totally go buy, it’s so lovely seeing all the concept art and the commentary is such a treat :]).

Meanwhile it’s kind of implied that Hector really had to claw his way up the spire, working tirelessly to help people, yes, but also to earn his place amongst the gods. He’s stressed out of his mind, he’s always working- I really can’t imagine he was all that stable to begin with in terms of self-identity/worth.

Plus, most if not all his relationships seem to be tied to this one purpose. I can’t imagine the thought of “if I fail I won’t have anything or anybody to go back to.” hasn’t crossed his mind AT LEAST once.

I reblogged a post showing screenshots of Robart and Peeps talking about how, as a human, he tended to act concerningly selflessly, almost seeming desperate. That really doesn’t come across as a normal reaction to just wanting to do good by people, at least not in a ‘normal’ capacity.

Hector, to me at least, comes across as a very self-critical guy. He’s always striving to do good by others… but also to be praised and adored by them. I can only imagine after so many years of toiling away, feeling that pressure building more and more to do well, spending years of his life hoping that he’ll be voted in that he’s sort of lost a piece of himself to this whole process? Something something ship of Theseus.

There’s this thing that happens when a project consumes your life, when it almost seems like your entire life’s purpose is built around this one thing that, once it’s done, it really doesn’t feel like you’ve accomplished anything. What’s left is this sort of numb emptiness, the absence of said purpose.

What are you supposed to do, then? Now that it’s over? Is there anything left for you to do?

Did you even have a purpose in the first place?

So you desperately grasp for new projects, trying to find anything to fill that ever present void that just seems to never go away no matter how many sleepless nights you spend working and working and working-

Or maybe I’m reading too deep into it teehee

Point is, Hector is just so important he is my reason to wake up in the morning he means so much to me asjfkkfksfc ;;;;;

[wishfulsketching]

Being a downer but also I'm fine

Idk, maybe I should get checked out for something because last night I saw one(1!!!) art that did what I did thousand times better and with more love, and I am now ready to delete my whole account and stop making art because I have "embarrassed myself on the internet". Can't be RSD. My nurse did suggest that maybe I was bipolar but then said nah. I haven't slept well in months so it literally could just be that lol

Oh well. I'll just. Sit in shame that I came up with without any input from the outside world. I'll try to draw something self indulgent, maybe

Ainakaan kusi ei nouse päähän jos artti saa suosiota ku aivot pitää huolen, että aika ajoin vihaa omaa kädenjälkeään (ja ihan syyttä)

Here's a cool Arcane amv from three years ago that I love, to lighten the mood:

[rbtlvr]

original song here // play undertale yellow

[thanks-obillma]

watched nerdy prudes must die and this happened

[b4kuch1n]

toy doctor redux

plushy based on this guy

[beastsovrevelation]

If it isn't my beloved celestial harpy, most holy Michael the Archangel herself (meaning, I turned this into proper line-art). ⚔ Good Omens has insulted her, but she will always be Supreme Commander of the Heavenly Host in my mind, and in my fics. I can only try to do her justice.

What do you think, should I colour it? It almost looks like a colouring page, I'm tempted to print it, and colour it with pencils or markers. ✏

[spacedlexi]

the way the ericson group were at the outbreak just a bunch of troubled kids who made various mistakes or committed crimes and were judged by a system that punished and abandoned them instead of giving them the support and love they needed, are then nearly a decade later put into a situation where now they must judge a troubled child for the mistakes and crimes hes committed against them. and 5 to 3 vote them out 😭

[sweetmoonbeam17]

I'm always thinking of dragons so like I'm gonna ramble for a minute

Sometimes I think HYPOTHETICALLY about what other movies could be made in the animated franchise (i don't know if i actually want this - the dreaded reboot movie coming out makes me wonder if they will crank more though, and what I would be comfortable with) ***if it didn't suck!!

prequel wise; I used to always think Stoick and many agreed and I love him so much but tbh... we know so much of his life already from the movies and the shows alone. His greatest lifelong tragedies have already been showcased onscreen - and tragedy makes for great conflict and great cinema. His largest character transformation happens already in movie 1, how else could he be challenged again? It would have to be creative, not to completely close the door on him, just a point made.

It occurred to me that the richest unseen backstory is actually probably Toothless. He can't talk - we don't know where he came from, only that he is the last of his kind - and that's fucking sad as hell. Also BABY TOOTHLESS. Butts in seats immediately, merchandise stonks soaring. He is undeniably the most popular character and there can be NO httyd movie without him. Idk it would be *dragon noises* for like an entire movie though lmfao.

I think the most obvious move is sequeling it, movie 4, doing hiccstird and hiccstrid babies + Toothless and his babies, protecting the hidden world part 2. But it would have to be like extremely compelling and exciting for me to be onboard. IDK LIKE let's be crazy, what if they thrifted the tossed idea that Drago didn't die and redeems himself. What if it's like .2 seconds after the third movie ends, one of Hiccup's kids falls and gets lost in the hidden world while they're saying goodbye, let's say the tiny one, and Hiccstrid have a meltdown searching for him assuming he's been eaten, and out he comes holding hands with Drago, who rescued him from certain death. He's been hiding down there for years (had to do a lot of thinking after he got his ass handed to him in public by a 20 year old) and appreciates dragons now. And Hiccup's brain like implodes because the guy who killed his dad just saved his son. AND he's living in the place he initially wanted to live in too. The DRAMA, NOW WHAT oh damn I need it now I guess

[reallyexists]

Unidentified CD I found in my car is They Might Be Giants John Henry let's fucking goooooo!!!!!!!!!!

[b4kuch1n]

oh yeah red envelope WIP btw

[sainteclectic]

I hope you are doing okay Soul, keep up the good fight dude 🫶

thank you, I am uhhh. not doing great but we keep moving

[telestoapologist]

would it be fair to say that it feels like ikora keeps getting pushed aside. like that's not to say seeing the pov of other characters isn't important. but like? more than once she's felt like a character that could've been utilized really well, and then just like. wasn't. or was only given the bare minimum amount of attention- primarily with screentime.